Eat The Press

God May Not Be Great, But He Seems To Have A Better Sense Of Humor Than Christopher Hitchens*

Rachel Sklar |  Posted Tuesday May 1, 2007 at 05:03 PM

Wowee, clunker of an interview last night on The Daily Show - Hitch must not be too worried about getting laid, because he did a good job of vitiating pretty much all of Jon Stewart's attempts to make the damn thing funny. During the interview, I had the same feeling I had while reading his now-infamous Vanity Fair article: Dum-de-dum, I'm sorta bored. Is this over soon? Honestly, I say this as a person who is extremely interested in religion and matters of faith (cf. this, ish) — but where it could have been a lively interchange between Jon and Hitchens about religion and politics and faith instead Hitch seemed more interested in dismissing any arguments that religion might have a purpose rather than, you know, discussing them. Agree? Disagree? Here's the vid.

Also, it's hard to take a guy seriously when he can't even get his facts straight - his assertion that religion hates "the birth canal" was sort of off, even though we knew what he meant (the current term of art is "va-jay-jay," we believe. That's what the kids are saying). Still, last we checked, religion didn't have any problem with babies or how they are born; while it's true that chastity and virginity get high marks in religion across the board, the premium seems to be placed on how babies are conceived more than how they are born. That is to say, not what comes out of the, er, canal in question that is at issue, but what might happen to go in.** Though we do agree with him that Leviticus 15:19 is a crock. That and the entire Niddah tractate of the Talmud. But wait, we're just silly girls, don't listen to us!

Points for the dry observation that the more secular society, the tastier its snacks; that, as many of us discovered recently on Passover, is true. Interesting point that where wine is outlawed in the Koran, whiskey is a-ok. But we seriously did not get where you were going with the chimpanzee stuff. But, thank you for clarifying what the word "penis" refers to.

And for the record, our immediate answer to "What is the most overrated virtue?" was totally chastity. Rawr! Bring on that fabled sense of humor, Hitch! But still, good luck tonight at the Ellies - this is the writing we can get behind.

Citizen Hitch [Radar]
MemoPad: No Barbs Held [WWD]
Christopher Hitchens: Va. Tech Shootings A 'Non-Story' [FishbowlNY]

Related:
Christopher Hitchens: God Is Not Great (Pretty In Pink Version) [ETP]

*We admit, we may be biased.
**Yes, we are religious scholars.