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	<title>Comments on: CliffsNotes: the Post-Show Hitchens Comment Thread</title>
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	<description>Christopher Lydon in conversation on arts, ideas and politics</description>
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		<title>By: What Radio Open Source Should Do &#171; Disparate</title>
		<link>http://www.radioopensource.org/cliffsnotes-the-post-show-hitchens-comment-thread/#comment-89791</link>
		<dc:creator>What Radio Open Source Should Do &#171; Disparate</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:49:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=1089#comment-89791</guid>
		<description>[...] commentator on the show&#8217;s entries has interesting things to say and the comments are sometimes more insightful than the show itself. Yet, as contrad [...]</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>[...] commentator on the show&#8217;s entries has interesting things to say and the comments are sometimes more insightful than the show itself. Yet, as contrad [...]</p>
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		<title>By: olivermsun</title>
		<link>http://www.radioopensource.org/cliffsnotes-the-post-show-hitchens-comment-thread/#comment-89790</link>
		<dc:creator>olivermsun</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:31:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=1089#comment-89790</guid>
		<description>What&#039;s the point of atheism when one merely aims to replace the tyranny of God with the bullying of an admittedly clever man?</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>What&#8217;s the point of atheism when one merely aims to replace the tyranny of God with the bullying of an admittedly clever man?</p>
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		<title>By: wowpowerleveling</title>
		<link>http://www.radioopensource.org/cliffsnotes-the-post-show-hitchens-comment-thread/#comment-89789</link>
		<dc:creator>wowpowerleveling</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:40:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=1089#comment-89789</guid>
		<description>I finally listened to the Hitchens show and found it enlightening in a surprising way....lol,me to</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I finally listened to the Hitchens show and found it enlightening in a surprising way&#8230;.lol,me to</p>
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		<title>By: wowpowerleveling</title>
		<link>http://www.radioopensource.org/cliffsnotes-the-post-show-hitchens-comment-thread/#comment-89788</link>
		<dc:creator>wowpowerleveling</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:40:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=1089#comment-89788</guid>
		<description>World of Warcraft Powerleveling is our primary service, and is on sale now for a limited time! You can purchase our service at a much lower price than any of our competitors. We don&#039;t use any Bots or Macros

  to powerlevel your character.All of our employees are skilled World of Warcraft players, who personally powerlevel your character, to provide even more safety to your account. As we know, When you first start

