Best of Christopher Hitchens Amazing Arguments And Clever Comebacks Part 2

if someone tells me that I've heard their feelings I'd say what's the waiting to hear what your point is all right I've very depressed how in this country you can be told that's offensive as if those two stick those two words constitute an argument or comment not to me they turn and I'm not running for anything so I didn't have to pretend to like people like when I did me it's why I asked about because she she wasn't content just to say religious people volunteer for charity as if that was news to anybody but she had to couple it with a smear against atheism and social democracy now as a matter of fact well they weren't there Christopher I'm sorry to say that without the faith the efforts offensive sneeze the efforts of favoritism is MIA I don't well get to the end of the sentence if it kills you if it's socialists and Social Democrats to make sure that things like education and health do not depend upon private charity given by rich people and religious institutions to the deserving poor are the reasons why a lot of it's taken care of because it's taken care of we have welfare and it just I mean there's another smear I wasn't a rich person giving charity where it wasn't God you have to understand it so that you work well it seemed to chemical I didn't even imply that you were know the efforts of favoritism and social democracy socialism were to make sure that these things didn't depend on the voluntary whim did all the idea of the deserving poor now that's the first no the second point well because it's so taken for granted now I love to remind people actually this is a long time this meant social political action as you say as you quite correctly said I can help you out here by emphasizing it quite a while ago that's why I said not to forget it now to the point of our religious sector is activism isn't it true haven't you all heard that Hamas does so well because it supplies social services are you going to say that it's the same as true for Hamas and Islamic Jihad never mind that they're religious they distribute services where otherwise they're only be secularism and corruption well if you want to claim that you can't just claim the charitable part where it seems to me Mother Teresa endlessly praised for work that most the time she actually never did I went to watch over cursing conquer it you don't mind that she thinks of what Bengal in Calcutta mainly needs is a campaign to clerical campaign against birth control and Family Planning has anyone here ever been to Bengal and concluded that's what it really needs that's what she was really campaigning for in case who were but never mind she gives a wonderful impression of being a charitable person so what Indians need is more missionaries to cure poverty when everybody knows there's any one cure for poverty which is the empowerment of women which means giving them some control over their reproductive if God is dead isn't everything permitted isn't everything permissible where would our ethics be if there was no superintending duty this again seems to me a very profound insult to us in our very deepest nature and character it is not the case I submit to you that we do not set about butchering and raping and thieving from each other right now only because we're afraid of a divine punishment or because we're looking for a divine reward it's an extraordinarily base and insulting thing to say to people on my mother's side saw my ancestry as Jewish I don't happen to believe the story of Moses in Egypt or the Exile or the wandering in the Sinai and in fact now even Israeli archaeology has shown that there isn't a word of truth to that story already any of the others but take it to be true and I expect you to believe in my mother's ancestors got all the way to Mount Sinai quite a trek under the impression until they got there that rape murder perjury and theft were okay only to be told when they got to the foot of Mount Sinai bad news no these things is kosher after all they're all forbidden I don't think so I think I think we can we can actually have a better explanation every sense superior as well as better that no one would have been able to get as far as Mount Sinai or in any other mountain in any other direction unless they had known that human solidarity demands that we look upon each other as brothers and sisters and that we forbid activities such as murder a rape perjury and theft that this is in Asia notes of those activities not in aid the sociopaths you don't understand the needs of anyone but themselves and the Psychopaths who positively take pleasure in breaking these rules well or we can say as the according to one theory they're also made in the image of God which makes the image of God question rather problematic does it not or that they can be explained by further and better research and have to be restrained and disciplined meanwhile but in no sense here is religion of help where it claims to help most which is to our morality to ethics but you'd have to imagine let's say the human species has been nervous a pians has been with us some people say as long as quarter of a million years some say 200 some say a hundred thousands Francis Collins and Richard Dawkins oscillate about this it's not a very big argument I'll just take a hundred thousand if you like you have to imagine human beings are born well naturally Muslim a good number of are born they die in childbirth or genital long outlive it they're born into a terrifying world of out of the unknown everything is a mystery to them everything from from from disease to volcanic eruptions everything is there life expectancy for the first part in their many many tens of thousands of years would be lucky to be in the twenties probably dying agonizingly over their teeth poorly evolved as the teeth are and from other inheritances from being primates such as the appendix that we we don't need such as the fact that our genitalia appear to be designed by a committee