I always felt that Christopher Hitchens was here to make us have a more vigorous, deep and awakened consciousness and relationship w/ our faith. I've loved him equally w/ his brother and am utterly thankful for his existence.
Eric's assertion that Hitchens only used religious extremist ideas to discredit religion is false. Hitchens repeatedly attacked many mainstream religious ideas which he thought were more subtle in nature but nevertheless quite dangerous. Intelligent Design, separation of church & state, homophobia, outdated rituals yet practiced on children. Eric may have ignored or forgotten these less inflammatory debated points. Yet I see them time and time again. As was said by Taunton Hitchens despised weak points in belief or debate, thus he attacked flabby minded couch potato Christian liberals who claim safety amid mainstream thinking. Hitchens saw willing mindless "sheep" with the same eyes as extreme religious zealots. Without one there cannot be the other in promoting and spreading insidious ideas. Thanks for this intriguing interview with Taunton. Miss the Hitch.
Every one of the examples you cite is practiced and or promoted by a minority within various denominations or sects/groups. That is accurately as Eric Metaxas points out, a prototypical strawman. I am continuously surprised to see things like homophobia trotted out as a justification for condemning Christianity in America and elsewhere. Is there another country on this earth where homosexuals and the broader LGBT community enjoy more freedom, security, peace and prosperity? No there is not. Tens of thousands of LGBT persons apply for asylum from all over the world to come here. This is the curious intellectual weakness within this notion that Christianity has somehow harmed people because it is not interested in moral truth and justice. How so? Please explain to me where humans live in this world with greater freedom, liberty, legal protection, prosperity and opportunity?
It is a common supposition among campaigning anti theists that if only we "got over" theism reason and light would reign in the best of all possible worlds. This is clung to with fervor. Now perhaps we would but it is unlikely and in truth what would happen is that any irreason ( the egalitarian cult for example leading to economic failings ) would be referred to as "secular religiosity" or some such. Since we have never and will never have a society totally devoid of theism their suppositions will always remain to them untarnished and pure.
Sure, the US is a fairly progressive country when compared to others, though not the great sanctuary you imply. Was Eric ever harassed to the point of suicide? Did he have trans children murdered? Eric and his fellow neoliberals intellectualize social problems to the point of absurdity. Fear and bigotry is one thing. To use an imaginary omnipotent "loving" God as back up for despicable human behavior is immoral, and should be criminal in some cases. All those Christians you claim who do not actively promote discrimination---they be complicit in social crimes by supporting immoral religious teachings, both financially and participation. Many racist bigots never hung a black person. But stood by and watched. Eric, in his cool religious intellectualism, is complicit with those active bigots spreading fear and hate. But he will vehemently deny such. Which is why I and Hitchens despise those types.
The U.S. is in fact the only sanctuary. Sure there are other "free" nations dotted round Europe and Asia and many like to regard themselves as superior to the U.S. in this way or that but they all ultimately shelter beneath the wings of the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. navy is the ultimate guarantor of freedom of the seas globally and hence global trade on which depends wealth on which depends all the freedoms we imagine we have by right but are in fact earned by power.. Freedoms are never free and it is the U.S. that has been the arsenal of democracy and freedom.
I love Hitchens. His atheism was strange to me personally. After watching and listening to him for many years, the more I respected him and he "inadvertently" became like a retired angel of some sort who truly wanted you to believe for the right reasons and disbelieve for the wrong ones. He helped me strengthen my faith in a way that challenged me to really and I mean really analyze why I believe. At times it was as if he wanted you to believe, but believe only in the Purest form possible in order to have a worthy yet respected opponent. Just my personal take.
Eric, why didn't you ask Mr. Taunton if there was anything that Christopher Hitchens said or did that challenged or changed Taunton's understanding of his faith?
Taunton is doing Hitchens a disservice, and he's trying to "win" the debates he lost to Hitchens when he was alive. Hitchens stated unequivocally many times that he did NOT have religious faith of any kind, and that he didn't want people saying he did after he had passed. If you want to know Hitchens just watch his debates and read his stuff. And don't listen to Taunton.
You can understand what people who haven't read the book would imagine about it's contents, based solely on the title. I imagine that the publishers are actually banking on most buyers assuming that it's a deathbed conversion claim.
15 minutes in and still nothing. I do wonder however why Larry Taunton advocates that his foundation promotes debates and hopes that people will think about it, but has the comments disabled on all his uploads and the uploads are copyrighted instead of free to share. One might expect that you would support the idea of sharing such debates so they get more views and more attention and that more people think about them and discuss them. Could it be that Larry doesn't want theists to accidentally talk to atheists about any of the debates posted on his channel and rather see them affirm their beliefs among themselves?
How absurd. Hitchens made it clear his position was as far from faith as possible, that he "starts with a position that says up front what will debunk it". Faith is the opposite of this, and Taunton is a fool to think Hitchens had anything remotely similar to faith.
Chris was an atheist and to the end much piffle and tosh is pontificated by these religious zealots, essentially debasing Chris's entire being and rigorous and explicit NON-BELIEF in any deity. Absolute BS as he would often say himself. I have studied this great man for many years, and such ridiculous observations by supposed respectful commentators are offensive to Chris's memory. Friend or no friend, the perceptions portrayed in this discussion are just as illogical as the participants own misguided religious beliefs. An orthodox atheist!! RiP Chris Hitchens, you gave us reason and rationale.
