A Last Word On Hitchens

[poliphilo]

I spent much of yesterday on Hitchens' website. I think he's doing important work. Someone needs to be knocking religion- and he's good at it. But only up to a point. The debate never gets much more sophisticated than "So where did Cain's wife come from, eh?"  He's a clever person of limited culture- with a layman's understanding of Victorian science- butting against positions that became untenable a hundred and fifty years ago. It's a weary old war and I withdrew from it a while ago, but I'm glad there are still people out there in the field, bashing away.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

"I don't get how it works, therefore it doesn't."

More to the point, if you're unaware that the general religious and theological opinion is that "this stuff is CLEARLY meant to be metaphorical," then it's easy to say, "Oh, this isn't LITERAL, therefore it cannot have TRUTH in it, or any sort of reflection of a metaphysical truth."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm well aware of that line of argument. It just doesn't convince me.