Video of the recent D'Souza, Hitchens, Prager debate is up.

Video of the recent D'Souza, Hitchens, Prager debate complete with giant chairs which make the panelists look like they've been miniaturized...

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=tothesource1&p=r

I may not agree with hitchens on some things but the fact that he can keep it together with all that liquor running through his system ALONE is impressive.

The other two...PRAGER!?!?! :rofl:

...but I feel like I could have done a lot better than Hitchens did in responding to D'Souza and Prager. Prager himself brought up the question "What created God?", but only to characterize the question as nothing more than silly Philosophy 101 stuff he could safely dismiss with contempt, without providing an answer. Hitchens should have pressed Prager on that question and made him deal with it.

Hitchens was pretty horrible on dealing how altruism and evolution are compatible (an issue first brought up by D'Souza, as I recall), and I think he spent way too much time letting himself get dragged into the murk about who has committed the most and worst atrocities for what reasons. Hitchens also let Prager get away completely unchallenged on his truly stupid and ignorant remarks about art and religion.

To Hitchens' credit, he clearly knows history and current events better than I do. While I've long considered the cult of personality built around Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il to be quasi-religious in nature, I had no idea before viewing this debate how much supernaturalism was involved. I'd now be comfortable calling the North Korean government a true religious cult, not merely a communist dictatorship.

...all points raised, but I think that you're correct to point out that Christopher Hitchens didn't make a strong enough argument against the God of the Gaps, which should be a pushover for him. Also, I thought that Hitchens stumbled badly in his initial attempt to answer Prager's question about whether or not he had any doubt that God doesn't exist. Hitchens could have easily dismissed that question by asking Prager if he has any doubt that faeries don't exist. Instead, Hitchens got needlessly defensive, talking about how he tries to have doubt. I didn't like that at all. Hitchens really seemed caught off guard there... something made more shocking by the fact that he is not the type who is easily caught off guard.

Hitchens should also have attacked Prager for saying that he doesn't have any moral problems with the story of the great flood. What kind of person doesn't have a problem with a god drowning virtually all of humanity including infants and children?