Was he the most well-spoken figure of the past 50 years?

>>535077
No, he slimely abused the lowest tricks of rhetoric.

HOW
DARE
YOU

>>535211
This sounds like you have a problem with his debating method, you call it slimey, I'd call it appealing to the audience.

He was one of my favourite journalists, and I liked listening to him, maybe not the most well=spoken, but one of my favourites.

>>535077
He could remain impressively coherent even after 15 drinks of Johnny Black. I've moved on from him as a serious atheist thinker and journalist, but he had a way of illustrating the most salient objections.

>>535546
>I'd call it appealing to the audience.
That's the definition of rhetoric.

>>535211
This

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPBVUT1NlKA
>That question dodging at 1:37
>Trying to talk over WLC when he brings up the evidence for the resurrections at 8:43
>Wasting his ENTIRE cross examination time with shit like 11:50

>>535598
I didn't say it wasn't rhetoric, I simply meant it's debatable whether it was a slimey, low trick, which I don't think it was. I think it's just that so many of the people he debates with are so bad at rhetoric, and are a lot of the time, not charismatic, especially not in the same way he is.

>>535613
Actually, looking at both my posts, ignore them, terribly articulated, I'm so tired, just thought I'd chime in, but ignore me.

>>535613
HOW
DARE
YOU
is an excellent example of slimey and low rhetoric.

>>535077
no

>>535623
Different guy, what's this HOW DARE YOU business? I know nothing of Hitchens aside from the fact he was an atheist.

>>535637
>Different guy, what's this HOW DARE YOU business?

The latest meme from idiots.

>>535077
I've never agreed with everything he said, at times I even found him to be a little daft, but damn if he wasn't an eloquent bastard.

>>535637
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mLqccNHprc

>>535669
I'm not sure what the problem here is. It's entirely legitimate. That man's assertion was inane, and the implication that you can't teach those things without religion absurd to the point where I can see why someone would take offence.

>>535678

I don't think you understand. If Hitchens had a phrase he used to occasionally drop into his speech then you can legitimately refute everything he ever said by typing it out in caps and making a massive fuss about.

>>535678
It's the main focal point of your average modern debate, where religion claims that because it claims its morals derive from an absolute authority, any other way of reasoning morality is folly.

>>535687
Or it demonstrates that his "argument" is cheap rhetoric.

>>535699
How does it do that? His argument had substance: you can teach that without religion.

I think you're just looking for something to disregard him out of hand with. Slimy.

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>>535678
It's just a meme, dude. Like

>tiny weeny sacred cock
*loud booing, hissing*
>ENORMOUS SECULAR COCK!
*wooping, cheers, women taking tops off*

The reason Hitchens had a bad rap is because of how he got rekt here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBx4vvlbZ8

And because he likes to beg the question, as in pic related

>>535699

Exactly now you're getting it. Make a massive nonsensical fuss over literally nothing and he has been magically refuted!

>>535714
>William Lane Craig
>wrecking anybody

I don't care if it reflects poorly on me, I'm not watching that out of sheer doubt. I've been burned by people claiming shit like that and roping me into watching, long, tedious bullshit. So knowing that William Lane Craig is a fucking schmuck from other shit I've seen involving him, I'm not wasting my time.

>>535714
>he got rekt here
From the slimiest, game rigging Apologist in existence?

>>535707
It is an argument by prevarication backed with a fallacious moral outrage. (A moral outrage without a universal ground, mind you).

It is an argument of no value whatsoever.

And I'm a militant fucking atheist.

>>535723
It doesn't reflect poorly on you at all. Craig is a robot, repeating his arguments word for word for decades.

>>535723
I like Hitchens and think craig is mostly a hack but he genuinely makes hitchens look foolish in that debate. It's not really worth watching, if you've seen either figure speak then you're not missing anything. But it certainly didn't end well for our dead friend.

>>535714

What are you talking about? He destroys Lane Craig. I particularly like the Q&A session where the moderator has to step in to save Lane Craig from "starting another religious war" when Hitchens starts questioning him on other religions.

Ha, ha, much butthurt all round.

>>535723
Well, apart from his work on the historicity of the Gospels, he certainly is, but I don't think that changes Hitchens being completely destroyed by him here.

>>535790
>Well, apart from his work on the historicity of the Gospels, he certainly is,

He's absolutely dreadful on that as well, just pure evangelical horse crap.

>>535790
Of course it doesn't. I don't know if he was or not. I'll remain somewhat sceptical, but unwilling to really stand by my opinion simply because I wont watch that. I have better things to do, like repeatedly refresh a 4chan page until my eyes bleed, or stub my toes on the furniture.

