Sunday, November 04, 2007

Hitchens and D'Souza, Hitchens and McGrath

Watched the debate between Hitchens and D'Souza today (at the King's College, NY). D'Souza does debate more effectively than does Alister McGrath in that he debates more aggressively.

Overall, I'd say D'Souza cleaned Hitchens' clock, though he was on his weakest ground in lumping the Third Reich in with explicitly secular communist regimes (not that his point was indefensible--it's just not easy to defend effectively in a format like that one).
D'Souza scored heavily in noting Hitchens' double standard on credit for wrongs committed. Hitchens wants any wrong of religion marked to that account of religion yet tries to blame communism's atrocities on religion. Though the inconsistency is obvious, Hitchens himself drew attention to it even after D'Souza called him on it.

Nor did Hitchens do any better than anyone in the earlier discussion thread (here at CQ) in providing a metaphysical basis for judging morality. Hitchens flatly failed to answer a question from the audience on that topic, instead using it to jump off to his foundationless outrage over the acts of Christianity.

I attempted to post the above over at Captain's Quarters in an existing discussion thread, but the attempt failed due to technical difficulties.

Since it ends up here at my blog, I'll add to the comparison to the debate between Hitchens and Alister McGrath. McGrath also argued capably and got the best of Hitchens for the most part, but signing on with Hitchens' moral outrage makes for a weak debate strategy, especially when Hitchens may be counted on to dwell on the subject.

I've got a review and critique of the McGrath vs. Hitchens debate in the works.


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