Interesting. I read that toward the end Hitch made the statement that he supposes there may be such a thing as a world-soul or world-spirit. That sounds more like an agnostic deism to me than pure atheism
I'm sorry souls and gods purpose.. ohh we are back in that old thingy ... im sorry i miss Hitchen. There is only a one purpose... to live, to know and to get enlightened through science (also social sciences ). You have to make your own life worth living, together with your fellow man...not in reverence to a deity. It is in fact a refreshing feeling try it and you know it works. By the way I hope to read the book. This statement is not a criticism of this book. Just me needing to be on the barricade for Hitchens cause and atheists in general.
True, and as alluded to in the talk, some reviewers clearly haven't even read the book! In my experience -- 20 years in academia -- most people are frankly not open-minded. I always enjoy a good, honest & open discussion
Gregoryt700 I was so open minded to figure that this book nothing more than a money grabbing scheme based on on a complete misapprehension on what friendship is. Christopher Hitchens, the British-born atheist (actually, he preferred the term anti-theist), polemicist, public intellectual and all-around hard-drinking chain-smoking contrarian, succumbed to esophageal cancer in 2011, ironically the same disease that killed his father. Hitchens was, in my opinion, one of the most insightful, provocative thinkers and most ferocious debaters of his time. His works on Orwell, Jefferson, and Paine made significant contributions to the discussion of those great minds, but Hitchens will be remembered mostly for his book god Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (2007), a trenchant and scathing critique of religion and spiritual belief systems. RUclips is a treasure for many things, including some of the best debates of Hitchens and his appearances on various television broadcasts, most notably his debate (one of his last as he battled the cancer) with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on whether religion is good for the world, and his epic battle with George Galloway on the topic of the war in Iraq (a war supported by Hitchens much to the dismay of his leftist friends). However, as his health failed, Hitchens was frequently peppered with questions from friends and journalists about the prospect of converting before he died. Would the acerbic atheist see the light at the end? The clock was ticking. Hitchens himself addressed this very issue as his health declined, and he stated forcefully his view on multiple occasions with interviewers, in no uncertain terms, that there was not the slightest possibility of this happening, and he made sure to say so while he was in control of his faculties, lest he said something that could be misconstrued during his final hours when his body and mind were weakened by the disease. Hitchens did this, I think, not out of hubris, but because death-bed conversions had been attributed, falsely, to several prominent thinkers (including Voltaire, Jefferson, and Darwin) over the centuries, it was a fairly common phenomenon, and Hitchens wanted to make sure that no such thing would ever be attributed to him. A quip falsely attributed to Voltaire, but still clever, held that when asked by a priest whether he renounced Satan, Voltaire replied, “Now is not the time to be making enemies.” I have spent a considerable amount of time studying the written works of Hitchens, and watching his debates and other activities on RUclips, and to this point I had not seen any indication of a deathbed conversion, and it has been five years since Hitchens had passed. So, as you can imagine, when Larry Alex Taunton, a minor debating opponent of Hitchens, published his new book The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, I was intrigued. I had never heard of Taunton, but he is the founder and executive director of The Fixed Point Foundation, which has as its mission to “defend and proclaim the Gospel in the secular marketplace and equip others to do the same.” Taunton spent some time with Hitchens toward the end, notably as a debate moderator, and once as an opponent, that included two long road trips during which the two of them discussed religion. In his book, Taunton traces some of the background of Hitchens (nothing that was not covered by Hitchens himself in his own memoir Hitch-22), some color commentary by younger brother Peter Hitchens, and the effect, in Taunton’s view, of 9/11 on the ideology of Hitchens. Taunton gets to the heart of it in the last quarter of the book after tantalizing the reader with cryptic, chapter-ending statements that portent a possible conversion by Hitchens at the end. Of course, the title is provocative, and the case to made for a deathbed conversion seems impossible in light of not only the life work of Hitchens, but also his anticipation of this very thing, and his repudiation of it before he died, knowing that his death was imminent (just a year and a half from diagnosis until his death), not to mention the fact that his wife, who was there at the end, has stated that no such conversion took place. Yet, Taunton weaves his tale as the pious often do, explaining first his thread-bare reasons for having the poor taste to write such an undignified book in the first place-5 years after the death of the subject---and then smattering the pages with veiled, judgmental barbs of his deceased friend, often contrasting his own self-described virtuous lifestyle as a teetotaler with the hard-drinking, heavy-smoking, and foul-mouthed Hitchens. The reader gets a sense of this early on through the way in which Taunton discusses the parents of Hitchens, in a way that seems too familiar for someone who was not there, exaggerating the perceived shortcomings of Hitchens’s mother, Yvonne, while making psychological observations about the relationship between Hitchens and his father, the stolid ex-navy man, concluding with the gratuitous statement that, “it seems that Christopher preferred the flash and style of his mother when he might have done better to admire the steady substance of his father.” This statement says much more about Taunton than it does about Hitchens. In a single sentence, Taunton demonstrated a capacity to disparage the deceased mother of his deceased friend, suggest that the way Hitchens turned out-his very personality-was insubstantial and based upon “flash and style” over substance, and presumed to know the complicated relationship that Hitchens had with his parents. Nor does the ham-fisted moralizing stop there. Early on, Taunton attributes, rather clumsily, homosexual experiences (and punishment for engaging in them) at English boarding schools to the rejection of Christianity by Hitchens. I say clumsily because, although Hitchens himself described these punishments-described by him as his first experiences with love for which he was punished--as examples of the “cruel and stupid” nature of religion, Taunton appears to miss the larger picture in this regard, namely