Christopher Hitchens on God Is Not Great - The John Adams Institute

I don't think that's ever happened before I just stood somewhere and everyone went quiet good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Russell short Oh I am the director of the John Adams Institute welcome welcome to this hallowed Hall christopher hitchens is a very well known figure in the United States as a writer he can also be complex dense and nuanced now Americans are not on the whole known to favor density complexity and nuance how is it then that he has such renowned for those of you who don't know his work this evening will I think begin to answer that question whether you strongly agree or strongly disagree with what he has to say on a given topic and there are times when I find myself doing both within the same paragraph there is no question that his thoughts in his perspective matter he's here first to talk about the thorny subject of religion in the modern world and I hope that in addition either in his remarks or after he will handicap the presidential race for us but it is not my job to introduce him but rather to give the landscape of the evening our panelists this evening is flawed LaRue II he is Moroccan by birth he studied engineering and math Anette mathematics in Paris he has a PhD in economics he teaches Arabic language and culture at the University of Amsterdam he has written novels short stories and poems and his is the author of Islamism a personal refutation our moderator is re o climber he's the chair of economics of art and culture at Erasmus University in Rotterdam he's a columnist for the NRC and a Volks grant and the author of several books in addition his father was a minister and he himself hosts a Sunday morning sermon on the radio as it happened two nights ago I met Princess Margaret and talked to her about the John Adams Institute and the programs and I referred to this program with Christopher Hitchens and when I said the name REO clammer her eyes lit up she said that his father had been their family minister but that his son had rejected the church when I told her about his sermons she was clearly delighted and said that her fought his father would have been very happy the prodigal son being a time-honored theme without further ado I will give the floor to our yokatta [Applause] thanks welcome to what I hope will be an evolving discussion conversation about atheism and religion I was not aware that you would introduce me like that but that immediately sort of indicates also the difficult position that I will have someone leading the conversation because the attack is something that on religion is something that also involves myself but we will try to carry on the conversation and as you're ready announced and told is that Christopher Hitchens has joined the rank of intellectuals in the United States hitting very very hard at the bastions of religion and this is also an hard-hitting book that as you say in your book you have been writing all your life so it comes from deep what we are very interested in of course is the arguments and I presume also that we focus on the arguments and what we will do first is hear from you what those major arguments are against religion and I hope to continue first in conversation involving you because you come from the tradition of the allow Islam and as I have read your book trying to rest is Islam from the fundamentalist that's as I understand it but you can see how you can enter that discussion with Christopher Hitchens but let me then first if the word to you that you can tell us what your case is against which is a tough get well thank you for the generous introduction thank you ladies and gentlemen for coming it's not often that I speak in what seems to be one of the rooms of the hogwarts school dining hall division no worse for that for the last two days i have sat in the same chair in the hotel by this beautiful canal under the sponsorship of the divine princess of Friesland who you just saw of me my drink tasting one Dutch journalist after another defending my thesis against theism from morning till night for two days and I've got as close as I ever have to the point where I could conceivably be tired of the sound of my own voice but yeah I hope you are relieved to hear this point has not yet quite arrived and you ladies and gentlemen will be the test of that and I invite your patience and your indulgence but I know we don't have a huge amount of time together it would be rude of me to speak for more than the allotted 30 minutes I will be I will condense my thoughts and I'm going to do it under three headings the first two are things I learned in debates with the faithful points I should have made arguments that I have refined lessons that I've learned and then I thought in the last section I would say because I know there's much interest in it how this argument comes to bear on the election in which I voted by proxy yesterday in the very public of the United States okay the most dog in argument with which I have been confronted in this tour whether I've spoken in synagogues or in Christian or Catholic churches or in debates with Shia or Sunni Muslims is this and also with other less identified religion identified intellectuals is this question is it not the case that secular tyranny secular totalitarianism if you like is just as bad if not worse as a religious dictatorship in my book I gave a whole chapter to this question but I feel I should have given two chapters to it and what I'm going to give you is the the chapter I haven't yet written in my opinion it still remains the case that the origin of tyranny of the tyranny of of man over man and of the tyranny of over the mind of man I'm saying man to mean mankind is originally theocratic theistic the first dictator we ever encounter in our history as a species is the divine one there's an old joke to cover this people used to say what Nietzsche said that God was dead and Freud said that God was dad that's putting it pretty mildly if you think of the idea of a final unalterable authority who can tell you that he will never it's always he somehow he will never change he cannot be challenged he was there long before you he will be there long after you you owe him a complete obedience and he can detect you in thoughtcrime he can convict you of things you think while you are asleep or while you are semi-conscious then you have the image upon which George Orwell built the idea of the unknown untestable big brother the authority from whom there is no appeal the tyranny there is so frightening precisely because it's so reassuring attorney from which as I say there's no escape and for me I don't know about you but my libertarian instinct tells me that the worst thing about such a journey and absolutism and unalterable unchallengeable Authority the worst thing of all would be that it was benign that it was all for your own good because then your autonomy your Liberty your freedom your irony your sense of humor your sense of self is completely gone because all this is being done for your own sake and for your own good and the humiliation is complete not all religions insist upon that some of them make you think that this is a god to be feared to be terrified of a cruel a malicious a capricious God and remember the essence of totalitarianism is not that it is systematic but that it is unsystematic that it's unpredictable that you will never be completely sure that you have obeyed all the rules or not they used to say in Moscow in 1936 the bad day was when Stalin was in a good mood anyone who laughs is understood I'm trying to make you cry you can laugh if you like this is vision of perfect journey and I think it should be considered extremely frightening because it goes on forever and it promises both everything and nothing and the essence of the totalitarian it seems to me is exactly that Walter tell Sharon parties and movements promised an absolute solution or complete solution everything will be fine you will have absolute domination of the world if you are of the right race or the right party the right nation there will be a regime of perfection always to distrust anyone with a my Roenick mind has to know how to distrust people who promised too much also often by the way I hate to say it in what used to be consecrated ground is also often the sign of the fraud or the conman promising just a little bit more than they can probably deliver what is religion promise it promises eternal life eternal life it promises the forgiveness and remission of sin it promises an eternity of bliss coupled with it's only a small cat an eternity of worship an eternity of praise an eternity of objection of saying thank you to someone who apparently can perform miracles without effort who can contemplate such a future without horror who wishes that this would be true who but a serf wants it to be the case that there is such an authority and by the way if you should have the independence of mind to refuse this wonderful offer believe absolutely and me worship me forever fall down and praise me indefinitely and you will have a channel I suppose you say I don't actually like the sound of it said well we have an alternative for you an infinity of torture does no one see the hook that sticks out of this bait is there any secular party however absolutist however totalitarian however complete in its a wish to have the citizen as the property of the state that has ever dared to make such an extraordinary so-called bargain I think not let me give you an example I've been to now in my life as a reporter a travelling writer all of the countries nominated by President Bush's the axis of evil in other words Iraq and Iran and North Korea and without question the most terrifying of these was the state of North Korea when I was young when I was a little boy being told at school that heaven would be eternal praise I used to think sounds like to me but I also couldn't really I was it was an idle worry because I couldn't really imagine a state where it praise went on all day and all night and for the rest of that all you did all