Christopher Hitchens - [2007] - In Seattle discussing 'god is Not Great'

to the more or less official bio christopher hitchens was born in Portsmouth England in 1949 though he became an American citizen like seven weeks ago in between he's been a columnist at Vanity Fair the Atlantic the nation slate and free inquiry additionally he's an occasional contributor to other publications including Slate Granta and The Wall Street Journal with a political impersonal Vantage that's let's just call it aggressively defiant of binary characterization it's easier to ask where his work has not appeared or might not be welcomed recent books written or edit include 1995's the missionary position mother Teresa in theory and practice 2000s no one left to lie to the values of the worst family that same years unacknowledged legislation writers in the public sphere 2000 ones the trial of Henry Kissinger and letters to a young contrarian and 2002 s Orwell's victory it's provocative stuff especially the one about Mother Teresa but none has met the standards set by God is not great how religion poisons everything which is why we've waited until this moment to have him on the townhall stage that last bit is completely untrue and we're extremely grateful he's here tonight to provoke us to especially since until earlier today he was expecting a debate tonight with a partner who added withdraw at the last minute so please offer an extra warm welcome to Christopher Hitchens thank you I thank you we're very much for that suspiciously terse introduction thank you very much ladies and gentlemen brothers and sisters comrades friends for coming I'm going to take this a few ground rules why not I'm going to take your presence here not as a complement to my blue eyes and my sexual charisma though warm thanks to all those who were magnetized here but either of those but as a tribute to the importance of the subject which I think has revived in a major way I take the view that people like yourselves come to events like this not just to listen but to contribute and to engage and so I'll be as brief as I dare be in my opening and then make myself your prisoner as it were your guest if you like and my ground rule is essentially I don't want to have it said ever that I left with any question unanswered I really do mean that sincerely and I ask you only to bear in mind the imminence of the cocktail hour okay and I did think that would be someone else here as there has been everywhere else I've been on this tour since we started in Little Rock about six months ago went on a wonderful swing through Dixie where I wish you could all have been there but and seen the pinched faces of the Baptist's the pinched and flabby faces of the faithful okay so I'm going to have to question myself which I've never done before and as an act of what I call in early stage of the book solipsism what do I mean by solipsism well it's a good way into the argument actually who here has a cat or a dog just you may wonder why I'm asking you this surprisingly few people but you will run into dogs and cats exactly what is the world view of the cat world view of the cat No start with the dog what's the world view of the dog the dog is given by you food shelter water love affection and it thinks your God the cat is given food warmth shelter love baby thinks it's God religion makes the following appeal to us which is why I say it poisons everything because it goes to the deep nature of our self-respect and our humanity and our integrity it makes the following bid to us it says you are born sinful you're born guilty you're guilty of crimes that were committed before you were born you are not able to evade them your sin is original you're made from dust or in the Koran from a clot of blood your Creator is not in a very good mood with you and there's no reason why he should be given what a piece of excrement you basically are that's the masochistic element of it but after this thoroughgoing objection thoroughgoing demand that you throw aside all your self-respect you're told there is however some redeeming news the universe is designed with you in mind the cosmos cares what happens to you and if you will continue to abject yourself like a serf in front of God you may hope for the forgiveness of sins for eternal life and for a divine plan in other words the maximum appeal to the abject the servile in you and the maximum appeal to the self-centered and the egomaniac not a very wholesome way to begin a discussion about the main questions such as why are we here who are we what are we here for what is the just City how would it look like what is the meaning of life it's begun by a horrible lecture from a dictator and you'll then further told that if you do not bow the knee to a celestial dictatorship unalterable unchangeable unappealable - if you don't believe in that you would have no means of telling right from wrong how would you know how to do the right thing or avoid the wrong if you were not being told by a celestial vector ship once again an absolutely central attack on any concept that we might have of our own integrity dignity and self-respect how would Huck Finn know admittedly is a fictional character then so most of the people are going to be discussing from Moses onwards hmm how does Huck Finn know that he's not to betray his friend Jim he's not to give him back he's not to give him up to the people who are hunting for him how does Mark Twain know that we will like Huck when he refuses this what is Huck know the laws against him the church is against him all the preachments of religion and customi law are against him he thinks that if he refuses the demand to give up his slave friend he's going to go straight to hell that's what he thinks but he still does the right thing as we might all hope to do as we must all hope to do if we were tested much less than that it's innate in us religion gets its morals from us we know what the right thing is without being told by a celestial dictatorship if it were otherwise this is why I say I'm an anti theist not an atheist if it were otherwise what would the situation be every one of our waking and sleeping thoughts would be under permanent surveillance at all times from the moment of our conception going to some at any rate suddenly birth until not just when we died because that's when the real fun would begin now it's as if those who wish it to be true which I do not you can be an atheist and wish that there was God many atheists I know do wish it was true why do I not because I don't want to live in a celestial North Korea I'm one of the few people who's been to as a writer to North Korea and Iran and Iraq to to all the axis of evil countries in the last few years in when I was young and was told that this is what paradise will be like you get to praise God all the time forever and continue thanking him for everything he's doing for you sometimes with the aid of musical instruments but that's the thing that's what paradise would be like and if ever lasting praise I used to think sounds like hell to me but also wanted what would it be like I couldn't quite picture it an attempt is made in the movie bedazzled - the first version to try and convey how ghastly would be well now I know I've been to a state where there's worship from dawn till dusk and thanking for everything you've got every tiny crumb and there's what you get - is the tiny crumb nothing but thanks nothing but praise it's a state where not everybody knows this Kim Jong Il is not the absolute dictator of North Korea he's only the head of the party and of the North Korean army the head of the state the president is his late father who's been dead for some 15 years Kim il-sung he's still the president and he's the president if you pardon the expression for life even though he's as it were passed on ceased to be join the choir invisible turn up his toes he's an ex-president you could call it a neck Rock recei a thin autocracy amours Ola cracy and it's also you'll notice just one short of a Trinity because the son is the reincarnation of the Father that's what it would be like if this horrible Bronze Age Palestinian myth was true unending eternal unchallengeable unchangeable slavery who wants it to be true that's my first question to myself answer it later and to you and to you since I haven't got a debate part answer you ladies and gentlemen why would anyone want it to be true if I don't remember to ask myself isn't secular dictatorship sometimes just as bad if I don't remember to ask myself this promise me one of you will because we can't skip that point okay why is it wonderful to be here in Seattle and in North America having this discussion at this moment because everybody in America believes that everybody else is a strong believer everybody believes the opinion polls that say everyone else goes to church and believes in Satan more than they