Hitchens curbstomps Friel
Posted by Mike on 12/04/2009
I’m not a huge fan of Christopher Hitchens, generally; he’s arrogant, boorish and often far too pleased with himself. I get enough of that looking in the mirror to want to spend my free time on someone else doing it. There’s also his lurch to the political right in recent years; he’s probably centre-right more than right, to be honest, but he’s still to the right of me, which makes his politics occasionally distasteful. Something I saw this morning, though, has utterly redeemed him in my eyes, at least for now. This comes courtesy of the righteous PZ; cheers, Professor!
Hitch was invited onto an execrable radio show hosted by a class-A douchebag named Todd Friel; the show is, appropriately enough, called Wretched Radio, and was a replacement for Way of The Master Radio. The Way of the Master, in case you’ve been lucky enough never to have heard of it, is the evangelism program created and headed by Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. Yes, Ray “Bananas prove God” Comfort; the same Ray Comfort whose understanding of science and logic is so miniscule because he thinks faith can fill in where he doesn’t get it; the same Ray Comfort who blamed poor sales of his book on an Atheist conspiracy.
Anyway. Comfort’s douchenozzle status aside, we can see that Todd Friel is pushing an agenda from the outset; he’s trying to get the famous Atheist to read from his script and “admit” that under circumstance A, he would think B, etc, and then OMG! Teh Hitch haz teh god-beliefness!!11One! Basically, he’s out for a propaganda coup to wave at believers and use as a weapon against Atheists.
And this is where my new respect for the Hitch comes into play. He refuses to follow the script, he sabotages the process at every turn using good old fashioned logic and Enlightenment values.
I won’t describe it any further: just listen to the clips.
Gary Murning said
Hitchens at his best
Thanks for posting this, mate. Totally slipped under my radar — as has far too many things just recently.
This is a perfect example of what I admire most about Hitch. Like you, I have issues with his politics, but his grasp of all things theological — and the way in which he applies them — is truly inspiring.
Off to kick a vicar. See you later!
Mike said
Now, if you were as obsessive about checking Pharyngula as me, you’d have seen it earlier
Lottie said
Hitchens is arrogant, but nothing compares to the arrogance of the Christian god.
Thanks for posting this.
Gary Murning said
I usually check Pharyngula every day but everything has slipped just lately — or everything that isn’t writing-related!
Contract signed, now, though, so might be able to get back into my feed routine… or am I fooling myself?
graemebird said
Mike you first class moron. You must be the fellow whose going to outline this alternative history where the bureaucratisation of DDT didn’t murder tens of millions of black kids.
I don’t think you ought to be making judgements on history unless you can get that right. Face it. You are a third-rate nutjob.
Mike Sez: You’re not coming across as any smarter over here than you were at the Bathtub, you know. Puking lies across the page only serves to make you look silly and impotent. Go back to bothering someone who’s got the patience to deal with you and the facts to give you the spanking you so richly deserve, you third rate hack.
Andrew said
Ray Comfort has a hilarious notpology for the banana argument up on YouTube as part of his campaign to goad Richard Dawkins into a debate. If you’ll forgive the plug, I talk about this a little bit on my blog.
Mike said
I think the response that RD offers to
CretinsCreationists (sorry, they’re only a few letters apart, after all!) is itself rather devastating – he basically says he doesn’t consider it anything more than a PR exercise for them, and that he won’t give them the “oxygen of respectability”. Ouch.Thanks for the link!