The enrolled act or law is given a chapter number and is published under that number in a volume called \”Session Laws of North Carolina….

. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy him badgering Hewitt at certain points.

You enjoyed the sophisticated level of ad hominem attacks Mr. Sanctimony was reduced to?

At the same time, it is a perfectly fair debating tactic to force someone to establish their position before you nail them to the ground on that position. Hewitt is quite good at it, though he borders on the overbearing.

There’s two thing I’ll never argue with. I’ll admit that I frequently don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ll also admit I don’t think anyone really knows what they’re talking about and we’re all kind of just trying to sound like we know what we’re talking about to make up for inherent uncertainty of the human condition. Since there’s no way to really know “Why are we here?” we all try our best to come up with an answer that suits our predispositions. So no, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but then – neither do you. Or anyone. We’re all faking it to some degree.

Enrique, I’ll take you at your word on the first point. You’ve shown in several threads that you don’t know what you’re talking about, and your admission of nihilistic tendencies supports your behavior of just tossing pseudo-intellectual grenades about. I give you credit that you admit as much, so you aren’t dishonest as well. But don’t project your loss of a valid belief structure onto everyone else to feel better about yourself. And adding the modifier “to some degree”, doesn’t give you carte blanche to make blanket statements about everyone’s ability to reason or cope. Knowing what you don’t believe, doesn’t allow you to draw a line directly to noone is allowed to believe anything.

Religion is always and ONLY a device. There can be no rational debate in which religion plays a role. There’s no way to settle an argument about who the Real Good Christian is, because none of us are.

I’m going to give you the first sentence there. In any discussion about issues where two people disagree fundamentally in regards a religious doctrine, it will always appear to be nothing more than a device to those outside of that belief. And Sullivan uses it as a device to appeal to his own utopian wish for reality to be his way. Beyond that, rational debate which includes religion is of course possible, when two people actually understand what they believe, even if they don’t agree. You’re again projecting your past of having discarded a belief system into there being no belief system worth having.

Christianity isn’t faulty. Christians are. Stop looking at the people, and start looking at the Author. It helps.

There is a difference between not being able to ‘walk the walk’ in regards to Christianity and not recognizing what the walk looks like. When Sulliven opines that adultery is permissable and that you should further lie to hide the adultery, in which camp do you suppose Andrew lives?

Nihilism – it’s making a comeback, I tell ya!

Enrique on October 26, 2006 at 2:55 PM

Nihilists! F**k me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.

This man needs serious psychiatric help.

Nihilism – it’s making a comeback, I tell ya!

Enrique on October 26, 2006 at 2:55 PM

Vote Pelosi/Reid, and thou will get Nihilism like never experienced before!

One of Sullivan’s key failing is that he impeaches his own argument more than once. He is critical of traditional conservatives, yet chafes at the idea that anyone really “knows” about the Divine enough to criticize. Does that not include him and his own criticism of conservatives? He chafes at the idea that someone would even ask him if he is a Christian (as if that were irrelevant to discussing a pseudo-Christian book on conservativism), yet makes all kinds of wild accusations about HH’s own beliefs without citing any sources. His own shoddy use of “research” and eschewing citation is amateurish at best and fraudulent at worst, yet he wants to sound as though he were mining deep truths and speaking with authority.

Lastly, Sullivan’s whole pseudo-religious premise for his statements is silly on its face. “[Normal Christians hold that] conscience is the ultimate arbiter of what they believe”? This idea is patently ridiculous and sums up Sullivan’s entire outlook. I’m sure Sullivan would like it to be true, but the entire point of having a religion to instruct people in morality is that the conscience is a completely unreliable arbiter. All people except the criminally insane have a conscience but that certainly doesn’t lead them to believe true things. Muslims have a conscience and over half the middle east believes that 9-11 was the work of Bush and his Jews. He makes many such claims as though they were fact, when in reality he has simply formed a worldview that doesn’t conflict with what he already wants.