That said, everyone has bad days and everyone has good ones, so I suppose it's not outside the realm of possibility.

>>535801
Have you actually read any of his academic work on the subject?

You can download a work here: http://faith.freeonsciencelibraryguide.com/view.php?id=327524

I suggest you at least take a look at it before being so hasty to pass judgement.

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>>535077

What about Mr. Morality Snail, Peter Hitchens?

>>535816

I'm sure his attempts to wildly distort the evidence do appeal to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsXzu4tcOTI

>>535816
Why do you think he hasn't taken a look at that? Someone can dislike something while understanding it. You'd do well to remind yourself of that.

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It requires alot of faith to believe you came from a monkey which came from soup.

>>535847
Wasn't this specific image found to be faked by some Christian?

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>J-Jesus never existed!

>>535836
This is not an academic debate

>>535837
He can dislike it, but that's a bit different from saying it's horse crap.

>>535855
>He can dislike it, but that's a bit different from saying it's horse crap.

Not really. Saying it's horse crap demonstrates only why he dislikes it.

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>p-purely coincidence!

>>535858
Sounds awfully like Ray Comfort to me.

>>535855
>This is not an academic debate

Only in the sense it has William Lane Craig in it.

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>>535860

I hope this is satire. It's certainly got me chuckling.

>>535867
Your Darwinian cult is laughable.

>>535859
Then he'd have no trouble explaining why it is horse crap.

>>535864
Most of William Lane Craig's work is academic, and this debate is no exception. Most of his work is pop.

>>535860

Can't deny that desu

>>535870
*isn't academic

>>535870
>Then he'd have no trouble explaining why it is horse crap.

I'll leave it to him whether he wants to or not. But the fact he thinks it's horse crap isn't an indication that he doesn't understand it, is simply my point. There is no body of work so convincing that just reading and understanding it will convince everyone of its merit.

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>>535887
He doesn't have to agree with its conclusion, but you say it lacks merit in its attempt is just prejudice.

>>535910
*to say it lacks

>>535910

>quoting the gospels as historical sources

>>535926
The point of the work is to substantiate the historicity of the Gospels by a number of methods.

Anyway, why do you think there is anything wrong with the Gospels as historical records? At the very least, Matthew and Mark were certainly written by the disciples of Christ directly. And there is no reason to assume John wasn't.

Until the moment a theist manages to argue properly how you go from a deist position to a theist position, I will continue to consider religion a laughable and ridiculous pursuit.

>>535945
Why is the deist position more logical, exactly?

>>535932

All the gospels were written by anonymous authors in a language Jesus and his original followers didn't speak after decades of oral transmission. And Matthew is primarily copied from Mark.

This is what you get from treating a charlatan as a serious academic.

>>535951
>Why is the deist position more logical, exactly?

It isn't. But for the sake of argument, I am more inclined to take a person who is a deist seriously, because at least deism has a bunch of logical arguments, whereas theism is simply a statement of faith, and faith is by definition just believing shit on unsatisfactory evidence.

>>535959
Any of the arguments for deism would substantiate theism just as well.

>>535969
>Any of the arguments for deism would substantiate theism just as well.

No they would not. Logical arguments that posit the *existence* of a deity are not synonymous with faith-based claims that said deity authors books, does miracles or even cares about humanity and how we behave towards each other.

I mean, this is theology 101, and surely someone like you should know this perfectly well, but apparently not.

>>535932
>why do you think there is anything wrong with the Gospels as historical records

Their blatant religious agenda? The Quran claims mohammed ascending into heaven on a flying horse, that doesn't make it historical fact.

>>535974
The argument is for a creator. The idea that the a deadbeat creator is most likely, has no more support than the idea that a fatherly creator is most likely.

His brother is cooler.

>>535980
No, that's simply begging the question.

Hence why I said that a theistic God is a statement of faith, and will never have the same intellectual quality as a purely deistic logical argument.

>>535989
But deists beg the question just as much, is what I'm saying. They are not professing agnosticism regarding the intervention of the creator.

>>535999
>They are not professing agnosticism regarding the intervention of the creator.

They pretty much are m8. They say that it's impossible to know whether or not a creator intervenes, but they accept the logical arguments for a deity's existence.

Theism however, requires faith.

>>536005
>They say that it's impossible to know whether or not a creator intervenes
No, they assert that the creator does not intervene.

>>536011
>No, they assert that the creator does not intervene.

Really? Who does that? Give me an example.

>>535987
Peter is about as cool as a Mormon Prom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NqG2lAojNQ