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I think Gore Vidal is well past his peak. In terms of present quality of content, I would indeed lump him with Scarby.

^ Did you really just lump Joe Scarborough and Gore Vidal together?

"I was like everyone else when Obama was elected - optimistic. Everything we had been saying about racial integration was vindicated, but he's incompetent. He will be defeated for re-election."

With such a long intellectual history, it's a pity no one taught him how to think. I understand many of the advances in scientific thought weren't here yet when he was growing up, but he doesn't have any excuses for not reading up on things when he still had his mind a decade ago.

His wording predicting Obama's defeat in 2012 implies maybe 80%-99% certainty, depending on how literally you interpret it. His crystal ball must be amazing. Contrast that with the odds at Intrade, which gives the Democrats almost 2 to 1 chances of winning that election, and gives Obama an 87% chance of winning his party's nomination.

Intrade is a political futures market, and it's considered more accurate than polls, etc. Meanwhile, know-nothings like Gore Vidal and Joe Scarborough continue assigning certitude to whatever pops into their addled minds.


(Thanks for posting the link, though )

At a Manhattan dinner party in 1977, Mailer threw his whiskey in Vidal's face, head-butted him and punched him in the mouth. When the hostess, Newsweek and Washington Post journalist Lally Weymouth, begged other guests to pull the men apart, Clay Felker, then editor of Esquire, told her: "Shut up. This fight is making your party."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/10/AR2007111000518.html

Some say he even hit Vidal backstage before the show.

WHo was it- Gore Vidal? Truman Capote? who said "No matter what they do to Nancy Sinatra, she still looks like a pizza waitress"

Vidal sets up a straw man (Christianity = do good and go to heaven) and then knocks it down. In the words of the Dalai Lama: Whoopee.

The god Vidal rejects he rightly rejects. That god does not exist.

What pisses me off the most about this video is actually at the beginning where the preacher claims that Marcus Aurelius was "a christian" even though he came long before christianity even existed in its present form. He basically makes up some shit on-the-stop about how people can be christians "without knowing it."

Sorry, but I call bullshit on that one. If you look back into the history of the christian church, you will see time and again references to the pagans being either in limbo or worse, hell, specifically because they came before a time where they could be saved by jesus. Vidal is spot on calling the christian god a blackmailer because that is exactly what he is. Believe in me or else.

Fundamentally, what I like better about the way Dawkins addresses these silly arguments is that he doesn't concentrate on this christian-centric view. His best argument it is that it is all dependent on where you happen to be born. You are born in a christian country, you are likely going to be christian, you are born in an islamic country, you are likely going to be islamic, etc. Of course, there are many who say that worship is worship, but it seems to me that each religion is BASED on the assumption that THEY have the "story" right. So even the half-assed religious people who are okay with other religions still adhere to their own under that assumption.

Frankly, I feel that missionaries are probably the most honest of all types of religions people because they seem to understand the problematic nature of the fact that most of the world doesn't think like them and they are actively trying to do something to spread the world... at least that has some logic to it.

But anyway back to this video... I suppose my main point is that there isn't uniformity even within one so-called faith. Christianity is so varied that it is total bullshit for that guy to say that Marcus Aurelius was somehow inspired by the christian god to do compassionate things... There are just as many, if not countless more "christians" who would state that Marcus Aurelius is in hell for all eternity for nothing more than being born in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Your video, Gore Vidal pwns pastor on humanism, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Gore Vidal, Keith Ward, Susan Greenfield, Melvin Bragg' to 'Gore Vidal, Keith Ward, Susan Greenfield, Melvyn Bragg' - edited by jwray

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Gore Vidal, Keith Ward, Susan Greenfield' to 'Gore Vidal, Keith Ward, Susan Greenfield, Melvin Bragg' - edited by jwray

mr vidal was praising the woman for her compassion,not admonishing her for her choice of vehicles to do so.
as an atheist he,himself, does not believe in an afterlife,but he cannot provide empirical proof that one does not exist.
just as a person of faith,or religion,cannot prove that one does.
to debate the matter is an exercise in futility.
mr vidal was simply stating that the woman far better represented his vision of what a good christian should behave like than the pastor was putting forth.
in that sense i agree with him.
it has been debunked,to the churchs chagrin,that moral behavior has little to do with fear of punishment in the afterlife.
simply put:if a man an asshole,he will behave like an asshole,and no fear of damnation will curtail that.
why?
because he's an asshole.

"Perhaps I'm misinterpreting what he said, because it doesn't match up with the rest of what he said."

That's correct. Vidal was agreeing with Susan Greenfield.

I must disagree with Vidal. Lying to people about their departed loved ones is not doing them a service, it is not being a good human being. Perhaps I'm misinterpreting what he said, because it doesn't match up with the rest of what he said.

There is a fundamental disconnect going on with the religious attitude toward death. On the one hand, the afterlife is set up to be this wonderful place where everybody is happy, rewarded for living a good life. Paradise. But on the other hand, the fear of death is nearly universal. If there really are so many people out there believing in God and Heaven, then why is there a persistent and intense fear of death?

This is why I maintain that the vast majority of people who claim to be religious, don't actually believe what they think they believe. They haven't thought it through. If they did believe, they would be looking forward to death like the greatest Christmas present ever possible, but it's not quite time to open the box yet. That is not the attitude I see in the world.

So instead of guiding a person through the stages of grief, a religious person tries to short-cut by telling the griever that their loved one isn't really dead. Perhaps it is a comforting thought, for the moment, but it conflicts with the obvious gut level knowledge that the person is out of our lives forever. So maintaining this split between reality and the fantasy that the person is still alive somehow, just not physically present, only serves to prolong and deepen the grieving process. I can easily conjure up the mental image of the deeply religious widow who is simply grieving for the rest of her life.

That is not a real comfort. That is not really helping.

gore vidal is the man