Christopher Hitchens on Islam

and we are back Christopher you talked about the Civil War in Islam talk about the role of religion as you see it in the conflict we are now involved with well people attack the president for all kinds of things that he said or appeared to say about religion but um and some of which have been rather ill considered including the statement that Islam is a religion of Peace which I would say was a statement that was non-true rather than untrue um the the Christian churches almost in their entirety I believe were opposed to the regime change in Iraq so was the president's own church the United Methodist Church for example very interesting to me to find how completely useless Christianity was in a in a struggle of this kind it was awful to find that Christianity was a religion of peace or at least of pacifism and of surrender the church as far as I know has not endorsed any War as just since it supported General Franco's invasion of Spain to destroy the Spanish Republic with a Muslim mercenary Army in the 30s on the side of Hitler I think this is a wonderful occasion to discuss what the real value of religion in politics International Affairs is um the the difficulty for me is that while we are in a sense objectively committed to secularism for our own society and in others if you take say just the case of Palestine American Support has and Israel American Support has up till now gone to a wahhabi royal family that pumps out anti-semitic propaganda and anti-American propaganda but was considered our Ally in the Middle East to uh Israeli settlements which would run by Messianic Fanatics who wouldn't be able to do this if it wasn't for American Aid and to extreme Christians um mainly in the United States who hope that out of this conflict they can bring on Armageddon and the apocalypse so what what is otherwise a perfectly soluble problem division of Palestine between its araban Jewish inhabitants is made Impossible by monotheism no it's made impossible poisoned by it well that that that it may be poisoned by the fusion of monotheism with politics um and that's the issue the issue is not the relevance of Faith the issue is the fusion of Faith with political power and this is something that well if you believe is Jesus coming back very soon is going to kill everyone who doesn't agree with him how do you keep that out of politics well I think you have to De the belief is political I'm sorry Andrew no it's not belief can it is possible and if you believe John Lock I mean maybe you don't but it is possible and should be possible in fact essential given our Human Experience Christianity is not innocent in this regard the 16th and 17th centuries were religious wars people were murdered in large numbers and out of that experience that some things you may leave in are still not so important they're worth killing other people for came liberal democracy our very system of government came out of resistance to the power of religion in politics absolutely and what we're fighting for in this war and I wrote this just the very beginning of this war is the possibility of religion outside of politics and when you read the gospels uh I think that the the the overwhelming message is exactly that my kingdom is not of this world our lord said and and and there is a distinction between what Caesar is and what I am and the idea I mean I think that the idea that that uh Muslims could create a warrior theology out of Islam is much less amazing than that Christianity might do such a thing um and I also believe that that kind of fundamentalism and Zeal in which you think your truth is so important you should kill another person to save his soul is as dangerous in this country as it is anywhere else it's not gotten to the same length but I see the same glint in the eye of some ofite Jimmy swager or Pat Robertson and some of the forces that this President is riding to Victory on and I want sry I do not want this to become a war between fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam it is a war between fundamentalist religion and liberal democracy and I say that as a believing Catholic Civil War also within the other monotheisms and after all more than half of American Jews and more than half of of Israeli Jews have always favored a two-state solution that grants self-determination of the Palestinians they just can't get their way because of this nutcase Zealot minority in the religious there has to be a civil war within Judaism if you like and there is one going on in Islam very clearly and they're trying to win the the F side wants to they want to export that water where we live to try and win it so they've really involved us in their war and I it's not my Province Andrew but the Christian churches can't seem to make up their mind whether we are fighting for our civilization or not or whether we should feel guilty about existing hierarch to be continued yes be another hour Andrew Sullivan Christopher hens come on back

Channel: GlobalCop

Views: 1,632,366

Keywords: hitchens, religion, islam, sullivan

Id: an7TaDQ5Yo0

Length: 4min 57sec (297 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 11 2006