day was to praise the leader and thank him for things whether you got them or not well now I know what it would be like because I've been in North Korea every newspaper story every day every day of every week of every month of every year is entirely about one person Kim Jong Il every opera there aren't many operas is about him - every movie there have got many movies is entirely devoted to him every program on the television every program on the radio every speech made every minute of the office of the minute of the factory every minute of public private waking up is entirely the worship of the leader and thanking him groveling to them when it is not about his father because North Korea is only one one person short of the Trinity they have a father and they have a son and the son is the reincarnation of the Father you may be interested to hear and the son is over the head of the army and the party he's not the head of the stage the president of North Korea is still to this day the Kim il-sung who died in the early 90s so North Korea might be described as a neck Rock recei orthe an autocracy or a Morlock recife right it has a dead person as president and a reincarnation of his son as the head of the party in the army of what is this reminding you and there's only one duty of the citizen and it is to praise both of them and there's no private life now their North Korean state was founded in 1951 which was the year that 1984 was published and I had the distinct impression that someone had handed a Korean translation of this book to Kim il-sung and said do you think we could make this work and we actually install it and he said I don't know but we can certainly try it is the most religious state I've ever seen now this is not to be compared to the ordinary bureaucracy of secular tyranny that the fumbling attempts by communists by the Catholic right wing on DeFranco and so to establish a totalitarian state we can look back on some of these experiments now we can laugh at them we can see what how bumbling how human how error-prone how corrupt and competent they were but we should never lose the horrible idea that the work people then and there are some still who wish it could be made to work who wants a religious authority that can not be challenged and where the penalty is death and death in life for any objection to I'm willing to take questions about all of this I could go on but I'd better not second tell me how much I've taught good that's exactly what I hoped for now the second question that came up a lot in my book tour and my arguments with the religious was this isn't it the case that you can't believe in science you can believe in the scientific method in the discoveries and innovations of science and still be religious why is there a contradiction here surely these two things are compatible the great Stephen Jay Gould who the great biologist of paleontologist who some of you will have read I dare say may uses the phrase non-overlapping magisteria the scientists do their work the religious through there's the two spheres do not really intersect and do not contradict one another I wish perhaps that that might be true but I think it is no longer possible to maintain that the work of the scientific mind and intelligence and the the belief in a divine design or divine intervention of any kind is remotely compatible and I'll say briefly why I think that that is Edwin Hubble the greatest astronomer as you will know took some observations a few decades ago which showed that the Big Bang was still going on and that over the floor I think it's four hundred I'll tell you one more time about the Andromeda galaxy which is headed as you know from the work of Lawrence Krauss is headed directly towards our galaxy it's now the largest observable body in the sky it can't now be observed by the with the naked eye by human being at nighttime this galaxy is headed directly to us so the direct collision course it's coming in five billion years which is to say in cosmological time pretty soon to a direct confrontation without next anyway when Lawrence Krauss first mentioned this at a lecture man got up and said in the question time did you say professor Krauss Andromeda will collide with us in five billion years of five million he said five billion years that's a that's a that's not so glad to hear that I was really worried for a second that you that you just said five million well anyway soon which by the way means the other point I want to make that's quite some design those who argue that there is a divine presence in the universe asked us to ask ourselves the question why is there something instead of nothing as if since there is something that could only imply the design well there is returned them the question there is something now but there is going to be nothing of that we can be sure who designed that which is to replace the question not much of a designer and not a very kind designer in any case which is exactly the argument as it was first posed by the critius Democritus and Epicurus but there's more Edwin Hubble notice the Big Bang the I think it's 400 billion observable stars it might be four thousand billion you will excuse me the only one of which we have even the remotest idea as a habitable solar system around there yes was exploding and going far far away from itself at a great rate it was then thought fine but Newtonian gravitational mechanics will mean that this process will be slowing down the next time we look it'll still be expanding but more slowly so now we looked big investigation ended just ten years ago Lawrence Krauss again predicted it no it's expanding more rapidly than before the rate of expansion is increasing for reason we don't understand the next time observations are taken it will not be possible to see the relationship of these galaxies to one another it won't it won't be possible any longer to tell that the Big Bang ever took place consider their gigantic cosmological implications of that and imagine somebody with the divine intelligence wanted it to be that way it's falling apart it's falling apart faster and faster and faster all the time or then if that doesn't impress you think of the little suburb in which we live at the edge of this tiny bit of a huge galaxy with a Chinese solar system most of his planets are either too hot or too cold to support life at all and on a planet much of which is too hot or too cold already and which is on a climatic knife edge now as we know and where we have been for Francis Collins my friends Christian Scientist who did the human genome thinks a hundred thousand years of us in similar seconds separated from the cro-magnons and the Neanderthals Richard Dawkins thinks 200 thousand years since we left Africa fifty thousand years in cosmological time no time at all and here's my thought experiment let's call it a hundred thousand years let's compromise one hundred thousand years since we Homo sapiens developed and first started to walk out of africa average life expectancy maybe 20 years for the first 50 thousand years maybe less infant mortality rate enormous the rate of those who just died in childbirth incalculable deaths from microorganisms that couldn't be explained that we didn't know existed swathes thought through us from animals that we couldn't control from earthquakes we didn't understand because we didn't know we lived on the cooling planet you can add a will listen for yourself picture it but gradually very very very slowly surviving and spreading once we left listen the Africans and picture the suffering and the the very microscopic exponential growth and heaven watches this happening with arms folded with perfect indifference for the first ninety seven thousand years and then about three thousand years ago decides it's time to intervene and the best way to do that would be by revelations to illiterate people in Bronze Age plots of Palestine that would be the most convincing we're redeeming the situation you are free to believe this if you like but you can not make it compatible or reconcilable with any one any one of the scientific innovations and discoveries that we have in the meantime made had we known this story first we could never have fallen for the story that we expected to falter in other words religion has one advantage huge one and only one it's the first and the worst explanation that we came up with it's what we came up with when we didn't know anything when we were terrified children when we didn't know about microorganisms or dinosaurs or comets or volcanoes this is a depressing picture but I think it's more cheerful to face it than otherwise and my my verdict therefore is that these these magisteria as pool comes do indeed overlap and you must choose which one of them you take seriously and they're not compatible or reconcile and thus watch the perch le called the necessity of atheism is born in on you just because of scientific reasoning never mind moral and ethical ISM okay now you want to know about what's happening in my hometown of Washington and what this has to do with it well it's very depressing time to be a secularist in the United States we have in order let me see a man the governor of Massachusetts the state of the pilgrims admittedly and the Pilgrim Fathers the state of the Kennedy family the state of the original American Revolution in some ways Governor Romney who is a member of a crackpot racist cult known as the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints or if you like Mormons who believe that the Garden of Eden was in the state of Missouri originally and will and the Jerusalem will be rebuilt in the same state relatively soon and that the missing verses and books that the Bible were written on gold plates in a small town in upstate New York dug up under the direction of an angel called Moroney and dictated to ascribe name Joseph Smith who you might be interested to know proclaimed himself at the time to be the Muhammad of North America not though these are supposedly Christian books he preferred the two sailors of Muhammad well you could believe that if you write and