Amazing Hitchslap Index: part 9

Here is the next instalment of 'The Amazing Hitchslap Index', summarising the content of the next 7 of the 66 'Hitchslaps' uploaded to Youtube by Loy Machedo as explained here.  For each Hitchslap, I summarise the content in the form of direct quotations and summaries, list co-stars and 'authorities' called upon.  This series should help you to find that one perfect Hitchslap to send to someone who you are debating.

Hitchslap 66. Man made gods, and not the other way round.

Hitchslap 59 There is no such thing.  5:13
Phobia means fear and does imply dislike.  I dislike Islam as I dislike all religion.
All the time we have to hear propaganda across the muslim world, telling children to kill Jews, Christians and Hindus.
Have to read and claim not to be offended by the stoning of 10 people in the Islamic republic of Iran in the last week alone for crimes that would not be crimes except under the mad religious laws that Islam proposes.
All we ask in return that he upholds the first amendment.
[Koran says clearly “Terrorise them”  Its a command from Allah.  Making them fearful so that they think twice.]
Moral blackmail of Denmark – physical threat to destroy its economy . . . by Ambassadors of countries claiming to represent Islam. (Much as Hitchslap 18)
Claiming Muslims have a special right to be offended . . . at gun point and by force.
‘Co-stars’: Hooper,, Younes Abdullah Mohammed
Cited: OIC, Mr Rasmussen, Ambassadors of Egypt, Turkey and Algeria
Link: http://youtu.be/B_UlGo2zr_Y

Hitchslap 60 Henry Kissinger is a thug, a liar and a murderer.  5:04
Strongest case on which Kissinger could be indicted.
Illegal money and weapons through US diplomatic bag
Found beyond doubt that nobody in congress ever new that Kissinger had evolved a plan to murder the head of the general staff in a neighbouring democracy.
Bombing of Cambodia also concealed from Congress

This is a vandal, barbarian and crook, thug and pseudo-intellectual and a murderer.
‘Co-stars’: Unknown
Cited: Chilean general, Schneider, Henry Kissinger, President Ayend, East Timor, Cyprus, Bangladesh
Link: http://youtu.be/zqhGA3Tub_c

Hitchslap 61 Hitchens and a 911 conspiracy theorist.  2:15
Hold it right there.  You're wasting your time.  I'm not going to answer. You can speak - I'm not bothering with you.  That was a big wow from a small mind.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: 
Link: http://youtu.be/zhK-UZyyNqg

Hitchslap 62 Europeans and Bush.  4:09
Mr Chirac is a de Gaulle wannabe claiming the mantle of Gaullism
Anglo Saxon racketeers
French speakers crossed the Atlantic to escape the horrors of European nationalism.
EU utterly failed to deal with Yugoslavia and had to beg USA to rescue them.
American Revolution is the only one that has a model still standing.
Bush couldn't give you much of an account of the 1776 revolution.
Bush knows one small thing and one big thing.
Cooperation with totalitarians isn't desirable.
This is a man who gave up drink for Jesus.  Neither halves of that world I will ever understand. ‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Jacques Chirac , Charles De Gaulle, Quebecois, Jefferson, George Bush
Link: http://youtu.be/NxmqtuoxZQo

Hitchslap 63 If god does not exist, what is our purpose.  4:07
Socrates answered that he had an inner daemon – not demon.  An inner critic.  A conscience.
Any person of average moral equipment has the same knowledge.  If you don't I feel sorry for you.
Adam Smith called it “the internal witness”.
Why do you behave well when nobody is looking?
There are people who do not think that way and there are some who only get pleasure from being unpleasant.
Sociopathic and psychopathic appear in nature.
That we are all made in the image of god is the one explanation that absolutely doesn't work at all.  It gets you nowhere, explains nothing at all.
What cheers me up?  Mainly gloating over the misfortunes of other people.  Doesn't always work but it never completely fails.  And irony – that's the gin in the Campari.  Sex can have diminishing returns but its amazing . . . That's pretty much it, and then it is a clear run to the grave.
‘Co-stars’: Unknown
Cited: Socrates, Adam Smith, C S Lewis
Link: http://youtu.be/MF8vh__LLns

Hitchslap 64 The decline of believers in America.  3:11
Smuggled-through-customs name of 'intelligent design'.
Number of people like myself who think that religion is false, that it is a delusion in other words, and that it is bad for you, is pretty small.
Science will beat pseudo-science every time.
[Christopher wears his unbelief like a fur coat.  If Jesus didn't come back from the dead then Christianity is an appalling fraud and delusion and people ought to attack it.]
Often when you argue with religious people they are completely mushy.  Charity.  Metaphors.
If it is based on a fraud then those preachings are immoral.
‘Co-stars’: Douglas Wilson
Cited: 
Link: http://youtu.be/wQlXwRxJ6Wc

Hitchslap 65 George Galloway gets the taste slapped out of his mouth.  2:44
So these Al Qaeda chaps, killers sadists, nihilists and producers of indiscriminate explosions, wouldn't be this way if we weren't so mean to them?
Kurdish leadership is a strange target for a holy war.
This is masochism being offered to you by sadists.
100% consistent in your support for unmentionable thugs and criminals
Thank him for . . . full declaration of support for the campaign of sabotage, murder and beheading, demolishing offices of UN and Red Cross in Bagdad.
Continues as a campaign of mayhem to this day.
‘Co-stars’: George Galloway
Cited: Mr Zarqawi
Link: http://youtu.be/jWfIVKx2MKY

Hitchslap 66 Man made god in his own image.  3:19
Anyone can look at any religious text and take any prompting or authority from it that they like from any number of sides for any proposition.
Religion is man made and it shows.
Our species making made many hundreds and thousands of gods in vain hope of certainty
In hope of establishing a secular tyranny of rule by men over men but to say that these men have divine warrant for what they do.
Essential core of religion is that there is a creator and that his wishes can be conveyed by a priesthood to the rest of us.
Did not call me an extremist – I wouldn't particularly have bristled if you had - but you are saying that the examples of religiosity that I adduce are extremist beliefs
The gods that we have made are exactly the gods that you would expect to be made by a species that is about half a chromosome away from being a chimpanzee.
‘Co-stars’: Professor Barry Brummett
Cited: 
Link: http://youtu.be/dEcwp7zd5AE


Previous Hitchslap Index posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
This is the last in the series of The Amazing Hitchslap Index.  I hope you have enjoyed it.

Please add your comments, suggestions and corrections so that they can be included (with credit) in the final summary index that will be made up of these posts.

Venomous Hitchslaps?

A friend has gently taken me to task for my Amazing Hitchslap Index series (see links below), for reasons that I can understand but can't possibly agree with.  The reason that I took the time to index them all was that I have a great deal of respect for the direct and rational challenges that he made against all religious institutions.

Now obviously that is not the same as saying that all Christians (or indeed all Muslims) think in the same way as the formal religions of which they are members.  Of course most ordinary Christians think of themselves as decent and well-meaning people, and although I know fewer Muslims I would assume that they would claim the same.  (I must admit that I'm naturally more suspicious of a religion which has a concept of taqiyyah though!  Yes, people lie for Jesus, but its not quite as highly formalised in christian doctrine.)

But they are all members of organisations that have a lot to be ashamed of!  They must take some responsibility for the way that their donations are squandered.

In a nicely christian way, my friend has very refrained from making comments on the posts out of a sense of respect for the recently deceased Mr Hitchens.  However, I think he would not be upset at all if she said what she disagreed with, in a calm and rational way.  He might very well have answered, as he did in Hitchslap 56:

"You give the awful impression of someone who has not read any of the arguments against your position ever. "

After all, Christopher Hitchens was much less respectful of the dead and terminally ill, both while they were alive and after their deaths. He expected (and to some extent got) the same treatment during his own illness. 

