"The Four Horsemen" - Hitchens, Dennett, Dawkins, Harris - WATCH IT!!!!!!!!

Dave!

!!!!!!!

Just saw this on RichardDawkins.net!

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2025,THE-FOUR-HORSEMEN,Discussions-With-Richard-Dawkins-Episode-1-RDFRS

All four of them sitting around having a chat for 2 hours

Hour 1: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-869630813464694890

Hour 2: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-225595257312538919

In the process of watching it, but it looks great

stevejazzx

DaveMcG wrote: »

!!!!!!!

Just saw this on RichardDawkins.net!

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2025,THE-FOUR-HORSEMEN,Discussions-With-Richard-Dawkins-Episode-1-RDFRS

All four of them sitting around having a chat for 2 hours

Hour 1: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-869630813464694890

Hour 2: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-225595257312538919

In the process of watching it, but it looks great

Nothing like a good atheist debate to wake up to on sunday morning...just watching my neighbours head off to mass in the freezing cold...and here I am in cuddled up in bed eating blueberry pie drinking some good lavazza watching this.....there is no choice really!:)

Dave!

Yeah but unfortunately we'll have to endure eternal damnation

stevejazzx

DaveMcG wrote: »

Yeah but unfortunately we'll have to endure eternal damnation

The pie was worth it!

5uspect

mmm, forbidden pie...

TheThing!

stevejazzx wrote: »

Nothing like a good atheist debate to wake up to on sunday morning...just watching my neighbours head off to mass in the freezing cold...and here I am in cuddled up in bed eating blueberry pie drinking some good lavazza watching this.....there is no choice really!:)

That...is just brilliant

Zillah

Watching it now. Good so far, its great seeing them all in the same room.

Schuhart

I’ve watched the first hour – that’s probably enough for tonight, but I will watch the rest. My thoughts so far:

I was struck by the comments made by Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett to the effect that there is no inoffensive way of saying ‘you’ve wasted your life’ to religious. I think in that opening sequence tethers a little on the bring of asking ‘what are we at and why’, but I think that simply reflects the fact that there is a necessary dialogue about what fills a post-religion landscape that is only starting.

I liked Hitchens intervention to point out that, far from displaying arrogant certainty, many religious people (perhaps most) are in a perpetual crisis of faith. I would link that to the comments by Dennett (and I think Dawkins) on the extent to which religious authority figures know that the message they deliver to their congregations is dumbed down and the extent to which the sophisticated reasoning of academic theologians is irrelevant to the faith at ground level. I think those points set the scene for a discussion that explores the proposition that people don’t do religion because the concepts are credible.

At the end of the sequence I think they do a little interesting exploration of whether religion is a necessary lie. Clearly, they don’t think it is but Dennett and Harris both seem to acknowledge that they would think (or have thought) of the consequences before publishing their views.

Dave!

The first half of hour 2, Hitchens starts to argue that he does not want to see religion gone purely because he likes to argue about it :eek: Thought he was taking the p*ss or somethin, but he kept at it for about 20 minutes (to Dawkins' digust!)

Zillah

That was a very abrupt ending.

Schuhart

DaveMcG wrote: »

The first half of hour 2, Hitchens starts to argue that he does not want to see religion gone purely because he likes to argue about it :eek: Thought he was taking the p*ss or somethin, but he kept at it for about 20 minutes (to Dawkins' digust!)

It sounds like that moment in the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy when the Philosphers Union demand 'rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty' to keep them in a job.

stevejazzx

DaveMcG wrote: »

The first half of hour 2, Hitchens starts to argue that he does not want to see religion gone purely because he likes to argue about it :eek: Thought he was taking the p*ss or somethin, but he kept at it up for about 20 minutes (to Dawkins' digust!)

Well it's a bit more complex than that actually but you'd have to know Hitchens rather well to get it as he underplays it here.
The exact same topic came up recently in his debate with Stephen Fry and Hitchens said that he would like to see religon continue becasue he believes the American constitution is as good as any mandate for life. Therefore he yileds to it's declarations, one being of course the right of people to believe in whatever religon they please.
If religon was eradicated you're essentially destroying the right of people to believe which he reckons is essential within the balance of human experience. In the scenario of a surviving religon he aslo expresses his wish to see it relegated to a powerless superstitous belief - like astrology for example.
In this argument he says he would prefer society to "refine at the edges". By this he means that he wishes for religon to become so alienated that it dies away intensely slowly. He is the only of the four who expresses a real contempt for religon. Contempt being his own word of choice, he attempts justify this by saying that religon is so dangerous that it's leaders would ultimately destroy the world in an attempt to prove their prophecies were true. That he believes is the extent of thier madness and altough he often cited as being in favour of the war in Iraq he has no qualms about extending this trait to Bush.
When he says he wishes for a *dialectical battle with religon he means in the context where religon is forever diminshing and so the dialogue and process becomes tortuous, agonising.