that Hitchens had recognized at an early age that words (and ideas) are weapons, and logical thought is the engine that drives man, not belief in the divine. Punishment for homosexual acts may well have been a vivid example to Hitchens of the evils of religion, but it is clear, to me at least, that the reason for his head-on collision with religion was the sheer silliness in how it was presented to him. In Hitch 22, his memoir, Hitchens tells the story of Ms. Watts, his scripture and nature teacher when he was a boy of 10 of 11, who one day opined about how God had made the foliage the color green because it was the color most restful to our eyes. This seems to have been a pivotal moment in his life because he at once, even at an early age, dismissed this account as utter, contrived bulls***. Thus, the lessons from English boarding school that shaped the thoughts of Hitchens on religion were learned from how totalitarian systems work, and how authority is able to convey ideas that are illegitimate-even silly in the case of Ms. Watts-in a guise of unquestionable truth. Taunton does not mention Ms. Watts, and does a disservice, I think, to the intellect of Hitchens (as well as deliver a perhaps unintentional, but still quite repugnant, backhanded snipe at Hitchens’ character) to equate his rejection of religion to homosexual experiences. Hitchens often taunted the religious about their fixation on sexuality-and in particular with homosexual acts-and one cannot help but think of how he would have snickered at this awkward part of Taunton’s book, and how Taunton lived up to the stereotype. Taunton concluded this chapter with the charge that, “Christopher hated God and was determined that he should master and tyrannize him.” (Page 17) This is one of those annoying habits of Taunton-and religious writers in general--peppered throughout the book, akin to the old lawyer saw of “have you stopped beating your wife” because it assumes that God exists, and that Hitchens believes in Him. Hitchens did not hate God. He hated men who created belief systems that included God and used those systems to control other men. Concerning the ascent of Hitchens early on intellectually as an avid reader and debater, Taunton turns even this around as a negative and delivers a jab on page 23 with this: “The danger here-and Christopher fell wholeheartedly into its snares-was developing a love of words insofar as they were weapons for attack and defense of his position, rather than loving words insofar as they lead to truth.” That is a loaded statement, and an unfair characterization for several reasons (and delivered by Taunton without any apparent self-awareness or appreciation of the irony for the fact that Taunton does this very thing in this very book). First, it implies that Hitchens had little interest in the truth, an implication that is fatuous and more than a little ill-mannered. Hitchens’s truth was that religion is man-made, and his support for that proposition is trenchant and persuasive, and a product of scientific inquiry rather than faith. Taunton comes across, again, as a pious believer, smug in the knowledge that he knows “the truth” and having pity on Hitchens who used words to attack it. Second, Taunton characterizes the reading of Hitchens as “wide but not deep” (page 23), suggesting that Hitchens had a facile understanding of literature and literary ideas, but without any real understanding of them. I find this charge unsupportable, and Hitchens refutes such a suggestion, in my opinion, in his writings and in his debates. On pages 25-26, Taunton makes his position more clear-the point of being dismissive of the learning of Hitchens as shallow-by saying explicitly that Hitchens had a shallow understanding of religion, but presented his views with certainty, and with a thespian flair that, coupled with a British accent, allowed him to come across as knowledgeable to the uninitiated when he in fact was not. This sort of charge is a matter of opinion, and I disagree with Taunton’s. When a person like Hitchens takes on a subject like religion, and criticizes it in a credible way, that person studies the subject more, not less; he knows he will be challenged by others who are learned in the subject, which makes it that much more crucial to have a deep understanding of the issue. This is what Hitchens did, in my estimation, and the willingness to debate publicly solidifies the fact for me. That is a hard thing to do, and preparation is key. A shallow understanding of the subject will be exposed by a skilled opponent, and in my opinion I have not seen any opponent of Hitchens do that. Finally, the statement is simplistic on its own terms in the sense that, to a degree, everyone uses words in this way (most notably, Taunton himself). If anything, the modus operandi of Hitchens was to seek out other intellectuals to challenge his own beliefs, and to see if he could defend them-something with which the religious are rarely comfortable. This is a mark in his favor, not a character flaw as implied by Taunton. By the time the reader is three-quarters of the way through the book, it is apparent that Taunton is trying to make a case for conversion by Hitchens. But, he does this in an almost child-like way by repeating two key themes: that Hitchens had friends who were evangelicals, and that Hitchens had studied the Bible. Taunton seems amazed that Hitchens could simultaneously hold such strong views about religion, yet befriend persons who believed in that which he mocked. This apparent contradiction is resolved easily in my mind, and I would suspect in the minds of most functional adults who have had friends whom they liked personally, but with whom they disagreed on topics such as religion or politics. I find this fact mundane and obvious, but Taunton writes about it as if it takes an act of superhuman resolve for an atheist to befriend an evangelical (nor is it of any moment that an atheist studies the Bible; intelligent people-particularly public debaters-seek knowledge about the thing that intrigues them). Taunton presents it as Hitchens being “curious” about religion, implying that Hitchens was really reaching out to the religious because he was interested in changing his views, not gathering information to change theirs. However, it comes across as if Taunton has no concept of how an adult can differentiate between attacking ideas, as opposed to attacking a person. He does this in several places, one example being on page 113, where he recounts an incident where Hitchens was at a bar “surrounded by a group of adoring fans” who were horrified when they found out that Hitchens had befriended Taunton. This is a common tactic of a lazy writer, characterizing a group of people-in this case fans of Hitchens--as knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers unable to comprehend or rationalize that their atheist hero could have a friend who was a Christian. It is not a profound, or even a complicated concept, nor is it remotely unusual in my opinion for any rational adult to have friends on a personal level