You may say that he slandered Christians but to be honest I think you would have trouble supporting that claim.  Slander requires his words to be untrue.  Besides that, he generally argued against Christianity rather than against specific Christians, with the exception of people like Falwell and Robertson who have shown themselves to be 'notorious' characters anyway, and Mother Teresa who was (at best) not beyond suspicion.

My main argument would be that you should ask yourself whether his words would be considered acceptable in a political debate though.  I think they would not seem unusually harsh in such a context.

Hitch - equally outspoken on politics (as you can read here)

It is just that Christianity has become accustomed to being immune to questioning and at long last it has to face up to those hard questions being asked. In my view it has no right to expect that immunity. Do YOU think it does?

Far from being an outpouring of venom, I prefer to think of the work of Hitchens as brave, reasonable and rational opinion on a topic that should be important to all of us.

Sometimes I'm more outspoken than other times.  I generally I try to maintain a reasonable degree of politeness but I decline to be unnecessarily reverent.  That doesn't mean that I can't respect someone who was less reticent with his views.


Hitchslap Index posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Small note: He famously changed his mind about the Iraq war.  That demonstrates open-mindedness and represents a virtue rather than a weakness in my opinion.

Amazing Hitchslap Index: part 8

Here is the next instalment of 'The Amazing Hitchslap Index', summarising the content of the next 7 of the 66 'Hitchslaps' uploaded to Youtube by Loy Machedo as explained here.  For each Hitchslap, I summarise the content in the form of direct quotations and summaries, list co-stars and 'authorities' called upon.  This series should help you to find that one perfect Hitchslap to send to someone who you are debating.

Hitchslap 52 Religious nastiness and menace!

Hitchslap 52 Religious cowards. 2:54
Change in the zeitgeist.  Large audience now for resistance to clerical bullying and religious lecturing and self-righteousness and nastiness and menace.
We've had about enough of all this
Pope – having just repudiated limbo after a long struggle – says we need to teach the children more about hell.
Limbo was a real place for those parents who thought that was where their poor kids had gone.
Oh by the way – we were wrong about this, but we are now ready to be infallible all over again . . . teach the children more about hell.
Maladjusted elderly virgins.
“No child's behind left.”
AIDS in Africa may be bad but nothing like as bad as a condom.
Will not have people who want to bring on Armageddon and destruction - should recognise them as enemies.
‘Co-stars’: None
Cited: To celebrate my birthday, Dawkins , Dennett, Harris
Link: http://youtu.be/QuCyjqUZhzA

Hitchslap 53 National day of wishful thinking. 6:36
First amendment written with admirable clarity.
Would it unite the nation if it was a day of Hindu prayer or Muslim prayer?  You know what day of prayer it is – it is a day of prayer for Christians
It would be a tyranny of the majority.
Whatever judge said that this would be unconstitutional would be incorrect.
Can you tell me what date this national day of prayer originated? (1988)
Obama administration is afraid of being accused of being socialist and secular.
‘Co-stars’: Tony Perkins
Cited: George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin
Link: http://youtu.be/79S3D8D-Fvc

Hitchslap 54 A clash of civilizations. 3:13
[Clash of civilisation between Islam and the west is inevitable?]  Yes.
A great number of Muslims are violently annoyed by our policy and thus we are 'less safe' however that is estimated.
Does going to war make one more safe? One asks a question that is flat-out incoherent.
e.g. Denmark – small European multicultural democracy with no history of imperialism in the middle east – has its embassies burned and its diplomatic immunity violated.  Well organised attempt by several leading Arab governments to destroy the quite vulnerable Danish economy because the Danish prime minister will not break the law to ban the publication of cartoons.
Those who say 'don't make enemies' in those conditions are being flat-out masochistic.  We can avoid their ire just as long as we destroy everything that makes our society different from theirs. 
Well I'm not ready to do that
I would rather fight it out – if it takes all my life.
‘Co-stars’: None 
Cited: 
Link: http://youtu.be/4tPtaAq2lto

Hitchslap 55 If religious leaders are as uneducated as this guy. 8:48
Christian nation is a meaningless statement.
Declaration of independence mentions a creator but does not say that this creator intervenes.
Many christians are full of doubt and skepticism.
Those having no faith are the fastest growing group.
Wall of separation between church and state.
Jefferson Bible cuts out all references to the divinity of Jesus.
George Washington would not take communion.
I don't have a constitutional right to be theologically wrong.  I don't require your permission.
USA's founding documents are secular.  If you don't know that you don't know anything.
Our worst enemy in the world is very obviously a faith based one.
Our enemy is no longer godless communism but the most godly imaginable group.
‘Co-stars’: Ken Blackwell
Cited: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Meacham
Link: http://youtu.be/aX7iHGAK8fA

Hitchslap 56 Sean Hannity is a cock smith.  4:54
An atheist says that there is no evidence to believe that there is a god but they may wish it were true.
I'm anti-theist because I think it would be rather awful if it was true.
Permanent total around the clock divine supervision.
Watched controlled and supervised by some celestial entity
Its only after death that the real fun begins isn't it.
You give the awful impression of someone who has not read any of the arguments against your position ever. 
One planet in this petty solar system that can support life some of the time on some of its surface.
99% of species extinct already.  This is some design isn't it?
Our minds demand – we look for patterns.
Not angry with god - obviously – that would be absurd!
Contempt and hostility to constant religious intimidation and clerical bullying to which we are being subjected.
Pope says "Limbo may have been a mistake but let's talk about hell".
I am very hostile to this
It is innately irrational.
If you reduce religion to social work then so does USAID do all that, actually rather more convincingly.
‘Co-stars’: Sean Hannity
Cited: The Pope
Link: http://youtu.be/O-QxOJsPxk0

Hitchslap 57 Zionism. 2:07
Idea of building a state of Jewish farmers on Arab land in the middle east was a silly messianic, superstitious, nationalist idea.
Many states are founded on injustices or foolishness but it doesn't mean that people can just come and evict or destroy them
It was a waste of Judaism and guaranteed a quarrel with the Arabs
Trying to make Jews into peasants – already a silly idea.
Guaranteed injustice to the Arabs.
4th generation of Palestinians being brought up in exile or dispossession or under occupation and in humiliation
Something has to be done to redress . . .
Have been writing in favour of a Palestinian homeland all my life.
If Jews born in Brooklyn have a right to a state in Palestine then Palestinians born in Jerusalem have a right to one?
‘Co-stars’: Unknown interviewer, (Carter von Riedel)
Cited: George Bush
Link: http://youtu.be/U17ifgo3RCk

Hitchslap 58 A threat to everyone! 3:03
Can't tell whether the Koran is the work of god or not.
Can hope that this was a bad day for god and I can hope to live in a country where I can say that and get applause.
I don't like the idea of a paradise reward for martyrs.
Are the Jews ever going to be forgiven for rejecting two messiahs in a row?
Couldn't say this everywhere in Europe. 
All of this has been done to us by the wrong Muslims  Let's get rid of them and have an honest discussion about the texts and the reader.
Is this the culture that Islam wants us to have in relation to it?  One of pre-emptive submission and pre-emptive cowering backed by the fear of force.  That is not multi-culturalism.  Nothing like the gorgeous mosaic.
Have to look rather askance on a religion whose preachers openly make threats against people like us.
Where is the authoritative statement of moral outrage saying that this is not acceptable behaviour for followers of the prophet?  I missed it.
‘Co-stars’: None
Cited: 
Link: http://youtu.be/BriMRjOSqbA

Hitchslap Index posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9

The next and final part of this series is coming in one week.  Check back for more!

Please add your comments, suggestions and corrections so that they can be included (with credit) in the final summary index that will be made up of these posts.