Governor Romney does believe it until 1979 this church did not admit any black members didn't believe that black people had souls thought the people of African descent were a special creation not completely human thus it would be nice to believe that a man who is a more most we're all from African all of us and only fifty thousand years ago at that but senator Obama was more visibly and palpably from central Illinois be nice if he didn't believe anything like this but unfortunately he's a member of a rock and roll ethnic church in Chicago that only admits black people that has recently given an award to Louis Farrakhan it wasn't even a Muslim such as the Black Muslim Islam only applies to black people and whose pastorship from leadership regularly visits with the in my opinion extremely unappetizing and Colonel Gaddafi of Libya divest yourself if you will of your illusions in senator Obama he too when it comes to religion is capable of blowing to an ugly stupid backward childish juvenile organization why he would want to do this when he knew he would run not just for the Senate but for the presidency is beyond me unless by any chance his belief is sincere and thus he's willing to pay the price for calling it that would be a sobering thought Senator John McCain who's been a senator for many decades and before that held a commission in the American armed forces which means that he has several times taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States recently said that he believes that United States is a Christian country which means he has not read the Constitution of the United States and that when he takes his oath yet again if he ever should as president to upload and defend it he will be making an oath which this is not good NIT it's also overwhelmingly probable given his fantastic unpopularity with the right wing of his own party that he will have to appoint as his running mate or vice presidential candidate either Michael Huckabee of Arkansas governor runs or someone very much like him politically and governor Huckabee as you may know believes or says he believes that Adam and Eve were real people and quite recently at that though not in Missouri you pay your money you take your choice this is here's a question I'll probably have to leave you with because I think I'm about to trespass on your time and then their time later and it's a question I've never resolved for myself do I prefer the sincere believer to the hypocritical one I asked myself frequently would I rather be talking to someone absolutely said that they thought yes the Archangel Gabriel had a appeared to a virgin and told her she was pregnant and be had time later on to appear to an illiterate merchant in Arabia until he was about to have a dictation of verses that would be the last and final Word of God the busy Archangel Gabriel would I prefer to meet someone who said yes I absolutely believe one or other of those things actually you can't believe both because the Quran also contains the assertion that the virgin birth was a real event or would I prefer someone who simply said these things in order to be elected I actually there's a story about of a church in America that was trying to hire a new preacher it's in Georgia this big church with a lot of money many preachers come saying I'd like to be your new litter they're interviewed the board comes across a bright down man they think he looks I'm okay you should know though that a lot of people in this church believe that the earth is flat quite a lot of the congregation believe it's round but good number really believe it's flat what what what lion do take on that and he sees he's nearly got the job and he says well I can preach it round I can preach it flat there are people who are running for the office of the presidents you say if I could get elected I'll say I believe anything at all by way of faith and there are those who one knows would say it if they thought it would mean that they lost I think I should probably leave this question open and try and make it upset you as much as it's upsetting me and then see where we go from there I'm incredibly grateful for your kindness and your attention please gentlemen and I'm looking forward to the next part what thank you for this opening yeah you want to comment on what you just heard yes thank you and pick up the few topics well first of all I want to assure you that earth will actually flat and I know that because the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia Alba's which actually quote in your book believed that the earth was flat because there is in the Quran something which is called Muhammad's it made it flat so the earth is flat we know this this fact can go further so my name is flat lock we I came 18 years ago from Morocco to this country to work at the Yuva at the Economics Department which actually I was there when you climb that came back from from America I am still at the you know utha University of Amsterdam and then now I do French literature four days in the week but one day in a week I do Islam and the history of Islam and Arabs when Russell asked me to be a panelist this evening I wasn't actually sure that'd be good panelists because from from what I knew from Christopher Hitchens I had the impression that actually would agree with him on almost everything so I even considered going to a novelty shop and buying me a beard and appear with a beard just to be able to shout at him and say that he should go to hell and things like that but the bid was too expensive I am so that she fide now that's if something is too expensive I don't buy it so but this is the point actually when I read this book and I show it to Christopher and it's written almost everywhere we we we okay we okay we okay so we okay with everything so where we go from that I thought to myself to begin with someone should write the same book really own equivalent if someone has same talent for Muslims and then I realized after they had done it I wrote a book called against Islamism which unfortunately was written is in French which is as you know a minor language now compared to America so nobody ever noticed that look it was translated in Dutch under the title overhead Islamism and this interesting detail by the way that book was written Table four and the under title is in refutation personnel totally terrorism roediger but in the Dutch translation they translated only person like V laughing with personal refutation the whole thing about solid totally tell Tony oh I can explain see maybe that's the reason why anyway however I do have a point where I would I would like to and I don't really agree somehow with Christopher if you go around and tell people people in Holland because I'm concerned with what's happening in Harvard seriously I I think it's my almost civic duty to to intervene here in the debate if you go around and tell Moroccans or Turks or Muslims you know what God is not great why don't you all become atheist and all problems will be solved we had someone who actually did that and her name was iron Fe Holly indeed the work it simply did not work and when I when I when I realized that something like that couldn't work I decided what an economist would understand immediately a second best approach the second best approach is exactly what I did I refugee ated not Islam not religion but Islamism which is political Islam which is I try again to say totally no-account totalitarianism all right I did it all right yes that's what I tried to do so this is a con second-best what's the alternative what's what can we do now strange enough we can do a lot of things on the 13th of December I was asked by the humanity the it's called the humanistic bond to give a lecture a yearly lecture which is called the Socrates lecture which is obviously a huge honor to be asked to give something which called Socrates lecture and what I did I worked for two months and I discovered something incredible obviously scholars know that but I didn't know that and what I discovered is actually the first the very first school of thought within the Islam which was actually the religion of state in the 9th century in Baghdad which was called the Methuselah when I went to to study what the merchants illa what what they thought I discovered it was agnosticism this sound incredible so I have to repeat it again the first official school of thought in the Islam world was agnosticism which means we don't know if you if you say humanism began with Protagoras saying two things first of all man is the measure of everything but Sir Gong very important I can know nothing about the gods because at that time it was a plural the Morrises Allah said exactly the same thing because they had the doctrine which is called the doctrine of non attribute of God the Seaford Seaford which means sea farm it means attribute of dot it's very banal to say that God has no legs that God has no eyes cannot see it is disputed because now the authorities of Islam says that he has God has eyes we really went down but at the time of material he went even further you cannot even say God has wisdom you cannot say God has knowledge you can actually say nothing about God which actually is agnosticism means you have to go about working and doing whatever job you are doing here on earth and not get worried about what God is doing what God is saying because he's not doing anything is not saying anything and you can say nothing but God this was the Methuselah point of view it was for 88 years and the three caliphs the official school of thought of Islam it's important to say this to young Muslims now because the only thing they know but ask Islam is what they get either on the internet or with the Imam in the mosque which is a complete travesty of human thinking so ridiculous you can't even talk about it the seventh point I want to make again is that if you talk to young Americans now and for Young Turks I'm not sure but for young mountains there is a problem the problem is the problem for identity why are they so religious now because when they they hit like 15 16 something like that