with whom they disagree on fundamental issues. The reader nears the end of the book expecting a payoff from the provocative title, which of course never comes. The way in which Taunton tries it seems forced, and there is a scent of embarrassment by Taunton in the way that he constantly has to state that Hitchens really did not have a deathbed conversion, followed by vague statements suggesting that in Taunton’s view he might have, and it is clear to the reader that Taunton wishes it to be so. But, such a thing would be totally out of character for Hitchens in light of his life’s work. If the views of Hitchens can be summed up at all, it can be said that he was, at bottom, against totalitarianism, specifically in the way that it crushes human expression and spirit (Hitchens was a First Amendment absolutist, a view I endorse as well). Hitchens referenced this theme again and again in his debates, speeches, and in his books. As to religion, he viewed it as man-made, and thus as a particularly insidious and virulent form of totalitarianism-that is, a belief system created by men without any evidence to support it for the purpose of subjugating others. He said this directly in his writings and debates, and his fixation on Orwell solidified the point. Taunton perceives a contradiction between the early views of Hitchens on Vietnam (against it) and his later views on Iraq (for the invasion), but to me there is no contradiction, and his views are easily reconciled because Iraq, as a totalitarian regime, represented the greatest evil in the view of Hitchens. To him, and I agree with this, confrontation and war are not to be desired, but nor are they the worst of things. Combating totalitarianism-in the form of the psychopathic Saddam Hussein and his equally culpable sons-is always correct, no matter what the cost, because the cost of doing nothing about it is far more damaging to humankind. Hitchens expressed this view at the end of his life toward militant Islam, and would no doubt today be in favor of the armed extermination of ISIS. So then, how could a person holding such a view, who defended it in public debates and writings, do an about-face in light of his own mortality? It could happen of course (Mother Teresa, now canonized and soon to be sainted, admitted at the end that she had no faith nor had felt the presence of Christ), but Taunton tries to make the case that it happened to Hitchens. He could not argue that Hitchens had a deathbed conversion outright. Hitchens’s wife was with him at the end and stated that there was no conversion, and Hitchens himself, while he was alive, had repudiated the possibility of such an event happening. Taunton was thus reduced to arguing that Hitchens was, at the end, “a man who was weighing the cost of conversion.” (Page 164) Taunton bases this assertion on his “private conversations” with Hitchens, many of which he presented in the book, but none of which support the conclusion drawn, and the fact that Hitchens studied the Bible with Taunton (more like debated and questioned the book) and befriended Christians. The evidence is not convincing, and Taunton should feel something akin to shame for marketing his book as if Hitchens had in fact made a deathbed conversion; or worse, much worse, that Hitchens wanted to convert but was too much of a coward and too invested in his atheist persona to do so. This is what the reader comes away with after finishing the last page, and why this book is so morally reprehensible. As Hitchens said many times, one would think that the religious, particularly Christians, would be in a fantastic mood all the time. If one truly believes that he has an immortal soul that will rest forever in paradise, how could that person be upset or angry with any trivial happening on this plane? The answer is because belief does not make them happy. They will never be happy and satisfied until *you* believe it as well. This is Taunton’s purpose in life, to spread and defend the Gospel, and he has used the brief intersection of his life with that of Hitchens to persuade readers that even an angry atheist like Hitchens will change his mind at the end, accept the Good News, so you must as well. One can perhaps forgive the condescending tone of the prose, the occasional typo and ending sentences in prepositions (the late Justice Scalia may have approved of this, but I do not), and even overlook the fact that although Taunton professed to be careful about betraying confidences, he nevertheless lets the reader know that Hitchens was privately critical of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins (another dubious assertion by Taunton); but it is unforgivable that Taunton would, five years after the death of his friend, use that friendship as a vehicle to proselytize and besmirch the character of a deceased man who was more substantial than himself. In the end, Taunton proves to be every bit the shallow huckster he claims Hitchens to have been; an embodiment of all of the things that caused his friend Christopher Hitchens to loathe religion in the first place-and to reject it with his dying breath.
James - Tired reading your comment but stopped short - wasn't sure if you were about to make a point or were stuck in the middle of a prolonged bout of intellectual constipation ... hoping for (what I can only guess) the desired bowel movement. Either way, solipsism at it's best!
shadowdawg04 Yes, I suppose it was a long read but in my opinion it's not without it's merit. You may think of it as babble or perhaps not when you read my finale, that is your prerogative... Solipsism must go on ;)
James,very good essay on this guy, as I think you mentioned,Hitchens in an interview said if there was any suggestion that he had changed his mind(about religion) it would be that the disease had affected his mind.
I've skipped thru about 5 mins of this video and although I was convinced Hitch was a decent geezer before watching it, I'm now convinced he was wasted on his adopted country. Thomas Paine would have shared his Weetabix and reminisced about the old country. You, as a nation, are a deep disappointment to those who kicked it off.
I always felt that Christopher Hitchens was here to make us have a more vigorous, deep and awakened consciousness and relationship w/ our faith. I've loved him equally w/ his brother and am utterly thankful for his existence.
Hitchens respected people for conviction and sincerity not for religious faith directly.
Make no mistake. Hitchens got to him.
Why is this guy Eric so funny, just gets me every time.
Thanks for this fascinating discussion. I agree that civil discourse is vital--and probably a prerequisite for the survival of our republic.
Amazing conversation. Thanx Larry and Eric.
Eric's assertion that Hitchens only used religious extremist ideas to discredit religion is false. Hitchens repeatedly attacked many mainstream religious ideas which he thought were more subtle in nature but nevertheless quite dangerous. Intelligent Design, separation of church & state, homophobia, outdated rituals yet practiced on children.