Amazing Hitchslap Index: part 7

Here is the next instalment of 'The Amazing Hitchslap Index', summarising the content of the next 7 of the 66 'Hitchslaps' uploaded to Youtube by Loy Machedo as explained here.  For each Hitchslap, I summarise the content in the form of direct quotations and summaries, list co-stars and 'authorities' called upon.  This series should help you to find that one perfect Hitchslap to send to someone who you are debating.

Hitchslap 48 - Visibly shaken!

Hitchslap 45 Hitting religion's claims out of the park!  6:31
[How you doing?] Too soon to tell!
Why is America so far behind Europe.
Not enough room in the churches.  People lie to opinion pollsters.
In hospital they act as though Darwin is more likely to be right
The Queen is head of the church in England as well as the state.  When she dies, her slobbering, weak chinned dauphin of a son . . . who wants to convert to Islam . . . 
Don't you always love it to see how the Christians love one another
Until 1965 the Mormon Church was officially a racist organisation
Romney a senior member of a racket like that
Some Republicans quite careful not to appear too pious
“Its Jack Daniels or me . . . scum bag”.  (wife to George Bush)
‘Co-stars’: Bill Maher
Cited: God is not Great, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Prince Charles, Henry VIII, Al Sharpton, Mitt Romney, Northern Ireland, Iraq, Karl Rowe, George Bush
Link: http://youtu.be/c9jj_YvgG3w

Hitchslap 46 Hitchens asks for security to remove a conspiracy nut.    2:19
Battle to defend the constitution.
Slobbering chinless sympathiser of Islam, a witless dauphin who goes to the mosque these days will become the head of the church.
That's what you get when you build a church on the family values of Henry 8th
For all that, I think England was worth saving.
Security called to throw someone out.
‘Co-stars’: LA Times Festival, 2007
Cited: The Queen, Prince Charles, Henry VIII, A fascist crackpot
Link: http://youtu.be/gc3evsywecE

Hitchslap 47 Michael Moore. 4:55
Natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan
Saudis decide everything in Washington.  
Pointless war, kept going for profit.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Bill Clinton, George Bush, Prince Bandar (bin Khalid bin Faisal Al-Saud), George Orwell, Winston Smith, John McCain, The Weekly Standard
Link: http://youtu.be/aZL5MBaQCiE

Hitchslap 48 Interviewer visibly shaken by Hitchens comments.  5:20
Idea that I needed supernatural prompting to think this way is a barbaric idea.
Communism and fascism a very serious question.
Fascism and National Socialism effectively nothing more than the right wing of the RC church. 
National Socialism is pagan and anti-clerical but never breaks its concordat with the church.  Church reciprocates by having prayers for Hitler's birthday.
Third leader of the axis, the Japanese Emperor is actually a god.
Stalinism – millions of Russians had been told that the Tsar is the head of the church.  Not quite divine.  Stalin shouldn't be in the dictatorship business if he doesn't know how to exploit an inheritance like that - millions of credulous servile people.  Replication of the preceding theocracy.
Russian Orthodox church was always on the side of Stalin.  Kept the church in his corner throughout the collectivisation.  The church had to split because the hierarchy stayed with the regime.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: George Washington, Stalin, Trofim Lysenko, Lucretius, Spinoza, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Einstein, Hirohito
Link: http://youtu.be/uyIf2F_NPXM

Hitchslap 49 There is [sic] not enough churches for 25% of Americans to be Christians  5:00
It wouldn't bother me to be the only atheist in the country.
80% of Americans lie that they go to church regularly on Sunday.
Not enough churches to take that many Americans
Easy to lie to an opinion pollster about a matter of faith.
Its one of the ways that people who are religious get their own way.
Such a man as Sharpton would not get away that with this in our culture if he was not called Reverend.
Feeling of annoyance at the prevalence of religious bullying and intimidation.
Everyone in this room subject to a Fatwah by Mr Bin Laden and his associates.
I'm not a person of faith but I seek to kill the enemies of civilisation.  
It is immoral to tell me to love these people.
One definition that you can't meet – a person of faith who will leave you alone.  
They have to interfere in my life.  
Can't watch me go to hell.  Will love me to death if they have to.  
They start fighting among themselves – terrible wars of faith.
They have gravely retarded civilisation for hundreds of years and they are still doing it.  
There is no possibility of living a life that is untouched by this barbaric belief.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Al Sharpton, Robertson, Falwell, Mountabank, Osama Bin Laden, Iraq, India, 
Link: http://youtu.be/9WApUfdAGRo

Hitchslap 50 The warrant for slavery was biblical.  2:19
The warrant for slavery was biblical to begin with.  Found in the bible and preached by the churches.
For every Christian who was an anti-slavery activist that were millions and millions who did not just passively but actively supported the institution.
Main founders of the American anti-slavery society, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine, had no god.
Chaotic and disordered and undesigned nature of the cosmos and the universe.  If you claim that it is ordered and designed you will have a serious problem.
That there is so much injustice and random misery and unfairness is not my problem.
Look at a God who had made a penis that needs to be snipped, it is so badly thought out.
Poet Fulke Greville “Created sick and then ordered to be well.”
That can only be done by a heartless cruel incompetent designer.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Fulke Greville
Link: http://youtu.be/N9qBMjXVZh0

Hitchslap 51 Communist ideology is fundamentally religious in nature. 1:55
Russian Christian Tsars started the First World war, pogroms, Tsarist secret police brought the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' imported to Europe by national socialist Christian gangsters.
How much do you think the export of Russian Orthodox anti-Semitism cost us in point of lives.
Have you ever counted up what happened in the wars that were started by tsarism, persecutions and famines and tortures and starvation and the people who have just died of neglect.
If you want to do this accounting I am here for you.
Or what the Serbian and Russian Orthodox have just done in the Balkans – the most recent genocide we have seen in Europe entirely done by orthodox and catholic . . .  Grinding a whole part of civilised Europe into nothingness and bloodshed for their filthy stupid medieval quarrels.
How dare you say that any secularist, we who have opposed this kind of barbaric stuff are on all fours with these creeps? You should take it back you owe me an apology.
Civility is over-rated.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Tsar
Link: http://youtu.be/Lh74ant2U0s




Hitchslap Index posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9


The next parts coming regularly.  Check back for more!

Please add your comments, suggestions and corrections so that they can be included (with credit) in the final summary index that will be made up of these posts.

Amazing Hitchslap Index: part 6

Here is the next instalment of 'The Amazing Hitchslap Index', summarising the content of the next 7 of the 66 'Hitchslaps' uploaded to Youtube by Loy Machedo as explained here.  For each Hitchslap, I summarise the content in the form of direct quotations and summaries, list co-stars and 'authorities' called upon.  This series should help you to find that one perfect Hitchslap to send to someone who you are debating.

Hitchslap 37 - The great debate with Tony Blair

Hitchslap 37 Religion is insanity.  6:54
A text from Cardinal Newman.  
"The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say 'should be lost', but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one farthing without excuse."
What we have here is a distillation of precisely what is twisted and immoral in the faith mentality.
Its consideration of human being as a raw material in a cruel experiment where we are created sick and then ordered to be well
Installed about this is a celestial dictatorship, a kind of divine North Korea
Greedy for uncritical praise 
Swift to punish the original sin with which it so tenderly gifted us in the first place.
Redemption is promised at the low price of the surrender of your critical faculties.
Is it good for the world to appeal to our credulity and not our skepticism? (and a list of other things)
Birth place of mono-theism . . . should be enough room for two states in the same land . . .  but the parties of god have a veto on it.
People kill each other's children for ancient books and caves and relics.
What will happen when messianic fanatics get hold of an apocalyptic weapon?
‘Co-stars’: Tony Blair debate
Cited: Cardinal John Henry Newman's Apologia, Steven Weinberg, Iran, Tsarism in Putin's Russia
Link: http://youtu.be/SBqdaDXQW2A