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  one of our World Of Warcraft powerlevelers work for you as a full- time job other than part-time. We will complete the wow power leveling in a very short time, and you can play the character at your desired level. During the progress of World of Warcraft powerleveling, you can get all information about your World of Warcraft powerleveling status anytime.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>World of Warcraft Powerleveling is our primary service, and is on sale now for a limited time! You can purchase our service at a much lower price than any of our competitors. We don&#8217;t use any Bots or Macros</p>
<p>  to powerlevel your character.All of our employees are skilled World of Warcraft players, who personally powerlevel your character, to provide even more safety to your account. As we know, When you first start</p>
<p>  a game of World of Warcraft, you will be taken to your race&#8217;s starting area. All the races except trolls and gnomes begin in a unique location.So it takes a long time to powerlevel a powerful character for many players, for the player&#8217;s energy and time are limited. So please let us do this task for you,</p>
<p>  <a  href="http://www.powerleveling-wow-powerleveling.com/index.html" rel="nofollow">WoW Powerleveling</a>  <a  href="http:/www.powerleveling-wow-powerleveling.com/index.html" rel="nofollow">WoW Power leveling</a> <a  href="http:/www.powerleveling-wow-powerleveling.com/index.html" rel="nofollow">WoW Power level</a></p>
<p>  one of our World Of Warcraft powerlevelers work for you as a full- time job other than part-time. We will complete the wow power leveling in a very short time, and you can play the character at your desired level. During the progress of World of Warcraft powerleveling, you can get all information about your World of Warcraft powerleveling status anytime.</p>
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		<title>By: SourcePatchKidd</title>
		<link>http://www.radioopensource.org/cliffsnotes-the-post-show-hitchens-comment-thread/#comment-89787</link>
		<dc:creator>SourcePatchKidd</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Jun 2007 01:30:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=1089#comment-89787</guid>
		<description>Christopher Hitchens&#039;s abrasive, arrogant, condescending remarks left me with the impression that his only true aim is to better establish himself among the ranks of other &#039;squeaky wheel&#039; social commentary demogogues such as Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.  Their collective aim isn&#039;t to enter truly meaningful discourse into the public arena; it&#039;s only to stridently appeal to the prejudices of one group while offending the sensibilities of an opposing group and, in the process, sell a lot of books and vainly draw attention to themselves.  It&#039;s all about selling books and nothing more.  The only viable reaction to Christopher Hitchens and his ilk is to simply stand aside and allow them all to go quietly into that good night.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Christopher Hitchens&#8217;s abrasive, arrogant, condescending remarks left me with the impression that his only true aim is to better establish himself among the ranks of other &#8216;squeaky wheel&#8217; social commentary demogogues such as Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.  Their collective aim isn&#8217;t to enter truly meaningful discourse into the public arena; it&#8217;s only to stridently appeal to the prejudices of one group while offending the sensibilities of an opposing group and, in the process, sell a lot of books and vainly draw attention to themselves.  It&#8217;s all about selling books and nothing more.  The only viable reaction to Christopher Hitchens and his ilk is to simply stand aside and allow them all to go quietly into that good night.</p>
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		<title>By: chilton1</title>
		<link>http://www.radioopensource.org/cliffsnotes-the-post-show-hitchens-comment-thread/#comment-89786</link>
		<dc:creator>chilton1</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Jun 2007 19:56:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=1089#comment-89786</guid>
		<description>I finally listened to the Hitchens show and found it enlightening in a surprising way.  While I align naturally with his arguments against religion (being a refugee/orphan from a fundamentalist family), I found myself swaying in the other direction after this conversation.  Firstly, CH certainly hasnâ€™t embraced much ethics in conversation (even resorting to sarcasm â€“the least rational tool that can be used in debate) â€“ but more importantly he has not arrived at any humility â€“a rational conclusion, if you believe that our minds are shaped by evolution i.e. to survive and reproduce - hence we only know what we need to know â€“which ainâ€™t much.  This is very humbling for me. The most important statement for me was made by CL when commenting on his experience with church goers - that they tended to be people who were trying to reach beyond there intellect.  For me that is it â€“ because pretty much everything is beyond our intellect.   So, despite my own anti-religious fervor - for the first time I find myself understanding the sin of pride.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I finally listened to the Hitchens show and found it enlightening in a surprising way.  While I align naturally with his arguments against religion (being a refugee/orphan from a fundamentalist family), I found myself swaying in the other direction after this conversation.  Firstly, CH certainly hasnâ€™t embraced much ethics in conversation (even resorting to sarcasm â€“the least rational tool that can be used in debate) â€“ but more importantly he has not arrived at any humility â€“a rational conclusion, if you believe that our minds are shaped by evolution i.e. to survive and reproduce &#8211; hence we only know what we need to know â€“which ainâ€™t much.  This is very humbling for me. The most important statement for me was made by CL when commenting on his experience with church goers &#8211; that they tended to be people who were trying to reach beyond there intellect.  For me that is it â€“ because pretty much everything is beyond our intellect.   So, despite my own anti-religious fervor &#8211; for the first time I find myself understanding the sin of pride.</p>
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		<title>By: Igor</title>
		<link>http://www.radioopensource.org/cliffsnotes-the-post-show-hitchens-comment-thread/#comment-89785</link>
		<dc:creator>Igor</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 May 2007 05:23:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=1089#comment-89785</guid>
		<description>I don&#039;t understand what&#039;s meaningless about the human condition, we all are born into this world without anybody asking us whether we want it or not, and then we struggle to live our lives, most of us marry, have children, struggle to raise them, then we get old and finally die. The whole branch of philosophy sprung from exactly this notion of the human condition, I&#039;m sure most of the  readers of this thread know the name.