they realize that they are not real Dutch even if they were born here unless they they're completely done out of this world they realize first of all that they are not judge because the Dutch the Dutch society tell them that they are not - and I don't mean this as something bad I just mean this is the history of Holland which is based off as you know something called the four thousand pillars so you are not really right so they have to give a content of their not being real - so what are they if they decide to be Moroccan there is a little problem they don't know what it means it's quite impossible to be the content to the concept of being Moroccan I was born in Morocco I lived there for 20 years before I went to France France so I I can't say something but big Moroccans I know what it means in question of a field of colours of weather of cultural taste so I can't give you the content but someone was born here and called Mohammed because his parents brought in Mohammed and he wants to be a Moroccan he doesn't know how to be a marker however being a Muslim is much much more easier to be to give a content to Islam is much easier you have a book you have a holly book you have 100,000 sites on the internet tells you exactly what it is to be a Muslim so it's more ideas a problem of identity that's a problem real religion of believing anything therefore we have we are saddled with this problem from twin years and the writer so instead of telling a lot of theoretical thing I just want to give you two up two or three anecdotes and then I finished just to explain that point about identity for instance I used to work when I was an engineer in Morocco as for five years in engineer I used to work in phosphate mines in Morocco Marcus great the biggest exporter of world in phosphate the boss of the office sheriff he and the phosphate is friend of mine I met him Paris six months ago he told me food is something incredible happens to me when he was called by the it was he was asked by the by the King of Morocco to become the boss of the official in the first part the first thing he did because he was educated at Ecole Polytechnique France but he had a MBA from Harvard the first thing he did we are going to ask McKinsey to come here and tell us how we could do a better job so I asked people from McKinsey and said well we'll do that we'll send two bright people they were spent two month with you and then we'll tell you how to do a better job so they were waiting at the airport of Casablanca to meet these two bright Americans who are going to tell them how to do a better job together arise there is a big problem they look like Moroccans even worse they are Moroccans the Dutch Moroccans McKinsey sending to Dutch Moroccans very bright guys but doctorate in business management in economies who went to American school but they are from Holland they were born and bred here this is the kind of people you never heard you never hear about you only hear about the controller's and pickpockets and people and all stop making a nuisance of themselves but anyway this what happens so this guy went there and they were called like everyone Muhammad of them something like that anyway they did a great job for two months ago fish arrived in the first part and they did a great job and they they they they give this report and see that the Vichy and phosphate has adapted their business - what is this guy has produced but this is the point I want to make when they were then Casablanca then Ramadan came Ramadan all the staff of the official if here the first part they went to French schools they went to Harvard went to Yale to win princeton things like that didn't care much they didn't care about Ramadan but this dude two guys did they were fasting the whole day and they were even doing something that not a Morgan I done I never heard about native more can you do that which is called sorry I have to say it in French which is called the peer surrogate wah which means you have to there's prayers that you actually you don't even have to do which which is more than what you have to do and this just guy I do right yeah but this this this is my point this guy were actually the only thing that connected them with them work and with the fact that their parents went from Morocco to Holland emigrated 30 years ago is the Islam does it's much more an identity problem that religious we have to really take that into account Christopher I want to talk about about religions and then I want to finish about one thing just if I have three minutes I want to say one thing but what I'm trying to do again because it's a second best really cannot work around ten in all Moroccans or Muslims in this country just shed this old illusion and and and and everything with it doesn't simply does it work however they some thing you can do is something which I discovered it was a fluke I would say in in it I think it was in October November as somebody asked me to give a lecture on Spinoza I don't know anything Lasky knows so I told this person look there are at least three hundred people in Amsterdam who could give a better lecture no no we want you to get one so I said how long should the lecture is an hour half an hour to know five minutes like it's a five minute lecture on Spinoza I don't know why it was a tone hall there was tone hall there was like the the birth master the Mayor was there the princess Florentine was the Harry mulish was there because it was the start of Amsterdam vehicles Buchan starts I'm certain is going to be this year the world's capital of books ask a couple of people to give lecture anyway five minutes on Spinoza I used to go to the Hague to visit the tomb of Spinoza which is a very nice place to reflect but then I decided and then again a fluke I find something extraordinary I found in the eBay University which is actually around the core in so far is there really one minute walk found a manuscript a manuscript and there was only there was no name on L'Anse Creuse just only s DB has on DB what is this as someone who actually knows been as they say could s DB will be actually BDS which is per off the Spinoza which is Benedicta Spinoza say yes you're right because but off the spinners I used sometimes when he was not sure but what he was doing to sign instead of saying BDS he said PES DB now it begins here it was a book what was it what was that book that book was a translation a translation what the translation of a book by even to file who has been to file open trial is the greatest Arab Muslim philosopher ever lived was in Andalusia and that and even to file wrote a book called hey even Elan and Spinoza translated that book from from a Latin translation into Dutch and the name in - was did not - who look a vase here it means the the natural philosopher because this guy went to file has invented Robinson Crusoe way he used idea of unified five hundred years after I've been to file the idea is very simple he puts someone who is born in an eye on an island a little boy that's why it's called hyena clan never seen any other man was raised by a kind of Bambi and suddenly he discovers just by his reasoning as a human reason right he discover every truth that can be put that that is useful for the human being again the human reason this guy has never had any revealed religion the hyena clan is only the human reason raised by a hint by a deer a deer and then Spinoza is fascinated by that book has been written in the 12th century right 300 years before Spinoza so it translated into Dutch under the name the natural advice behave because this is exactly what I'm talking about the human reason you know how Spinoza was well was was fascinated by by the kaftan by the idea this with the human reason you can discover all truths but even fancy 8,300 use for integers before the cart and before Spinoza so I found that book and I knew that half half of my five-minute lecture I have it with this ask friend of mine Ronald boss to make a copy and I projected in STAAD the deadwood anyway then I discovered something even more extraordinary this is the 19th century this an American who working around the Paris find a book find a book by the bikinis I guess along the K of Avila said the only problem there is no title page there is no first page it's just a book the American guy reads the book find it fascinating this is a great book goes back to America and that book becomes one of the seven the seven holy books of the Quakers what is that book that book is the hi yaadein from to even to file and that that guy American I didn't know it was a Muslim who wrote that book and so now you have something extraordinary a Muslim philosopher even to file Spinoza a Jew who became was expelled obviously from from from from the synagogue and someone who created a Christian vibration of belief the the Quakers from even to fail to Spinoza to do to the Quakers one thing and it was all about human reason being above anything else even if you can call it Islam of of Judah's of refer to say this is my conclusion why I could discuss this with agents crucifixions I prefer to tell this to my students half of them are Muslims at the universal absalom prefer today this kind of stories and to tell them please just become all a face it doesn't work thank you so what we are going to try to do is have a conversation and allow me to start off the conversation first with the two of you and enter starts you cross Christopher it's something on my mind reading your book and it's actually also how you end with a declaration of faith in reason human reason you're also professed to sort of commit yourself to the values of enlightenment and that's sort of your source of inspiration I would say and so in light of that my simple question would be what could change your mind professor JD Ben now of Cambridge University was once asked what would shake your faith in evolution by natural selection and he said after a short pause he said them rabbits burns in the Pleistocene era Rock well we're not going to find any rabbits burgers in the Pleistocene Rock and in fact every discovery that we make every new