Hitchslap 38 Waging war on the world.  5:42
Clinton administration intervened to prevent Iranians from invading Afghanistan.
Al Qaeda is a highly sectarian organisation which regards Shia as heretics who can be slaughtered at any time in the name of God.  Doesn't have a chance of winning hearts and minds.  Its defeat is certain
Named plaintiff on the wire tapping case.
Water-boarding self-evidently crossing the line that constitutes torture.
We have no right to throw away our ancient liberties.  All we need is to be very patient and very intelligent and of course very ruthless.
You advocate withdrawal and surrender.
...reduced Afghanistan to complete peonage and slavery.  50% of the Muslim population – the female part – is regarded as sub-human.
‘Co-stars’: Justin Ramondo
Cited: Al Qaeda, Hazara, Shia, East Timor
Link: http://youtu.be/PovQ2TCHVeM

Hitchslap 39 The cure for poverty.  4:34
In fairness no-one was arguing that religion should or will die out in the world.
It would be better if there was a great deal more by way of an outbreak of secularism.
We know that the cure for poverty is the empowerment of women to control the rate at which they reproduce.
Name me one religion that stands for that or ever has.
If I was a member of a church that preached that AIDS was not as bad as condoms I would be putting some conscience money into Africa too.
You may think its a bit cracked to think that Joseph Smith found another bible in up-state New York, but you should see our missionaries in action.
Great deal of charitable work is nothing compared to the harm that they do, but it is a great deal all the same
Don't require divine permission to know right from wrong. Don't need commandments administered to us ten at a time and in tablet form.
I have done my best – believe me, I have more.
‘Co-stars’: Tony Blair debate
Cited: Roman Catholics, Mormons, Rabbi Hillel, Confucius, Socrates, Wahhabi , Shia, Joseph Smith, Mamas Hesbullah
Link: http://youtu.be/r8YLfhtac9k

Hitchslap 40 The after life.  4:41
We know our chemical composition.  We are made out of stardust.
Will my dog or cat be there in heaven too? (Never ask about that hellish tabby being reassembled in the infernal regions.)
Wishful thinking for heaven is hedonistic, but why would people who are wish-thinking want hell?
Farrakhan in 1985 said “Remember Jews – when god puts you in the ovens it is for ever”– great moan and groan of pleasure that came from that audience.
Stupidity and nastiness and criminality of this religious nut bag
Call someone an imam or a priest or reverend and there is nothing that they can't get away with in our cultrure.
When someone gets up and says I'm a person of faith . . . means “I'm a person who will believe practically anything on no evidence at all”
You would think that the Lord himself would have had enough of the songs of praise after the first 5 billion years.
Tertullian on hell and heaven . . . From heaven you can go to the edge and look down on the torments and endless tortures of the damned.  That is a founding statement of Christianity  You can't disown it now. 
Ratzinger – an over-dressed little ponce who was himself a member of the Hitler youth
‘Co-stars’: Rabbi Schmuley Boteach, 
Cited: Dinesh's clever case for the afterlife, Louis Farrakhan, Tertullian, Ratzinger, Hitler Youth
Link: http://youtu.be/jQG3y_C_J_c

Hitchslap 41 Jesus's teachings are not moral.  5:56
Birth of Jesus in the bible – virgin 
List of virgin births.  No end to the way in which this kind of thing can be fabricated.
Potency and pungency of the story . . . inviting you not to rely on your thinking faculties but on straight out credulity.
Appear to be part of the hard and soft wiring of legend in our mammalian primate history 
If you want to have a prophet it is better if his mother is a virgin.
Joseph Smith never made that claim but Mrs Smith was well enough known to make it rather unlikely that that thing could be sold.
Revolting idea of human sacrifice, scape-goating and vicarious redemption.  Repulsive immoral idea.
C S Lewis on forgiveness. Asinine fatuity being the description of his conduct.
Either a lunatic or the devil of hell, a madman or something worse.
Lewis can't complete a syllogism, and never could.  Paltry logic.
‘Co-stars’: Dinesh D'Sousa
Cited: Demigod Perseus, Jupiter, Buddha, Aztec god, Attis, Genghis Kahn, Krishna, Horus, Mercury, Romulus, Virgin Mary, Joseph Smith, C S Lewis, Thomas Jefferson
Link: http://youtu.be/6qPxh0JJwhk

Hitchslap 42 The insult of religion.  3:57
Relieves you of the idea that plagues are punishments as the church used to preach.
Free yourself from appalling burden of superstition from our primate past.
Study plate tectonics – you won't do what the Archbishop of Haiti did.
Earthquake in Haiti – quarter of million victims.  God had something to say to Haiti and this is the way he chose to say it.
Responsibility to take on learning to free ourselves of superstition.
Crucial events happened 3000 to 2000 years ago in illiterate desert Arabia and Palestine and at that moment only, the heavens decided that it was time to intervene.
If I don't believe it I wouldn't have any source for ethics or  morality.
Please don't pile the insulting onto the irrational.
If I don't accept these sacrifices in the desert I have no reason to tell right from wrong.
God must have wanted the exile to be ended and we know that it was ended by Christian Europe throwing Jewish babies into furnaces
Some rabbis used to claim that the holocaust was a punishment for exile.
Dinesh asked his father Everyone else seems to be Hindu, why are we Christians  Because Portuguese inquisition got to this part of India first.
To leave the C of E behind, believe me, is no sweat.
George Herbert referred to “The sweet mediocrity of our native church.”
What do you get if you cross an Anglican with a Jehovah's Witness?  Somebody who comes to your door and bothers you for no particular reason.
‘Co-stars’: Dinesh D'Sousa
Cited: George Herbert, Archbishop of Haiti, Cardinal Archbishop of New York
Link: http://youtu.be/dfbWpaT78ZY

Hitchslap 43 Morals without God. 1:31
Invite the audience to join a thought experiment.
If it was conclusively demonstrated that [list of people] and all the other imposters are nothing more than legendary or mythical or fraudulent figures are you going to [list of 'sins'].  I submit that this is not so.
If there was no god, no prophets and no revelation, our moral dilemmas would be exactly as they are now.  Who doubts it?
‘Co-stars’: A panel
Cited: Jesus, Abraham, Moses, Mohammed, Joseph Smith and all the other imposters
Link: http://youtu.be/-D-cCNbMWxk

Hitchslap 44 Hitchslappin the 10 commandments.  8:07
Moses himself was a revisionist.  At least 4 versions of the Decalogue.
Commandment against the making of graven images upsetting to Catholics.
How do you take the Lord's name in vain?  Nobody has worked exactly how to obey this.  It is usually wise when promulgating eternal laws to be clear about what you mean.
Honour thy father and mother comes with an inducement.  Then you will have longer tenure of the land that has been promised to you.
Thou shalt not kill – but almost immediately afterwards Moses ordered murder of his supporters' friends and brothers.
Turkish government tried recently to make adultery a crime, but failed.
Don't know of any society that says it is ok to steal.
Idea of bearing false witness is and should be shocking to the entire human conscience – it may be the finest of the commandments.  Shows a rare and careful sense of the balance and scruple that is required for judgement and justice.
Last commandment forbids coveting.  Considers women equivalent to chattels.  Forbidden even to think.  Attempt to suppress a desire that must have been put into us by god.
Did god make men or did men make many gods?
Looking at a god who improvises, is jealous, short tempered, inconsistent.
A new ten commandments is read.
Denounce all jihadists and crusaders for what they are.
Don't swallow your moral code in tablet form.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Moses, 
Link: http://youtu.be/tiJqQE5WChk


Hitchslap Index posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9

The next parts coming regularly.  Check back for more!

Please add your comments, suggestions and corrections so that they can be included (with credit) in the final summary index that will be made up of these posts.