Eric may have ignored or forgotten these less inflammatory debated points. Yet I see them time and time again.
As was said by Taunton Hitchens despised weak points in belief or debate, thus he attacked flabby minded couch potato Christian liberals who claim safety amid mainstream thinking. Hitchens saw willing mindless "sheep" with the same eyes as extreme religious zealots. Without one there cannot be the other in promoting and spreading insidious ideas.
Thanks for this intriguing interview with Taunton. Miss the Hitch.
Every one of the examples you cite is practiced and or promoted by a minority within various denominations or sects/groups. That is accurately as Eric Metaxas points out, a prototypical strawman. I am continuously surprised to see things like homophobia trotted out as a justification for condemning Christianity in America and elsewhere. Is there another country on this earth where homosexuals and the broader LGBT community enjoy more freedom, security, peace and prosperity? No there is not. Tens of thousands of LGBT persons apply for asylum from all over the world to come here. This is the curious intellectual weakness within this notion that Christianity has somehow harmed people because it is not interested in moral truth and justice. How so? Please explain to me where humans live in this world with greater freedom, liberty, legal protection, prosperity and opportunity?
It is a common supposition among campaigning anti theists that if only we "got over" theism reason and light would reign in the best of all possible worlds. This is clung to with fervor. Now perhaps we would but it is unlikely and in truth what would happen is that any irreason ( the egalitarian cult for example leading to economic failings ) would be referred to as "secular religiosity" or some such. Since we have never and will never have a society totally devoid of theism their suppositions will always remain to them untarnished and pure.
Sure, the US is a fairly progressive country when compared to others, though not the great sanctuary you imply.
Was Eric ever harassed to the point of suicide? Did he have trans children murdered? Eric and his fellow neoliberals intellectualize social problems to the point of absurdity.
Fear and bigotry is one thing. To use an imaginary omnipotent "loving" God as back up for despicable human behavior is immoral, and should be criminal in some cases.
All those Christians you claim who do not actively promote discrimination---they be complicit in social crimes by supporting immoral religious teachings, both financially and participation. Many racist bigots never hung a black person. But stood by and watched.
Eric, in his cool religious intellectualism, is complicit with those active bigots spreading fear and hate. But he will vehemently deny such. Which is why I and Hitchens despise those types.
The U.S. is in fact the only sanctuary. Sure there are other "free" nations dotted round Europe and Asia and many like to regard themselves as superior to the U.S. in this way or that but they all ultimately shelter beneath the wings of the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. navy is the ultimate guarantor of freedom of the seas globally and hence global trade on which depends wealth on which depends all the freedoms we imagine we have by right but are in fact earned by power.. Freedoms are never free and it is the U.S. that has been the arsenal of democracy and freedom.
Great intro.If you're looking to start with the substantive conversation it's at about 15:00.
Why would anyone want to miss Eric's hilarious intros? :-) I love them.
Comedy gold! This guy is hilarious, first time I've seen him, made me laugh hard.
I love Hitchens. His atheism was strange to me personally. After watching and listening to him for many years, the more I respected him and he "inadvertently" became like a retired angel of some sort who truly wanted you to believe for the right reasons and disbelieve for the wrong ones. He helped me strengthen my faith in a way that challenged me to really and I mean really analyze why I believe. At times it was as if he wanted you to believe, but believe only in the Purest form possible in order to have a worthy yet respected opponent. Just my personal take.
Why should believing anything without evidence be an admirable trait?🤔
I would think it should be mocked and ridiculed wherever found...
Xadow Mxsscre™ Wow, very interesting obervation!
They are correct, anyone expressing any sort of kind words for this book are met with vitriol hatred.
I don't find Peter and Christopher alike in any way. If I hadn't been told they were brothers I wouldn't have guessed it.
The willingness to believe things without any evidence shouldn't be an admirable trait. Instead, it should be ridiculed wherever found...
Larry Taunton...is a very sweet man
Eric, why didn't you ask Mr. Taunton if there was anything that Christopher Hitchens said or did that challenged or changed Taunton's understanding of his faith?
Taunton is doing Hitchens a disservice, and he's trying to "win" the debates he lost to Hitchens when he was alive. Hitchens stated unequivocally many times that he did NOT have religious faith of any kind, and that he didn't want people saying he did after he had passed. If you want to know Hitchens just watch his debates and read his stuff. And don't listen to Taunton.
You can understand what people who haven't read the book would imagine about it's contents, based solely on the title. I imagine that the publishers are actually banking on most buyers assuming that it's a deathbed conversion claim.
15 minutes in and still nothing. I do wonder however why Larry Taunton advocates that his foundation promotes debates and hopes that people will think about it, but has the comments disabled on all his uploads and the uploads are copyrighted instead of free to share.
One might expect that you would support the idea of sharing such debates so they get more views and more attention and that more people think about them and discuss them. Could it be that Larry doesn't want theists to accidentally talk to atheists about any of the debates posted on his channel and rather see them affirm their beliefs among themselves?
How absurd. Hitchens made it clear his position was as far from faith as possible, that he "starts with a position that says up front what will debunk it". Faith is the opposite of this, and Taunton is a fool to think Hitchens had anything remotely similar to faith.
Chris was an atheist and to the end much piffle and tosh is pontificated by these religious zealots, essentially debasing Chris's entire being and rigorous and explicit NON-BELIEF in any deity. Absolute BS as he would often say himself. I have studied this great man for many years, and such ridiculous observations by supposed respectful commentators are offensive to Chris's memory. Friend or no friend, the perceptions portrayed in this discussion are just as illogical as the participants own misguided religious beliefs.
