Debating Tony Blair on faith

November 30, 2010

By Christopher Hitchens

"I am sometimes asked whether I ever get tired of debating the faithful. There are two reasons why I never do. The first is that this argument is at the root of all other arguments: constituting the essential underlay of differences about philosophy, cosmology, history, textual criticism and even medicine. The second is that I never know what my antagonist is going to say, or affirm, or claim to believe."
Read More (Washington Post)

Blair's thoughts about the event.

57 comments:

FGFM said...

"Christopher Hitchens is someone of huge integrity"

BLIAR!

James said...

Decent menstruation.

...bah. I thought I'd give the flippant internet smartpants thing a try, but it's only moderately more clever than when you do it. Sincerely, everyone gets it - you don't like Hitchens.

FGFM said...

Sincerely, everyone gets it - you don't like Hitchens.

Decent social psychologist.

Anonymous said...

It's rather more psychotically florid than simply disliking Hitchens. FGFM has been stalking Hitchens, and recently Hitchens' young daughter, online for several years now with an unflagging witless intensity. He, like all the weird people at HitchensWatch (Trutherisms and antisemitism are merely the foundations on which their towering stupidities are built), are to be laughed at and mocked, impervious to reason, wit, and the ironical as they so stolidly are.

FGFM said...

Stalking now defined as reading stuff posted on the Internet!

John said...

No, dummy. The stalking bit is the relentless focus which you bring to the task not of reading Hitchens' work, but of calling attention to the deatils of his personal life. Your gleeful and successful search for marginal photos of his young daughter is but the most explicit and distasteful example of your stalking.

FGFM said...

The stalking bit is the relentless focus which you bring to the task not of reading Hitchens' work, but of calling attention to the deatils [sic] of his personal life.

Hitchens is the guy who brags about being in the telephone book.

"Your gleeful and successful search for marginal photos of his young daughter is but the most explicit and distasteful example of your stalking."

His daughter is old enough to vote.

John said...

Neither of thoe points is much of a defense.

1) If he was unlisted, scouring the internet for scraps of information about his personal life would be out of bounds? But since he, as you say, "brags" about being in the phone book cyberstalking is OK? Seems to me a listed phone number is an open invitation to give him a ring, but that's it.

2) If the young lady has in fact reached voting age, I must concede that you refrained from stalking a child. Good for you, creep.

James said...

Yeah, the daughter thing sounds a bit stalkerish, but it's no less weird and pathological than repeatedly posting bitchy little attacks at Hitchens in these comment sections.

It seems desperate and puerile to indulge a need for attention so churlishly.

FGFM said...

Yeah, the daughter thing sounds a bit stalkerish, but it's no less weird and pathological than repeatedly posting bitchy little attacks at Hitchens in these comment sections.

Internet psychiatrist.

It seems desperate and puerile to indulge a need for attention so churlishly.

Kinda like people who are compelled to defend Christopher Hitchens.

FGFM said...

Seems to me a listed phone number is an open invitation to give him a ring, but that's it.

You'll be pleased to know that I've never attempted to contact Hitchens.

If the young lady has in fact reached voting age, I must concede that you refrained from stalking a child.

I never stalked her, but your Decent outrage is quite amusing!

FGFM said...

And his daughter!

John said...

I am pleased to know that you've never tried to call him. It confirms my suspicion that your are a preposterous coward.

Anonymous said...

Getting back to content, here's the comment I left on the WP page...

The core argument here never gets its tits out. The modern world adopted a stance toward the symbolic nature of inner experience based on the observations of schizoid pathologies and malformations, not based on the symbol's clear heuristic functionality as an essential vector for the conveyance of complete human experience.

Religions, like mythology, art, and dreams, are not literal indicators, tho the simple cherish them thusly. These earth-bound yet non-local quanta rising from mitochondrial sourceground reflect the mixed meanings from which mortal life is hewn and hammered.

If this campaign to remind everyone of the historic and widespread criminal record of the church or its satellite zealots were enough to deface the sanctimony of the pious, the raving or the slavish, much horror in the world, religious and secular, could be averted. But we know even this shame is not enough. We must deconstruct the approach to religion for what it is, a displaced psychological function that cannot be repressed, it can only be understood.

James said...

Kinda like people who are compelled to defend Christopher Hitchens.

Half-assed "I know you are, but what am I?"

FGFM said...

I am pleased to know that you've never tried to call him. It confirms my suspicion that your [sic] are a preposterous coward.

Hardly, but it would be pointless to contact him in any event.

FGFM said...

These earth-bound yet non-local quanta rising from mitochondrial sourceground reflect the mixed meanings from which mortal life is hewn and hammered.

Sounds like a load of crap to me!

FGFM said...

Half-assed "I know you are, but what am I?"

So, how long have you been a balding dork?

John said...

Why would it be pointless to contact him? How do you know if you haven't tried?

Not that I'm ecouraging you. But you have justified your cyberstalking of Hitchens on the grounds that Hitchens "brags" about having a listed phone number. Yet, you've never once tried to contact him- on the grounds that it would be pointless to do so.

So, you disagree with Hitchens enough to scour the internet for details of his personal life, with special attention to his barely legal daughter. You then republish this information in a manner calculated to portray him in a negative light. But you will not bother to call him, to challenge him directly, to give him a piece of your mind and perhaps be challenged yourself. Cowardice is the unavoidable conclusion, creep.

James said...

