Hvordan snakke med en konspirasjonsteoretiker

Ja, der har du profeten din.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor

Nei.

Du er så sinnsykt nedlatende.

"slik voksne prater". Ta deg en bolle.

Det var ikke hva jeg skrev. Konstruktiv debatt mellom voksne innebærer at man definerer begrepene man bruker og underbygger påstandene sine. Hvis du ikke liker at det er slik, endrer ikke det på noe som helst. Du har selv valgt å forsøke å delta i en debatt uten å gjøre dette, og da må du selv ta ansvar for at det ikke går slik du ønsker.

Hay festival: Hitchens the bully
There was passion, erudition and wit from Christopher Hitchens at Hay - but also imperious temper tantrums
Michael White
Sun 25 May 2008 18.05 BST
60

Christopher Hitchens at Hay. Photographer: Felix Clay

Christopher Hitchens is a brilliant, often gracious polemicist, as he would be the first to admit. But he has also become a bully. It is as much the price he pays for being clever as the derision he incites against opponents is the price they pay for not being in quite the same league.

Both Hitchenses were on display under the rain-sodden canvass at Hay today, as he chaired one session, then talked alone for an hour on the themes of God is Not Great, his own book on religion. He had the largest tent at the festival and all-but-packed it twice.

At lunchtime he gently interviewed Asne Seierstad, the Norwegian journalist, author of The Bookseller of Kabul and - currently - The Angel of Grozny, her account of the terrible war for Chechnya.

Hitchens clearly admires her courage and her work and kept his own role to decent minimum; the odd helpful line from Auden here, a word of encouragement or explanation there.

Seierstad spoke of feral children, orphaned and abandoned, reduced inevitably to unimaginable cruelties and an awareness of evil far beyond their years. Author and interviewer agreed that such children are the product of war in Iraq and Africa too.

With a reported 100,000 dead, the resistance crushed by a macho puppet regime installed by Vladimir Putin's Kremlin - more cruel in its revenge against its own people than the former Russian occupiers - the politics were as relentlessly depressing as the state of Chechnya's children. The future is as bleak as the past.

Seierstad won both applause, laughter (the burka is a wonderful disguise for foreign women journalists: you can observe and also be safe) and sympathy for the eponymous heroine of her book: the woman who runs an orphanage despite everything.

In his implausibly clean beige suit (amid the Hay mud) Hitch was effortless grace itself. This pair have done festivals together before and he felt able to reveal that Seierstad - "Mother Courage" will herself become a mother soon. The audience clapped. How do you deal with your fear, someone asked? "I was a fearless child," she replied.

There was one imperious flick of temper, a hint of things to come. An American asked a clumsy question which the author failed to understand. "No, that was not an audio problem, it's a slightly confused question," explained the chairman who then summarised it. "Future questioners who do that will piss me off. So bear it in mind," he added.

After a mere 30 minute pitstop Hitchens was back in the Barclays Wealth Pavilion to be introduced by the Festival director, Peter Florence, as the writers whom fellow festival veterans - 72 out of the 100 canvassed - would most like to honour.

This time he was the star of the show - and shone. A quick joke about the quality of the glass of red wine at his elbow ("you couldn't even use it for communion") and he set about demolishing Christianity and its monotheistic rivals with an efficient brutality which was both clever and cruel.

Unlike Richard Dawkins who takes the scientific road to atheism, Hitchens starting point is moral: the repulsive notion that people must be good only by virtue of fear of punishment or hope of reward; the masochistic notion that they are the vile, dusty product of original sin, offset by the corrupting suggestion that the universe has been devised for our exclusive benefit.

Great stuff and Hitchens sprayed around his contempt with a well-honed display of passion, erudition and wit. Say what you like about North Korea - where citizens are required to pass their days praising Kim il Sung, the local God the Father, just like the Christian Heaven. "But you can at least fucking die and leave North Korea. Monotheism does not even give you that choice."

Hitchens was speaking to what was clearly a largely supportive audience, but the minority of believers present made a stand. Hitchens fielded questions about circumcision, arranged marriages, what he called "incestuous marriages" too, with ease. All should be illegal. "What are the police doing?"

A few minutes later a man who may have been Muslim asked when we could expect Hitchens' "mea culpa for Iraq". Hitchens had already greeted the sight of him with the words "I was wondering where you put your women, what have you done with them?"

He swept aside the question, leaving us wondering. It is not as if Hitch is not the master of the elegant tangent. But he moved rapidly on before his audience realised: a bullying response which was confirmed when a middle-aged woman asked if he might not be accused of racism in the way he had attacked religion when his targets were really cultural ones - backward perhaps, but not the same as faith.