I guess there is also â€œthe Blue-winged warbler conditionâ€, the difference is that blue-winged warbler doesn&#039;t understand a lot about it, just like our learned friend Nick pretends not to :-(



&gt; Maybe â€œGodâ€ is the generalization for all the universeâ€™s mysteries science has been demystifying for the past two and more centuries â€“ and as the mysteries steadily recede



Maybe, for some. And science isn&#039;t demystifying anything, it&#039;s quite a mystery in itself. Like, what makes Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms correct? Nobody knows :-(  And without Zermelo-Fraenkel or similar set of axioms there would be no mathematics, therefore no physics, and no natural sciences as we know them. And for those brave positivists on this thread who demand definitions, the whole of mathematics is based on undefinable notions of sets and elements of sets.



Then there is the argument about the infinity of the Universe and finiteness of the human mind, both in informational/computational capacity and WRT temporal and spatial constraints. There is no chance humans will be able to understand but miniscule part of the Universe, infinitesimally small, if you wish... Thinkers like Nick might  be as proud as they wish, but on Universe&#039;s scale of things this is nothing, even less than nothing...



Interestingly, in these paragraphs I was playing devil&#039;s advocate, these things should have been said by atheists, they are logical (and honest) conclusions from their premises. Instead they prefer to talk about steady pace of progress and other teleological things, which are by tradition religion&#039;s domain. This is why I don&#039;t believe they are atheists, they don&#039;t believe in God in the sky, that&#039;s true, but they believe in God in things (science, progress, rationality, civilisation, evolution, etc.) instead, not that it makes any difference...</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I don&#8217;t understand what&#8217;s meaningless about the human condition, we all are born into this world without anybody asking us whether we want it or not, and then we struggle to live our lives, most of us marry, have children, struggle to raise them, then we get old and finally die. The whole branch of philosophy sprung from exactly this notion of the human condition, I&#8217;m sure most of the  readers of this thread know the name.</p>
<p>I guess there is also â€œthe Blue-winged warbler conditionâ€, the difference is that blue-winged warbler doesn&#8217;t understand a lot about it, just like our learned friend Nick pretends not to <img src='http://www.radioopensource.org/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_sad.gif' alt=':-(' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>&gt; Maybe â€œGodâ€ is the generalization for all the universeâ€™s mysteries science has been demystifying for the past two and more centuries â€“ and as the mysteries steadily recede</p>
<p>Maybe, for some. And science isn&#8217;t demystifying anything, it&#8217;s quite a mystery in itself. Like, what makes Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms correct? Nobody knows <img src='http://www.radioopensource.org/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_sad.gif' alt=':-(' class='wp-smiley' />   And without Zermelo-Fraenkel or similar set of axioms there would be no mathematics, therefore no physics, and no natural sciences as we know them. And for those brave positivists on this thread who demand definitions, the whole of mathematics is based on undefinable notions of sets and elements of sets.</p>
<p>Then there is the argument about the infinity of the Universe and finiteness of the human mind, both in informational/computational capacity and WRT temporal and spatial constraints. There is no chance humans will be able to understand but miniscule part of the Universe, infinitesimally small, if you wish&#8230; Thinkers like Nick might  be as proud as they wish, but on Universe&#8217;s scale of things this is nothing, even less than nothing&#8230;</p>
<p>Interestingly, in these paragraphs I was playing devil&#8217;s advocate, these things should have been said by atheists, they are logical (and honest) conclusions from their premises. Instead they prefer to talk about steady pace of progress and other teleological things, which are by tradition religion&#8217;s domain. This is why I don&#8217;t believe they are atheists, they don&#8217;t believe in God in the sky, that&#8217;s true, but they believe in God in things (science, progress, rationality, civilisation, evolution, etc.) instead, not that it makes any difference&#8230;</p>
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		<title>By: davispeter</title>
		<link>http://www.radioopensource.org/cliffsnotes-the-post-show-hitchens-comment-thread/#comment-89784</link>
		<dc:creator>davispeter</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 May 2007 03:05:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=1089#comment-89784</guid>
		<description>Re: &quot;deep mysterious God of our Being&quot; vs. &quot;old white-bearded guy in the sky,&quot;  it would be helpful to get a paragraph or two by the former (deep mysterious)  believer describing his concept of God.  Does his God take a personal interest in homo sapiens?  Is his God omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent.  Or is his God simply a punctuation mark (?) at the beginning and ending of what he sees before and after he turns out the lights?