Amazing Hitchslap Index: part 5

Here is the next instalment of 'The Amazing Hitchslap Index', summarising the content of the next 7 of the 66 'Hitchslaps' uploaded to Youtube by Loy Machedo as explained here.  For each Hitchslap, I summarise the content in the form of direct quotations and summaries, list co-stars and 'authorities' called upon.  This series should help you to find that one perfect Hitchslap to send to someone who you are debating.

Hitchslap 29 - The world is full of 'pope types'

Hitchslap 29 Religion has no moral authority.  5:34
Certainly not going to criticise Islam for not having a pope
Christianity never had only one pope and still doesn't – Pope of the Coptic Christians, Eastern Orthodox Patriarch – christian world is full of pope-types
Impossible to have moral authority with religion.  The two things are so sharply divorced.
In case of the moral blackmail of Denmark . . . 
Then as Hitchslap 18  Link: http://youtu.be/XR41ACn9R8c
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Yusef Al Karadawi, Prof Ramadan, Eastern Orthodox Patriarch, Coptic Pope
Link: http://youtu.be/is12JYel-Rg

Hitchslap 30 Mother Teresa did not believe in god.  6:35
Moving and honest that she tried her best to believe.
Her atheism was not like mine.  I'm glad to think that it is not true that there is a dictator in the heavens and so the fact that there is no evidence for it pleases me.
Encouraged by cynical old men to carry on because she was a great marketing tool for her church.
That sounds like white noise . . . nonsense to me
If I had told you in 2001 that Mother Teresa didn't believe that Jesus was present in the eucharist . . . you would have accused me of slander.
You're not likely to be anybody's professor Mr Donahue.
[An Englishman has to be quiet when an Irishman talks]
Took money from the Duvalier family and Charles Keating
The great strength of the Catholic church used to be that it knew how to discipline fanatics, enthusiasts and zealots. 
Had to give her an exorcism in 1997
I turned out to be right though didn't I?
As Mr Donahue was trying and failing to say – his church has an answer for everything.
‘Co-stars’: Hardball debate, Bill Donahue
Cited: Mother Teresa, Lord Macauly, Duvalier family, Charles Keating, Archbishop of Calcutta
Link: http://youtu.be/5YBWoIwTq5c

Hitchslap 31 Hitchens invited on fox to be spoken over.  4:39
Refugees from Iraqi terror gangs flooding back into Afghanistan to try their luck there.
Obama praised . . . more teachable, evolving towards my position
I'm sorry darling . . . 
McCain losing capacity – e.g. choice of running mate
Sarah Palin not even curious about foreign policy
‘Co-stars’: Fox News
Cited: Slate, Barrack Obama, Biden, Milosovitch, John McCain, Sarah Palin
Link: http://youtu.be/9UpSecroiC4

Hitchslap 32 I hate religion.  4:22
I can't hate anyone in who's existence I don't really believe.
Ghastly ageing intolerant virgin
Eschewed the birth canal – or used it as a one way street.
All religions have one thing in common, hatred of the genitalia, especially the female, and I don't share this view.
Texts themselves say what they say.
Take no thought for the morrow because the world is coming to an end really soon and nothing else matters.
Islam (Hadith) says that apostates are to be killed.
Fundamentalists have the original texts on their side.
As long as these texts are respected we are always in danger of a revival of the most poisonous toxic horrible stuff.
Millions of grieving parents thought their children were in limbo for ever because they had not been baptised.
Aids in Africa is of course very bad but not as bad as condoms in Africa.
Pascal's Wager
‘Co-stars’: Red Eye, Fox News
Cited: Pope, Pascal
Link: http://youtu.be/mXTIl2cGmGs

Hitchslap 33 Shirley Williams is a disgrace.  3:20
[Is Salman Rushdie's knighthood an insult to muslims worldwide.]
I think that's a contemptible statement and that everyone who applauded it should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
What do we have that is better than our language?
An author who had sparked a renaissance of writing, produced a whole new branch of English literature.
Tariq Ramadan said that the protests in Pakistan are purely a matter of violent vicious internal politics.
It shouldn't have been our high commissioner who was called in by the Pakistani government – we should have hauled in the envoy of Pakistan and told him “Stop that right now or do without all the aid we give you”.
We won't have talk of murder for the writing of novels
Sullen resentful boring atmosphere in this room!
‘Co-stars’: BBC 'Question Time'?
Cited: Tariq Ramadan, Shirley Williams
Link: http://youtu.be/7iEKbIwTfbE

Hitchslap 34 Randel Terry.  1:45
Have been sitting here in this chair listening to you being a megaphone for fraud
Are you asking me or telling me?
Encouraging extremists and religious fanatics like Randel Terry
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Michael Schiver, Randel Terry
Link: http://youtu.be/EbheZsHP32Q
 
Hitchslap 35 Jerry Falwell was scum.  4:25
. . . giving me the opportunity to be rude about a man on the day he is buried.
Do you want to spend all your time whimpering about what I have said?
That has been true of every fraud in history
Believed in the rapture, creationism, that the Antichrist was a Jewish male who is already amongst us.
May have been both a hypocrite and a bigot.
It shows how much vulgarity fraud and bigotry you can get away with on mainstream airwaves as long as you have the word reverend in front of your name.
‘Co-stars’: Paula Zahn, Eric Metaxis
Cited: Jim and Tanny Bakers
Link: http://youtu.be/RLDUk8pIgLA
 
Hitchslap 36 Scientology and Mormonism are obvious rackets.  3:24
Know a lot of people who do not try to profit from religion.
Racketeering is and always has been an important part of religion.
Some religions simply ARE rackets , e.g. Scientology and Mormonism.
Nothing more than the record of a successful con job.
They don't know any more than you do whether there was a virgin birth.
Asking us to believe their propensity to faith.
Then on to Billy Graham as in Hitchslap 09.
‘Co-stars’: In Depth
Cited: Billy Graham
Link: http://youtu.be/Q9O-sR_quCI




Hitchslap Index posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9


The next parts coming regularly.  Check back for more!

Please add your comments, suggestions and corrections so that they can be included (with credit) in the final summary index that will be made up of these posts.

Amazing Hitchslap Index: part 4

Here is the next instalment of 'The Amazing Hitchslap Index', summarising the content of the next 7 of the 66 'Hitchslaps' uploaded to Youtube by Loy Machedo as explained here.  For each Hitchslap, I summarise the content in the form of direct quotations and summaries, list co-stars and 'authorities' called upon.  This series should help you to find that one perfect Hitchslap to send to someone who you are debating.

Hitchslap 22 - Don't take no thought for the morrow

Hitchslap 22: Jesus the fraud  4:44
Got to believe in everything I say or go to hell or heaven
Willing to grant the immaculate conception, the virgin birth, and the resurrection, annunciation and the assumption.  It doesn't prove the truth of the proposition that you should take no thought for the morrow.
Deluded bronze-age inhabitants of Palestine.
On the historicity point there are two reasons to believe in some sort of charismatic deluded rabbi
1/  The amount of fabrication needed to get him born in Bethlehem. None of the story of the nativity is true in any detail.
2/  That the witnesses to the resurrection were women,  illiterate stupid deluded hysterical girls who would never have been believed in a Jewish court of the time.
It is impressive to me that the evidence is so obviously, strenuously cobbled together.
Noble words of Socrates will continue to illuminate.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: C S Lewis, Socrates, Jesus
Link: http://youtu.be/578G-wu6z88

Hitchslap 23: Religion is the poison chalice  2:43
Implied question – why don't you accept this wonderful offer, why wouldn't you like to meet Shakespeare
 . . . Corporeally reassembled
When Socrates was sentenced to death for his philosophical investigations and blasphemy he hoped to have discussions with other philosophers.
Whether it goes on or not after I die, I don't know, but I do know I want to do it while I'm alive.
I don't know enough, haven't understood enough . . .
Wouldn't have it any other way
Dead until you believe as they do.  What a terrible thing to be telling children.  
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Shakespeare, Socrates
Link: http://youtu.be/k_Vex-TYA9o 