fossil finding confirms what we knew already so it's not a matter of faith you see it's not a matter of what would it take to shake my conviction because it's not a question of belief it's a question of human no it isn't even reasonable know if he's more like material evidence now what wouldn't shake to will retain to shake my faith in human nature what I mean I appear I come before you as if I'm someone who cares how do you know that I really do I might be doing this for a living I have a book to sell yeah how do you know I give a damn what happens to any of you you don't know that if I do why do I if I was to give back a wallet of yours that I found on the back of a taxi when no one was looking maybe I would be thinking well it makes me feel good I don't care whether the wallet belongs to you or not there's no means of establishing a question like this I'm just content to live with the contradictions but I do believe and I'll just comment a little on what for words justice for one sentence that it's he took a very long way around to come to the conclusion that reason is available to all people who is that we know where your children go to school it's a very long way around to come to something we already know reason and the belief in evidence of irony is available to all people at all times you do not need to make a detour through Quakerism Islam and Judaism to find that out there's no need and to say it seems to me well of course it's nonsense to believe in a divine presence or divine revelation or a holy book that's dictated by God of course that's rubbish there's no reason to believe it at all but don't tell my Muslim students because they're not ready for it is the form of condescension I'm sorry someone is going to tell them that one day or they will find it out for themselves our job is not to soften the blow our job is to clarify with intelligence and irony and honesty what mistakes really are no favours are done by euphemism no favours are done by prolonging fairy tales into adulthood voila bad I do another question that I would post you concerns sort of your rhetoric and I was wondering whether you choose that consciously because have here the content of the book I mean religion kills the nightmare of the Old Testament the evil of the New Testament religion as an original sin we talked about child abuse and and maybe also in terms of argument because you address actually two points that are addition to the book with those who read the book you'll see that you have more major arguments against religion that is a false picture of the world and that's what as wishful thinking you're putting it very well I have to say yeah I like the way you phrase it now now it is that sort of strikes me because it isn't the rhetoric that sounds very similar to the rhetoric that I mean where trance kiyose once in your life sort of that I sort of associate with that sort of movement and a rhetoric that strangely I also associated with the movement of fundamentalist as a rhetoric that I don't recognize in the religious circles that I am familiar with that is not so outspoken not so hard not so condemning excluding making sure the other stupids and so I was wondering why you choose well partly because I derive pleasure from my intellectual superiority and I also derive pleasure from watching the sufferings of other people and in particular I like watching the squirming zand tortures of stupid people and I like inflicting and prolonging these tortures it gets me through the day Ward's off boredom I'm sorry I have to converse it and also because these people annoy me and their the existence of so many stupid and fanatical people I consider to be a threat to my own survival so I can't do much about the threat they constitute to my civilization but I can at least not agree to tolerate them or be polite to them I can refuse them that second there are plenty of people who are full of compromise we never run out of people are willing to make a deal so those people are well represented everywhere I don't present them I speak for myself of course I'm not a fundamentalist and it's foolish of you if I may say so to try and make the comparison I don't say I don't take any I don't ask anyone to take anything on faith I don't invoke anything that is supernatural I did say that one must believe things because they make you cheer up they're good for your morale I don't say it's quite to the contrary you probably be much happier if you face reality unpleasant as it is nothing in common between me and any preacher of any kind and because I'm trying to mobilize people in a struggle that I think is very important against theism and theocracy and trying to say that it is time for those of us who do not believe in this propaganda this man-made delusion to show that we too can be offended that we too have unalterable principles that we too have real conviction that yes we too can take offence and become angry and we insist on being taken seriously as well don't take us for fools just because we believe in tolerance and pluralism don't mistake that for weakness you will you will we tell the theocrats this now we warn them you make a big mistake if you do that okay [Applause] the point that I try to sort of link the two of you I mean you as I read in your book about Islamism what you try to argue in that book very clearly is trying to sort of separate religion from politics but and I especially want to address the point because you raised it in your dress now also to separate from science and it's as I read your book well you think it is possible to be religious and scientist as long as you are able to separate that and you cite several cases of that you have argued basically that you don't think that is possible so I yes in fact what I tried to do it started with with again and I'm concerned about second-generation Moroccans here trying to do something about Harlan as I said it's like my civic duty right what happens is that if you go to the internet and the Islamic sites what was right it was written in them is everything is in the Quran the Big Bang is in the Quran the for electromagnetic equation of Maxwell are in the Quran this is this is not true so I'm trying to that's what my first actually the first chapter of my book is called the Big Bang and the Quran and I described how the Big Bang was was found III studies I studied physics so and I know that yeah was someone called George Lee met who traveled with with ancient America and he used the equations of anyway so but the Jones lemaise was actually Jesuit he was a and when he discovered the Big Bang just by by using the equation because his PhD thesis and when Einstein founded the beautiful explanation the Pope actually Vatican ask George Lynette congregate on congratulations wonderful you a Jesuit has proven that there was a creation and the reaction of LeMat was wonderful he wrote with all politeness to the Pope the Vatican his boss his boss basically sorry it's not true what have found the Big Bang Big Bang as you know it was a derogatory term by Fred Hoyle but anyway the Big Bang he said Jean la bete has nothing to do with the religion there is a religion a reduced creation said the Jesuit and there is a scientific BIGBANG starting of universe completely different thing when so that's why I try to explain in chapter first the first chapter in my book please if you call yourself if you want to be a a Muslim if this is a faith no problem but please do not take arguments from science because it's not true there is nothing scientific in the Quran so that's what I'm trying to do and then the example and take something someone like me pastor for instance it's funny because I was reading Christophe Agius book there are so many things that was actually in common in both books Louie Pasteur was a devout Catholic but he's used to say there is a difference between laboratorium place where you pray and laboratorium right and he said when I get in my lobotomy I leave my faith at the door the only the only thing I expect from from the students he rockin students Muslim students that that they do the same thing they they separate completely their faith from science and just to finish on this point I used to be just finished on this point before I came back to the Evod to do this as you know our six years doing environment science teaching in one sense at the at the free university protestant university i remember there was a posse of moroccan students who decided that darwin should need should not be taught anymore at the free university to the great delight of some of the fundamentalist Christian at the Free University who didn't dare say things like that and I had to propose I proposed to my my fellow professors there at the University of Free University that every every question on the biology exam test at the end of the year should be on evolution and on Darwin and if everybody had any any doubt about this he he he should get she should get zero that's what what I did because I want just to survive [Applause] [Music] would be very hard for me to improve on that but yeah just let me turn it you then taking these RVs you don't want it that's fine but cooky then also not argue if that's right they should be able to separate science from religion can it then also be the case that using scientific arguments as you do is sort of besides the point if you want to attack religion that is not a matter of scientific proof of scientific evidence but it's something completely different is that possible I think not for the very reason that flawed gifts and the example which I was going to mention myself though he knows more about it than I all the Catholic thinker who effectively discovered what we now call the Big Bang do you what you left out one detail which is His Holiness the Pope said I'm so impressed and if you like I'll make it a dogma that guys actually you're honest I think that would be unwise to make it's a article of belief like the assumption or the resurrection and we may be grateful that we didn't have to believe it for that reason and but you see the difference of