Beanybag wrote:And while I absolutely adore Hitchens, any theist will reject and loathe his work - he attacks religion on a more aesthetic level and seems to defy god as though he believes in him - fun but not particularly argumentative.
Hitchens is really the atheist writer that I've been most curious to look more into, though I've not heard much from him outside of debates. I've been meaning to hear the debate he had with his brother .
I'd guess in terms of books, would it be wiser to start with Is Christianity Good for the World? and God Is Not Great? Or possibly some other works of his that I'm forgetting?
In my experience, Hitchens was/is far and away the "favorite" of the four big "new atheists" among theists. I certainly found him much more bearable than Dawkins or Harris or Dennett. His attacks may be vitriolic, but he could still go out and drink some beers (not that I recommend that per se) with his opponents. Somebody like Dawkins, on the other hand, seems almost unbelievably pompous.
Interesting personally how my favorites shift. Lately I've focused more on guys like Feser and classical arguments along with some Reformed figures.
I wasn't on the same page as Vox Day on some of the theological issues, but I found his book very helpful in addressing the different factual issues that those four loved to bring up. Showing just how factually wrong some of the statistics a guy like Harris gives actually are, that was very enlightening.
narnia4 wrote:I wasn't on the same page as Vox Day on some of the theological issues, but I found his book very helpful in addressing the different factual issues that those four loved to bring up. Showing just how factually wrong some of the statistics a guy like Harris gives actually are, that was very enlightening.
Very much so, he basically beat them at their own game and while, like you, I don't agree 100% with his theology, he didn't use that to beat them, he used the very "facts" that they were trying to pass off and show them to be incorrect, misrepresentations and even bald faced lies.
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