believe in Darwin everyone else thinks you can't run for office unless you bow the knee this is not true and your presence here partly materializes my belief that it isn't as as did my swing through the south where thousands of people came to each stop and all looked around themselves thinking God I thought I was the only atheist in this town till I got here we had to move out of the bookstore in North Carolina into a church to fill up the overspray and the pastor said to me he said I shouldn't be telling you this this made my day I wasn't be telling you this this damn Church has never been this full and North Carolina can be hard row to hoe for a for an unbeliever I can I'm here to tell you but it's not that tough well I thought because the Lord sent me the death of Jerry Falwell that week and I thought okay I'm going to say what I think about him and I made a few comments about his is the origin of his ghastly career as a segregationist and a defender of racism about his his vulgar and cheap and his Semitism about his mad belief that the Antichrist is with us now and is already here and is an adult Jewish male he's trying to lay off that bet by supporting the ugliest and stupidest elements in Israel who think they can bring on the Messiah by stealing other people's property his shakedown artistry his lying his failure to levitate his ghastly tubby form into the heavens with the rapture instead being found slumped uselessly on the floor of his office in Virginia built on the on the money stolen from the credulous and then I thought well I can go on in this vein for some time but I think I really ought to say what I truly think about him and I said um now that he's gone I have some advice for his grieving family give him an enema you can bury two box good well there was a brief pause actually because they're slower on the uptake as you know in the South due to incessant defenses against chastity with members of their immediate families and domestic animals no no no much smarter than you think much smarter than you think there was a brief pause and I thought it gone too far no no then the roof blew off they really liked it they don't they don't want anyone thinking that they are led around by idiots like this by moral questions of this kind I think the zeitgeist is changing ladies and gentlemen I really do think it's happening and we should be proud to be a part of it turn a page of your newspaper any day you like see what the parties of God are doing to Iraqi society to drag it down to the level of Afghanistan or Somalia the last two countries where the parties of God had it all their way look next door to Iran where people who believe in a tooth fairy figure called the Hidden Imam the 12th Imam who whose immediate Advent is expected which will it won't surprise you to hear bring about a reign of universal peace and justice when it comes wonder where they picked up that idea but perhaps as a sign of a lack of confidence in this belief mr. Ahmadinejad is currently building a new Boulevard into the center of Tehran on which to welcome the motorcade of this Imam when he returns from his delusion just in case that doesn't work or doesn't happen why not pirate and plagiarize some nuclear weapons they know nothing about science themselves they couldn't do physics they don't care about the beauties of science they don't wonders of the cosmos don't appeal to them at all but they can probably steal have stolen the ingredients to make a nuclear weapon so we now have what we've long feared we're going to have the coincidence between an apocalyptic ideology and ER or brother shall I say messianic ideology an apocalyptic weapon it's going to happen now and happen very soon well suck on that for a second I've already said what the crazed Masonic settlers in the neighboring or not far off West Bank are doing and who their best friends in America are the four were lights and Robertson clones who think it's amusing to try and propose that with the help of sources up gather in Washington state that stall to find nonsense be taught to our children in American schools in the year 2007 as equal time so here kids the chemistry class is over now get ready for the alchemy period astronomy is over you'll be glad to hear it's a hard subject but cheer up after the break astrology teacher will be on the scene what is this nonsense how can anyone put up with it for a single second the evil attempt to make children ignorant and frightened that is also augmented very strongly by another priesthood which has been teaching about Hellfire and limbo that they've just dropped limbo at the last minute there's the Pope did recently notice limbo is over now unbaptized children don't go there forever in isolation and lonliness after all because they didn't get the sprinkle of water you can relax no you can't millions of parents thought that's where their dead children have gone ladies and gentlemen for hundreds of years miserable frightened humiliated upset they believed it was real to them it was cruel to tell them this nonsense to begin with it's even more cruel to say after all that it's not true but never mind after hundreds of years of that we have to apologize for a few other things to the Inquisition sorry about that the role of the church in the final solution may be a mistake the Crusades no we wouldn't do it the same way now the massacre of the massacre of Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox Christians up to the very recent past in the Balkans we owe them an apology there's quite a lot to be taking on isn't it but nevermind we're getting ready to be infallible all over again this stuff is not to be believed and you live in the country we don't have to and mustn't be intimidated by the supposed strength of illusions like this all the people who peddle them where I was very kind to mention that I really took my oath as an American citizen at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC on the H was on the 13th of April which is his birthday and also mine and I'm in a small way his biographer and I was able to arrange to take the oath at the Tidal Basin by his memorial and I made a little speech about the Virginia statute on religious freedom which is the basis of the tremendous First Amendment to our Constitution that guarantees as you know that there can be no a clerical meddling in our public and political life and the shorthand phrase for that was uttered by the president in a letter that he wrote to the Baptist's of Danbury Connecticut seeking refuge from persecution from the Congregationalists of Danbury Connecticut by the way so they were afraid of in which he said there will be a wall of separation forever on this point so I now have a new slogan for you mr. Jefferson build up that wall and I believe it's entirely possible that we can construct a cement here between what is patriotic what is decent what is rational and what is not faith-based I think it can be done I think can start here ok um enough for me what about my debating partner what has he got to say to this well how would you be mr. Hitchens how would you be moral if it wasn't for God how would you know what morality was what's your warrant for saying what's right and wrong I always politely pause at this point as if I never heard this nonsense before ok so I am wrong when I get a sense of satisfaction from giving a punch plug it comes from nowhere I don't lose the pint and I get it back after a cup of tea and a lie down but someone else gets a pint of blood they might very well need a great little transaction I don't do enough of it and I have a rare blood group myself and I might one day well the same person or someone else rather to do the same for me but it's not just a utilitarian transaction I positively enjoy doing it is this from nowhere it's I certainly don't know of any heavenly reason why I think all right that's not good enough for you by the way give blood whenever you can it's a noble thing to do it's the right thing to do and you may need some blood one day yourself and you should be ashamed of the fact that this comes from human solidarity without which we wouldn't be here in the first place or able to have a language to discuss this all right think of my Jewish ancestors such as they were hobbling around in the desert I don't believe a word of the story even Israeli archaeology has completely and conclusively disproved the story of Exodus as detailed at some length in my book there was no such presence in Egypt there was no exile there was no wandering there was a lot of massacre and murder and theft but then there always is when religious tribes are walking around let's assume the story is true let's assume it am I to be insulted by being told that my ancestors did not know until they got to Sinai that perjury and murder and theft were not kosher up till then they thought those are the things we