Monday, March 1, 2010

DEBATE AT LOLITA BAR: "Is Christianity for Wimps?"

This Wednesday, March 3 (at 8pm), we will broach the weighty question of theologically-inspired wussitude with two dueling conservatives:

Richard Spencer (formerly an editor at American Conservative and TakiMag and now the founding editor of AlternativeRight.com, which launches today) argues YES.

Helen Rittelmeyer (a writer/editor whose work has been used by First Things, Culture11, American Spectator, American Conservative, The Weekly Standard, and New York Post, among other venues) argues NO.

Michel Evanchik moderates and Todd Seavey hosts/organizes.

Voting on the question at the end: you, the audience — bring a whole faction if you like, spreading the good word to Christians, skeptics, and neo-pagans alike.

Free admission, cash bar. The debates, usually pitting two opponents against each other (in a civil and often humorous fashion), take place on the basement level of Lolita Bar at 266 Broome St. at the corner of Allen St. on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, one block south and three west of the Delancey St. F, J, M, Z subway stop.

One arguably non-wimpy manifestation of Christianity that I noticed in New York Times last month: churches (like a lot of other groups in the past decade, I suspect) organizing “fight clubs” (this piece was also pointed out to me by Katie Surrence).

ANNIVERSARY NOTE: This Wednesday event marks five years of the Seavey/Evanchik team overseeing these debates — and on a more personal note, for those keeping track, this period, give or take a month or two, also marks:

•Four years of me organizing the separate Manhattan Project social events for politicos

•Three years of this near-daily blog

•And a whopping eight years of me editing skeptical, pro-science material at ACSH

I think I will celebrate with a trip into an alternate universe where the rules of neither logic nor science apply — or at least, I’ll go see an advance screening of Alice in Wonderland tonight, and, starting tomorrow, I will blog about other films this week as we approach Oscar Sunday.

9 comments:

Gerard said...

Do the editors of the New York Times ever tire of running fake trend news stories?

Todd Seavey said...

My job has pretty much convinced me that all news stories are fake trend stories, especially the ones involving statistics.

Ali T. Kokmen said...

For the cause, Gawker on New York Times trend stories:

http://gawker.com/5467798/how-to-destroy-a-perfectly-good-fake-trend-story

Todd Seavey said...

[...] I saw Alice in Wonderland, about which I am sworn to secrecy for now, but I will just say that from the posters alone you can glean that Helena Bonham-Carter’s character has a sinister grin and a giant forehead, if you’re into that (and if you are, that’s one more weird side topic we can discuss at tomorrow night’s Debate at Lolita Bar…). [...]

Todd Seavey said...

[...] our big Debate at Lolita Bar on the question “Is Christianity for Wimps?” — and one question sure to arise is whether wimps are, in fact, bad. Take our level of [...]

Todd Seavey said...

[...] film 7) if only to cap this religious-discussion-themed week, (which also included our fine, feisty Debate at Lolita Bar between Richard Spencer and Helen Rittelmeyer, in which a crowd with admittedly few Christians concluded, by not too wide a margin, that [...]

Todd Seavey said...

[...] about politics), note that tomorrow should bring a posting of audio files from the former (our  March 3 bout on the question “Is Christianity for Wimps?”) and another live iteration of the latter (6:30pm-on at Merchants NY East bar-restaurant, 62nd and [...]

Todd Seavey said...

[...] courtesy of Michel Evanchik, you can download the first four of the twelve audio clips from our debate two weeks ago between Richard Spencer and Helen Rittelmeyer on the question “Is Christi… — beginning with me telling an icebreaking bear joke I got from my skeptic boss’s [...]

Todd Seavey said...

[...] as part of my intro comments at last month’s Debate at Lolita Bar on the question “Is Christianity for Wimps?” — taken from Herwig Wolfram’s History of the Goths (a 1980 book I can’t really [...]