Trump Rallies & Interviews Catch-All | Trump - “just stop talking about that”

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superrific said:
I really don't respect Hitchens and I've never really understood why he gets such veneration. I think it's because he did lots of TV, and it's easy to look like a genius when you're debating Sean Hannity or whoever.
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I've read most of his books and a great many of his articles and longer essays. Most of his TV appearances were longform discussions (and therefor not seen by many people at all), e.g., with Brian Lamb on CSPAN, or at book fairs and the like, covering a wide range of topics. In contrast, I think he was on Hannity twice, so maybe a grand total of 8 minutes speaking time. He seems to have been held in fairly high regard by a good number of folks that I hold in high regard (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Salman Rushdie, Matin Amis - it's a long list). You may not respect him, but if you're basing it on the two times he was on Hannity, there's plenty of his material out there that would give a fuller picture.

I know many on the left felt betrayed and never forgave him for his stance on Iraq, but even that was approached from a leftist position, i.e., the US had played a large role in setting up Saddam Hussein and keeping him in power, so we owed it to the Iraqis to help get rid of him - some may not (and didn't) buy that as a justification, but I think Hitchens was sincere in his motivations in this regard; certainly he wasn't coming from some neocon empire building position (or whatever the neocon position was) or anything of the sort. He probably regarded them more in an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" kind of way. And he was a steadfast champion of the Kurds.

I'm sure some (many?) people found him cocksure, pompous and maybe even aggressive (George Galloway described him as a drink-sodden former Trotskyite popinjay) , and maybe he came across that way in the many debates he partook in (when I say debates, I don't mean a 10 minute clip on Hannity, I mean real debates with real opposition (see: Galloway, above) where everyone was given equal time), but I certainly regard him as one of the top handful of public intellectuals in my lifetime. He was a pretty insightful literary critic too...
 
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hedge said:
I've read most of his books and a great many of his articles. Most of his TV appearances were longform discussions, e.g., with Brian Lamb on CSPAN, or at book fairs and the like. In contrast, I think he was on Hannity twice, so maybe a grand total of 8 minutes speaking time. He seems to have been held in fairly high regard by a good number of folks that I hold in high regard (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Salman Rushdie, Matin Amis - it's a long list). You may not respect him, but if you're basing it on the two times he was on Hannity, there's plenty of his material out there that would give a fuller picture.

I know many on the left felt betrayed and never forgave him for his stance on Iraq, but even that was approached from a leftist position, i.e., the US had played a large role in setting up Saddam Hussein and keeping him in power, so we owed it to the Iraqis to help get rid of him - some may not (and didn't) buy that as a justification, but I think Hitchens was sincere in his motivations in this regard; certainly he was coming from an empire building position. And he was a steadfast champion of the Kurds.

I'm sure some (many?) people found him cocksure, preening and maybe even aggressive, and maybe he came across that way in the many debates he partook in (when I say debates, I don't mean a 10 minute clip on Hannity, I mean real debates with real opposition where everyone was given equal time), but I certainly regard him as one of the top handful of public intellectuals in my lifetime. He was a pretty insightful literary critic too...
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I'm not judging him based on his appearance on Hannity. I'm judging him based on his fallacies, like the one you cited. And also his nonsense about Gandhi, sadly shared with a generation of British socialists who couldn't get over the fact that the small, religious man in homespun garments accomplished far, far more than any of their heroes ever did.
 
superrific said:
I'm not judging him based on his appearance on Hannity. I'm judging him based on his fallacies, like the one you cited. And also his nonsense about Gandhi, sadly shared with a generation of British socialists who couldn't get over the fact that the small, religious man in homespun garments accomplished far, far more than any of their heroes ever did.
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Well, you're the one who chose to cite his appearance on Hannity ("or whoever") as evidence that he was a lightweight. And who do you think Hitchens' heroes were? George Orwell was certainly at the top of the list. Maybe Orwell didn't accomplish as much as Gandhi, but who did? He wasn't a big fan (to say the least) of Mother Theresa, either, which naturally got a lot of noses bent out of shape. I suspect his issues with Gandhi, whatever they may have been, were probably along those same lines. Also, what were his other "fallacies?" I cited that one challenge (as he called it) as a direct response to a sentence about killing infidels, b/c it was apt and, in that case, true. As far as I know, that was the only such "challenge" he ever constructed, fallacious or otherwise...
 