like best it's a bit of a face sir to get all this way and then do we have someone tell us that's not on anymore no no we all have to I'll repeat myself we all have to have more self-respect than that they wouldn't have got that far or anywhere they would never have been written about or heard of if they've been under any other impression religion gets its morality from us we know innately you don't have to teach a child the golden rule you sometimes have to reinforce it a bit but you don't have to teach the principles of it same with the New Testament how do we know this because the story of the Good Samaritan is told by the alleged Nazarene in whose existence I also do not believe but he talks of a person who went out of his way on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho to help a fellow creature in need very obviously this man cannot have been a Christian because it's the young Jesus talking about it he knows the story already he's able to tell people that's the way you should behave if you see people in trouble he never says you need divine permission to do this or divine warrant to do it it's ordinary human ethics and to say that it wouldn't be part of us part of our warp and our weft and our woof if it wasn't for divine permission is to make ourselves into serves so I propose we repudiate that and as it were stand on our own two feet a bit more now speaking of Serfdom well mr. Hitchens isn't it the case that in the last century some of the worst atrocities if not the worst of all were perpetrated by atheists and security is this not the fact very serious question I have a whole chapter about it in my book shall I read it all to you no I won't do that it's available to find bookstores everywhere and will be available after this show where I will be very polite to anyone who has a receipt but not to anyone else someone asked me the other day are you a materialist I said are you joking this is America well take the take the cases that are before us other than the most notorious ones in the case of fascism the movement that coined the term totalitarianism would actually put it into circulation religion being in my view implicitly totalitarian with its admiration of an absolute unchallengeable ruler there's no other way to describe the fascist movement beginning in Spain Portugal Italy spreading through Croatia Austria large parts of Germany Hungary Slovakia except to say it was a movement of the Roman Catholic right that's what it was it was a completely Christian movement all of its leaders were believing Christians it had an official Concord out with the Vatican the Nazi puppet state leader of Slovakia was actually a man in Holy Orders General Franco was very nearly baptized in his rule both at any one can look this up the church has never cease to apologize for it and nor should it and after the war was over they helped many of these people escape and begin constructing regimes of a similar model in South America after 1945 no wonder they can't stop apologizing nothing secular about that German National Socialism not quite the same I have to say it's true that the Vatican signed a treaty with Hitler the week he was installed in power and it was for him the first and most important treaty he ever signed the Concorde out with the Vatican and neither of them ever broke it it's also true to say that in mine camp he praises the Catholic Church and never left it and has nothing but contempt for atheism it's also true that the Pope ordered that his birthday the Fury's birthday ladies and gentlemen of the jury be celebrated from the pulpit every year every April which it was to the very end it's also true that 25% of the members of the SS this we know from Catholic historians were confessing Catholics once who went to confession and that no one was ever threatened with excommunication for their role in the end law something as the Germans called the shower or the final solution excommunication was only used by the church politically after the war when you were told you couldn't you be excommunicated be ready for the Communist Party and it is true that Joseph Goebbels was excommunicated from the Catholic Church but do you want to know why do you know why he's married a Protestant married a Protestant that's what it took to be next you'll know he didn't eat fish on a Friday or something no excuse me they have their standards okay but it is also true that Hitler sought to replace Christianity as the state religion and would have preferred an Aryan nordic blood myth with himself as the centerpiece of it there's no question about that and that many brave Christians had to die on that proposition no one can deny that but there's nothing secular about National Socialism and of the third partner in that revolting alliance that that of Japan the leader is not just a man of God but a God himself whom people were prepared to immolate themselves and others the late Emperor Hirohito while I'm at it when his son was sent to Oxford University this is a digression but why not sent a mortal in college in the 30s and the Japanese embassy sent up a team of people to see the warden of Modelling College Oxford are you sure you're ready to receive the crown prince this yeah absolutely we're ready he's got a nice room we have a good tutor apparently his English is very good we're looking forward very much to having him with Japanese investors and well it's just we want to be sure you understand you're calling him Crown Prince of course that is his title but you do realise that term his father in our country is not thought of just as an emperor but as God do you understand them the warden of modern encourage said I think you'll find we're quite used to having the sons of famous people at Oxford anyway don't know what brought that on during quite what made me go there's nothing secular about an empire whose military ideology by the way was that of Zen Buddhism for those of you who think the eastern path is more contemplative surficial ideology as with the dictatorship in Burma today is Zen Buddhism Buddhism there's nothing secular about that so I think that clears up this frequently asked question on that side of the ledger moving still answering my own not my own question the other person's question moving to Russia until 1917 the year of the revolution millions and millions of Russians have been told for hundreds and hundreds of years that the head of their state was also a man of God with the head of the church was not quite human a bit better than human not quite divine either the Tsar was the head of the Russian Orthodox Church he was the little father as well as owning everyone in the country as an absolute dictator he was the spiritual leader treasurer that's how millions of Russians have been reduced to credulity stupidity severity and fear thus the state of affairs if you are Joseph Stalin who'd studied for many years in a seminary to become a priest and would have made a very good Bishop if he'd stuck at it if you do not realize what an opportunity you've just been given with this vast reservoir then you shouldn't be in the dictatorship business immediately an inquisition is setup heresy hunts begin trials of heretics are put on miracles are announced by sin cows biology will produce giant tomatoes and four harvests a year everything is to be expected from the leader all praise is due to fit all thanks are required of you ok it's not very difficult to see what the analogy is there and I won't bore you with what happens in China and I've already told you about North Korea it's a simulacrum of a borrowing of an an inheritance from the willingness of people to take things on faith nothing in my view secular about that - my questioner I reply sir or as it might be ma'am show me if you will a society that has adopted the teachings of Lucretius Epicurus galileo and i'm talking of our great tradition of reason skepticism science culture religion london tandem irreligion Galileo Spinoza Einstein Thomas Jefferson Thomas Paine Bertrand Russell show me a society that's ever adopted those values as its own that's fallen into famine dictatorship war cruelty and persecution and then we'll have a level playing field but for now thank you I was going to say hold your applause no applaud more that actually I think will do for an introduction if you don't know where I'm coming from by now you're never going to know it's it's your turn and I mean enormous Lee I really mean an enormous Lee grateful that you came thank I wonder if someone else would like to point a question as so you don't think I've planted anyone in England but who would that be Joe I have a volunteer just to identify a question basically my question is that please speak up a bit sure I don't have to actual American Society probably a considered more a little bit more than Europe is a society that faces tremendous flux and has for