other shortcomings of the species are exaggerated by the by scarcity by war by famine by competition and so on and for 98 thousand years or so heaven watches this with complete indifference and that we know where your children go to school buy them heaven watches this with total indifference and then with two thousand years to go on the clock thinks actually it's time we intervened this we can't go on like this why don't we have someone tortured to death in Bronze Age Palestine that should teach them that should give them a chance of redemption you're free to believe that but I think the designer who thought of doing it that way is a very was a very cruel capricious random bungling and incompetent one I mean the president for example thinks that it to say someone is a person of faith is axiomatically to confer a compliment on them and if you remember did it to vladimir putin KGB goon and hood and increasingly evidently great dangerous now in charge of russia president meets him says right away well i could tell by looking into his eyes and seeing he was wearing his grandmother's crucifix that he was just the chap for me now in a strong field I think that's the stupidest thing the president has yet sir and he must I think occasionally regret it and I got try to get a researcher onto this once to find out just I just need to know something has Vladimir Putin ever worn his grandmother's crucifix since had he ever been seen wearing it before or did he just think this should be enough for the President of the United States because if so it would show that religion was not just a metaphysically incorrect but as I have believed said a danger and a poison to us if our Republic can be but its president can be pushed over like that like someone offering garlic to a vampire then we really are in trouble it's become a familiar thing I should perhaps preface this by saying that with Edward Sayid relate the service I wrote a book about the rights of Palestinians and the way this in which these have been negated by Israeli policy but I know a lot of people in the Arab and Muslim world who are fed up with having the subject change to Israel whenever human rights for them comes up a very good example of this just last week in Tehran where the government has an official alkyds day as it's called the day of Jerusalem where schoolchildren and others are paraded it's a more less compulsory demonstration to say they'll give their blood in their lives for Palestine and hundreds of thousands of Iranians turned up to say no will only give our blood for Iran thanks we're fed up with being told by the regime that they represent the oppressed of Palestine that we can't talk and and they are having to shed their blood because the regime keeps on killing them for wanting to have a say in their own internal affairs and a regime that does this has just pulled off a blood-stained military coup it's overturn the results even of an already predetermined ly fraudulent election that says that the right that a woman's voice is worth that of only though it takes three women in a court against one man that uses torture and rape as as policies in prison and civil you want to regime like that to have nuclear weapons you're welcome but you should say that's what you don't mind are you going to say that are you going to say you've no objection that the real problem is the Jewish state come on be serious so show you so the Jewish state doesn't have nuclear weapons is that is that what you're saying well now I appeal against the fur mindedness and intelligence of the audience did I say that no but did I buy any in any way to apply it no Bell did I not begin with a throat clearing which I'll amplify about my long record of work about this my defense of the Israeli dissidents who published the news about Israel's illegal program are gone to jail for it I can refer you to all that if you like my point was directed specifically to you yeah I said does this in your mind make the destruction of human rights in Islamic countries okay or not no good okay let's let's hear from Waleed well that's progress of the kind here's Mike here's my challenge you have to name me an ethical statement that was made or a moral action that was performed by a religious person in the name of faith that could not have been made as an action or uttered as a statement by non a person not a faith person terrific you have to do that not so far I've dieted quite a high level with the religious no takers no one's been able to find me that that being the case we're entitled to say I think that register is surplus to requirements whereas if I was to ask anyone in this room think of a wicked thing said or an evil thing done by a person of faith in the name of faith no one would have a second of hesitation in thinking of what would they interesting to realize how true that is and how much truer it's getting does anyone ever listen to Dennis Prager show these are slightly loopy a Christian broadcaster religious broadcaster I should say he's not he's more Jewish and Christian a a Christian broadcaster who quite often brother generously has me on his show and he asked me a question the other day had a challenge of his own he said you're to imagine that you're in a town late at night we've never been before you have no friends it's getting dark and through the darkness you see coming towards you a group of men let's say 10 do you feel better or worse if you know that they're just coming from a prayer meeting this is mr. preggers questions from ESA where mr. Prager without leaving you the from just without quitting the letter B I can tell you I've had that experience in Belfast in Beirut in Baghdad in Bombay in Bosnia and in Bethlehem and if you see anyone coming from a religious gathering in any of those places you know exactly how fast you need to run I would say in other words that religion is the outcome of unresolved contradictions in the material world that if you make the assumption that it's man-made then very few