Sullivan’s arguments are almost entirely ignorant tautology formed in an effort to try and argue that the world around him into what he would like it to be. The conflict surrounding him arrises when, for some reason completely baffling to Sullivan, other people in the world don’t conform to his fantasy. People challenging his silly statements of “I’m the real conservative” and “let me tell you what you believe” and “the Popes are wrong about this whole Catholic thing” mystify him. In the fantasy world of his own making where he has decided how things “are”, Sullivan thinks, “Who are you, oh Man, to answer Me?”

Dennis Prager does the same thing as Hewitt; he asks his guests to clarify their positions before criticizing their logic. This is to be certain that he understands correctly what the guest professes or he gives the guest the chance to correct the record.

Sullivan continues to wear the Catholic label while publicly criticizing the Church’s positions. This dishonesty is all that I need to know to realize that the rest of what he says is likely to be suspect. It’s not as if he didn’t know the teachings of the Church; he just doesn’t want to have to live them.

The Catholic Church is particularly beset by dissenters who won’t disavow their membership. Excommunication should be used more often by the Church. Then we’d be down to a small core and could sell the expensive real estate before its all seized to pay for the crimes of homosexual dissenting priests.

Looks like you found your purpose in life, Enrique. Good luck with that.

Nihilism – it’s making a comeback, I tell ya!

And I’ll also admit to being hateful of believing Catholics. (Except for my mother, I’ll give her a pass.) I mean, it’s not I’m-going-to-burn-a-church-hate, it’s more of a snooty-atheist-contempt-for-all-religious-believers-hate. In other words, it’s a low-intensity hate

Looks like you found your purpose in life, Enrique. Good luck with that.

Who said anything about “hating” gays?

I was just being inflammatory there.

it means you don’t know what you’re talking about, or you’re just hateful of believing Catholics.

There’s two thing I’ll never argue with. I’ll admit that I frequently don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ll also admit I don’t think anyone really knows what they’re talking about and we’re all kind of just trying to sound like we know what we’re talking about to make up for inherent uncertainty of the human condition. Since there’s no way to really know “Why are we here?” we all try our best to come up with an answer that suits our predispositions. So no, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but then – neither do you. Or anyone. We’re all faking it to some degree.

And I’ll also admit to being hateful of believing Catholics. (Except for my mother, I’ll give her a pass.) I mean, it’s not I’m-going-to-burn-a-church-hate, it’s more of a snooty-atheist-contempt-for-all-religious-believers-hate. In other words, it’s a low-intensity hate.

Hugh Hewitt = Pharisees; Andrew Sullivan = Jesus. Well, duh. Allah finds Hewitt’s Socratic method tedious. So do I, actually. I know what he’s getting at, but I’d wish he’d just get to the point quicker: Andrew Sullivan simply redefines……

One thing is sure – you have relegated God and/or Jesus to a position of irrelevance in your life. You can ascribe any belief or postition you want to to Him. If you believe that Jesus was a good man or that He maybe was God, but we don’t know anything about His positions – so what? “Christianity” of that stripe is not very useful – certainly not relevant.

God wouldn’t be against (you name it) because that would be mean – is an unbelieving postion. And since Andrew makes his ‘faith’ the basis of his positions, or at least part of the basis.

What is the difference between his postion and agnosticism?

AS: But you know, that’s what you want. You support a president who has complete unitary executive authority to seize people at will and imprison them and torture them. And you believe in a form of Christianity in which the individual conscience has almost no role at all.

HH: Given that I haven’t written any of that, I find it interesting you’ve come to that conclusion. But you may hold that opinion for as long as you’d like.

AS: You support a president that suspends habeus corpus. I’ve read it.

It is an interview about AS’s book and all he does is make ridiculously stupid, insulting attacks on HH, all in a vain attempt to change the subject.

AS didn’t want to be on the defensive, clearly, but then why did he agree to come be interviewed about his book?

Ohhhh that’s right: to sell more books.

“he’s pointing out that Christians who are opposed to gay rights and in favor of torture aren’t truly Christian.”

Sorry, but that’s total crap that he’s simply using to justify his behavior. A true Christian tolerates homosexuality but does NOT condone or support the behavior. Problem is, we get branded as “hateful” whenever we oppose efforts to condone homosexuality through our legal system.

God has made clear His view on homosexuality. And to those of you who reference Jesus’ views let’s be clear. He never spoke on the issue, ok?

