Smelling salts! Stat!

OH NOES!! The Chaser boys have offended some people again with a song that appears to take the piss out of dead celebrities, including Steve Irwin, Princess Di, Kerry Packer and Stan Zemanek (but is really just commenting on the hypocrisy of eulogizing those whom we found cause to dislike when they were still breathing).



Cue the hyperventilating . . .

"CHASERS WAR ON GOOD TASTE" wails Ninemsn. "To disrespect people have passed [sic] is cruel!" moans Deb of Adelaide, in the Ninemsn forum on the topic. On the ABC's own message board (and according to News.com, "Irate viewers rang the ABC switchboard to complain about the song after it aired and talkback radio hosts were inundated with comments about its content"), habbo1 whines: "A long time fan of Chaser, great dissapointment in the cringe factor that was last night 'dead celebrity bashing.' Juvenile, pathetic humour that we are to expect from Commercial TV's attempt to be 'controversial.'" I'm certain there's more to come. (UPDATE: And I was right.)

What a bunch of tightarse, whinging fuckpigs (as Billy Connolly would say).

This reminds me of when Sean Hannity was sooking about what a big meanie Christopher Hitchens was for the latter's criticisms of the late Jerry Falwell:



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I demand a recount!

Last time I submitted my blog to the Gematriculator I was way, way more eviller!

Speaking of evil, here's Christopher Hitchens on "The Morals of an Atheist"


And Hitchens on "The Moral Necessity of Atheism"

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Today's text

Source: Saint Gasoline

In my view, the only culture war that really matters was won during the Enlightenment, when we realised that we didn't need a theory of God to be ethical or to explain the Universe. Today's reactionary culture-warriors are fighting a rearguard action in a battle that was lost long ago.

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A non-theistic concept of evil?

Thanks to SB for the link to this Frontpage interview with Christopher Hitchens on the topic of his book, god Is Not Great. I particularly liked this quote:

I also have come to the conclusion that religious belief, even in its supposedly benign form, is the clue to the origin of totalitarianism. A permanent inescapable surveillance; the abolition of the private thought; the constant guilt and fear; the irremovable and unchallengeable authority; the sado-masochism of begging for rewards and fearing punishments - this is the species at its most servile and primeval level. The wish for a Big Brother comes from the childhood of the race, and has to be outgrown in order for us to develop self-respect.

Elsewhere in the interview he says something very interesting:

If you are a "pantheist", as the men I mentioned earlier (Spinoza and Jefferson and Einstein) probably or arguably were, you will agree with me that a god which is everywhere is just as likely to be nowhere in particular. If someone says that god is love I don't violently object. If he then says that love is god I find myself feeling uneasy. The undoubted existence of conscience - doing the right thing when nobody is looking, and even deriving satisfaction from the doing - need not posit the supernatural. I like to give blood when I can: I don't lose a pint but someone else gains one. I also hope to benefit when I need blood myself (I have a very rare blood group). Why intrude extraneous complexities here?

As for evil, I say in the book that I believe in its existence and even feel that I have felt its presence. But this does not lead me to infer the existence of Satan and, as you well know, believers in god only complicate their ontology when they try (or fail) to do the same. [Emphasis added]

What does he mean? I could understand if he was simply using the word "evil" to refer to that which he finds harmful or morally objectionable--or even that which he thinks we all should find harmful or morally objectionable. But he's describing "evil" here as something palpable--he has felt its presence--and that sounds like God-talk to me, or at least supernaturalism. If he objects to the idea that love is God, why would he, as an atheist, embrace the notion that evil is, if not Satan, then a "presence"?

Perhaps he's simply framing his message for an audience--David Horowitz and the Frontpage readership--whose Rightwing comic-book worldview might not accommodate Hitchens' strident anti-theism unless he throws them a bone marked "But I Still Believe in Capital 'E' Evil" to reassure them that he's still on their side. (No offence to SB intended, btw.)

Or am I just misinterpreting him?
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