things are mysterious to you if you make the assumption that religion is manly then he would then you would know that why would be obvious you why there are so many religions when you make the assumption that it's man-made you will understand why it is that religion has been such a disappointment to our species that despite enumerable revivals innumerable attempts again to preach the truth enumerable attempts to convert the heathen enumerable attempts to send missionaries all around the world that the same problems remain with us that nothing is resolved by this that we we if the if all religions died out or all were admitted to be false instead of as all believers will tell you only some of them are false in other words we're faced with the preposterous proposition that religion either all of them true or none of them true or only one exclusive preachment is true and none of these seem to me coherent and all of these seem to be the outcome of a man-made occult assume that all of them were discouraged at the same time all of our problems would be exactly what they are now how do we live with one another where indeed do morals and ethics come from what are our duties through another how shall we build the just city how shall we practice love how should we how should we deal with the the baser what Darwin called the the lowly stamp of our original origins which comes not from a pact with the devil or an original sin but from our evolution as well all these questions ladies and gentle would remain exactly the same emancipate yourself from the idea of a celestial dictatorship and you've taken the first step to becoming free thank you and we have a better tradition politically against the Pope's and the and the Imams and the witch doctors and the Divine Right of Kings and the whole long tradition of civic repression combined with religion there's known as theocracy we have created in the United States the only country in the history of the world written on founding documents testable organized works in progress based on the theory of human liberation and the only constitution in the history of the world that says that there shall be a separation between the church and the state God is never mentioned the United States Constitution except in order to limit religion and keep it out of politics and put it under legal control this achievement was described by President Jefferson whose biographer I am in a small way to the Baptist's of Danbury Connecticut in a letter after he'd written to him for fear of persecution by the way who do you think Baptists of jamberry Connecticut were afraid of being persecuted by anyone knows no no the Congregationalists of Danbury Connecticut people forget what it used to be like see how the Christians loved each other how they try to repeat the European Passion of one religious sect repressing and torturing another one and as you probably know the president wrote back and said no you may be assured that there will ever be in this country a wall of separation between the church and the state so I have a new slogan and I'm taking it on tour and I invite you to join me in it and it goes like this mr. Jefferson build up that wall do you regard any of the world's originals but do you regard any of the world's religions to be full screeching yes yes I think yeah certainly would you name on that Islam that's quite a lot pardon me that's quite a lot yes do you therefore do you think it's moral to preach false religion no so religion is responsible quite a lot of wickedness in the world right there certainly right I'd be happy to concede that I would agree with that so if I was to be if I was a baby being born in Saudi Arabia today would you rather I was me or were Holly Muslim would I be would entity would you rather would you rather it was me it was the Atheist baby or the Wahhabi baby III don't have any preferences as as bad as that okay I mean North Korea is a hermetic place unfortunately and then it has ocean on either side of it the Demilitarized Zone which is several miles wide on the south and Russia and China on the north so you have a place we can horribly conduct an experiment on human beings essentially you can isolate them totally the North Korean state was set up in the same year that all well published 1984 and you almost think that somebody gave Kim will send a copy of 1984 in Korea and said do you think we could make this fly and he said well I can't be sure we sure can give it the old college try because that's how it feels that I went there I thought I've had this experience I'll just digress for a second I've had this experience twice in my life journalists hate cliche I know it doesn't always seem like that when you read the papers but we try and avoid them I went to Prague once under the old days of the communist regime I thought whatever happens to me here I'm not going to mention Franz Kafka in my essay I'm going to be the first journalist not to do it I went to a meeting of the opposition underground somebody betrayed us because the secret police came in suddenly Wham like this broke down the door dogs torches rubber truncheon start slamming against the wall you're under arrest I don't want to see the British ambassador blah blah you're under arrest what's the charge we don't have to tell you that I thought [ __ ] I've got to mention Kafka after all they make you do it well I I that's actually what a cliche is that's communism is a cliche in itself I same in North Korea I thought I don't want to mention oh well I don't want to mention I have to mention it there's no there's no other standard of comparison no what I meant about the fear of freedom was this many many people don't of course want to live on under a hellish starvation regime of gulag type like that but they they quite like being told what to do and they don't want to be told that life doesn't well doesn't owe them a living and that they're on their own and they they quite like it and repeatedly vote for parties and sometimes leaders who promise