Hitchens Vs Blair Debate

Did anybody see the Hitchens Vs Blair debate on faith? Does anybody have any good links to this on vid?I am surprised that there isn't an EvC topic on this already. But I couldn't find one. So any views on the Hitchen's Vs Blair debate? Who won? Etc.

Youtube seems to have them.Not great picture quality, but audio is ok.{abe} There is also a torrent available.Edited by Panda, : No reason given.

There's a youtube channel with these debates.I listened yesterday. It was a pretty good debate. Both debaters did pretty well, though I would tend to favor Hitchens. Blair presented, and argued for, the mild side of religion.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

Some random thoughts:Hitchens is a fantastic wordsmith.
Never did he lack the words to eloquently describe what he was thinking.Blair made the arguement that religion was good because during the Northern Ireland peace process, religious leaders helped people cross the religious divide.
Blair also pointed out that religious leaders were helping to mend the religious conflicts in the Middle East.
The irony was lost on him.Blair mentioned Hitler more than enough times for Godwin's Law to apply.Blair repeatedly misrepresented what Hitchens said, which was rather sad but not unexpected from a politician.Hitchens - knowledgeable not religious.
Blair - religious not knowledgeable.IMHO: Blair was not the right person for this discussion. He was completely out of his depth.

This is precisely why I haven't watched it yet. I've got the Youtube channel bookmarked and ready to watch, but I'm holding off because I can't help but think "Why Blair? Why a politician for a religious debate with Hitchens?" I've thought that since I first heard about the debate. It's kinda like a discussion I watched with Sam Harris and Micheal Shermer vs. Deepak Chopra and some philosophical nitwit broad. She brought absolutely nothing to the debate other than some feel good stories. Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

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"What can be asserted without proof, can be dismissed without proof."-Hitch.

It was kind of a socio-political debate rather than a religious one. Blair tried to extract the supernatural claims and focus on the 'essence' of religion: it's compassion and mercy, it's capacity to unite communities to common ends.
Hitchens counterargued along the lines of those common ends are often divisive to other communities.It was quite good, but for Blair being kind of off-topic and occasionally rambling and Hitchens did as Hitchens does though I have a nagging feeling he pulled a few punches. Not a must see, but each talker only got a short time to speak so it's easily watchable in stages.

Ahh. I see. Every snippet-comment I saw about it was basically "Hitchens/Blair: Why religion is bad"

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"What can be asserted without proof, can be dismissed without proof."-Hitch.