Christopher's Hitchin's On The Trip To Heaven

The Intelligence² Debate - Christopher Hitchens (Unedited)
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Stephen Fry Brings The Good News (A Way Out)

The Intelligence² Debate - Stephen Fry (Unedited)
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Belief: You Sure Got A Hitch In Your Get-Along

Americans might think we should be proud to allow Christopher Hitchens to speak like this, but I disagree: this is the way it ought to be. Normal discourse. How ideas are weighed - with none being sacred.



There are so many things in the normal day-to-day that, unless you're on stage or television, can't seriously be talked about - much less disagreed with. Now'a'days an average conversation on the street can be fraught with danger. (Try talking to a fan of Oprah.) It's amazing how many believers (in whatever) will seek revenge for the blasphemy of hearing someone thinks they're wrong.

And it's my experience that lying, to get that revenge, is no hinderance to their actions.



That universal defense (which easily connects Osama bin Laden with the average NewAge environmentalist) is almost as amazing as the outlandish beliefs themselves, but of course, not quite. It's one thing to know that someone is out to get you. It's quite another to know they're out to get you because you don't think they can shoot invisible fire out of their fingers, or crystals have healing power, or water is medicine, or Buddha showed the way, or the planet is 3,000 (or however many) years old, or that Jesus is coming back to save some people and not others, or Allah knows everything, or you better recycle. This - even more than politics - is what we fight about.

Or don't. But it's still there.



So no, my fellow Americans, I don't think there's anything extraordinary about Christopher Hitchens being able to say the things he's said, here, over the years.

What's extraordinary is, in the year 2010 - in what the rest of the planet refers to as "The New World" - it's necessary that he's had to argue against these dangerously silly ideas at all.

Jesus Be Lovin' All The Little Chillin'

"A serial child-rapist, cult-leader and secretly married confidant of John Paul II and Benedict XVI is finally disowned by his own cult. John Paul II called this multiple child-rapist 'an efficacious guide to youth'. Of course, he was never subjected to any criminal sanctions, was protected by Woytila and Ratzinger for years, even as they knew full well what was going on, and the euphemized statement just released is what the Catholic hierarchy believes is contrition. In 2006, the Vatican decided not even to subject him to canonical hearing because of his advanced age. So if you live long enough, and bring enough cash into the church, you can be allowed to molest countless children and your only punishment is an invitation to spend the rest of your life, supported by the church, in 'prayer and penance, renouncing to any public ministry'.

The person who approved of this non-punishment is now the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the American Cardinal Levada. Punishing Maciel for decades of child-rape with a paid retirement and invitation to prayer was also approved directly by Pope Benedict XVI.

But it is important to remember that this child-rapist was also defended openly and strongly by several leading American theoconservatives. Richard John Neuhaus wrote he knew Maciel's innocence as a matter of 'moral certainty.'

I am unaware of any public accountability for these intellectuals' defense of a figure whose crimes were so great and so clear and so vile that he rightly qualifies as a monstrous hypocrite, child-rapist and cultist. If I had vouched for this man's innocence, I would feel a public responsibility to apologize and explain."

-- Andrew Sullivan, saying something sane for a change - Sullivan's a pretty nutty NewAger himself - but even a fruitcake speaking up is nice to see, in The Atlantic.

Christopher Hitchens: All Religious Groups Need Watching (You Can't Turn Your Back On Them)

Did you guys catch that? All Religious Groups Need Watching - to which I'll add: even NewAge. Look at what a warning shot, over other people's lives, a sorry little website called "Being Is Free" was. Think about how those words, now that you've read how Rielle Hunter's processing them, can be twisted to such cynical ends - and caused so much emotionally catastrophic destruction - which she considers some kind of growth. I've mentioned my distaste for Oprah's mantra to "make your own truth", and Rielle Hunter is another perfect example of why I feel that way. And yet we encourage it, and our "growth" is here for all to see, but we continue to encourage it,...and, I guess, so on.

Taken together, it swallows our lives.

Bow Your Heads (And We'll All Come To Jesus)

"Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.

The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal."

-- Laurie Goodstein, showing Catholics and NewAgers have two things in common now - deliberate child abuse and a bizarre fixation on putting appearances over ethics - as they prey, and prey, and prey, for (what can only be called in the church) The New York Times.

I swear, I can't make this shit up,...methinks it's time to tear it down, kids.

"Deaf boys"?

It's over.

First Was Valkyrie And Now This - We Don't Like This "Spiritual" Stuff: Damn You, Ratzinger!!!

"The pope has made a serious mistake. That he is a German pope makes the matter especially bad. Pope Benedict XVI is inflicting great damage on Germany,...The pope must correct his mistake, reverse his decision and excuse himself."

-- Bild Magazine, on the rehabilitation of a Catholic bishop loopy enough to deny the Holocaust, according to Reuters.

Religion, Politics, Spirituality And Medicine: In The NewAge Everybody's On The Same Page!!!

"Pope Bendict XVI is launching new guidelines for those who claim the Virgin Mary has appeared to them, in an attempt to end bogus sightings around the globe, the U.K.'s Daily Mail newspaper reported Tuesday.

In his own 'holy war,' the pontiff will publish criteria to help bishops determine which 'visions' are true and which are false. In some cases, the Mail reported, exorcists will be used to determine the validity of a statement."

-- FOX News

"Protecting the country from non-existent threats while exposing it to real ones is likely to define the incoming administration."

-- George Neumayr, on Secretary of State-elect Hillary Clinton's Senate testimony - that she will fight the "unambiguous security threat" of global warming - in The American Spectator.

"This is noble-sounding stuff, but there’s nothing behind it."

-- Derek Lowe, describing NewAge medicine and belief, that's In The Pipeline.

Such "Spiritual" Acts Sound Satanic Slowed Down

The Sad New School Of "Ancient Teachings"

"What’s needed is something like a ‘human ecology,’ understood in the right sense. It’s not simply an outdated metaphysics if the Church speaks,..."

-- Pope Benedict, equating homosexuality (which isn't a NewAge hoax) to climate change (which is) and, thus, proving - whether it's from the NewAge or the church - "outdated metaphysics" is exactly what we're dealing with, in The Times Online.

This Is Your Last Warning: REPENT!!!!

"Pope Benedict XVI condemned unbridled "pagan" passion for power, possessions and money as a modern-day plague on Saturday, as he led more than a quarter million Catholics at an outdoor Mass in Paris.

Benedict was making his first visit as pontiff to the French capital, renowned for its luxury goods, fashion sense and cultural riches.

"Has not our modern world created its own idols?" Benedict said in his homily, and wondered aloud whether people have "imitated, perhaps inadvertently, the pagans of antiquity?"

"This is a question that all people, if they are honest with themselves, cannot help but ask," the pontiff said. "

-- Jenny Barchfield, Associated Press writer, on the pope's anti-NewAge crusade, for Breitbart.

Yea, unfortunately, Pagans aren't exactly known for being "honest with themselves",...or anyone else for that matter.

Yada, Yada, Yada

“It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen. As I read the histories of those victims it is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way. Their mission was to give healing, to give the love of God to these children. We are deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible that this cannot happen in the future. I would not speak at this moment about homosexuality, but pedophilia which is another thing. And we would absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry. Who is guilty of pedophilia cannot be a priest.”

-- Pope Benedict XVI, claiming to be shocked - shocked! - at the (now common) mixture of religion and sexual deviance.