to provide everything as long as they'll give up just a little bit of freedom just a little bit right off you'll get more security more welfare it's a temptation in some cases it takes an extreme form and I'm very impressed by often when I debate with religious people they they will tell me that they they go they gravitate towards faith because they want someone to if you like look after them the whole idea of a Heavenly Father for example is built up in this the this the old joke says some say god is dead some say god is dad you figure then there are people who will islam for example the word means the word Islam means surrender prostration you you give everything to God you everything's in his hands this is implicitly totalitarian that's what I mean but I think it's innate in most people is the feeling that they'd quite like someone to take care of them all the time so it can be hard to argue with them that there is no such person several leaders of the Christian Church as you know said about the last sin arm either it was a punishment in Britain several of them said it was a punishment for homosexuality that they used to be said that earthquakes were the punishment for sodomy since we're doing sodomy in the lash I thought I might as well bring this up holding off the San Francisco earthquake only hit when San Francisco is famous for other things when your audience got flooded the only bits that didn't get flooded with the red-light district okay so anyone who says they know God's mind in this had better not mind looking a bit foolish war which Aussie don't or I had better say take responsibility take responsibility say yes by letting it happen God must in some way wish it let me bring out why later let me bring why later ask yourself if you really wish it was true that there was a celestial dictatorship that watched over you from the moment you were born actually the moment you were conceived all through life night and day knew your thoughts waking and sleeping could could in fact convict you of thought crime the absolute the absolute definition of a a dictatorship can convict you for what you think of what you privately want what you're talking about yourself that admonishes you like this under permanent surveillance control and supervision and doesn't even let go of you when you're dead because that's when the real fun begins now my question is this I my question is this who wishes that that were true who wants to lead the life of a serf in a celestial North Korea I've been to North Korea I'm one of the very few brightest who has I am indeed the only writer who's been to all three axis of evil countries Iran Iran and North Korea and I can tell you North Korea so in this religious state I've ever been to I used to wonder when I was a kid what would it be like praising God and thanking him all day and all night well now I know because North Korea is a completely worshipful state is set up only to do that for a duration and it's only one short of eternity they have a father and a son as you know the dear leader in the great leader the the father is still the president of the country's been dead for 15 years but at the Kim Jong Il the little one is only the head of the party and the army his father is still the president head of the state so you have in North Korea what you might call a neck Rock recei or what I also called in Moore's alaq receiveth an autocracy one just one short of eternity father-son maybe no holy ghost but they do say that when the birth of the younger one took place the birds of korea sang in korean to mark the occasion this I've checked it did not happen take my word for it didn't occur and I suppose I should add that they don't threaten to follow you after you're dead you can leave North Korea you can get out of there hell on their paradise by dying out of the Christian and Muslim one you cannot now this is the wish to be a slave then in my view it it poisons of human relations it's it's probably the stupidest thing the human race does is to look for patterns in this way and say when baby falls out of a high-rise building and bounces on the glass below that must be God and when the millions of children die everyday for the lack of pure drinking water and just die of diarrhea in a banal manner that's because God moves in a mysterious way or isn't involved at all so so what he's done is trying to find what he feels is the least of noxious religion he can find and then not take it too seriously what would you say to such a person well that used to be called the Church of England or the Unitarians about him Bertrand Russell said the great thing about them is they believe in one God maximum Peter DeVries is very good on this he says people used to be pagans and polytheists and believe in multiple gods and then they started believing in one God and they're getting near the true figure all the time this is progress

Channel: Agatan Foundation

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Rating: 4.8719769 out of 5

Keywords: Best, of, Amazing, Arguments, And, Delivery, Atheism (Religion), Atheist (Religion), Antitheism (Literature Subject), Religion, Debate, Philosophy (Professional Field), argument, funny, Science (Literary Genre), great, nice, cool, Good, Fun, debate, comeback, answer, Christopher Hitchens (Author), anti-theist, anti, theist, clever, intelligent, bright, smart, church, Q&A (TV Program), William Lane Craig (Philosopher), Islam, Christianity, Judaism, new, morality, god, humanism, free will, theism, two

Id: jBPCiQakKPk

Length: 24min 27sec (1467 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 10 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/scotland42]

You are in for a treat then! He had a lot to say about a lot of things, which made him an incredibly hated man (still so now). However, he justifies himself very well. He has to be on of the most eloquent people I've ever listened to. His wit is truly legendary.

[u/DaddyGotMemes]

Excellent reading if you like blowhards. Still, RIP