mentality yes there are those who say the Quran prefigures the Big Bang there are people now who say Genesis prefigures it - because it says there was light before there was the Sun and the moon and the stars anything can be made to be square in this circle it can all be made to fit it's a difference of mentality and the difference is between faith of any kind and free inquiry the the famous case is probably that of Laplace the French Newton who when he demonstrated to the Emperor the workings of his aura the the solar system seen for the first time from the outside so well where there's no God in this I said well it works without that assumption everything we can observe in the natural order is exactly as we would expect it to look if there was no prime mover you can you can add on a prime mover if you wish but that is an auto-da-fe an act of faith you may also be a scientist who believes anything you like Isaac Newton was a practicing Alchemist the traces of his hair of which there are many chunks left to his family some are full of lead and Mercury which are very hard to be he pre tried alchemy most evenings he was a crackpot he was he believed you could turn lead into gold if you kept the furnace burning hotter he believed the Pope was the Antichrist he believed if you could find the measurements of the Temple of Solomon you could disk you could discover the whole history of the human species he was what we would now call a raving lunatic huh but he was the greatest scientific mind of his generation Joseph Priestley who discovered oxygen believed in the phlogiston theory not until Albert Einstein do you have a scientist a real scientist who's also real rationalist and even he could not be induced to criticize Joseph Stalin or not in public everyone has some intellectual deformity it's too much to ask to to make these things reconcilable but I believe that God say it again if if in conversation with anyone one has to know the answer to one question and you can learn a lot by just knowing it does this person this new friend of yours or this ultra do they attribute their presence here to the laws of biology or do they believe that all of this the galaxies and the millions of years of evolution by natural selection in which 98% of all species on earth went extinct they believed it all this occurred so that we could be having this conversation because if that's what they think if that's the high opinion they have over themselves then it makes me notice yeah but the answer the answer to death could also be that simply we don't know as Moses would say that I believe something like 96% of the universe we don't understand so Who am I to say that I know well then that's my you to say that you know no but then that's very easy then Occam's razor or chemistry slide right wait the first people who have to leave the room and the argument are those who say we do no no and the only people who say they do know are the religious they say excuse me I do know that God created the world that he sent his son to save me that this son was born of a virgin that he survived the grave that he came back that he's going to come to judgment that if you don't believe this you have no faith but those who say they know but I would argue that there's a different type of statement that has nothing to do with reason as you apply it but no but oh it's just an answer when you say because when I was reading you talk about Laplace and I was very happy because on page 29 of my book I said they exactly precise and so of Laplace is very interesting I'm sorry I will have to quote in French this page 29 of my book I say Laplace don't on Candela fear happens and apollyon kid we do Monday a particular cell phone front seat vehicle to move mother planet Nepali only Demond me with you not to Salah where is God in office and the precise and self Laplace what this see you shouldna pass you booze one the city Patel's so I didn't need I didn't need this hypothesis that's the answer and that's Occam's razor if you don't need a hypothesis to explain something why should you ask what you should add the hypothesis if you want to see the Occam's razor which Hitchens you explains very clearly and if you if you if you know a science history of science it works anytime if you want to have the proof that Occam's razor is wonderful apply it on the other sense all right so I have the universe and someone said well but God made the angels okay why don't you add know the God who made God and the student God who made the God who made God you don't really need all these hypotheses you would say as a believer so why do you need the first one to begin with so how the Occam's razor works and how you can say if I have enough to explain a phenomenon I don't have to add another explanation and by the way okay was a devout Catholic it was someone from the from the Scholastic but I want just to add can I know this is one point to read I have to make it can I make another point no that's really really important because that's also what I'm trying to say you know the problem with Islam and Islamism is that it went backwards and you have been generous enough to attack almost not this one which actually I appreciate but the only thing I want to say and that's what it's not condescending really to tell my student to say what I said to my students because in fact this is a book I also show always to my students is a book which was written in the year 1120 when when when Amsterdam in Rotterdam actually was swamp or something like that don't want to be disrespectful but this is the guys called eben roast and he wrote this book which is called fossil ala McHale and this is a fatwa and because Christopher is a big friend of Salman I think you know you think that hot way is very bad word fat ways as you know is just a ruling right this guy ignores just has a question a believer in Cordoba in the 12th century right asked him should I study science that's very simple Chris I just give the answer this is the ends of even nourish two things wonderful first of all yes yes you should study science second if nourish anticipate science and he said to the guy but what happens if you discover a discrepancy between science and the Quran something which is a contradiction between science and cry and and what is the answer of even nourished who is the Cadi of God by the highest Muslim authority says choose for science any time but there's another position possible and also to recognize the limitations of science and that science fills us as Wittgenstein also addressed to answer the most important problems of life and if you address that then I wonder where you were left but maybe we should also pursue this identity issue a new brother and that religion seems to also provide that identity and just to have an idea with whom we are talking here I want to simply ask you who have you identify yourself as an atheist to who identifies yourself as a believer in any one faith having any one faith and who would identify yourself as we in Dutch Dutch say I don't know what the English version would be each season is agnostic something there's something but we don't know it so just ask the question too little have a little server head here who would declare themselves to be an atheist who would declare themselves an aegis and who are would declare themselves believers or agnostics okay agnostics yeah let's hear this right agnostics you are agnostic look 80% okay well then we know what you're talking about if anyone who has an pressing question to ask - Christopher Hitchens at this moment you do I come to your way and then see how we can carry on the conversation I ought to microphone and you can speak thank you yes mr. Hitchens thank you very much for your interest in speech I have a question to you and you point out that religion is irrational I agree with you and love is as well you point out that religion leads to primes I agree with you and so does love are you also against love is that I like that I like that now that seems to be very consistent yeah I'm not dodging this question that I worst want to preface it was something I wanted to say a moment ago the word scientist appears in our language in I think 1852 for the first time we must be quite careful every time we say someone is a scientist in other words we think of that as a separate professional calling until then Isaac Newton would certainly have put himself a natural philosopher and if you think of it like that and you remember that sort of ways in which intelligent people were supposed to be Polymathic when they argued about things the question was could you be a natural philosopher and without a with a supernatural aid and if you do it like that the the vulgar counter position between the scientific worldview and the religious I think becomes a little more porous permeable and I think it's worth doing that I'm very dubious about love myself but does love kill I think it's full of full of pitfalls can lead one into error but it's okay I have found as long as it's spontaneous now the problem with Christianity and here I return to my point about totalitarianism the problem with Christianity is it makes love compulsory can you just briefly think ladies and gentlemen of anything more disgusting and sinister than that compulsory love you have to love a creator of whom you must also be very afraid how are you to love someone or you must be terrified the absolute origin of the dictator worship the servile the bigbrother definition you must love him because if you don't you are in serious trouble and you should be terrified of him you must also love other people whether you want to or not will excuse me you must love them as you love yourself I can't can you do it do you wish you could do they deserve it I'll tell you why it's sinister because you can't obey this commandment that's why it's totalitarian they flipped upon your commandment that it is impossible to obey the essence of totalitarian law is the rules cannot be followed you will always be breaking them you can always be found guilty you will always feel guilty you must fall short