a long long time and I was wondering if if that is perhaps one reason why America you've cited in your book that American society is especially religious I mean it struck me that societies and flux having to deal with that tremendous change do people turn to religion as an antidote to that change and if so that what what sorts of things can not leaning on religion what sort of things can we do to substitute for religion in dealing with lots of change well I think you're probably right and I think Alexis de Tocqueville had it right also when he pointed out that the great thing about America is religion is a voluntary Association you can't be made to go to a church here the government can't finance what I mean where I was born in which you can tell was in England the queen is the head of the church as well as of the Armed Forces of the state and on her demise the instant of her decease her slobbering chinless dhofar of a son will not only become the head of the state and the armed forces but the head of the Church of England it's enough to make a cat laugh isn't it and I have to pay tell would if I still live there have to pay taxes so that's what you get when you found a church on the family values of Henry the eighth well again again ladies and gentlemen take it from someone who had to sweat and struggle to become a citizen here and go through Homeland Security in the National Security Agency realize how lucky you are that doesn't apply to you somebody wants to build a church here has to do it themselves and keep it going where there an effort and fine let them by all means do that as long as they agree to leave the rest of us alone on the point that you make about anomie or if you prefer alienation but that was the same point that Durkheim made very early on in his studies of these matters a huge number of people in history are always having to make something like the transition from the country to the city from the stable ordered rhythmic life that's determined by the seasons to the much more feral conditions of mass society and that means many more lives will have to be experienced as failures or at least as very risky my my comprehension of this issue slightly stops there what I've never understood and it may be a failure of my imagination is in what respect does belief in the tooth fairy help you at that point after millions and millions of intelligent workers shrugging off the city excuse me shrugging off the idiocy of rural life and moving to the city have not run straight to a priest when they right into a crisis I don't see why people do it I'm not sure that the explanation we give isn't a condescending one as which if I'm not babbling too much whether this would enable me to answer another question from my interlocutor that I failed to what about how when religion makes people behave better what about dr. Martin Luther King one who was get asked shall I answer it now it seems logical dr. King was an exemplary human being by every standard that I know I can't be sure that he was actually a Christian I can be grateful to the extent that he was not one in that when he told his oppressed people that he was going to preach from the book of Exodus but the story of the the enslaved who made it to the promised land it's very good thing he didn't mean it because that horrible story says that the tribe he's leading it are allowed empowered in fact ordered by God to kill everyone who gets in their way rape their women Massacre their children sparing only the females of marriageable age and steal the land and the property of any tribe they don't destroy or do well just as well that isn't what he was saying right second you'll remember that he was a student of Marx and of Hegel and he was regularly accused rightly too in his lifetime by the FBI and by the reactionary bigots of keeping too many friendships among communists and Marxist and socialists which he did great black secularists now forgotten like Bayard Rustin my favorite American socialist and philip Randolph the great American black trade unionist actually organized the march on Washington had the idea pulled the crowds together brought in the trade unions to make it happen it's a pity that we leave these people out of account and I think it's condescending because I think that 90% of the white liberals in this country are in effect saying in a patronizing manner well you know these black folks they quite like a preacher they like a preacher man that's what they respond to they like the pulpit that's what they go for so why not let them have it which immediately gives permission for the most gross charlatans and frauds who I've been debating in the last few months like Sharpton and Jackson to come forward and just pick it up as if it was there with your as it were permission and prove yet again you can get away with anything in this country if you can put Reverend in front of your name I guess we should just do it alternately yeah your book was reviewed in New Yorker and he the reviewer brought up a point I thought you might like to address if you haven't already that if your view is with the world be better off without religion at all he dropped the point that if we're wicked enough to invent religion for ourselves and we're wicked enough to come with other alternative it's just as mischievous sure enough I mean did everyone get the question okay well you know why atheists are to be pitied than you they have no one to talk to and receiving a so that if I'm asked do I wish that religion would die out of the world I I sort of reply no I wouldn't have anyone to argue with I mean it is after all it is the original argument where religion ends philosophy begins just as we're phony cosmological myths and physics begins or you have to know what the origins of the argument are and religion is our first and worst attempt to find out what's going on we only bother with it because it was here first it grabbed the territory of explanation because we are pattern-seeking mammals we need to look for patterns and for logic and we we prefer even in times like this many people will prefer a conspiracy explanation to no theory at all because they need to have some explanation well religion comes from the time when we didn't know there was a germ theory to explain disease so it was plague was God's will and curse didn't know he lived on a round planet didn't know the word round celestial bodies didn't know that our DNA makes us kin with other animals and indeed plants so the study of it of the debate with it I think has to go on I'm to that extent I'm in favor of as the president ludicrously says teaching the argument about evolution because the way I learned it was by reading about the confrontation between Huxley and Wilberforce in London the Origin of Species actually was an Oxford in the Origin of Species Huxley was Wilberforce's opponent Wilberforce was the Bishop of Oxford Huxley was Darwin's best friend the man who coined the term agnostic they had a great debate and Huxley mopped the floor with the spokesman of the church that's how I know how the argument goes and in America admittedly 50 years later good grief good so the same argument happens in Tennessee in a courtroom this time and the game they lose by all means teach the argument in that way just can't change it in science class and by the way if there's going to be equal time for this stuff then every Church that gets any subsidy from the faith-based initiative or any tax break has to teach evolution in Sunday school by law as a fellow anti-theist who is coming to believe more and more that you can't make accommodation with a pack of lies I decided to give the other side a chance and at lunchtime I went to a Cathedral right near here and I saw some people who were sitting there and they felt they found a place where they didn't feel judged and I saw two nice young men who were going over there the ceremony for them to become priests and serve their community and I went home and I read a very charming little story about people in a Muslim village hearing the call to prayer and the high and the low taking off their shoes bang down their heads and coming together and as an anti-theist I think it's it's all very well to say this is nonsense what you believe but what can we do to call the community together have you given that some thought sure um good question I mean duh one of the things that some annoys me about the the responses that I get summers from the faithful is that they say well all you your theory means that love is only a chemical reaction saying well actually do think that there is quite a lot of chemical reaction involved in love and in some of the things that are associated with it too but it doesn't mean that one is merely a reductionist I don't think at all that one must despise the transcendent or the numinous I wouldn't trust anybody who say listening to Mozart