Robert Tulip wrote:Quotes from this chapter

prophets and seers and great theologians seem to have died out ...they ought to welcome the eclipse of this age of fraud ...Chariots in the sky ... speaks to the longing of every peasant ... miracle ... last word ... Hume ... possibilities ... laws of nature have been suspended ... delusion ... likelihood weighed ... report of the miracle ... odds must be adjusted ... obligation ... disbelieve the whole thing ... exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence ... encounters with spacecraft ... vivid and detailed ... huge new superstition ... Muggeridge ... launched the 'Mother Theresa' brand ... Kindly Light ... photographic miracle ... director ... going to say three cheers for Kodak ...sainthood of Mother Theresa ... scandal ... will further postpone the day when Indian villages cease to trust quacks ... Everything is already explained ... Argument from authority ... weakest ...ripping of the whole disguise is overdue ... sciences ... have shown religious myths to be false ... newer and finer wonders ...Marxist ... messianic element ... allow your chainless mind to do its own thinking

Chris, I'm reposting this set of extracts to note the themes which Hitchens discusses in this chapter. As well as an amusing critique of miraculous belief, Hitchens muses about the comparison between Marxist theory and the fraudulent claims of Christianity, begging the question of how he sees Marxism against his rather neoconservative current views. The comments on Trotsky, Orwell and Che relate to a discussion with DWill regarding how Hitchens aligns on the Gulf War, and how God is Not Great illustrates the sources of his political ideas.

Robert Tulip wrote: As well as an amusing critique of miraculous belief, Hitchens muses about the comparison between Marxist theory and the fraudulent claims of Christianity, begging the question of how he sees Marxism against his rather neoconservative current views. The comments on Trotsky, Orwell and Che relate to a discussion with DWill regarding how Hitchens aligns on the Gulf War, and how God is Not Great illustrates the sources of his political ideas.

Robert, I know much less about Hitchens' political views than you do, and perhaps this is why I don't see clear political leanings behind his views on religion. I understand that it's hard not to read an author's politics into any discussion when you are aware of that politics. However, I will just say that if Hitchens' bio said he was still a dedicated leftist, I suspect I would not say,"no, can't be!" while reading his book. Anti-religion and left-of-center politics are still strongly associated in my mind. If you could say (or repeat, if you've already said it) how Hitchens' argument against religion in God Is Not Great aligns with neoconservatism (without extrapolating), that would help me out a lot.

DWill wrote:Robert, I know much less about Hitchens' political views than you do, and perhaps this is why I don't see clear political leanings behind his views on religion. I understand that it's hard not to read an author's politics into any discussion when you are aware of that politics. However, I will just say that if Hitchens' bio said he was still a dedicated leftist, I suspect I would not say,"no, can't be!" while reading his book. Anti-religion and left-of-center politics are still strongly associated in my mind. If you could say (or repeat, if you've already said it) how Hitchens' argument against religion in God Is Not Great aligns with neoconservatism (without extrapolating), that would help me out a lot.

Bill, at issue here is the ambiguous politics of the European Enlightenment. As I argued in my post on Hitchens’ Worldview, Hitchens is a true child of Hume and Mill. They of course were radical liberals, but, through their close alignment with Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, they also supported laissez faire economics, setting the scene for a big part of the anti-state, pro-freedom politics of modern conservatism. Hitchens reminds me of the politics of the UK magazine The Economist, which combines strongly liberal views on social issues with strongly conservative views on economics and security.

Noting also my previous reference to Hitchens’ adulation for Thomas Hobbes, we find a segue here into our next discussion on de Waal’s Primates and Philosophers. De Waal castigates Hobbes’ individualist theory “man is wolf to man” as empirically false, opening the question of how the assumptions of individualist morality are in serious error in their understanding of the evolutionary roots of morality. My impression is that Hitchens is sympathetic to the individualist assumptions characteristic of the European Enlightenment which underpinned an imperial narrative by denying the inherent sociality of human existence. This individualism is today expressed as neoconservatism, hence is seen in Hitchens’ support for the Gulf War.

Okay, but what I was wondering was if I had missed, in God Is Not Great, some dependence on politics of his observations on religion. My thought is still that if we knew nothing of the author but what he said in this book, we'd have no strong basis on which to guess his politics.