hedge said:
Well, you're the one who chose to cite his appearance on Hannity ("or whoever") as evidence that he was a lightweight. And who do you think Hitchens' heroes were? George Orwell was certainly at the top of the list. Maybe Orwell didn't accomplish as much as Gandhi, but who did? He wasn't a big fan (to say the least) of Mother Theresa, either, which naturally got a lot of noses bent out of shape. I suspect his issues with Gandhi, whatever they may have been, were probably along those same lines. Also, what were his other "fallacies?" I cited that one challenge (as he called it) as a direct response to a sentence about killing infidels, b/c it was apt and, in that case, true. As far as I know, that was the only such "challenge" he ever constructed, fallacious or otherwise...
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Go back and read my post. I cited his appearance on Hannity to explain his popularity. As for Gandhi, you might have noticed that my comment there was directed at a generation of British socialists (or, in Orwell's case, what we would now call "progressive"). And Orwell was no fan of Gandhi. I don't remember if it was Orwell or a contemporary who said that Gandhi's non-violence basically worked only in India and would work nowhere else, and thus set the stage for more sniveling from Brits about MLK -- though they were more circumspect about it. I don't remember the names any more. This was stuff I studied two decades ago or more.

Nor do I remember Hitchens' fallacies in their specifics at the moment. Again, I haven't thought about him too much in a long while. If you want to start a thread about him, please do.

Can we at least agree that the bit you posted was indeed a fallacy?
 
No, I don't agree. He wasn't "defining ethics in a secular way, consistent with non-belief." He was merely saying that there is no religion-based ethical statement or action that couldn't also be said or done by a non-religious person, which is true, at least as far as non-trivial rebuttals go, i.e., a non-religious person couldn't sincerely take communion, although I'm not sure that really qualifies as an ethical action. His obvious point is that there needn't be a supernatural (religious) underpinning or justification for ethical positions and actions...
 
hedge said:
I don't think that's quite right. I don't think it's anything bad done is attributed solely or predominately to religion, just that there are some bad things that are done that can only be attributed to religion. Conversely, any of the good things done that are attributed solely to religion can be (and have always been and always will be) done by non-religious people. I think what he's saying basically boils down to: most people do good things regardless of their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) but there are some bad things that hardly anybody would do except for their belief that their religion authorizes and even demands it, e.g., killing the "infidels." Certainly people would do bad things without religion, but certain things are manifestly ordained by religion and indeed are characterized as righteous acts for which the perpetrator will receive an eternal reward...
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I think the logical inconsistency Hitchens uses continues into this explanation.

It is an assumption that most folks who do good things due to religious beliefs would do those things anyway and that without religious beliefs there are a significant number of bad things that wouldn't occur.

My response is that we have no way to know that and making the claim is more of an insight into Hitchens' mind than anything about the rest of humanity.

For instance, the bad of "killing the infidels". In a whole lot of cases, "the infidels" are those of different cultures (greater than religious) or social status (outside of religion). We know that humans will create in-groups and out-groups for a whole lot of reasons, including religion, and often what is adopted as a "religious" difference is really a cultural/social status/societal difference which gets framed in religious terms by those who are religious adherents. But those cultural/social status/societal differences would still exist absent religion and I would imagine that there would be a small minority (as with religious extremists) who would want to injure or kill those in outside their own groups even if religion didn't exist to provide a specific justification. But, of course, that is unknowable and my hunch is no more or less a guess than is Hitchens' assumption that those things wouldn't happen if not for religion.