on a mountaintop in Cascadia sunset didn't feel that maybe there was more to life than his only media concerns and that all could be filled with the great compassion for other people in fact if if this were not so there wouldn't have been great secular men like Thomas Paine for example and Benjamin Franklin who actually did found the American anti-slavery society while every Christian in the world was justifying slavery from the Bible where that justification can in fact be found of course there is extraordinary and profound humanism and without it where would we be but I deny only that this is not possible without the fear of a supernatural dictatorship and I will keep repeating that until the last dog dies I also have a wager that I put to the religious in these cases and you may be interested to know that I've tried it with everyone from the guy who founded Bush's faith-based initiative mr. Laskey to various Baptist pastors a Buddhist nun a rabbi charismatic Catholic wears pastors on radio and television all up and down the country no not yet an answer from them it's simple you have to name or cite a moral action performed or a moral statement made by a believer that could not have been made by an atheist that's all you have to do and it cannot be done so your question is in is a nice one but it's surplus to requirements comrade one of your anti-god competitor sam harris makes the point as a primary thesis in his book the end of faith that real responsibility for the situation which you've been describing is the tolerant religious person who will not take a firm stand and put down erroneous liberal proves principles I just wondered whether you would put responsibility on the tolerant religious person as sam harris does yes I mean I'm very great admirer of Sam Harris even though he turns out to be a bit of a Buddhist but unlike me he is a qualified neuroscientist and he does think that there can be consciousness independent of the brain I'm that's an argument I'm very interested in having I doubt he's going to win but I'm it's a pleasure to argue with him I have to say by the way what does the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor make me one with everything just quickly what what happens next he gets a slathered hot dog and from beneath his saffron robes produces a $20 bill hands it to the vendor munches nothing occurs he says where's my change you know what's coming interchange comes only from within I'll give you an example of what I mean and why I think that those who criticize me for only taking religion at its worst say well you're right about the fundamentalist and the extremists what about the mainstream I say this remember last year the Danish case where a huge organized attempt was made to destroy the economy of a small democracy in northern Europe Denmark because it's Prime Minister refused to break his own law the law of this country to censor cartoons in an afternoon newspaper in Copenhagen with the backing of all the members of the Arab League boycott was declare on Denmark to try and sabotage its economy its embassies were burned its diplomatic immunity was violated in countries where demonstrations are not normally allowed random Scandinavians whether danish or not was set upon and murdered there was a huge outpouring of mayhem and cruelty and bigotry that had quite clearly been very well rehearsed in advance about enough you might think not one media outlet in this country would agree to show those cartoons in a time completely dominated by the image my profession I mean totally dominated by images much too much so they wouldn't show here's the picture or the pictures that all the fuss is about nor would they show them as a gesture of solidarity to their Danish colleagues who are being subjected not to threats of death but de temps to actually to kill them and when a small magazine and I know very well why this was cuz I know the editors who took the decision they were either extremely afraid of violent reprisal if they did their job or coming closer to your point they were afraid of offending religious people I'm not sure which of those decisions is the most cowardly or contemptible taken in conjunction I think extremely contemptible and a small atheist magazine which I write called free inquiry did reprint the cartoons as a result of which Borders bookstore pulled our small magazine from the rack as a result which I haven't spoken in a Borders bookstore since I started this tour now in other words in the heartland of free expression and constitutionally protected free speech a complete across-the-board capitulation by everybody and a discrimination against those who were willing to stand up against it this is very severe what did the Pope say seeing gains being threatened Danish economy sabotage Danish Embassy's burned what he condemned the cartoons for being profane that was the line of the Vatican that's what our State Department said they say it regretted the offence given by the cartoons this is a fantastic surrender it means the extremists have the whip Hannah we've got no right to say that in criticizing religion we're only singling out the fanatical or fundamentalist majority no in the name of Tolerance you're identified faith in the name of multiculturalism in the name of respect in the name of all these things they were parodied and a abject collapse in the face of religious fascism occured that I for one I'm not going to forget or allow to be repeated hmm muted applause for that oh not so nudge you too hard in the rosin if your gender port I can become quite morose hurt you know not upset just hurt so the course of history what happened or what is in place that enables billions of people across this planet to believe that a book built by a process as intensely political as that of the Bible is the way that we should live our lives and how is it that the same people can dismiss particular parts of the Bible for instance the book of Joshua and still say that that book is the absolute authority the word the word with a capital W yeah well there's a good the possible I think decent anthropological answers to that for a long time was the only book everyone knew and for a long time there was a heroic struggle at least I regarded as heroic to have this incredibly important text the only one everyone had in some way in common translated into English out of Latin so it wouldn't be the special property of a priestly class that's what the Protestant revolution means to me is is John a Milton for example and William Tyndale and the others who strove to get this book into the hands of the common people to demystify it to make it into what it is at least in its King James Version very great literature as is the crime of prayer book you probably know the lady governor of Texas who in the discussion on whether religious education should be bilingual in her state said we'll have English good enough for Jesus good enough for me which means that the Protestant revolution succeeded even better than I had thought in giving the simple and English is the only language in which I have to say I understand the Bible but for many people it's the only book they have either read or in many cases only read a bit of now what you get now as a result of biblical criticism and scholarship and also various vernacular editions of it that unlike the Koran have made it available to everybody in pretty much every tongue is people want to take it out of cart they'll say I quite like the Beatitudes I just don't like I don't mind the story of the rest of the story the Sermon on the Mount or the miracle at Cana where water is turned into wine my own personal favorite but I don't like the other stuff and I don't like Book of Joshua I don't like the injunction to kill all the Midianites down to the last child that makes me uneasy well they're out of luck this stuff is out of the Word of God or it isn't and they have to make up their minds whether they think it's that or man-made and when they've done that they'll feel better but the the tempter have italic art is to me contemptible I keep finding on this trip when I debate people I'd have to write a different book for every priest I debated because if you say to a Baptist even in Georgia well sir you say you're an ordained Baptist minister and indeed a teacher of baptism at the local college may I know whether you concur with John Calvin and his view of predestination and damnation or not now further know if it you think it applies to me and if you don't think so may I know on what authority you don't think it they don't like the question one bit they don't and not because you're in front of an educated audience either they're not sure what they think they'd rather say well some of that's metaphorical what's metaphorical about telling people that they their fate was decided before they were born and they can't change it