An orthodox atheist!!
RiP Chris Hitchens, you gave us reason and rationale.
Although I agree with the sentiment, please never refer to him as Chris.
Nic Davison BTW, he insisted on being called Christopher
What marxism touches it rarely if ever leaves undamaged.
would it be ok to have Dr. William Lane craig for the next socrates in the city? lol.. I love these videos. They are so deep and beautiful.
Interesting. I read that toward the end Hitch made the statement that he supposes there may be such a thing as a world-soul or world-spirit. That sounds more like an agnostic deism to me than pure atheism
Yes you are correct.
I'm sorry souls and gods purpose.. ohh we are back in that old thingy ... im sorry i miss Hitchen.
There is only a one purpose... to live, to know and to get enlightened through science (also social sciences ).
You have to make your own life worth living, together with your fellow man...not in reverence to a deity. It is in fact a refreshing feeling try it and you know it works.
By the way I hope to read the book. This statement is not a criticism of this book. Just me needing to be on the barricade for Hitchens cause and atheists in general.
Taunton is getting treated so badly about this book. Many atheists are claiming that Taunton never knew Hitchens, and that he is a conman.
True, and as alluded to in the talk, some reviewers clearly haven't even read the book! In my experience -- 20 years in academia -- most people are frankly not open-minded. I always enjoy a good, honest & open discussion
Gregoryt700 I was so open minded to figure that this book nothing more than a money grabbing scheme based on on a complete misapprehension on what friendship is.
Christopher Hitchens, the British-born atheist (actually, he preferred the term anti-theist), polemicist, public intellectual and all-around hard-drinking chain-smoking contrarian, succumbed to esophageal cancer in 2011, ironically the same disease that killed his father. Hitchens was, in my opinion, one of the most insightful, provocative thinkers and most ferocious debaters of his time. His works on Orwell, Jefferson, and Paine made significant contributions to the discussion of those great minds, but Hitchens will be remembered mostly for his book god Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (2007), a trenchant and scathing critique of religion and spiritual belief systems.
RUclips is a treasure for many things, including some of the best debates of Hitchens and his appearances on various television broadcasts, most notably his debate (one of his last as he battled the cancer) with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on whether religion is good for the world, and his epic battle with George Galloway on the topic of the war in Iraq (a war supported by Hitchens much to the dismay of his leftist friends).
However, as his health failed, Hitchens was frequently peppered with questions from friends and journalists about the prospect of converting before he died. Would the acerbic atheist see the light at the end? The clock was ticking. Hitchens himself addressed this very issue as his health declined, and he stated forcefully his view on multiple occasions with interviewers, in no uncertain terms, that there was not the slightest possibility of this happening, and he made sure to say so while he was in control of his faculties, lest he said something that could be misconstrued during his final hours when his body and mind were weakened by the disease. Hitchens did this, I think, not out of hubris, but because death-bed conversions had been attributed, falsely, to several prominent thinkers (including Voltaire, Jefferson, and Darwin) over the centuries, it was a fairly common phenomenon, and Hitchens wanted to make sure that no such thing would ever be attributed to him. A quip falsely attributed to Voltaire, but still clever, held that when asked by a priest whether he renounced Satan, Voltaire replied, “Now is not the time to be making enemies.”
I have spent a considerable amount of time studying the written works of Hitchens, and watching his debates and other activities on RUclips, and to this point I had not seen any indication of a deathbed conversion, and it has been five years since Hitchens had passed. So, as you can imagine, when Larry Alex Taunton, a minor debating opponent of Hitchens, published his new book The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, I was intrigued. I had never heard of Taunton, but he is the founder and executive director of The Fixed Point Foundation, which has as its mission to “defend and proclaim the Gospel in the secular marketplace and equip others to do the same.”
Taunton spent some time with Hitchens toward the end, notably as a debate moderator, and once as an opponent, that included two long road trips during which the two of them discussed religion. In his book, Taunton traces some of the background of Hitchens (nothing that was not covered by Hitchens himself in his own memoir Hitch-22), some color commentary by younger brother Peter Hitchens, and the effect, in Taunton’s view, of 9/11 on the ideology of Hitchens. Taunton gets to the heart of it in the last quarter of the book after tantalizing the reader with cryptic, chapter-ending statements that portent a possible conversion by Hitchens at the end. Of course, the title is provocative, and the case to made for a deathbed conversion seems impossible in light of not only the life work of Hitchens, but also his anticipation of this very thing, and his repudiation of it before he died, knowing that his death was imminent (just a year and a half from diagnosis until his death), not to mention the fact that his wife, who was there at the end, has stated that no such conversion took place.
Yet, Taunton weaves his tale as the pious often do, explaining first his thread-bare reasons for having the poor taste to write such an undignified book in the first place-5 years after the death of the subject---and then smattering the pages with veiled, judgmental barbs of his deceased friend, often contrasting his own self-described virtuous lifestyle as a teetotaler with the hard-drinking, heavy-smoking, and foul-mouthed Hitchens. The reader gets a sense of this early on through the way in which Taunton discusses the parents of Hitchens, in a way that seems too familiar for someone who was not there, exaggerating the perceived shortcomings of Hitchens’s mother, Yvonne, while making psychological observations about the relationship between Hitchens and his father, the stolid ex-navy man, concluding with the gratuitous statement that, “it seems that Christopher preferred the flash and style of his mother when he might have done better to admire the steady substance of his father.” This statement says much more about Taunton than it does about Hitchens. In a single sentence, Taunton demonstrated a capacity to disparage the deceased mother of his deceased friend, suggest that the way Hitchens turned out-his very personality-was insubstantial and based upon “flash and style” over substance, and presumed to know the complicated relationship that Hitchens had with his parents. Nor does the ham-fisted moralizing stop there.