this is a disgusting servile cult any time you hear the word love be on your guard [Applause] what I'm so curious I mean apparently you are preaching to the people agree with you good accountants I can't help it if them yeah such a nice change to be in the majority I'm thrown I have to come all this way to Amsterdam please don't spoil it for me my vote normally I'm the early atheist in the room give me a give me one minute to revel in this well that might say say something about the society that we are in and that if I don't think that we are the most atheist Society but you're coming closer to God isn't it the case that Holland was the first country to report a majority of people at least neutral about belief at least at Gnostic isn't that not so I think so I read I'm never reading this yeah it is gratulations yeah very civilized country too as anyone else an issue that they want to address yeah what do you do about the religious impulse millions of people believe their new religions are invented all the time it's not just from the time when didn't know any better people they want to believe they they need to I mean isn't it kind of blindly optimistic to think that these people are going to stop believing and it's also the argument that atheism is on the way down and that religion is coming back certainly in Africa and China Korea where you talked about them in South Korea that it's the Christian Church is very strong so apparently people are needing it for identity reasons and maybe for more reasons than that or yeah THAAD I think mentioned already Freud's essay which I think he has with him actually l'avenir division the future of an illusion I'm not completely Orthodox Freudian but I think that the good doctor from Vienna the Viennese quack as Nabokov calls him was right on this question that as long as we have the fear of death and the fear of the dark and perhaps of each other religion is is in effect in a radical ball but if it's going to be allowed or admitted that religion is innate in many people which I certainly do not deny in fact in my book I affirm and it should also be granted that for many of us it's also innate to be unable to believe there's quite a lot of work on this now in the neurosciences it seems that many many people perhaps as many as 10 to 12 percent as we now say hardwired to be unable to believe in the supernatural I can't do it yeah just can't do it yeah I know this must be true because I'm one of them and I've met many many people like myself what are they talking about when someone talks about spirit for experience it's to me white noise I might as well be talking to someone who is reading their astrological chart and believing that the heavenly bodies move so as to tell them what to do on Friday and in fact if you don't believe the heavenly bodies are there with a message from God you're not really a religious person but I can't believe in astrology but I know many people who can so the fact that I'm in the minority in this doesn't impress me or I shouldn't I think be asked to impress me either when I was a little boy at school when I was nine I was the only non-believer in the school I was also the only one who wasn't a racist I could have been the only racist as well as it happens but I mean the being out devoted is not a strange thing to me and isn't in itself I think an argument yeah maybe you can shot I have two questions you can either you can ask okay you can answer both either or neither as you choose the first question is I'll be the judge of that when I read Dawkins I get the impression that one of the most important things he wants to say to me is that attack is the best form of Defense and I wondered if you agreed with that second question is if Moses Christ and Muhammad were all three reincarnated today in the United States of America which of them would make the most successful telly evangelist this is for you of you want to try I'm pretty sure you're right about professor Dawkins I know I know him a little not very well I think he he has a very fine contempt for religion and believes that the best way of bringing on a debate is to express disdain I'm sort of with him on that it gets people's attention the there is what you your second question is not as jokey to me as you perhaps intend it to be I know a lot of people and by the way this goes I think to the point that's in our minds and in the background of this conversation what about these these Moroccan immigrants these young what what are we to tell them what do we to expect from them so forth I I have met quite a number of young Muslims whose way out of Islam is not towards atheism nor not in the first instance but is actually a by way of a conversion to Christianity and it's of interest to me because it has to do with the personality of the Prophet Mohammed as opposed to the personality of the the alleged Jesus of Nazareth Prophet Mohammed was interested in a very what shall we say I'm not choosing my words with care and just being accurate I'm not afraid of saying anything wrong you understand what in a very comprehensive sexual life shall we say indeed his youngest bride was Aisha was nine the age of consent now in Tehran thanks to the benign rule of the mullahs we've all thought about it don't lie but not everyone is bewitched by the idea he was interested in the spoil system in conquest and in profit very much there's a whole chapter of the section of the Quran at the unfair the spoils what you may take from a beaten enemy what you may gather for yourself what you may keep he was heavily militarized it was now you don't get any of this from the Nazarene in my opinion his preachments were almost entirely evil he told people not to resist evil though he invented the doctrine of hell which doesn't occur in the new in the Old Testament only in the New Testament does Jesus say everlasting fire wait slurs it isn't me he preached the immoral doctrine of not following any rules for tomorrow no investment no saving no thrift nothing because he thought well was coming from embrace to his doctrines were revolting in my opinion they're not moral or meek at all but he didn't want anything for himself in that respect he'd make a really lousy presidential candidate yep just I want to comment in this because we did when these gentlemen started but Moses Jesus and Mohammed earth I thought for a second that he was going to ask question about this book called the Treaty of the three imposters and the tutee of the three imposters was a book which started circulating in Middle Ages and nobody knows exactly who wrote it many hypothesis even Spinoza has been people I said may be seen as written nobody knows but the important thing is something we can disagree actually we can disagree on this with cristal agents is that this treaty of the three imposters was written in the Middle Ages before science you said the first scientist was 19th century and according to book I get the impression also by reading Dawkins obviously this science has crowded out religion that made it irrelevant but in fact the three of the three Impostors attacked regions exactly on on the ground of a religion being irrational and that we don't really need it and even before the Treaty of the three impulses you had the the the one of the greatest book ever written by Luke recio's the natural Red Room so that's why I take issue with the Kris of agencies that even before science had crowded out the red is made in it relevant there are always been people who found origins simply irrational apparently but these were people who believed in natural philosophy Thomas Paine was not a scientist in any sense but he also exposed the holy books of the judaism and christianity and islam as man-made texts full of error contradiction and also of hateful propaganda and an evil preachment Lucrecia center Omniture Oh doesn't do that he just says that it's an illusion the world is made of atoms and that isn't a sense of scientific critique and the gods if they do exist I'm not so stupid as to intervene in human affairs the conclusion that Spinoza later much more brilliantly revives and says that German God is everything and everywhere but he's not nothing or no one in particular if ultimately this these are this is rather personal discussion of faith you have it we have not it cuts deep in our life that's constitutes part of your life and how you live your life and how you think about our living in your life and my question here always is that in your book too you are on the attack may you to take down the best you know of religion with which incidentally I am sympathetic because you attack fundamentalist religion the interpretations the people draw from religion to explain the world which and I think that's your argument cannot be done and should not be bumped and I cite with that but what I miss then is what then is that what inspires you in life and if I now can call to mind what is coming from our Dutch sort of tradition is a Jewish woman well if you buy here in the second world war and I mentioned that many of you over at the Ellison who was facing this nightmare nightmare by the way of atheism the Holocaust was understanding her destiny which was instruction and in if a year or two was able to sort of rest herself from her adolescence and became what I would call heaven rich spiritual life and what we can read in a Diaries through great inspiration from that believe in God had discussions with God angry with God as tradition is customary but found they are also the strength know what to do and the thing is what I found most forceful in it was able to in way in a niche in kind of way who accept her fate a little faith and she did use the terms of love but not an easy way and so if I listen to you I wonder if you also would direct your attack who that kind of experience with which I emphasize would call that foolish stupid of can you see reasons why people indeed brought inspiration from that yeah three points ooh what was that okay now I have a very expensive I mean why I said atheist yes no don't worry I've got that covered I was gonna stop no my