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Tex · 04-10-2009, 08:15 PM

Driving around during lunch, I caught part of a Michael Medved interview with Christopher Hitchens, discussing his new book God is Not Great. Medved is Jewish and Hitchens is of course, an atheist, and like him or hate him, he's usually pretty interesting to listen to.

The part I caught revolved around Hitchens' proposition that most religious people don't actually believe in God. Medved pressed him on this point, and to illustrate, Hitchens brought up child-molesting Catholic priests. Here we have this "holy" men, said he, who are handling the very transubstansive tokens of the Savior's flesh and blood, who in their free time are violating little children. These are the very children about whom the Bible quotes Jesus as saying it were better violaters were drowned, tethered to a millstone.

Thus, says Hitchens, either these priests have an overwhelming desire to go to hell, or they simply don't believe what they say they believe. Medved responsed with another "OR" ... that maybe they just can't control themselves.

It brought me back to a reason people gave me for normalizing homosexuality ... "who would choose such a life?" they said. I argued that humans are not wholly rational beings. Sometimes we simply don't behave in logical ways.

This is not really a thread about Catholic sex abuse or homosexuality. I'm just fascinated that Hitchens--who I regard as an extraordinarily bright guy--based such a bold assertion on such flimsy grounds. Surely he must not believe we all behave rationally all the time. If we did, the religious man would not ever sin--the prospect of losing his eternal reward would be too great.

04-10-2009, 08:15 PM	#1
Tex Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 8,596	We are not always rational beings Driving around during lunch, I caught part of a Michael Medved interview with Christopher Hitchens, discussing his new book God is Not Great. Medved is Jewish and Hitchens is of course, an atheist, and like him or hate him, he's usually pretty interesting to listen to. The part I caught revolved around Hitchens' proposition that most religious people don't actually believe in God. Medved pressed him on this point, and to illustrate, Hitchens brought up child-molesting Catholic priests. Here we have this "holy" men, said he, who are handling the very transubstansive tokens of the Savior's flesh and blood, who in their free time are violating little children. These are the very children about whom the Bible quotes Jesus as saying it were better violaters were drowned, tethered to a millstone. Thus, says Hitchens, either these priests have an overwhelming desire to go to hell, or they simply don't believe what they say they believe. Medved responsed with another "OR" ... that maybe they just can't control themselves. It brought me back to a reason people gave me for normalizing homosexuality ... "who would choose such a life?" they said. I argued that humans are not wholly rational beings. Sometimes we simply don't behave in logical ways. This is not really a thread about Catholic sex abuse or homosexuality. I'm just fascinated that Hitchens--who I regard as an extraordinarily bright guy--based such a bold assertion on such flimsy grounds. Surely he must not believe we all behave rationally all the time. If we did, the religious man would not ever sin--the prospect of losing his eternal reward would be too great. __________________ "Have we been commanded not to call a prophet an insular racist? Link?" "And yes, [2010] is a very good year to be a Democrat. Perhaps the best year in decades ..." - Cali Coug "Oh dear, granny, what a long tail our puss has got." - Brigham Young Last edited by Tex; 04-10-2009 at 08:17 PM.