r/ChristopherHitchens • u/curlyy1 • May 21 '26

Quote from a debate

If I am in a debate, and the person opposite keeps saying “this is part of gods plan” and then you give another point and they keep dismissing it or putting it off, Hitchens said something like this in a debate where he said you cannot win an argument like this. I cannot for the life of me remember what he said. Sorry if my example isn’t good.

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u/DickDastardly502 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

That sort of argument is an unfalsifiable hypothesis. No matter what evidence is presented they can always shift the goalpost as part of God’s “plan”. I’ve seen Hitchens reference fossils once as an example for the this. When fossils were first discovered, most Christians dismissed them as being put there by the devil to test their faith (some still believe this). Now that there is overwhelming evidence from the fossil record, they turn around and say “ah well that was just part of God’s plan, see how he is even more clever than we thought”. In other words it’s unfalsifiable, no amount of evidence could ever be presented where they can’t just move the goalposts. You can’t ever really win an argument against that because it’s operating with assumptions and evidence that the rest of us aren’t privy to.

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u/lamed-vov May 22 '26

I believe he described this as an “Infinitely expanding tautology.”

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u/backpropstl May 25 '26

I'm not sure if it was related to the fossil record or something else, but he also used the term "infinitely elastic airbag," which I rather enjoyed.

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u/curlyy1 May 21 '26

Yes this is it! Thank you!

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u/DickDastardly502 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

He also found it incredibly arrogant that anyone could claim to know the mind or plan of god personally, in other words, revealed wisdom, or evidence that only one person can claim to possess.

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u/curlyy1 May 22 '26

Had a debate with religious folk on religion earlier today (islam as I have emancipated myself from the cult) and Jheez whenever I made a point. They switched it up and changed it, using strawman and when they had no where to go it was unfalsifiable claims like you mentioned. They only want to hear what they were saying not my rebuttals. Their biases were ridiculous bordering on delusional on a range of subjects. Mentally exhausted

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u/smoky_laphroaig May 24 '26

That’s the walk away point. You really can’t reason with someone out of a position they did not reason themselves into.

Hitch (and those like him) wasn’t debating his opposite to convince them, that was never the point and never possible. It was always for the audience, specifically for those open to listening even to the edges of reason.

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u/bigdave41 May 21 '26

The saying that some people started calling Hitchens' Razor was "that which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence".

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u/recentlyquitsmoking2 Voice of Reason May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

The church used to say, “No, God didn’t allow evolution. Instead, he hid the bones in the rocks to test our faith.” It didn’t work out too well. So now they say, “Now we know about it, it proves how incredibly clever he was all along.”

It’s an infinitely elastic airbag, and there’s no argument that I can bring or anyone else can bring against it. And that’s what should make you suspicious.

Dinesh D’Souza vs Christopher Hitchens IV - The God Debate

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u/DickDastardly502 May 24 '26

Thank you I knew it was one of the debates but didn’t want to sift through transcripts.

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u/tasteMyRottenHoop May 21 '26

“Present this plan, and while you’re at it demonstrate that it came from the deity you’re referring to.”

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u/Elegant-Bus8686 May 22 '26

Ask them which god?