even by good works even by doing the right thing won't change it you were picked for Hell before you were born you're a goat not a by the way who wants to be a sheep a religion that calls itself a flock you already know a lot about they don't like it ladies and gentlemen they really don't I say to the rabbi so your daily prayers begin don't they by saying thank God he didn't make me a woman or Gentile isn't that isn't that the prayer I don't always say it okay I'm glad to hear it you've come from a sect that doesn't shake hands with women I'm not gonna shake hands with you I have views of my own about this but I've told you what they are and I'm willing to be tested on them and questioned on them why aren't you why do you want it on a cart all the time this morning the conservative guy very nice extremely nice fellow on the local Fox radio John someone yeah extremely courteous gave me a lot of time and I said well for example you know I say to Catholics they do come on you may say you're Catholic you don't really believe in the virgin birth he said well I do I thought oh Christ that's the first one I've met the whole it had to be this morning and I said we you I really say you know he said yes I absolutely do I believe in the Immaculate Conception of Jesus and I said no hold on a second the Immaculate Conception is not the same as the virgin birth he said it isn't no the Immaculate Conception says that Mary was conceived without sin without any stain not that her son was conceived without the intervention writ bluntly he had no idea did even know what he didn't believe it's come to something when a Catholic on fox TV has to be told his his his theology by me and I hope he doesn't I hope if he hears of this he doesn't regard it as an abuse of his hospitality I must say he was a real gentleman to me who rest the time so who's up sir thank you earlier when you first started speaking you spoke about fascism I think was a maces heir who talked about the relationship between colonial expansion and fascism basically was stating that because of European expansion colonialist that fascism was a result and that's why they got the rise of fascism in Europe I was wondering what your thoughts were in that United States all of our wars except World War two essentially have been a colonial expansion and now we're seeing the disappearance of habeas corpus and our constitutional rights and torture and those kinds of things I was wanting to know particularly in lieu of your new citizenship how you felt about that thank you I'm an admirer of the work of MA Caesar who the gentleman just mentioned who was the great poet of Negritude as it was called a French West Africa under the time of Leopold cengo who is I think his mentor in this matter and it's certainly true that the relationship between the rise of fascism in Europe and the decomposition of colonialism in Africa is a very intense one just give you one example the Brownshirts of the German Nazi Party were bought as an army surplus from the Goering family which had a huge estate in South West Africa now Namibia where general von Trotta had first launched his campaign of extermination against the Herero people before even the first world war were they they already had first the experience of genocide and second a lot of spare uniforms that could be used to fit out a horrible militia and Mussolini's fascism was felt much more intensely in Libya the gassing of the people of Abyssinia as it was then called Ethiopia now than it was anywhere else and you could make the British Union of fascists largely grew out of the black and tan movement that was an attempt to repress the people of Ireland interestingly by the way the Pope's support of Mussolini in Abyssinia was probably because the Abyssinians were and are the oldest practitioners of Christianity in Africa they nonetheless practiced the mono physic heresy which was thoroughly condemned by the Council of Chalcedon in the year 524 so he had it in for them still in this point yes you're right as to the thing that you tack on at the end knew someone was going to try this I'm only here to sell my book okay but you do have the honor of addressing someone who is a named plaintiff in the lawsuit brought with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union against the National Security Agency and against the Justice Department which has so far carried in the courts saying that it is illegal and unconstitutional to listen to the telephone conversations of an American without a warrant I'm appalled that when I wasn't even a citizen yet I had to go to law to uphold that simple point but we've won so far but it's going to require a lot of vigilance to keep winning the reason I think complete collapse of the Justice Department's witnesses and main spokesman on other matters in front of major hearings in in the Senate is is extremely encouraging it I when we brought the suit we didn't know that people were gathering around john ashcroft s-- bedside try to guide his palsy handover this order Ashcroft the man who says in this country remember this when he was Senator said in America we have no king but Jesus a statement that is exactly two words too long what do you think about Liberation Theology it's a contradiction in terms what about the immense right the emancipation of the human personality the human right is from theology there are no two ways about it I don't care if I run into some priest in Colombia who thinks that Fidel Castro should be Pope it bores me it irritates me I asked him the same question is there anything you're saying that an atheist couldn't say that might be right or might be wrong but would still be said what's the theological bit for know Jesus doesn't have a special privilege for the poor he says render unto Caesar don't you believe that if not why go on as if you did know it's piffle it's Cal Oh piffle you've been waiting a little longer than I have so go ahead well choose you'll apologize is if you've described many deeds of a number of different evil gods and I noticed from the title of your book that God is in very small time and it is not capitalized nor is it plural I'm worrying wondering which God do you refer to well the joke is partly on me as you point out in the though I didn't say that God had committed any crimes I wouldn't fall into that mistake you see by taking the Atheist Nanji theist position one avoids the dumb questioning that the faithful bring upon themselves why does God allow this suffering I don't have time to waste on a question like that why was my buddy hit in the testicles and I escaped how did God allow that God is not involved in it why do some people get swept away by the tsunami and others not because we live on a cooling planet baby with a turbulent weather system which has volcanoes and earthquakes that's what decides what happens it spread we you can just spare yourself all this stuff if you don't quarrel with God and if you don't try and indict him in this way so I don't think he's ever committed a single crime or ever well but that but that he makes people behave worse the belief in him does I mean to say I have no doubt in other words some I didn't say enough about this perhaps at the beginning it's not just that our ethics come from our own innate solidarity and decency it's that morally normal people can be brought to do things that no Maury normal person will do or would do such as mutilating the genitals of a child for example I'm sure some people here have been handed a newborn baby in their time okay what none of you what have you been doing with yourselves but no one here has had a new one Mary well I recommend you go home and try harder well I have and if you're ever going to have that feeling maybe this is a miracle if you're ever going to have it in your life that's pretty why it'll be little indentations where the fingernails are going to be it's heartbreaking really if only you knew what was coming but anyway it's so remote so you've given this bundle you think well okay that's great and and it probably is a gift from heaven but I'd better find a sharp stone as quickly as I kind of start sawing away at its genitalia because otherwise it wouldn't be pleasing to God no no one no moral person then when he gets old enough to listen tell him that he's going to burn forever in hell if he doesn't obey some cranky instructions poisoned his life in his dreams no no no this is not moral preaching so I'm I'm sorry I want I did want to add that before I am before I wrapped up it's it's the presser steven weinberg puts it very well actually he says in a morally ordinary universe the good people decent people would do the best they can to do right by their fellows and the psychopaths and the sociopaths those for whom society and other people don't really count nope never will do wicked things if you want good people to do evil things you