Hitchslap 24: Religious right and wrong.  4:23
Christian scientist – or at least scientist who is Christian.
Mark Twain said of Mary Baker Eddy “chloroform in print”
People have been around for at least 100,000 years.  They were born and they died, living not much more than 25 years. Dying of their teeth, appendix, terrible diseases, misery, malnutrition and fear.  Where do the earthquakes . . .
Awful cults of sacrifice, war and rape.  Struggle to make progress.
To the point where they could brew beer – a breakthrough in my opinion.
You have to believe this if you believe in mono-theism, for the first 97-98 thousand years heaven watches with indifference.  3000 years ago at the most it is decided that heaven must intervene now, but the revelation must be made to the most backward, barbaric, illiterate, superstitious and savage people in the most stony part of the world.
Not in China where they could already read.  Not in the Indus valley.
Force them to cut their way through all the neighbours with slaughter, genocide and racism and settle in the only part of the middle east where there is no oil.
And without this we wouldn't know right from wrong!
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Mary Baker Eddy, Mark Twain, Richard Dawkins, Francis Collins
Link: http://youtu.be/K7Pgxg6h1SQ

Hitchslap 25: religion poisons everything.  05:35
[If there is no god why do you spend all your life trying to convince . . .]
Not my whole career but now a major pre-occupation.
Opposition to theocracy.
Resist those who serious want to encompass the destruction of civilisation.
Mono-theistic Messianic religion wants us to die.
Can tell the yearning for things to be over, whenever you read any of its real texts.
Escatological argument that if you don't believe that there is going to be an apocalypse then you are not really a believer.
Extreme Muslims can't wait for the 'final solution'.
Cult of death to be opposed in our daily lives where there are people who only want to ruin good relationships between different people, nations, tribes . . . 
When I said "Religion poisons everything" I meant that it infects us in our most basic integrity and says that we can't be moral . . . and forces us to love someone that we fear.
Though I do, some nights, stay home, I enjoy more the nights when I go out and fight against this ultimate wickedness and ultimate stupidity.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Rapture, Israeli settlers, Messiah
Link: http://youtu.be/k6YzS-TXT08

Hitchslap 26: Christians prey on the dying.  2:47
[Serious illness – has it shaped you view of the afterlife?]
It fractionally increases my contempt for the false consolation element of religion and my dislike for the dictatorial and totalitarian part of it.
Perfectly normal in this society to approach dying people who you don't know and say “Now are you going to change your mind?”  Its considered almost a polite question.
Horrible undertone of blackmail to it.  History of fraud.
People say “I'm writing to you as a friend”.
...haven't had quite the vinegar that I would like to have had
To Catholics:  Would it be polite to say “You may only have a few days left but you don't have to live as a serf you know”?
I think it would be something of a breach of taste but if it is in the name of god it has a sort of licence.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Charles Darwin, Thomas Paine, Sam Harris
Link: http://youtu.be/Mky96adnjso

Hitchslap 27: God is a joke and the believer is the punchline.  1:40
One of the reasons I like debating the religious is that you never know what they are going to say next.
Already had a suggestion that god is only really a guru, a friend when you are in need.
He wouldn't do anything like bugger around with Job to prove a point.
For hundreds and thousands of years this kind of discussion would have been in most places impossible to have, or Sam and I would have been having it at risk of our lives.
Religion now comes to us in this smiley-faced ingratiating way because it has had to give so much ground and because we know so much more.
You have no right to forget how it behaved when it was strong, when it really did believe that it had god on its side.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Sam Harris
Link: http://youtu.be/0grNMmK4S8I

Hitchslap 28: Slavery and genocide with divine permission.  3:41
Whoever asked that has obviously only just come into the room.
McGrath was unusually good on this point – Dostoevsky.  If god exists we have to do what he says, and if he does not exist then we can do what we like.
Is it not said of god's chosen people in the Pentateuch that they can do exactly as they like to other people with divine permission?
Have been to Iran, not allowed to sentence a woman who is a virgin to death, but religious law means she can be raped by the revolutionary guard, then she is not a virgin any more and can be sentenced to death.
Divine permission enables actions that a morally normally unbeliever would not contemplate. Genital mutilation – who would do that.
Morally normal and intelligent people find themselves saying fatuous and wicked things.
Suicide bombing community is entirely faith based
Genital mutilation community is entirely faith based
Slavery is mandated by the bible.  Abolitionist might have been christians but it was about time.
Name an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer in the name of faith that couldn't have been by an infidel, and name, if you can, and this is easier, a wicked action that could only have been mandated by faith. Then you will see how silly your question was, whoever you were.
‘Co-stars’: Alistair McGrath
Cited: Dostoevsky, Poet Laureate
Link: http://youtu.be/eO-E3tnFOOk


Hitchslap Index posts: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

The next parts coming regularly.  Check back for more!

Please add your comments, suggestions and corrections so that they can be included (with credit) in the final summary index that will be made up of these posts.

Amazing Hitchslap Index: part 3

Here is the next instalment of 'The Amazing Hitchslap Index', summarising the content of the next 7 of the 66 'Hitchslaps' uploaded to Youtube by Loy Machedo as explained here.  For each Hitchslap, I summarise the content in the form of direct quotations and summaries, list co-stars and 'authorities' called upon.  This series should help you to find that one perfect Hitchslap to send to someone who you are debating.

Hitchslap 17 - "Here comes the really nice bit".

Hitchslap 15: What ill is the crucifixion a cure for?  2:24
Of course I have emancipated myself from all that nonsense as I wish you would do too.
No more optional than Abraham saying to his son “Do you want to come for a long and gloomy walk?”
Millions of people every year celebrate this act of sado-masochism.
He knows what it is like to lose a son?  If the story is true, which I don't think it is, it is self-evidently not the case.  He doesn't loose a son – he lends one.  He doesn't offer one because nobody has demanded it.
No problem that has been identified in the human species that demands human sacrifice.
I'm doing this because the prophets said I would . . . have the boy tortured to death in public . . . to fulfil ancient screeds.
I don't want torture, human sacrifice, blood lettings . . .  I don't want it. I can't think of a single thing that it will make better.
‘Co-stars’: Alistair McGrath
Cited: 
Link: http://youtu.be/TD7Y4y8eJGg

Hitchslap16: Hitler was no atheist  2:14
Atheism is not a moral or political position of any kind.
To say that Nazism is equivalent to implementation of Darwinism is a filthy slander
Darwinism was derided in Germany
Hitler was not an atheist
Oath to Fuhrer “I swear in the name of almighty God . . ”.  Gott mit uns etc.
Catholic control of German education
To suggest that there is something fascistic about me and my beliefs is something that I won't hear said and you shouldn't believe.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Hitler, Vatican , Darwin , Freud, Einstein, Mein Kampf
Link: http://youtu.be/-_XY-G_zj4Y

Hitchslap 17:  I don't want to praise the dear leader for eternity.  3:04
Its a bit mushy isn't it - this I'm OK you're OK ecumenicism, as well as a bit ahistorical.
Millions died on these points of distinction and thought that their lives had been well thrown away for it, and I think one ought to respect that.
As a deist you still have all your work ahead of you before you can be a theist.
Roman Catholics believe Ex eclesiam nulla sallis – outside THEIR church there is no salvation.  Many protestants same the same about Catholics.
Which kind of Christian do you have to be to be a real one?
These are not small distinctions.
Wouldn't go to paradise if I was asked.  Its like a fucking celestial North Korea.
The trouble with religion only starts when people have affirmed that it is true.  Then comes the really nice bit – inter-religious warfare.
‘Co-stars’: ?
Cited: Rick Warren
Link: http://youtu.be/qVVvEqUFsTU