So, how long have you been a balding dork?

Not as long as you've been a mean-spirited hypocritical blowhard with a gratingly oblivious disregard for nuanced arguments and and overblown sense of your own place in the IQ chain.

michelle said...

hey dickwad. trot out your senile commentary for the sake of retard entertainment, sure. just don't presume to debate your betters, people who actually cultivate more than a soundbyte's worth of common knowledge. the fact that you're ignorant of any expertise, content, or insight beyond the worst of pop culture and low-brow dyspepsia is the stink that clears any room in your wake.

fuck off, you excuse for dandruff...

Anonymous said...

He welcomes your hatred, and cooks for one.

FGFM said...

Indeed!

Anonymous said...

Decent troll!

FGFM said...

just don't presume to debate your betters, people who actually cultivate more than a soundbyte's worth of common knowledge.

That bullshit you posted made no sense and looked like it was at least partially computer generated.

The fact that you're ignorant of any expertise, content, or insight beyond the worst of pop culture and low-brow dyspepsia is the stink that clears any room in your wake.

What's the second derivative of a parabola?

Anonymous said...

Decent wall of text!

James said...

The angry man provokes his internet foes, and celebrates their rage. How it thrills him! His existence is confirmed and validated, and for a moment he forgets his impending fate: to die, confused, alone and unloved, having never touched the naked breast of a willing female.

Unless, of course, that Hank Hill voice just drives the hometown girls crazy.

FGFM said...

Mitochondrial sourceground!

FGFM said...

His existence is confirmed and validated, and for a moment he forgets his impending fate: to die, confused, alone and unloved, having never touched the naked breast of a willing female.

I'll have you know that I paid that woman good money!

Anonymous said...

Whatever whateveround!

FGFM said...

You wrote a letter!

michelle said...

if you don't get that your thoughts, feelings, internal experiences etc are a product of tissue systems in the body and not exclusive activities of the brain, you need to dump your macho calculus texts and get down with some basic life sciences.

mitochondrial sourceground!

FGFM said...

you need to dump your macho calculus texts and get down with some basic life sciences.

Tell it to Daniel Dennett.

FGFM said...

But you will not bother to call him, to challenge him directly, to give him a piece of your mind and perhaps be challenged yourself.

Hitchens knows where to find me. On the Internet!

FGFM said...

and [sic] overblown sense of your own place in the IQ chain.

My place in the "IQ chain" would be the 99th percentile, as confirmed by numerous standardized tests.

James said...

Sic, Benighted Uses: Some writers use sic meanly - with a false sense of superiority. Its use may frequently reveal more about the quoter than about the author of the quoted material. -- Bryan A. Garner, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage

FGFM said...

Decent dictionarian!

James said...

Decent meaningless retort from an internet chest beater.

Anonymous said...

If you are in the 99th IQ percentile, why do you make youtube videos of your toes and your hot dogs? Retards do stuff like that.

FGFM said...

If you are in the 99th IQ percentile, why do you make youtube [sic] videos of your toes and your hot dogs?

Why not?

Retards do stuff like that.

Seems unlikely.

FGFM said...

Decent meaningless retort from an internet [sic] chest beater.

If you say so, baldy.

James said...

If you say so, baldy

I do, Hank. I do.

FGFM said...

Chinaski!

James said...

Haha, no, most definitely Hill, though your voice does sound like Micky Rourke's face looks.

FGFM said...

Haha, no, most definitely Hill, though your voice does sound like Micky [sic] Rourke's face looks.

Decent Bukowski fan.

Anonymous said...

Decent troll.

jk garbage.

FGFM said...

Is Hitchens dead yet?

Anonymous said...

still garbage silly Sally.

FGFM said...

Allahu Akbar!

Anonymous said...

I missed all the fun!

FGFM making another strong case for institutionalisation again, I see. He's terribly smart, he'll have you know - he just acts stupids.

Hank Hill is pretty good. Personally, though, I always thought it was somewhere between Slingblade and Buffalo Bill.

And on the bald jibes, I have it on good authority that FGFM is, in fact, a ginger.

He is an absolute lunatic, as is readily apparent to everyone who isn't a Truther/antisemite/Mexican-basher/Dim-anarchist.

HJ said...

Mark G shows how not to stalk:

http://christopherhitchenswatch.blogspot.com/2008/10/hitchens-and-me-at-martins-tavern.html

Apparently Hitchens was just having a drink in a bar and then Mark G came into the bar! Ad then he wanted pitcures no commentry on the blogpost!

Bwahaha!

Click my name to see the stalking in action!

Bwahahahahaha!

HJ said...

By the way thanks again to Tom for the links. This is a very useful site and I come here most days.

Keep up the good work!!

FGFM said...

He's terribly smart, he'll have you know - he just acts stupids. [sic]

You tell 'em, Frenchy!

Max said...

Hi guys,

The entire debate is available on DailyMotion. See here:

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/hitchens+blair#hp-h-9

Cheers!

James said...

Hank Hill is pretty good. Personally, though, I always thought it was somewhere between Slingblade and Buffalo Bill.

It kicks the Hitchens in his shins, or it gets the hose again!

FGFM said...

Baldy!

madamespite said...

re: “What Blair should have said to Hitchens” some response to published opinion in the National Post by Father Raymond J. de Souza

http://madamespite.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/hello-world/

 
 
 

Christopher reads from Hitch-22: A Memoir