need them to be religious Weinberg is right so what so what you're saying is another unsatisfied customer yes so you're saying whatsoever is good and kind and just against such there is no vol you you'll have to cut another whack at that I'm sorry so what you're saying is is that whatsoever is good it kind and just against that there is no law whatsoever is good well I think I recognizing an epistle from st. Paul here whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are noble were so things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report think on these things yes I read that at my father's funeral as a matter of fact in the d-day Chapel in Portsmouth where Eisenhower had prayed for good weather for the invasion of Normandy what if the weather had been bad what if Heaven had been indifferent in that moment don't ask these things happen if there been a divine intervention we wouldn't have had Nazism in the first place no though I don't really understand the grammar of your question what I'm saying is there is no law against goodness and apparently that's what you have been describing to us by appeal ladies and gentlemen of the jury I mean have I been saying that there is no law against goodness or there is one well you're in good company thank me thank you for trying and if I've seen dove juice you you're quite welcome to blame me hi my name is Tyler I hope I'm not the only former Christian from Yakima oh um much like the South he Akamai's um uh two quick questions want to read a read the review of your book finger brother and I just want to know I'm curious about your relationship with him that's as far as I know as I didn't like the book and secondly um some recommendations from you more of influential anti-theists coming up besides Harris Bennett Dawkins and others so um well concerning my my brother Peter who is a very distinguished ultra conservative columnist and broadcaster in Great Britain and very strongly believing Christian all I can say is this probably one in every family mm-hmm as to the ranks of anti fearsome the the best Booker you mentioned professors Janet and Dawkins of course a great scientists and great explicate errs of science a great educated and Sam who we've already talked about and we're beginning to be it's very very flattering to me mentioned in the same breath as the some say Musketeers I would prefer I think horsemen of the counter apocalypse but there is another one whether to all the bestseller list now one is the woman who I had as my witness and friend of the Jefferson Memorial ayaan Hirsi Ali some of you will know unbelievably courageous beautiful woman who has survived with great humor and and dignity and courage everything from forced marriage to gentle not just mutilation but infibulation to and and and who thinks that she's probably the only girl born that day in that hospital in Somalia who's still alive and probably is but who is now wanted person on the run seeking political asylum in the United States not even Holland is safe enough to hold her from the fury of people who to whom her existence is an incitement to murder and not just murder is on their mind either if you want my opinion people who are obscene and filthy as well as murderous and lethal and so entitled so sure of their entitlement to murder because they have got on their side she was the one who stood next to me at the ceremony and her book infidel is a marvelous book as is the Caged version it's previously and then the extremely tough an impressive doctor Victor Stenger who's written a book called God the failed hypothesis in which he will go further than I I will say that it is impossible to disprove the existence of God as it is impossible to prove it thus that those who say they can know what cannot be proved can be excluded from the argument those who are certain where certainty is impossible are easily dispensed with by Occam's razor that's as far as I feel I need to go Stenger says that the evidence from science is now strong enough to say that it disproves the existence of God and he certainly demonstrates in his book that every hypothesis for God's existence that his science-based has been utterly overthrown and I may say I'm sorry that no one from the Discovery Institute came this evening because I trailed my coat as much as I could while I was in the hood or that if they're here they've kept quiet but stinger is a great book and he's a huge addition to the arsenal of argument I'm sure we've got two more right so what would be your rebuttal to the review of your book and the nation which said if you are to be believed our faith-based president is defending rationalism against religious intolerance doesn't say that Daniel Lazar semi-literate polemicist who's always hired on by the nation when I publish a book for some reason would would be at a loss to point out where in my book I say that I checked the president for his credulity and stupidity on matters of religion I will say this however which is what he may possibly have confused it with it could be that every member of the 82nd airborne regiment was a bible-believing snake handling Pentecostal lists though I doubt it but that could be literally true and it would still be true that they're defending the frontiers of Afghanistan in Iraq from the parties of God so the irony I think would be at Mike's but the president's expense rather than mine these people guard us while we sleep from the worst enemy our country and our civilization has ever had and I'm very proud to be among their supporters pity about it well it's a really irony chip can we make it two more then one each and then we're done here actually how's that yeah fair enough so you first sir okay what would you say to the argument that since we don't know what'll happen after death it's better to take the strategy that you believe in God because then if you die and there is God maybe you have a chance of going to heaven whereas if you didn't do that yeah well you'll like that section in my very moderately-priced book which as you most of you will know the gentleman is is summarizing actually almost perfectly the wager of a Blaise Pascal who's Paul say his thoughts were addressed actually to the one who is so made that he cannot believe that's me and he says we'll look at it like this like some huckster like the guy who from the mega church the other day on the radio tried to get me to pull into his parking lot because the Lord had cured his daughter of Hodgkin's disease like some really low-rent character says what are you gonna lose if it's not true we will headed nowhere in any case but if it was true by any chance and you'd said you thought so ah how bad could it be well you talk about the way that religion degrades argument integrates dignity and self-respect there you have it in one syllogism but I have my answer the following on the assumption that the God they're talking about is anything like the one they ought to be believing in this is what I say my book I'm going to say by the way but just before I tell you you know Bertrand Russell said in reply to the same question said I should reply Lord you did not give us enough evidence which i think is pretty good but I'm night my reply goes on just a fraction longer it is I presume divine sir that you have some respect for intellectual honesty and for moral courage and that you would look with more favor on somebody who made an honest profession of unbelief than on someone who acceded to belief in you in the hope of a handout mr. Hitchens I don't have a question I have a thank you oh I'm the executive director of doctors opposing circumcision based here in Seattle and and I send the thanks and greetings of my members around the world I am so tempted to leave it like that but something something in me wants to milk the moment just one or a second if you will consult my reasonably priced volume you'll see you learn a lot when you write a book like this I thought I knew what the case against religion was I did know that but I learned more than I thought I would and the thing that really alarmed me was to read what the original justifications for circumcision was particularly were particularly the horrific propaganda of Maimonides considered to be the greatest Jewish sage this is wicked stuff and it says that the reason it must be done is for the same reason as it must be done Jews don't say this fortunately but there's others later said to little girls that to try as far as possible to make the sexual act as weak and unpleasant and the sexual sensation as is possible with the continuation of human life it's this that takes the axe to the very root of our existence our dignity our self-respect I'm pointing in the right direction our core core legend means that's why it poisons everything and why the time to start fighting back against it would be right about now thanks very much you you