Early on, Taunton attributes, rather clumsily, homosexual experiences (and punishment for engaging in them) at English boarding schools to the rejection of Christianity by Hitchens. I say clumsily because, although Hitchens himself described these punishments-described by him as his first experiences with love for which he was punished--as examples of the “cruel and stupid” nature of religion, Taunton appears to miss the larger picture in this regard, namely that Hitchens had recognized at an early age that words (and ideas) are weapons, and logical thought is the engine that drives man, not belief in the divine. Punishment for homosexual acts may well have been a vivid example to Hitchens of the evils of religion, but it is clear, to me at least, that the reason for his head-on collision with religion was the sheer silliness in how it was presented to him.
In Hitch 22, his memoir, Hitchens tells the story of Ms. Watts, his scripture and nature teacher when he was a boy of 10 of 11, who one day opined about how God had made the foliage the color green because it was the color most restful to our eyes. This seems to have been a pivotal moment in his life because he at once, even at an early age, dismissed this account as utter, contrived bulls***. Thus, the lessons from English boarding school that shaped the thoughts of Hitchens on religion were learned from how totalitarian systems work, and how authority is able to convey ideas that are illegitimate-even silly in the case of Ms. Watts-in a guise of unquestionable truth. Taunton does not mention Ms. Watts, and does a disservice, I think, to the intellect of Hitchens (as well as deliver a perhaps unintentional, but still quite repugnant, backhanded snipe at Hitchens’ character) to equate his rejection of religion to homosexual experiences. Hitchens often taunted the religious about their fixation on sexuality-and in particular with homosexual acts-and one cannot help but think of how he would have snickered at this awkward part of Taunton’s book, and how Taunton lived up to the stereotype.
Taunton concluded this chapter with the charge that, “Christopher hated God and was determined that he should master and tyrannize him.” (Page 17) This is one of those annoying habits of Taunton-and religious writers in general--peppered throughout the book, akin to the old lawyer saw of “have you stopped beating your wife” because it assumes that God exists, and that Hitchens believes in Him. Hitchens did not hate God. He hated men who created belief systems that included God and used those systems to control other men.
Concerning the ascent of Hitchens early on intellectually as an avid reader and debater, Taunton turns even this around as a negative and delivers a jab on page 23 with this: “The danger here-and Christopher fell wholeheartedly into its snares-was developing a love of words insofar as they were weapons for attack and defense of his position, rather than loving words insofar as they lead to truth.” That is a loaded statement, and an unfair characterization for several reasons (and delivered by Taunton without any apparent self-awareness or appreciation of the irony for the fact that Taunton does this very thing in this very book).
First, it implies that Hitchens had little interest in the truth, an implication that is fatuous and more than a little ill-mannered. Hitchens’s truth was that religion is man-made, and his support for that proposition is trenchant and persuasive, and a product of scientific inquiry rather than faith. Taunton comes across, again, as a pious believer, smug in the knowledge that he knows “the truth” and having pity on Hitchens who used words to attack it.
Second, Taunton characterizes the reading of Hitchens as “wide but not deep” (page 23), suggesting that Hitchens had a facile understanding of literature and literary ideas, but without any real understanding of them. I find this charge unsupportable, and Hitchens refutes such a suggestion, in my opinion, in his writings and in his debates. On pages 25-26, Taunton makes his position more clear-the point of being dismissive of the learning of Hitchens as shallow-by saying explicitly that Hitchens had a shallow understanding of religion, but presented his views with certainty, and with a thespian flair that, coupled with a British accent, allowed him to come across as knowledgeable to the uninitiated when he in fact was not. This sort of charge is a matter of opinion, and I disagree with Taunton’s. When a person like Hitchens takes on a subject like religion, and criticizes it in a credible way, that person studies the subject more, not less; he knows he will be challenged by others who are learned in the subject, which makes it that much more crucial to have a deep understanding of the issue. This is what Hitchens did, in my estimation, and the willingness to debate publicly solidifies the fact for me. That is a hard thing to do, and preparation is key. A shallow understanding of the subject will be exposed by a skilled opponent, and in my opinion I have not seen any opponent of Hitchens do that.
Finally, the statement is simplistic on its own terms in the sense that, to a degree, everyone uses words in this way (most notably, Taunton himself). If anything, the modus operandi of Hitchens was to seek out other intellectuals to challenge his own beliefs, and to see if he could defend them-something with which the religious are rarely comfortable. This is a mark in his favor, not a character flaw as implied by Taunton.
By the time the reader is three-quarters of the way through the book, it is apparent that Taunton is trying to make a case for conversion by Hitchens. But, he does this in an almost child-like way by repeating two key themes: that Hitchens had friends who were evangelicals, and that Hitchens had studied the Bible. Taunton seems amazed that Hitchens could simultaneously hold such strong views about religion, yet befriend persons who believed in that which he mocked. This apparent contradiction is resolved easily in my mind, and I would suspect in the minds of most functional adults who have had friends whom they liked personally, but with whom they disagreed on topics such as religion or politics. I find this fact mundane and obvious, but Taunton writes about it as if it takes an act of superhuman resolve for an atheist to befriend an evangelical (nor is it of any moment that an atheist studies the Bible; intelligent people-particularly public debaters-seek knowledge about the thing that intrigues them). Taunton presents it as Hitchens being “curious” about religion, implying that Hitchens was really reaching out to the religious because he was interested in changing his views, not gathering information to change theirs.