For me, God and organized religions are to the universe as revealed by science as More Fun With Dick and Jane is to The Brothers Karamazov.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Re: &#8220;deep mysterious God of our Being&#8221; vs. &#8220;old white-bearded guy in the sky,&#8221;  it would be helpful to get a paragraph or two by the former (deep mysterious)  believer describing his concept of God.  Does his God take a personal interest in homo sapiens?  Is his God omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent.  Or is his God simply a punctuation mark (?) at the beginning and ending of what he sees before and after he turns out the lights?</p>
<p>For me, God and organized religions are to the universe as revealed by science as More Fun With Dick and Jane is to The Brothers Karamazov.</p>
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		<title>By: Rillion</title>
		<link>http://www.radioopensource.org/cliffsnotes-the-post-show-hitchens-comment-thread/#comment-89783</link>
		<dc:creator>Rillion</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 May 2007 04:00:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=1089#comment-89783</guid>
		<description>WatersTon, with a two t&#039;s.  Apologies for spelling your name wrong.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>WatersTon, with a two t&#8217;s.  Apologies for spelling your name wrong.</p>
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		<title>By: Rillion</title>
		<link>http://www.radioopensource.org/cliffsnotes-the-post-show-hitchens-comment-thread/#comment-89782</link>
		<dc:creator>Rillion</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 May 2007 03:58:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=1089#comment-89782</guid>
		<description>Waterson, most people who believe in God do not define him/her/it as a human invention.  Whatever you may find atheists believing, it is almost certainly not a denial that gods have been invented by humans.



Most theists do not want God defined as a human invention (and here I paint with an admittedly broad brush) because for them God needs to represent something absolute, something which humans are not capable of attaining.  They want something greater than themselves to give authority.  If humans were good enough-- human morality, human understanding, human power -- then God wouldn&#039;t be necessary.  And an unnecessary god might as well be no god at all.



Evolution, for example, is perceived as a threat by some because it compromises God&#039;s job description.  They see God as having created humans with a special purpose, separate from that of the rest of material existence and not subject to its deterministic forces.  If this depiction turns out false, then their idea of God, which suits a particular need, is in peril and the world seems meaningless.  When it comes down to brass tacks, it&#039;s not so much about whether God exists as what God is for.  Again, our tendency toward teleology comes back to bite us in the arse.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Waterson, most people who believe in God do not define him/her/it as a human invention.  Whatever you may find atheists believing, it is almost certainly not a denial that gods have been invented by humans.</p>
<p>Most theists do not want God defined as a human invention (and here I paint with an admittedly broad brush) because for them God needs to represent something absolute, something which humans are not capable of attaining.  They want something greater than themselves to give authority.  If humans were good enough&#8211; human morality, human understanding, human power &#8212; then God wouldn&#8217;t be necessary.  And an unnecessary god might as well be no god at all.</p>
<p>Evolution, for example, is perceived as a threat by some because it compromises God&#8217;s job description.  They see God as having created humans with a special purpose, separate from that of the rest of material existence and not subject to its deterministic forces.  If this depiction turns out false, then their idea of God, which suits a particular need, is in peril and the world seems meaningless.  When it comes down to brass tacks, it&#8217;s not so much about whether God exists as what God is for.  Again, our tendency toward teleology comes back to bite us in the arse.</p>
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