*
Dialectical- A pattern of change that begins with some state of affairs (‘thesis’); which then is overturned because of its own contradictions, giving rise to its opposite (‘antithesis’); and which then reaches an equilibrium where the best features of the original state of affairs are preserved (‘synthesis’). Marx argues that historical change is dialectical: each stage of class society contains contradictions that lead to its overthrow, yet this series of revolutions is progressive.

Schuhart

Just watched the second to get it over with. In one sense, nothing remarkable in the segment where they seem to acknowledge that religious ceremony and ritual would be preserved in any event. However, I do think we're kidding ourselves to think that we're all going to be gathering in Churches to sing carols at Christmas without any root to that practice. People will either be doing something that makes religion redundant or they will be accepting the God bit as a consequence of their adherence to a faith. That said, I think this is an early part of that dialogue.

I thought Hitchens came across as being a bit pissed by the end of the segment. That said, I see no particular reason to disagree with his opinion that reason is winning an increasing number of votes in a declining pool. In one sense, it is good to hear a discussion that frankly addresses the kinds of things we are interested in and tries to confront issues like whether there are some truths that need to be suppressed. At the same time, I think Hitchens' somewhat wild closing remarks do vocalise that other fear - that the space for reason may actually decline in future.

pH

Schuhart wrote: »

I thought Hitchens came across as being a bit pissed by the end of the segment.

The bit where he's talking intelligently about cognitive dissonance as he drinks and smokes himself to death I thought was priceless.

Zillah

stevejazzx wrote: »

If religon was eradicated you're essentially destroying the right of people to believe which he reckons is essential within the balance of human experience.

Eradicated in what sense? Unless its the Stalin/Mao sense the assertion is a little ridiculous.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

hitchens always looks pissed, that's why he's fantastic

really interesting video, only a pity it wasn't longer.

Dades

Zillah wrote: »

Eradicated in what sense? Unless its the Stalin/Mao sense the assertion is a little ridiculous.

I would have thought 'eradicated' implies an enforced, complete removal.
Describes a different type of disappearance than, say, a 'natural death'.

* haven't had time to watch the videos yet so I might be out of context.

Zillah

Well see thats my confusion, at no point in the video did anyone come close to discussing any sort of Communist Party of China style forcible destruction of religion, in which case if stevejazzx above intended it in the traditional sense of the word eradicate it is he that is making little sense in the context.

Cactus Col

worst version of the horsemen ever.

sure ... Paul Roma, Jeff Jarrett and Sid Vicous were crap, but at least you always had ric flair.

schlump.

Can't see youtube here ... any of them mention the Da Vinci Code?

stevejazzx

Zillah wrote: »

Well see thats my confusion, at no point in the video did anyone come close to discussing any sort of Communist Party of China style forcible destruction of religion, in which case if stevejazzx above intended it in the traditional sense of the word eradicate it is he that is making little sense in the context.

What?

I was talking about Hitchens defense of his own argument that he didn't want to see a world completely without relgion. It was in answer to Daves post on Hitchens' poorly stated ideas in his defense of not wanting to see religon eradicated.
I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with Dave becasue clearly Hitchens had had a few, I was merely pointing that there was more to his argument.
Hitchens asks the question
'Would we like to see a world without faith?' and then says that militant religous forces such extreme 'jihadists' should be extirpated but he gets somewhat lost in rhetoric (he cites Wilberforce vs Huxley) whilst defending his core notion on the idea i.e complete reliogus 'eradication' is almost in his opinion 'too good for them' so he would prefer "society to refine at the edges while they are ever more exposed" acknowledging his unease with removing [religous] choice completely in favour of a progressive and systematic attck on it's core values until it defeats itself. He didn't express that idea very well here so my previous post related his answer to the same question in a previous debate. You can argue the merits of the word eradication but that is somewhat irrelevant to point I was trying to make, namely that there was more to his argument.

adamd164

Only discovered this the other day when I heard them mention Jerry Falwell, it's just beautiful

http://youtube.com/watch?v=52yTqMcwuQE

pH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnMYL8sF7bQ

Christopher sober and in great form - probably the best I've see him - long though (90 min+).

Also , worth watching for a lesson in how to avoid engaging in any arguments and launching a sustained vitriolic ad-hominen.

estebancambias

A good bunch of lads. Looks like good crack.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

pH wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnMYL8sF7bQ

Christopher sober and in great form - probably the best I've see him - long though (90 min+).

Also , worth watching for a lesson in how to avoid engaging in any arguments and launching a sustained vitriolic ad-hominen.

http://blog.92y.org/index.php/weblog/item/rabbi_shmuley_boteach_and_christopher_hitchens_the_debate_continues/

it continues...