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Light fuse. Get away.

spiteme

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spiteme
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This is for all who voted not to have Christopher Hitchens back to TAM. And all who voted to have him back. And all who didn't vote. It's the man himself talking about a crazy little thing called free speech. http://tinyurl.com/yutx3p
 
Towards the end, he starts talking about religion, Islam particularly. You might be offended. But being offended is not fatal.
 
spiteme said:
This is for all who voted not to have Christopher Hitchens back to TAM. And all who voted to have him back. And all who didn't vote. It's the man himself talking about a crazy little thing called free speech. http://tinyurl.com/yutx3p
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Just loosely curious, because of your phrasing. Free speech is the right to say whatever you wish (or print it, whatever) without being arrested (assuming the speech is legal by federal or state law or by court decision) or blocked from saying it. If it is illegal based on one of the above, you can be arrested for saying it after actually saying it.

I mention this because nothing about it is in any way connected with being invited to speak at a convention, or not being invited to speak at a convention, or having people not vote either way about you being invited to speak/not speak at a convention.

As a convention attendee, I have the right to attend or not attend, go to functions or not go to functions, go to speeches or not go to speeches and the right to evaluate and make suggestions for the convention to the people sponsoring it.

I do not listen to things essentially unexplained on the internet because I can read very fast and listening if reading is possible - unless I know ahead of time there is value for me in listening - wastes a lot of time.

If you choose to provide details verifying this is not about para 1(mine) and trying to make a para2 (mine) point then I may listen -though I would prefer printed.
 
There is one thing in Hitchens's speech that made me cringe. He twice asserted that it was the gospel of St. John that included a passage that was the source of untold Jewish suffering. The passage Hitchens referred to is not in John but in Matthew:

Matt. 27:25 Then answered all the people, and said, His [Jesus's] blood be on us, and on our children.

Hitchens also arguably enhanced the verse beyond its actual text. But he was not exaggerating to suggest that this verse has been the source of extensive unnecessary persecution and suffering.

Although Hitchens cites the wrong gospel for the verse, he is right to the extent that the book of John is perhaps the most anti-Semitic of the four gospels. As I said in this thread:
It can be said that all four gospels are anti-Semitic to a degree. The book of Matthew (which, like all of the gospels, was almost certainly not written by the author to whom it is attributed) seems to be directed primarily to a Jewish audience with a potential aim of converting Jews to a Christ-modified version of Judaism. In accord with this aim, whoever wrote the book went overboard in trying to show that the coming of Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophesy after Old Testament prophesy. There are many passages that are disparaging to the Jewish authorities.

Perhaps the most harmful passage in the Bible--the one that for thousands of years caused Christians to treat Jews as "Christ killers" for voluntarily accepting responsibility for the death of Jesus--is in the book of Matthew: "His blood be on us, and on our children!" (Mt. 27:25)

That said, the book of Luke, which appears to have Gentiles as its target audience, is even more disrespectful to the Jews. In Luke, Pilate protests Jesus's innocence three times (equal to the number of protests in the books of Matthew and Mark combined) and Luke is also the only gospel in which Pilate tries to pass of the responsibility for punishment to Herod Antipas (Luke 23:7).

The book of John is even more anti-Jewish than Luke, portraying the Jews in a very unfavorable manner. By the time this book had been written, Judaism and Christianity had almost certainly split apart, with some animosity on both sides. In this book, "the Jews" (not merely the Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes, but "the Jews" as a whole) get on Jesus's case, hassling him, threatening to kill him and plotting against him. The book of John blurs the distinction between the Jews as a group and the political/religious leaders.

In the book of John, Pilate is even more reluctant to condemn Jesus. It is only after "the Jews" threaten to go over Pilate's head to the Roman authorities and accuse Pilate of treason (John 19:12-15) that Pilate issues the order to crucify.
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Hitchens occasionally doesn't concern himself about the accuracy of his facts. That may, or may not have to do with certain other parts of the persona that is Hitchings.

I like the thread title, Spiteme.
 
Mattfn said:
Hitchens occasionally doesn't concern himself about the accuracy of his facts. That may, or may not have to do with certain other parts of the persona that is [Hitchins].
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I have noticed this. In another thread, I posited:
There are really two people who pass themselves off as Christopher Hitchens. They are possibly identical twins, possibly clones, possibly duplicates from parallel universes. They look exactly alike and are both blessed with excellent writing skills and sharp tongues. But one of them is deluded about certain matters, and is under the impression that his own excrement does not have an offensive odor.

This "evil" Hitchens is responsible for saying dumb-ass things, typically in avoidance of the pending question. He makes over-generalizations and is unduly argumentative, often pretending to be dense in getting the point. He also has a reputation as a drunk.

The "good" Hitchens, by contrast, is a witty and articulate fellow, capable of making common sense sound delicious.
...
But is sure would be nice if the "evil" Hitchens would grow a goatee.
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This presentation referred to in this thread seemed to me to be delivered by the "good" Hitchens. It was well constructed and included many wise observations. The call to first principles was a good one, as it is an excellent device for providing perspective. The late Steve Allen used it effectively. So did Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs.

Hitchens's reference to St. John's gospel was in error, but it is not the sort of dumb-ass error that the "evil" Hitchens tends to make. I fully expect that if the error were to be pointed out in a polite fashion, the "good" Hitchens would accept the remark for its worth, and after verifying that he had spoken in error, would not make the same error again.

However, this sort of error in scholarship can damages one's credibility, especially when one quotes (or more accurately, paraphrases) other major works from memory, and when one overtly boasts, "I know what I'm talking about."
 
spiteme said:
You might be offended. But being offended is not fatal.
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I have the darndest time sometimes; can someone help me out here? Is that an example of "arrogance" or "condescension"? (And funny, we're talking about Hitchens.)
 
hey I'm still mad at the guys that tried to pass of DDT as being pretty "harmless" and only banned because of politics, without mentioning that wee thing called fragile egg syndrome in birds.

Then no birds of prey, more rats, more need of farmers for poisons....geez even conservatives give a hoot about the bald eagle.

But that's TAM, I'm not going to agree with every speaker. I don't want to agree with every speaker. And with an audience of skeptics! Well, we shouldn't agree with each speaker.
 
phyz said:
I have the darndest time sometimes; can someone help me out here? Is that an example of "arrogance" or "condescension"? (And funny, we're talking about Hitchens.)
Click to expand...

I offer a third choice "sarcasm".

Posted the speech because I thought it was good. Also because I'm torn between knowing people should say whatever they feel like saying & wanting to smack people upside the head while screaming "shut up shut up shut up" in an O'Reilly-esque fashion. It's a really fine line.
 
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