The Contrarian Delusion: How Hitchens Poisons Everything

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/7162

The Contrarian Delusion: How Hitchens Poisons Everything
by Max Blumenthal | Apr 30 2007


Christopher Hitchens has made a career out of offending polite society. Among his greatest hits are his observation that women aren't funny, his pooh-poohing of the Haditha massacre, and his defense of the jailed Holocaust denier David Irving, who he hailed as a "great historian." More recently, Hitchens has volunteered himself as the licker of Wolfowitz's comb, claiming that the corrupt World Bank president "did nothing wrong."

Hitchens has cast these seemingly untenable positions as "contrarian," lending himself not only an air of intellectual bravado, but a veneer of integrity as well. Despite his myriad personal flaws and political contradictions, Hitchens has managed to appear principled by trafficking in opinions that consistently outrage conservatives and liberals alike. He poses as a maverick, an intellectually macho literary gun-slinger who loves nothing more than provoking the indignant howls of the madding crowd. For Hitchens, everything is sacred, and therefore, everything is fair game.

Those who have followed the trajectory of Hitchens' career knew it was only a matter of time before he set his sights on religion. What better way to piss off (and on) the masses than to unleash a full-frontal assault on God himself? So to great fanfare and perhaps nobody's surprise, Hitchens has produced "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," an atheist manifesto intended to supplement Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion," and (New Age torture fanatic) Sam Harris' "The End of Faith."

Hitchens spares no sacred cows in his latest work. He blasts religion as a form of child abuse, claims Jesus Christ never lived, and declares that those who give their children bar mitzvahs are "planning your and my destruction and the destruction of all hard-won human attainments." The requisite attacks on Islam, so satisfying to his newfound neocon pals, are also featured at length.

more...

[Graybeard]

1. Hitchens trashed Mother Theresa...

...in his book The Missionary Position. Say what you will, that took some balls. Talk about sacred cows!