However, it comes across as if Taunton has no concept of how an adult can differentiate between attacking ideas, as opposed to attacking a person. He does this in several places, one example being on page 113, where he recounts an incident where Hitchens was at a bar “surrounded by a group of adoring fans” who were horrified when they found out that Hitchens had befriended Taunton. This is a common tactic of a lazy writer, characterizing a group of people-in this case fans of Hitchens--as knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers unable to comprehend or rationalize that their atheist hero could have a friend who was a Christian. It is not a profound, or even a complicated concept, nor is it remotely unusual in my opinion for any rational adult to have friends on a personal level with whom they disagree on fundamental issues.
The reader nears the end of the book expecting a payoff from the provocative title, which of course never comes. The way in which Taunton tries it seems forced, and there is a scent of embarrassment by Taunton in the way that he constantly has to state that Hitchens really did not have a deathbed conversion, followed by vague statements suggesting that in Taunton’s view he might have, and it is clear to the reader that Taunton wishes it to be so. But, such a thing would be totally out of character for Hitchens in light of his life’s work.
If the views of Hitchens can be summed up at all, it can be said that he was, at bottom, against totalitarianism, specifically in the way that it crushes human expression and spirit (Hitchens was a First Amendment absolutist, a view I endorse as well). Hitchens referenced this theme again and again in his debates, speeches, and in his books. As to religion, he viewed it as man-made, and thus as a particularly insidious and virulent form of totalitarianism-that is, a belief system created by men without any evidence to support it for the purpose of subjugating others. He said this directly in his writings and debates, and his fixation on Orwell solidified the point. Taunton perceives a contradiction between the early views of Hitchens on Vietnam (against it) and his later views on Iraq (for the invasion), but to me there is no contradiction, and his views are easily reconciled because Iraq, as a totalitarian regime, represented the greatest evil in the view of Hitchens. To him, and I agree with this, confrontation and war are not to be desired, but nor are they the worst of things. Combating totalitarianism-in the form of the psychopathic Saddam Hussein and his equally culpable sons-is always correct, no matter what the cost, because the cost of doing nothing about it is far more damaging to humankind. Hitchens expressed this view at the end of his life toward militant Islam, and would no doubt today be in favor of the armed extermination of ISIS.
So then, how could a person holding such a view, who defended it in public debates and writings, do an about-face in light of his own mortality? It could happen of course (Mother Teresa, now canonized and soon to be sainted, admitted at the end that she had no faith nor had felt the presence of Christ), but Taunton tries to make the case that it happened to Hitchens. He could not argue that Hitchens had a deathbed conversion outright. Hitchens’s wife was with him at the end and stated that there was no conversion, and Hitchens himself, while he was alive, had repudiated the possibility of such an event happening. Taunton was thus reduced to arguing that Hitchens was, at the end, “a man who was weighing the cost of conversion.” (Page 164) Taunton bases this assertion on his “private conversations” with Hitchens, many of which he presented in the book, but none of which support the conclusion drawn, and the fact that Hitchens studied the Bible with Taunton (more like debated and questioned the book) and befriended Christians. The evidence is not convincing, and Taunton should feel something akin to shame for marketing his book as if Hitchens had in fact made a deathbed conversion; or worse, much worse, that Hitchens wanted to convert but was too much of a coward and too invested in his atheist persona to do so. This is what the reader comes away with after finishing the last page, and why this book is so morally reprehensible.
As Hitchens said many times, one would think that the religious, particularly Christians, would be in a fantastic mood all the time. If one truly believes that he has an immortal soul that will rest forever in paradise, how could that person be upset or angry with any trivial happening on this plane? The answer is because belief does not make them happy. They will never be happy and satisfied until *you* believe it as well. This is Taunton’s purpose in life, to spread and defend the Gospel, and he has used the brief intersection of his life with that of Hitchens to persuade readers that even an angry atheist like Hitchens will change his mind at the end, accept the Good News, so you must as well. One can perhaps forgive the condescending tone of the prose, the occasional typo and ending sentences in prepositions (the late Justice Scalia may have approved of this, but I do not), and even overlook the fact that although Taunton professed to be careful about betraying confidences, he nevertheless lets the reader know that Hitchens was privately critical of Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins (another dubious assertion by Taunton); but it is unforgivable that Taunton would, five years after the death of his friend, use that friendship as a vehicle to proselytize and besmirch the character of a deceased man who was more substantial than himself.
In the end, Taunton proves to be every bit the shallow huckster he claims Hitchens to have been; an embodiment of all of the things that caused his friend Christopher Hitchens to loathe religion in the first place-and to reject it with his dying breath.
James - Tired reading your comment but stopped short - wasn't sure if you were about to make a point or were stuck in the middle of a prolonged bout of intellectual constipation ... hoping for (what I can only guess) the desired bowel movement. Either way, solipsism at it's best!
shadowdawg04 Yes, I suppose it was a long read but in my opinion it's not without it's merit. You may think of it as babble or perhaps not when you read my finale, that is your prerogative... Solipsism must go on ;)
James,very good essay on this guy,
as I think you mentioned,Hitchens in an interview said
if there was any suggestion that he had changed his mind(about religion) it would be that the disease had affected his mind.
I've skipped thru about 5 mins of this video and although I was convinced Hitch was a decent geezer before watching it, I'm now convinced he was wasted on his adopted country. Thomas Paine would have shared his Weetabix and reminisced about the old country. You, as a nation, are a deep disappointment to those who kicked it off.
por favor si alguien pudiera poner la traducción al español sería bestial