Hitchens had no difficulty in distinguishing between deplorable practices regardless of faith - which rarely provides any authority for female circumcision, though in Europe it is practiced only by Muslims and animists, he explained.

But he savaged the poor woman for what he deemed the innuendo behind her language, the suggestion that Hitch ''could be accused" of racism. "If you want to accuse me of racism, fucking well stand up and say it." There was more in the same vein against this "pathetic piece of euphemism."

To her credit the woman fought her corner. But young people in my section of the tent, good atheists all I expect, were angered by his behaviour. I have known and admired Chris Hitchens for 30 years and shared their dismay; nothwithstanding that he recovered and ended the session on a fine note: if you seek the luminous and transcendant, try looking through the Hubble Telecope. It's better than the Burning Bush.

Nei.

Du er så sinnsykt nedlatende.

"slik voksne prater". Ta deg en bolle.

Videre har jeg masse å gjøre. Dette her er bare tidtrøyte og underholdning egentlig, innimellom. Terapi, siden man ikke kan mose trynet til idioter ellers. Her inne er det nok slikt og selv de "hardeste" debattantene har så opplagte skavanker at det er lett å la seg underholde. Litt som å se på videoer av kattunger. Så da kommer man her og deltar i våset.

Svaret er at spørsmålet er feil. Man kan ikke bevise at guddommen finnes eller ikke finnes. Den som stiller slikt spørsmål, fremstår som han ikke har en hjerne.

Og et forbløffende antall av disse ser ut til å ende opp i ledende stillinger ;-)

Min påstand om at jeg har en rosa enhjørning i hagen er akkurat like gyldig.

Jeg lagde ikke en kopling. Jeg skrev at det at de er ateister er helt irrelevant for saken siden ateisme ikke er en ideologi.

OK. La meg være helt presis. Ingen som hevder at gud finnes, har vært i stand til å vise meg gyldige bevis for påstanden deres.

OK. La meg være helt presis. Ingen som hevder at gud finnes, har vært i stand til å vise meg gyldige bevis for påstanden deres.

OK. Suzanne Humphries er en av antivaxx-guruene. Bøkene hennes, som kirsebærplukker haugevis av studier fra PubMed, brukes i argumentasjon i bredt omfang og disse PubMed-referansene brukes titt og ofte også. En lang vaskeriliste med studier som de tror bekrefter at vaksiner forårsaker autisme får du slengt i trynet enten du diskuterer med norske eller amerikanske antivaksere. De har den på speed dial. De samme med forskning som de tror viser at nylig meslingevaksinerte sprer meslinger.

Hvordan kan denne massive bruken av forskning for å underbygge et konspiratorisk standpunkt være forenlig med mistillit til forskning? Jeg ser det ikke.

Siden ateist er "kontrollgruppen" til dritt forårsaket av religiøse, så er det ekstremt relevant. Jag har ikke sagt at ateistene gjør dritten fordi de er ateister, bare at de gjør dritten.

Nei, det er her man tråkker feil. Det at du ser noe på en skjerm er ikke bevis for noe som helst annet enn at skjermen viser fram noe.

Trots det så trodde du alltså att gud fanns i 40 år eller noe sånt?

Men det holdt deg ikke unna å være både ekkel og cocky om Herrens fortreffeligheter overfor læreren din? Ho begynte å gråte, gjorde hun ikke?

Men det holdt deg ikke unna å være både ekkel og cocky om Herrens fortreffeligheter overfor læreren din? Ho begynte å gråte, gjorde hun ikke?

Korrekt. Det er en stor feil jeg gjorde i mange år. For en som ikke har vært utsatt for indoktrinering, er det nok vanskelig å forstå kraften den har.

Det er jo det som er fantastisk med GeirK; han har skiftet mening og er helt åpen om at han tok feil i 40 år. Da er det heller ikke så rart at han mener at andre (les: konspifolket) kan gjøre det samme.

Han er bastant til det motsatte er bevist, og det gjør det litt vanskelig å holde en meningsutveksling gående, men ellers virker han ganske oppegående.

Alt etter hva du mener med gyldig så er jo dette det normale i alle ting man ikke er overbevist om.

For det første stemmer ikke det anonymous13 antyder. For det andre er det et hakk verre å tro på noe som er motbevist fremfor å tro på noe som bare ikke er bevist.

Siden ateist er "kontrollgruppen" til dritt forårsaket av religiøse, så er det ekstremt relevant. Jag har ikke sagt at ateistene gjør dritten fordi de er ateister, bare at de gjør dritten.

Og et forbløffende antall av disse ser ut til å ende opp i ledende stillinger ;-)