Hitchslap 18: Religion thinks it has a right to threaten non believers  3:33
It is not possible to have moral authority within religion.  The two things are so sharply divorced.
This doesn't lead to chaos.
e.g. 1 Moral blackmail of Denmark by the OIC.
e.g. 2 The fatwah against Salman Rushdie.  The offer of money to suborn murder for the crime of writing a work of fiction.
Friday prayers at Tehran University with banners and slogans saying that the sentence of Salman Rushdie will never die.
There is something shady involved here – some people say that Islamist's give themselves permission to lie to non-believers.  Sounds like the kind of vulgar and paranoid thing that an islamophobe would go round saying.  It would be very easy to disprove, except that it hasn't been.
These are not minor threats but threats to the very core of what we believe.
Claims of a religion that says it is the answer to everything.
(Also found in Hitchslap 29 - Link: http://youtu.be/is12JYel-Rg)
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Organisation of Islamic Congress, Ambassadors of Egypt, Turkey etc., Spiritual leader of Shia islam
Link: http://youtu.be/XR41ACn9R8c

Hitchslap 19: God has a special plan for us  3:09
Reference to RDFRS lecture by Lawrence Krauss.  Universe from nothing
Every single second a star goes out.  A lot of annihilation and destruction.  A wasteful scale.
It does have the positive outcome that we are all constituted of those materials – we are made of stardust
More majestic, wonderful and beautiful and impressive than a burning bush
One has the virtue of being true and provable and studiable, and the other doesn't.
I do think that the verifiability of something is a virtue.
Until 50,000 years ago there were 4 other kinds of biped humanoid on the planet. No religion ever invented knew anything about other hominids.
All of this could be part of a plan – there is no way an atheist can prove that it is not - but it is some plan isn't it.
All set in motion on a scale beyond our imagination – all so that the pope can tell people not to jerk off.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Lawrence Krauss
Link: http://youtu.be/JOe-FmEwStA

Hitchslap 20: Stupid questions  1:32
[How can you justify taking away something that gives meaning?]
What an incredibly stupid question!
1/  This stuff cannot be taken away.  It is their favourite toy and will remain that way as long as we are afraid of death.
2/  I'm perfectly happy for people to have these toys as long as they play with them at home.  I will not play with the toys.  Don't say my children must play with these toys.
Enough of clerical and religious bullying and intimidation.  Is that finally clear?
‘Co-stars’: Fora TV
Cited: Sigmund Freud
Link: http://youtu.be/BnwFyfzMurI


Hitchslap 21: The weakness of religion.  3:29
Strong connection between wishes and thought.
We are the first species to know that one by one we are going to die.  To give someone the suggestion that maybe an exception can be made in their own case is making a fairly obvious offer.
Our strength is that we don't need support groups.
The weakness of religion is that it needs constant reinforcement.  Of course it needs that.  It would crumble without it.
Princess Diana checked out the same week as Mother Teresa – douche-bag, liar and thief.  Sobfest.  Ah well – there is a god.
I like it when bad people die.  I don't love my enemies.  That's why I think Christianity is immoral.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Sigmund Freud, Henry Kissinger, Mother Teresa, Princess Diana
Link: http://youtu.be/pCbjXTFfHNs



Hitchslap Index posts: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

The next parts coming regularly.  Check back for more!

Please add your comments, suggestions and corrections so that they can be included (with credit) in the final summary index that will be made up of these posts.

Amazing Hitchslap Index: part 2

Here is the next instalment of 'The Amazing Hitchslap Index', summarising the content of the next 7 of the 66 'Hitchslaps' uploaded to Youtube by Loy Machedo as explained here.  For each Hitchslap, I summarise the content in the form of direct quotations and summaries, list co-stars and 'authorities' called upon.  This series should help you to find that one perfect Hitchslap to send to someone who you are debating.

Christopher Hitchens on the subject of Billy Graham

Hitchslap 08: This so called merciful god 1:52
[What does your anti-theism have to offer in the way of dignity hope to those who are not as strong or intelligent as you?]
...not just deist belief in a creator but theist belief in someone who knows and watches and cares.
Fraulein Freisel – kept in a dungeon - Imagine how she must have prayed, beseeched heaven for 24 years.
Heaven watched with indifference because that score will later be settled.
So it was well worth her going through it.  She'll have a better time next time
‘Co-stars’: Panel of many, 
Cited: Fraulein Friesel, (Austria)
Link: http://youtu.be/X4zYYYp9cB0

Hitchslap 09: Rev. Billy Graham was an evil man 1:25
Billy Graham – a disgustingly evil man.
Anti-Semitism an unfailing sign of a sick and disordered person, horrible conspiratorial, pseudo-intellectual mean-spirited, eventually lethal piece of bigotry.
Richard Nixon – squalid little bigot – outmatched by the way that Billy Graham talks.
Goes round spouting lies to young people for a living – what a horrible career.
(This is included in Hitchslap 36.)
‘Co-stars’: In Depth
Cited: Billy Graham, Richard Nixon, , 
Link: http://youtu.be/YeUYvyn2eBQ
 
Hitchslap 10: Why Heaven wouldn't be a heaven at all  1:56
Wish to be a slave. Desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crimes while you are asleep . 
Total surveillance of your life around the clock. Every waking and sleeping moment.
The real fun begins after you are dead.
A celestial North Korea – a necrocracy.  A thanetocracy.  One short of a trinity
At least you can fucking die and leave North Korea.  Does Koran or Bible offer you that liberty? No!  The tyranny misery, utter ownership of your entire personality, smashing of your individuality only begins at the point of death.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sun
Link: http://youtu.be/igZSUofDi1A

Hitchslap 11:  The teachings of Christianity are immoral 3:20
Is it moral to believe that our sins can be forgiven by the punishment of another person?
I submit that the doctrine of vicarious redemption by human sacrifice is utterly immoral.
Compulsory love is another sickly element of Christianity
I'll pay your debts but can't take away your responsibilities.
Scape-goating – a positively immoral doctrine that demolishes the concept of personal responsibility on which all ethics and morality must depend.
I am told that I have to have a share in this human sacrifice even though it took place before I was born.
I had no say in it happening.  I wasn't consulted.  Had I been present I would have been bound to do my best to stop the public torture and execution of an eccentric preacher.
Sin of Adam in Genesis
This may sound a mad belief but it is the Christian belief.
To connect meteorology to morality seems to me flat out idiotic whichever way you do it.
Fisher - Nuclear war will only hasten our transition into a more blessed state.
Another immoral and sinister thing about religion is that lurking under it at all times in every one of its versions is a desire for this life to come to an end.
What is it like to lie to children for a living and to tell them that there is an authority that they must love.
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Bishop of Carlisle, Jeffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury
Link: http://youtu.be/SVwTrq_XoQU
 
Hitchslap 12: Blackmail and extortion, Christian style  2:57
[Possibility of transformation being offered to me but not imposed upon me]
Not imposed??
What if you reject the offer that took place by means of the torture to death of a human being?
I don't want it.  Oh you don't? Well you have to go to hell.
This has been preached to children. . . by gruesome elderly virgins for centuries
Religious faith is not modest and humble but the reverse.  It is unbelievably solipsistic.
To move from the deist position to the theist – to assume that we know about the mind of god. That we know what he wants us to eat and in what positions to make love or with whom.
Unbelievable piece of conceit . . . claiming to know things that they can not conceivably know.
If Dr McGrath has access to such extraordinary sources of information as the ones he has claimed I can't understand why he is only occupying a chair at Oxford University.
You don't know any more than I do.  You couldn't know any more than I do.  You can't.  You just claim that you do.
‘Co-stars’: Alistair McGrath
Cited: 
Link: http://youtu.be/2G1_M8wDcw4
 
