R_P wrote:

Awesome - thanks.

The forum mangles URLs/links with dash-dash in them. Go here.

 miamizsun wrote:

Bizarre. Richard Dawkins shared it on FB yesterday with links to several site where it could be listened to; no his post on FB is gone. It was Hitch's last interview - conducted by Dawkins.

 Red_Dragon wrote:
nothing there
probably gonged

Hard to listen to if you loved the man, but totally worth it.

Mitt.

CH is dead, but apparently his thread will live on forever

 Lazy8 wrote:

Targeted by Khomeini in 1989, the author found himself with a formidable 
champion: Christopher Hitchens. Salman Rushdie recalls his friend's many joyfully waged battles, not least the Hitch's magnificent argument with Death.

On June 8, 2010, I was “in conversation” with Christopher Hitchens at the 92nd Street Y in New York in front of his customary sellout audience, to launch his memoir, Hitch-22. Christopher turned in a bravura performance that night, never sharper, never funnier, and afterward at a small, celebratory dinner the brilliance continued. A few days later he told me that it was on the morning of the Y event that he had been given the news about his cancer. It was hard to believe that he had been so publicly magnificent on such a privately dreadful day. He had shown more than stoicism. He had flung laughter and intelligence into the face of death.

(...)

I have often been asked if Christopher defended me because he was my close friend. The truth is that he became my close friend because he wanted to defend me.

 Beaker wrote:  i'm about willing to kick him again....

Much ado about nothing.

 Umberdog wrote: 
Glad I got to watch the video.  Its answered a lot of questions I've had about atheists.

I'm just a spiritual being having a human experience.

I'm not really angry, just going with the theme of the video.  I got my thoughts out that have been rumbling around in that vast empty space between my ears.  I meant every point, it was very cathartic, but angry, no not really.

 kurtster wrote: 


All that anger isn't good for you, Use your belief to let go of your anger.

 kurtster wrote: 
You sound pretty angry, whatever you call yourself, or not. I'm sorry, but I agree with most of what you wrote. I haven't watched the video yet. I bet I've heard it all before. The lady looks like Mrs. Upshaw, my third grade teacher. I'm pretty sure she hated me.

 p4jkafla wrote: 
I get angry when people who express on openess to a God or higher power and are condemned for just thinking it possible and being lumped together with those who are sure of it.  And are condemned for the acts of those who participate in organinzed religions as if they are either guilty or support these specific religions. It makes me angry when spiritual people are condemned as being religious. 

People who are 100% sure there is no 'God' and want to change the world to reflect things that way make me just as angry as those who are 100% sure there is a 'God' want to do the same make me angry.  Neither side can prove it.  Yet they are both 100% sure. 

I got taught evolution in school, creation was also mentioned, but it was taught in the context as a religious belief system unsubstantiated by any real science.  I attended 12 different public schools before graduating from high school because of moving around the country  When admited to hospitals, I am given many more choices to my religious preferences or afiliations other than Cathoilic and Protestant.  None or other is one of the choices to which I answer as just spiritual.  I have been admited to many hospitals.

I get mad when examples are presented as 100% universal in defense as a position.  All schools do not teach evolution, all hospitals don't consider more than 2 religious possibilities of their patients.  Or that all Catholics feel the same way about their religion or all Jews feel the same or all Protestants feel the same way.  That wiccans are atheists.  Don't they believe in and worship nature ?  Who is Mother Nature ?

So as a spiritualist, let me express my anger at being lumped into the realm of the religious who are 100% sure there is by those who are 100% sure there isn't.  I lay at your feet that if you are 100% either way, you are closed minded.  And thats ok as long as you do not go around trying to change the world to fit your belief system.

Let the world be led by the open minded and you 100%ers find a way to get along with them and the moderates who can tell the difference between the good and the bad parts of a dogma.  Morality is not bad or hypocritical just because it has religious references in most cases.  Both of you types of 100%ers are bent on destroying each other and don't care who gets caught in the cross fire.

This is my reaction to this video half way through.

The third quarter tells me how anger is good and the only way change has been affected through out history.  I'm being told that anger is good and that we should submit to an emotion to guide our thoughts as opposed to calmness, thought and civility.  And now I'm being told because I have no religious afiliation, I'm an atheist.  Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. 

And now two Icons, one religious believer MLK and one spiritualist, Ghandi are used to support the atheist position to justify anger really makes me really f'ing angry.  If it wasn't for their beliefs, they would not have positions to exploit to support her nonbelief.  How f'ing dare she.  So go ahead condemn the very thing that was the inspiration for the foundation for your just use of anger, f'ing hypocrite.

Yes, I watched the whole video and even backed it up many times to make sure of what I was hearing before commenting.

Belief is an exit strategy from reality.

 hippiechick wrote:
 
Yeah, that's the part I can't stomach. Kurt mentioned it as well. I don't understand what part of 'leave me alone' is so complicated.

 cc_rider wrote: 


It's not because non -believers force their beliefs on the believers, it's because believers think that everyone else must believe what they do.

 kurtster wrote:  Yep.