DL20081014

Yes, sir. I have a bone to pick with you, Malinewa, too, so I prefer to have all my religious people be not so.

Yes, yes. You know, that almost, that was almost a perfect Christopher Hitchens. It was very close.

Not quite, but pretty close. Well, I dare say that my British accents are quite a bit better than yours, but no offense at all.

You understand. Yes, yes, I certainly, certainly understand. There are some people in England that wish they had as good an accent as I do, but anyway. No, quite seriously, I'm sort of wondering what your real purpose and calling is, Chris.

Well, I know that on your blog you have Richard Dawkins, zealous for, but I don't know why it'd be so, I mean, why not just get rid of all religious mumbo-jumbo, just, we're in the universe all alone, there's nothing old, we're all going to die, and so on, and so.

Sounds like you've listened to a lot of Christopher Hitchens. Oh, yes, yes, indeed. I'm quite a fan.

A friend, in fact. A friend. A friend, yes. Yes, a friend as thick as the clothes of the brother, for my quote-on-text, if indeed that's in the original text. I don't know.

It's your business, not mine. Oh, yes, yes. Even though I do remember Christopher Hitchens when he was on a certain radio program debating a Christian, was very quick to quote Bart Ehrman as his source for, in essence, dismissing the modern New Testament as having any relevance whatsoever.

I'm not sure if you heard that debate on the human race. Well, I love Mr. Ehrman.

I always said Mr. Ehrman could teach all the young minds just how important, nothing more than mythological.

So when he himself admits that as far as reconstructing the original, we have, in essence, accomplished that task, and everything else after that is mere tinkering, you'd agree with him that the New Testament manuscript tradition is, in fact, that robust that we have, in fact, reconstructed the original text of the New Testament.

I mean, you are aware of the fact that he says that.

Bart Ehrman and the Reliability of the New Testament Manuscripts

Well, let's be quite honest with you. I don't trifle with all of his academic writings. I know his academic writings, he comes off much more conservative. I like his populist writings. I like a good populist writer that knows how to make good money by excoriating religion.

Yes, so you admit that he says one thing to his fellow scholars who can check him out and something different to people who have no clue as to what the actual facts are.

Well, I suppose he's too weak-kneeded and intimidated by fellows like yourself. He really comes out and says what he really believes, and so it's good to toe the line as it were and make out as though it's a solid foundation and take it real seriously.

But then his populist writings, which I love so much, you know, he really lets—well, it all comes down to the problem of evil. I mean, I had a hangnail this morning, and I just thought to myself, how could a man want to be a god if he's got a hangnail?

It's really painful.

Very painful. Well, why don't you, since you do such an excellent Christopher Hitchens impersonation, why don't you present to us his primary argument, which I've heard him repeat many, many times, and therefore if you know him so well and are closer to him than a brother, I'm sure you could repeat his favorite argument against especially the Christian faith.

You're talking about Dawkins now, right? No, no. I'm talking about Christopher Hitchens. Oh, well, either way, of course, I'm extremely drunk right now, so I may get this very wrong. I don't know. I'm probably not going to make a decision still, but I suppose I'll just distill it out of time.

Finally, we've—I don't know. I suppose you'll correct me because you're such a big smarty pants, you know. Sorry, Chris.

You didn't—you got to study him a little bit. Even I know what his favorite argument is. He used it with Dinesh D'Souza, and he does it in almost all of his talks. Wait a minute. No, give me another chance.

Was it an insult? Is it in the form of an insult? Does it involve any—is there an inform anywhere in it? No.

Oh, well, hey, you know, Chris, I really do appreciate your coming on to defend Bart Herman, but I'm not sure that Bart's overly happy that you're doing that, but—. I'm his number one fan. Just remember, I'm his number one fan.

Oh, all right. Okay, thank you, Chris, for calling today. You get to feel him better sometime. Yes. Okay, all right. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye. I have absolutely, positively no earthly idea who in the world that was, but whoever he is, he's probably going to get sued by Christopher Hitchens.

Okay, so we're going to—.