Hitchslap 13: The Catholic Church is Evil  2:40
The pope, on March 12th 2000, begged forgiveness for the crusades, the inquisition, the persecution of Jews, injustice towards women (half the human race), the forced conversion of the indigenous people of S America, the African slave trade, the admission that Galileo was right, silence during Hitler's final solution, regret for the rape and torture of children.
These are very serious matters, not to be laughed off by reference to occasional work of charity.
Most loving pastoral care . . . well I'm sorry they have already had that.
Anti-Semitism was official Catholic doctrine until 1964.
Will one day be admitted that it might have been in error to say that AIDS is bad but not quite as bad as condoms are bad.  Or not as immoral in the same way.
Preachings of his church are responsible for the death of millions of people in Africa
A child made in the image of god.  Oh no you are not you're a faggot.
. . . clutch of hysterical sinister virgins
‘Co-stars’: 
Cited: Joseph Ratzinger, Galileo, Hitler, Stephen Fry, Catholicism in Africa
Link: http://youtu.be/3eLzjzAW9KA

Hitchslap 14: Shame there’s no hell for Fallwell to burn in.  3:47
Falwell established a business, a racket.  A hereditary job.
Rid of an extremely dangerous demagogue who lived by hatred and prejudice.
Treason of saying that USA deserved the attack upon it in 2001.
A pity there isn't a hell for him to go to
Discovery of the carcass of Rev Falwell was of zero significance.
You, no doubt, as a Christian, require hypocrisy of people.
Made a career out of sponsoring dislike and superstition.
Said people he didn't like would go to hell.
Took up all the time with your long and rather unlettered question.
I think his death is a deliverance.
‘Co-stars’: Hannity & Colmes
Cited: Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reid
Link: http://youtu.be/xgd-fCepI5k


Hitchslap Index posts: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9


Please add your comments, suggestions and corrections so that they can be included (with credit) in the final summary index that will be made up of these posts.

Amazing Hitchslap Index: part 1.

Here is the first instalment of 'The Amazing Hitchslap Index', summarising the content of the first 7 of the 66 'Hitchslaps' uploaded to Youtube by Loy Machedo as explained here.  For each Hitchslap, I summarise the content in the form of direct quotations and summaries, list co-stars and 'authorities' called upon.  This series should help you to find that one perfect Hitchslap to send to someone who you are debating.

Hitchslap 1 - starting the index today

Hitchslap 01: Christianity's argument destroyed in 1 min and 38 sec 1:38
Don't particularly welcome the idea of the annihilation of ourselves or of the entropic heat death of the universe.
Very little evidence to suggest that I will see you all again in some theme park.
I'm willing to accept conclusions that may be unwelcome to me.
180,000 years ago the population of humans dropped to between 30 and 40,000 - close to joining every other species that has gone extinct.
Arrogance to the assumption that all this extraordinary development was all about us.
Tremendous wastefulness, cruelty and caprice, tinkering and incompetence
Never mind -  the whole universe was designed with just you in mind.
I think we have free will.  Have to take refuge in philosophical irony - you don't have any choice BUT to have free will.
Christians say "of course you have free will  - the boss insists on it".
'Co-stars': None
Cited: None
Link: http://youtu.be/N_2GXbgANWw


Hitchslap 02: Iran and Israel  3:02
[Why do you consider Iran a threat to peace in the world, and not the Zionists.]
Long work on rights of Palestinians.  
Lot of people in the Muslim world are fed up of having the subject changed to Israel.  Children are having to keep shedding their blood because the regime keeps killing them for wanting to have a say in their own internal affairs  
3 women in court against one man. Rape and torture used as policies in prisons.
Do you want a regime like that to have nuclear weapons? You're welcome but you   should say that is what you want if you don't mind.
Appeal to the fair-mindedness and intelligence of the audience.  Did I say that?
Well that's progress of a kind.
'Co-stars': #qanda Panel
Cited: Edward Said
Link: http://youtu.be/Ve3DhpvgCN8


Hitchslap 03: Christianity is a bankrupt currency 2:32
All supernatural claims must be true, or none of them are (my own position), or only one of them is.  The least probable position of all – the one that you have decided to occupy.
Why are your miracles the true bill and the others are all copies?
All Joseph knew was who had not made her pregnant if we have to be crude about this.
Which is more likely?  Divine intervention or that a Jewish girl could tell a fib.
Of the two I don't think the latter is overwhelmingly improbable.
No religion has ever been founded except with the claim that its founder and prophet was born of a virgin.  I have the whole list in the front of my book . . .
So, nobody bothers to counterfeit bad currency?  Well it turns out that they do.
'Co-stars': None
Cited: David Hulme
Link: http://youtu.be/ku38KXd90WQ


Hitchslap 04: Immoral and offensive  3:41
Beliefs of the religious are very offensive to me.
If I don't accept a bogus story about a supposed human sacrifice that took place in Jerusalem in something like 33 AD . . . If I don't accept this I'm going to hell.
I don't go and burn down the nearest Baptist or Catholic church.  I'd be ashamed of myself if I did.
I don't call for people to form mobs to vindicate my hurt feelings.
Archangel Gabriel never said a word to the peasant Mohamed.  The event did not take place, any more than the Archangel Gabriel ever announced himself to the to the non-virgin Mary
How contemptible can you  possibly get?
Whatever you do, they will find a reason to take offence and when they have done that they think it is their axiomatic right to go straight to violence of the most criminal kind.
Do not dare to address me as though you are warning me when I comment on this.  I won't have it.  I won't be talked to in that tone of voice
Marx - Criticism of religion is the beginning of all criticism
Most important minority in the history of the world – those have never believed in god, who believe that ethical life is possible without religion.
Judaism is derived from ancient race myths, Christianity a plagiarism of that and Islam an even worse plagiarism of the two above.
All of these cults are equal and equivalent glimpses of the untrue.
Do we get no credit for failing to be violent?
'Co-stars': Unidentified interviewer and interviewees
Cited: Antigones; Sophocles; United Nations; Karl Marx; Samara Dome
Link: http://youtu.be/RdWaLEJk8Rc


Hitchslap 05: Genital mutilation or circumcision is despicable  2:10 
Religion compels ordinary moral people to do disgusting wicked unforgivable things.
[Opponent's son cried more at his first hair cut than at his circumcision]
You weren't doing it right then.
Can't find the compulsory mutilation of genitals of children a subject for humour or flippancy.
Religion makes morally normal people say and do disgusting and wicked things
Shame on you for saying what you just said.
At least Judaism does not go in for female genital mutilation
'Co-stars': Unknown
Cited: Maimonides
Link: http://youtu.be/ikNged5mZiQ


Hitchslap 06: The virgin birth is a lie  2:28
Hulme – Which is more likely? Natural order is suspended or a Jewish minx should tell a lie?


Babies are not born beautiful.  They are born ugly.  They need to be sawn a bit.
Secular criminality on a political level was not really possible until the late 18th century as until that time religious monopoly on violence and cruelty and torture was so intense.
'Co-stars': Rev Al Sharpton
Cited: David Hulme; Steven Weinburg
Link: http://youtu.be/YHN3LEk_dOs


Hitchslap 07: It's called faith because it's not knowledge  2:57
Do yourself and your faith the honour of saying that it is faith.
A miracle is defined as the suspension of the natural order.
What is more likely? That the laws of nature have been suspended in your favour, or you have made a mistake?
Parthenogenesis is not completely unthinkable but does not prove his paternity is divine.
Wouldn't prove that any of his moral teachings are therefore correct.
Lazarus and daughter of Jairus both raised.  All the graves of Jerusalem opened. Resurrection was something of a banality at the time.
'Co-stars': Unidentified panel
Cited: David Hulme
Link: http://youtu.be/RNV06WI40A8



Hitchslap Index posts: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9



Please add your comments, suggestions and corrections so that they can be included (with credit) in the final summary index that will be made up of these posts.