The Princeton professor was an extreme disappointment, creating his own mock arguments quite independent of Hitchens’ objections or main thesis. He also got sensitive when he got an honest answer, why was he not getting through to the guest — he was (in fact) ingratiating and unctuous and ultimately condescending, as if there was no toleration for an anti-religion position. He didn’t appear to get what Hitchens was claiming.

With an ad hominem argument that spoke volumes, saying Hitchens would “fail” his course (WITHOUT EVEN TAKING IT??) said a great deal more than he intended about his intellectual limits than what is true about an obviously brilliant polemicist. That is, if Hitchens would be failed for challenging the assumptions (and presumed authority) of a professor pushing tolerance, I must say this is eloquent proof the professor was badly outmatched and that religious-types do incline to the dogmatic.

I hardly agree with all of Hitchens’ anti-theist (not atheistic) points (and not at all with him about the Iraq war) but he has done his homework on the oppressiveness (and diceyness) of organizing God’s word, trying to fix “truths,” and you did not adequately challenge his powerful equation (linking organized religion with some dogma which claims something about the intentions or value of a higher source — let alone the pushy mandate to spread the gospel) by presenting the hash from the professor. Mr. Lydon was not as precise or grounded as he usually is. Hitchens’ core point, that religion is man-made and that its creators were intellectually out of date is not a trivial objection, nor that morality is not dependent on old-time religion.

Declaring pluralism exists, and everyone necessarily should interpret “sacred” texts (by definition arguing for something beyond human influence), and that some of faith are tolerant or open-minded, speaks only to one form of radically-individualized Protestantism — and bears not at all on Hitchens’ general point there is something arrogant or imperious or even moralistic about the core of 98% of church-based religion. How many religions even allow, let alone encourage individual interpretation or relationship with the godhead?

When Christopher H. (and really, find out how he calls himself before the show! yikes, he’s the guest) said the professor was talking in a way that he couldn’t respond to or understand, I knew exactly what he meant — the academic was pouring out mushy pap and offering neither agreement or disagreement at a level that encouraged meaningful exchanges.

The way to argue against Hitchens is to show his terms are not as meaningful or comprehensive as he claims — and he admitted to blurring at times his use of the world religion with faith with God, etc. It’s not a useful argument to say, as Christopher Lydon did, ideologues don’t go to his church or he doesn’t recognize dogmatic leaders in his world (how about the Pope!!).

If religion is an open-ended field without ideology or dogma or some kind of authoritarian structure that enforces the set of beliefs the faithful hold to be “sacred,” then it’s no more than an intellectual grab bag without any transcendent authority — and all its benefits (music, art, literature) are somewhat co-incidental or secondary.

Robert Becker, Ph.D.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2007/1919949.htm

I remember watching a fascinating ‘interfaith’ dialogue not long after 9/11. While members of each of the three faiths talked about how they could come together, lurking in the hearts of each were the doctrinally chauvanist notions that would make, unless they, like I, abandoned their respective faiths entirely, a true comprimise unworkable.

Christians and Moslems are particularly problematic because while in public, they will espouse in ‘good faith’ their respect and tolerance of the other two, in private, their ruminations will unfortunately, at the crux of it all, prove these dialogues to be ultimately fruitless. Paramount is that for Christians, Christ, and for Moslems, Mohammed, are the final arbiters of faith. Anything else would mean the rejection of Christ’s divinity and the all too static notion that Mohammed is the last and final prophet. And Jews welcoming Christ and more improbably, Mohammed along side their pantheon of prophets?

The number system is symbolic, then… like language… with the limitations that accompany such communications. In this case “proving the existence of the non-material” is an oxymoron. However, as a moronic ox, myself, let me continue. Given the concept that “zero” points to, (if one can assume that “pointing at the Immaterial”, or the “absence of the material” can be successfully accomplished), I’d posit that this “nothingness” is (if “nothingness” can be described as “being something”- in this case, “nothing”) the necessary preamble to material existence. Of course, I’d also argue that “nothing” also Isn’t- ie isn’t reducible, isn’t subject to description in “material” terms (which is the realm in which this language that we share was developed, and in which sphere it is promulgated), that, in essence (or lack thereof) it is “Not this… &/or Not that”… &/or Not Anything. If it is not anything, then it isn’t material… and yet, though I can’t seem to describe it (since its “attributes” are not measureable, or even within a realm that can be compared to any material thing), yet’ by my poor attempts to delineate the ineffable, I am certain that I do allude to a “nothing” that is neither here nor there. In this world of polar extremes, where there exists light & dark, positive & negative, inside & outside, materiality also implies a polar extreme, both less than, & far more intrinsic than the nothing towards which the zero appears to beckon (if null sets may be characterized in this way). I grant you that this is weak stuff… the merest point attempting to predict the intersection of lines… and I’ll leave you to the ineffable joys of victory in a universe in which everything matters (since matter is everything), with my own threadbare security blanket upon which is stitched “nothing matters too”… ^..^

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/05/25/opinion/25brooks.html?hp