Channel: TheHitchensArchive

Views: 151,852

Rating: 4.8168736 out of 5

Keywords: Christopher Hitchens (Author), Not, Great, Seattle

Id: hqrs-Ycf74w

Length: 75min 27sec (4527 seconds)

Published: Mon May 06 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/AyJaySimon]

I don't think he ever did say this. I think Sam has just been more open to the prospect than other scientifically minded atheists, and more willing to admit being more open minded about it.

It's clearly an interest of his.

[u/an_admirable_admiral]

I think Sam's position is that we don't know where/how consciousness comes from, people have theories, but no one has scientifically proven answers.

Hitchens is more willing to trust pure intuition/logic and conclude it must come from the brain. It seems the most reasonable theory to me but quantum physics (among other things) is so intuitive and seemingly illogical (but scientifically sound) that I hesitate to make that leap that it must be true.

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with philosopher David Chalmers about the nature of consciousness, the challenges of understanding it scientifically, and the prospect that we will one day build it into our machines.

[u/[deleted]]

Sam is not a dualist. But, I reckon he thinks it's possible.

Far from a endorsement, I think Hitch misunderstood him on this point.

[u/PunyeshKu]

He actually talked about this on #WeThePeopleLIVE. From what I remember he considers panpsychism an open possibility.

[u/heisgone]

He did comment about the panpsychism views of David Chalmers. He seems open to the idea but not commited to it. I don't remember if they did talk about it when he has Chalmers on the podcast.

[u/gelliant_gutfright]

“Most scientists consider themselves physicalists; this means, among other things, that they believe that our mental and spiritual lives are wholly dependent upon the workings of our brains. On this account, when the brain dies, the stream of our being must come to an end. Once the lamps of neural activity have been extinguished, there will be nothing left to survive. Indeed, many scientists purvey this conviction as though it were itself a special sacrament, conferring intellectual integrity upon any man, woman, or child who is man enough to swallow it. But the truth is that we simply do not know what happens after death. While there is much to be said against a naive conception of a soul that is independent of the brain, the place of consciousness in the natural world is very much an open question. The idea that brains produce consciousness is little more than an article of faith among scientists at present, and there are many reasons to believe that the methods of science will be insufficient to either prove or disprove it.“

( End of Faith p. 208)

[u/[deleted]]

I just got some good buddhist jokes.

[u/skinpop]

I don't have anything to quote, but I remember hearing Sam arguing things of that sort in older debates and videos he participated in. Maybe his position on the matter has evolved, or maybe my memory is playing tricks on me...

[u/gnarlylex]

Was re-listening to the podcast Sam did with David Chalmers. Really is one of the best and they dig in to the topic of consciousness from many different angles. One hypothesis is that consciousness arises from information processing, and therefore could happen without a brain.

But Sam made an interesting point that somehow I missed the first time in that podcast: if it turns out that information processing creates consciousness, then that means we very likely have multiple consciousnesses in our brains, trading information with our frontal cortex which is the real you. This is not a new idea of course, but the way Sam connected it to the information processing hypothesis of consciousness was novel, to me at least.

Other non-brain hypothesis for consciousness is that everything is conscious, or at least all matter that contains a yet-to-be-found fundamental particle. Or something about space-time itself leading to consciousness...it gets very woo going this route.