yeah, I watched it, it was a good talk

despite being live

in front of an audience, I mean

Can't even get remotely close to a JBP v Hitchens debate since his brother seems to think of JBP as a new age cult leader

Sam has the opinion that western moral values have nothing to do with Judeo-Christian tradition.

Christopher Hitchens didn't agree much with his brother at all, though

I think he thought of him as a bit of a stuck up buffoon, to be honest

I think you mean Steven Weinberg with that quote

For good people to do evil - that takes religion

Hitchens quoted that, so I'll assume he shares the same opinion.

Gulag Archipelago is enough of a refutation of that.

Then, going back to my claim of intellectual deficiency, Hitchens calls every bad ideology "religion."

That's a fucking strawman of an argument.

He wasn't interested into finding out whether religion was good or bad, true or false. He *defined* religion to be bad and false.

To the point of calling communism a religion to stack up with Christianity, point at it and say "see, religion caused all those deaths too."

only look at the Athesist movements and how they fight amongst themselves like cats

they agree and will not sit next to eachother

That's why you part Kittens out

or drown them in a bag

DanielKO that said there is common ground between religions and most terribad ideologies

Once you reject what evidence shows and go off the deep end?

anything goes as a conclusion

Reminds me of neo-Marxists redefining words.

Feminists like to say "toxic masculinity". Try asking them what masculinity isn't toxic? All of it is toxic. Masculinity itself is defined to be toxic.

>"Racism" isn't just prejudice based on race. It's prejudice + power. So black people can't be racist because they don't have power.

I'm sorry, but if you're going to call all evil ideologies "religion" just to reinforce your argument that religions are evil, you're climbing up some circular logic. You might think you got the high moral ground, but everyone else is looking down on you.

So, with that definition, if a religion is objectively good, and not evil, it can't be called religion.

That was Hitchens playing the postmodernist game of twisting words, to shuffle things around into categories until they fall into the ones that he's attacking, thus "proving" his point.

Was there video, or just audio?

I was referring to the Ben - Harris thing, but discord had cut off the last four or five messages

Might have to check this one out too though

I'll look it up after the Rubin Report is over.

How would you define religion then?

That's a hard question to answer. But it's easy to point out at things that aren't religion.

Here's the latest Ben vs Sam debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTWCl32j8jM

And this is Ben's thoughts about it, if you don't have two fucking hours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlUBl64krMo

Audio only, on the first one.

Thumbnail is misleading.

That's the one where the woman asked Sam, "I have a 5 years old son, what do I teach him?" and he said "Lie to him."

I don't remember anything about a woman with a 5 year old son, or her asking about what to teach him. I do remember a woman with an 18 year old son, who asked how she could stop him from doing "stupid things", if he has no free will. I don't think not telling your child that some philospher argues that there is no such thing as free will, is somehow lying to them.

Harris said something about lying at the very end, and it felt more like a joke than anything. The audience laughed at it, and it didn't connect with what he had been explaining earlier, nor the fact that he's written a book about lying, and how there are more often than not unconsidered and unwanted consequences to even the smallest white lies, and that people should make the effort to not tell lies at all.

I was quoting Ben. He might have remembered the age wrong. Doesn't change much though.