midnight was not dead if you kill that was not my main point my pain point is that people draw inspiration from a faith in God and also the language of love and find it as a guide for their life yes but worlds which you spoiled your point by making an idiotic their preface to it fascism about it but if you if you describe if you use the word fascism just to begin I didn't use the word if you do though we use the word fascism in any discussion of the 1920s and 1930s and you simply cut out the word fascism and say the Catholic right wing it's exactly the same you say the Catholic right wing took power in Spain Portugal Croatia Italy Slovakia Hungary with the Concordat with the Vatican that cemented their power you don't have to use the word factions of its all just say the Catholic right National Socialism is a little different it has in common though a Concorde out with the Vatican the very first treaty Hitler ever signed that said that the church in Germany was obliged to celebrate Hitler's birthday from the pulpit every year which it did till the very end Hitler never announced his Catholicism when he did it was in order to advocate a Nordic paganism that you cannot call secular or atheist that's another kind of barbaric religion Joseph Goebbels was eventually expelled no person of the Nazi Party was ever excommunicated or threatened with excommunication for taking part in the final solution or any of the other mass murders not even threatened with it as communists were for being members of the Communist Party not one okay not ever okay what 30% deployed the Paul Johnson of the waffen-ss were confessing or Catholics Joseph Goebbels was exterminated you know why because he married a Protestant woman who had been already divorced excuse me the church does have its standards sure so don't try this on me now second I must know since you asked me about this woman I have to say I infinitely prefer prima la vie who's written we were brilliantly from Auschwitz and who said this said I have seen I've seen my fellow Jews praying as the selection process comes around praying it won't be them he said I despised them I Spit on their prayers said they're not just asking for a delusion a favor from God they're asking that someone else goes instead of them I I entered this camp as an atheist and I leave it as much more of an atheist than I was before he's a much more powerful humanist he doesn't believe in love he believes in justice which is a much more important and imperative question no you cannot derive any sentimental religiosity from victimhood and it's one of the degrading things about Christianity that it tries here is my question it's very simple I've tried it in every religious edifice in the United States I've tried it on television I tried on radio I put it in print I've typed before mass audiences and I have still know how to reply from any believer and it's this name for me a moral action performed or a moral statement made by a believer by person faith that could not be made by an atheist that's all you have to do name that statement or cite that action I'm not surprised you're quiet so there's nothing to be ashamed of though is every other audience oh no wait would this off there's a very brief corollary question named a wicked action committed or an evil statement made motivated only by religious belief everyone can name one right away but I rest my case yeah if you don't give it time for answer I would offer you the evolution answer to your first question I don't think that she would have been able to hand act the way she did if it not was with faith well she seems like weak personality no she's not you don't know her or you don't know her now you speak from not ignorant that's why I speculate it's a weak personality and I think it requires the religious crutch for a feeble mind that I can't be responsible for that okay there is no requirement for supernaturalism for intellectual or moral integrity okay I repeat there is no requirement of supernatural belief in order to demonstrate and manifest intellectual or moral integrity however supernaturalism is a tremendous support to people who want to preach foolish wicked evil or false things and has always been used for that reason oh let me that made them your conclusion all the way around you want to have one more evil every so then I would like to then you have two final question thank you I just want to say that to me it seems that you're always saying religion I in my only do not feel that there is a religion that actually is valid but I do believe that there is something beyond myself and I can't explain them I don't know how to align them so I don't believe in religion but I believe there is something divine but that's foolish right no it's a it's a statement yeah it's a straight what is what is described by William James as the varieties of religious experience that this objective must be granted its recognition fine I know he's dead now but I used to know a very brilliant Bishop of the Church of England Hugh Montefiore and all the Seebeck Montefiore family who died as a senior Bishop of the Church of even having been approached by Jesus Christ in a white robe in his study room at an English boarding school when he was 16 until colony I find it very difficult to believe that Jesus appears especially in a white robe in an English boys boarding school where he would be for various reasons for much too conspicuous and says to one of the few Jews in the school be mine but I will say that humans fury action all his life as if he had heard that call and as if it was everything to him and I can't despise that I have to recognize it but it's meaningless to me okay and I insist on my right to call it meaningless white sheet white robe white noise yeah [Music] it would be horrible it would be one long sickly embrace be casting ideas to begin with but as the olden ruled the Golden Rule remember which is rabbi Hillel for pavulon says do not do to others what will be repulsive to you now that's better and it's livable by but it's also immoral because many people for their crimes and their misdemeanors deserve bad treatment that she wouldn't want wished on yourself so it's absurd to say that you shouldn't do to a criminal what you wouldn't want done to yourself it's ridiculous but at least it's not impossible and at least it's not nauseating as universal love would be well you could also argue that life is too complex human life is complex sure to have simple rules like that apply to any situation and knowing what to do may I come back observation that they don't know and it seems that you do no fate no only faith says it knows no it's neither is method of free inquiry religion written says that there is a god that is a thousand does not say there is not a god it says there is no reason to believe that there is excuse me and a very important difference yeah I would say that is there are lots of religion one side says it knows but there are lots of religions you attack one religion but leave other religions that I sympathize with and have me part of that I don't recognize in your attack they don't I saw in the Dutch Reformed Church in the more enlightened version my father was called upon but it is certainly not while I have learned from him it is not what I have found in the Episcopal churches that I attended the United States and the Quakers I don't recognize at all what is being attacked here and I find in these religions great contributions to what I would call still important qualities even in the States in American society if you had shared my challenge by the way that wasn't you didn't have to answer right away rest up tonight and tomorrow the rest of the year to come up with it find something that is supposedly moral said by a religious person we've done that couldn't be done by a non-believer then you will have a point saying you once met a nice Quaker is not a point no that's another point it's not an argument that's not really even an observation no it's a way of running down the clock that's not I don't want to carry on because that's not the point that I made but I think the point and you got your applause and I think you defendants you bought the body and it must be reformed by the way it's touched yeah of which you speak we have to close sorry so what I understand is that there will be an occasion after this due to talk with Christopher Hitchens I want to thank you both very much for this conversation and you Christopher too for giving such an eloquent I knew onsen complexity as weapons in the Pistons arsenal I forgot the knife and the hammer and while we were planning while we were planning this evening I was wondering whether it would be possible to gather a group of people in this city that would have a real mix so that it would be a real debate and I think this proves that in fact it is not possible but it was a lot of fun nevertheless my thanks to irui - are you a climber who had a difficult job in with this crowd and did it very gracefully and of course to christopher hitchens my thanks to all of you to the University of Amsterdam - Lola Hoff publishers who brought Christopher agents here Christopher you referred to this place as what used to be consecrated ground I regret to inform you that it is still consecrated one of one of its rules is that there will be no buying and selling of goods with on these grounds so what we have done is we will ask you all to just go out the door and go right oh we're going out this way Oaks it's ignore that go out the door and go left to the bookshop and mr. Hitchens will be there to sign books thank you all very much [Music] have you ever [Applause]

Channel: The John Adams Institute

Views: 26,860

Rating: 4.8305087 out of 5

Keywords: Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great, Lecture, The John Adams Institute

Id: SC4NS1yo60M

Length: 98min 30sec (5910 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 10 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/lemontolha]

Thank you. This is why I still frequently check this sub: to find Hitchens content I don't know yet.