Hitchens Decoding Episode

I agree with Matt’s point about sacred texts being a Rorschach blot that you can view however you like (it relates to Ramadan’s line that it’s the reader not the text). In college I had a professor of Bible studies who said “reading the Bible is like trying to peer down a deep well, and down at the bottom you see your own reflection.” I mentioned that once to an evangelical colleague and the next day he printed out a sheet with some very pointed commands from Saint Paul’s letters. “Does that sound like peering down a well to you?” He had a point!

Mark K

Wow thank you Lucy. That is very kind :)

SHOUNAK SARKAR

You make such good points Shounak! You could have been on the stage with Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris when they had their debates about truth and religion a few years ago and your position would have been the best—in my book anyway.

Lucy

Hey Matt and Chris, another piece of feedback mate! Loved the nuanced discussion in the episode and your decoding of Hitchens, but just thought I will bring this up. Just wanted to repost here too in case you miss it on Reddit. I myself am a very nominally religious (or agnostic) liberal Aussie off Indian descent. To me, religion is much more than a mere belief in god. Even if you don't believe in the concept of god, religion also includes cultural practices such as Diwali celebrations (just like atheists would buy a Christmas tree for their kids and celebrate a dinner get-together without going to Church), marriage ceremonies and many other things. Also, many Hindu non-believers use religious festivals as an occasion to meet up with friends, family, eat sweets etc. For many non-religious Indian Hindu individuals, I have personally seen them reassert their Hindu identity when they migrate to a Western nation as they are a racial minority and identifying with the Hindu or Indian identity is a way of celebrating their heritage and making them feel at home in a foreign country. ---- The reason I say this is to highlight that when you denounce religion in harsh terms for its absurdity, please remember that religion is intertwined with so many different cultural practices that even for a few atheists and secularists, they feel it's important to keep in touch with. Of course, I admit that religious fundamentalism and literal reading of religious scripts is a major problem. But still reckon it's a mistake to believe that scrapping religion automatically makes the world better, as humans are tribal in nature and tribalism is ultimately what is poisonous to a harmonious society. Plus tribalism can manifest itself in so many different ways other than religion or race. For example, just look at the soccer hooligans / ultras who support different clubs and are willing to kill others for it, despite all of them coming from the same backgrounds and cultures. See the hooliganism which occurs in Poland, Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Argentina etc, it can be quite confronting. APOLOGIES for the long comment :)

SHOUNAK SARKAR

The fridge anecdote had me on the edge of my seat. I hope someone is jotting them down for future generations.

Ash Corrick

That was fun. Two talented rhetoricians going head to head, showing me once again how easily I can be taken in with clever arguments. Thank you for your dissection of this debate.

Tim Tripp

A few years ago, a woman wrote an autobiographical article in the NYT and she described being raised in Argentina by a senior military officer. The man and his family raised her in the period of the ‘disappeareds’ and she discovered in her early 30s that her ‘father’ was an active officer in disappearances. Her parents were leftish activists and were disappeared as it turned out by her ‘father’. Hers was a singular story but not alone. I tried to feel what she could have felt; to look back on a happy childhood, college in the US and beginning a life with the love and support of her family; which family concealed the horror of murdering her parents then adopting and raising her as their own. Nope, not very peaceful there either as the pope (who was wholly innocent of the story) rose through the ranks of his order during the period.

Tom McCool

I think Hitchens very well illustrates one of my mainstream gripes with the new ateist crowd. They fokus so much on the text of religions and nowhere enough on the conduct. In many ways this led many of them towards Christian apologetics and blind buddhist supremacy stuff. It always anoyed me as someone who broadly shared their dislike of religion that so many of them ignored real world events through out history in favor of scriptual analysis

Klas Bergholtz

Also to Matt: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Massacres_in_the_Ottoman_Empire

lun

lun

Cheers!

Christopher Kavanagh

You guys are my favorite podcast and favorite listen, just putting that out there along with a healthy thanks, appreciate the clarity you endorse, and overall vibes :) thanks

bron stoll-engelsen

Enjoying already! You guys really need to decode Terence McKenna. All this shit about the logos started with him, at least in the sense of the modern secular guru. I really don't think there would be a JBP without McKenna. And I say this as someone who likes McKenna.

James P.

🤙 can’t wait to listen!

Erin Dougherty