The issue of torture is pretty clear as well. Of course we oppose killing and torture in all it’s forms. We also recognize the need to defend ourselves. We occasionally must do bad things to bad people to protect our own people and way of life. It is in this situation where, with a heavy heart, the Christian comes to His Heavenly Father and asks to be forgiven.

Your assertion that individuals should be denying their Catholic faith is sufficient explanation of the rest of the words you type. Hating gays and condemning their sins are two entirely different things.

The Socratic approach is antagonistic in nature. It’s designed to point out flaws in your opponent’s reasoning. Sullivan knows that, which is why he accused Hewitt of cross-examining him. And so he was.

HH did not take an adversarial approach. He was merely ensuring that AS committed to his positions before HH pointed out what he felt were the flaws/inconsistencies with those positions. This is a very fair, and polite, way of dealing with this kind of criticism. I actually don’t think it is Socratic. You know who uses socratic methods to take cheap shots? Colbert. That is not what HH does.

What AS wanted was to go to a HH interview and either be totally free of criticism, or to launch into vicious counter-attacks if HH dared to challenge him on any of his weaker points.

If you go on a radio show to promote your book, you need to be prepared to face some tough questions, especially if you know the interviewer doesn’t agree with you. Trying to cover up your inability to respond to the tough questions adequately by making ad hominem attacks on the interviewer, which is what AS did, is every bit as underhanded as ambush interviewers who use cheap tricks to undermine their guests.

HH did not employ any cheap tricks. He is very open and respectful about what he is doing. His restraint is admirable. For you, Allahpundit, to cry foul as if what HH does is so sneaky or nefarious just because he is a law professor, is unfair and wrong.

HH is not ‘baiting a trap’ by getting you to committ to your positions first before criticizing them. He does this so you can’t try to weasel out of his criticisms by changing positions. There is nothing unfair about this. It is not a tactic, or a trick, it is merely a good way to help ensure you get substantive answers to tough questions.

Any liberal who has a solid, rational belief backing up his positions will be able to face down HH and strongly advocate his positions, and HH has no hidden traps or sneaky tricks in store for such people.

Did he do that to Mark Steyn during their interview about his book, though? (Not that he’s obliged to.)

HH is conservative. MS is conservative. AS is liberal. Is it any wonder that HH would be more critical of Sullivan than Steyn? HH does not pretend to be objective, he admits his own biases and positions.

Who said anything about “hating” gays? This is whether gay marriage can be permitted under Sullivan’s Catholicism. It cannot. I’m not going to cite things for that, but if you’re curious just pick up a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (which includes further citations to sections of the Bible and other faith documents, if you’re interested).

“I was raised Catholic, and I would have to say there’s nothing Christian about Catholicism.”

So I suppose the whole Nicene Creed thing that’s said every day at Mass is just bunk? This statement of yours is just plain dumb, because either it means you don’t know what you’re talking about, or you’re just hateful of believing Catholics.

Asking “Are you a Christian?” is insulting. Someone’s professed religious beliefs should have no bearing on the weight of their ideas.

I might agree with you in another context, but Sullivan’s religious beliefs are the actual topic, the beliefs he recorded in the book. His beliefs are the ideas.

“But Sullivan makes his own Christianity an issue!”

… but he does this in the book, as part of the book, and the interview is about the book.

You sound as if you actually believe that nonsense.

I do believe that nonsense. A true Christian would oppose torture in every case and wouldn’t hate gays. I was raised Catholic, and I would have to say there’s nothing Christian about Catholicism.

Gosh, it’s almost as if I’m saying there’s no such thing as a true Christian…

What’s insulting?

Asking “Are you a Christian?” is insulting. Someone’s professed religious beliefs should have no bearing on the weight of their ideas. Hugh could have debated Sullivan on facts, but instead he made it a competition over who could genuflect more earnestly.

Imagine a cut-and-runner asking “Well, have YOU ever served in the military?” Hugh was doing the same thing to Sullivan by asking if he was Christian. Which is, you know, insulting.

“But Sullivan makes his own Christianity an issue!”

And that’s a mistake on Sullivan’s part. And Hugh used the interview to compound that mistake, rather than seeing through and eliding it.