I would say the same is true regarding many of the good things that are done in the name of religion, that absent the existence of religion a whole of humans would still do good things for others but merely with a different justification. Again, though, there is no way to know the answer to that question.
 
superrific said:
This is sophistry, like so much of what I've seen from Hitchens. It's perfectly circular, because he's defining "ethics" in a secular way consistent with non-belief.

For instance, the statement that "nobody should be allowed to flaunt their homosexuality in public" is seen by believers as an ethical statement. They believe it is bad for sinful behavior to be celebrated in public. Hitchens, presumably, would deny that statement is ethical, which is just begging the question. Obviously if you judge moral code A by the standards of moral code B, A will include some moral claims that B will think wrong. B will never contain such moral claims, since we're judging morality according to B.

I really don't respect Hitchens and I've never really understood why he gets such veneration. I think it's because he did lots of TV, and it's easy to look like a genius when you're debating Sean Hannity or whoever.
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Unusually superficial and incurious response from you.
 
SnoopRob said:
It is an assumption that most folks who do good things due to religious beliefs would do those things anyway and that without religious beliefs there are a significant number of bad things that wouldn't occur.

My response is that we have no way to know that and making the claim is more of an insight into Hitchens' mind than anything about the rest of humanity.

For instance, the bad of "killing the infidels". In a whole lot of cases, "the infidels" are those of different cultures (greater than religious) or social status (outside of religion). We know that humans will create in-groups and out-groups for a whole lot of reasons, including religion, and often what is adopted as a "religious" difference is really a cultural/social status/societal difference which gets framed in religious terms by those who are religious adherents. But those cultural/social status/societal differences would still exist absent religion and I would imagine that there would be a small minority (as with religious extremists) who would want to injure or kill those in outside their own groups even if religion didn't exist to provide a specific justification. But, of course, that is unknowable and my hunch is no more or less a guess than is Hitchens' assumption that those things wouldn't happen if not for religion.

I would say the same is true regarding many of the good things that are done in the name of religion, that absent the existence of religion a whole of humans would still do good things for others but merely with a different justification. Again, though, there is no way to know the answer to that question.
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You misunderstand I think. Its a challenge specifically against those that would claim that "morality" comes from religion. His point is that there is no moral action you can name that a non-believer couldn't also do/justify. As a consequence, that means religion doesn't "add" any novel moral actions on its own and therefore certainly can't claim to be the foundation of all morality. You simply don't need it. There is nothing special about religious morality that makes it superior than a secular foundation. And as a further demonstration of its expendability is the fact that countless immoral actions are taken IN THE NAME of religion only.

Its not an attempt to count up the good and bad things done with religion and compare them with a hypothetical alternate secular reality and count the score.
 
Kraftyheel89 said:
Trump was also all fired up about McDonalds again yesterday. He said Kamala never worked there, she made it all up, there's no proof and she never listed it anywhere.

He said maybe he will go work at McDonalds, standing over the fries station. Said he would love it.

Kamala really pissed him off talking about his favorite restaurant and once being employed there.
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It's so funny how calling him a felon, a crook, a narcissist, or a liar don't seem to bother him. BUT, call him weird, say his rallies are small, or talk about his favorite restaurant and those things seem to really bother him.
 
Milk and Cookies said:
You misunderstand I think. Its a challenge specifically against those that would claim that "morality" comes from religion. His point is that there is no moral action you can name that a non-believer couldn't also do/justify. As a consequence, that means religion doesn't "add" any novel moral actions on its own and therefore certainly can't claim to be the foundation of all morality. You simply don't need it. There is nothing special about religious morality that makes it superior than a secular foundation. And as a further demonstration of its expendability is the fact that countless immoral actions are taken IN THE NAME of religion only.

Its not an attempt to count up the good and bad things done with religion and compare them with a hypothetical alternate secular reality and count the score.
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If that is the context for that quote, then I did misunderstand the meaning.

I would agree that, assuming that no specific religious belief is accurate, there are no novel moral actions based solely in religion.
 
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