Christopher Hitchens Talk at Las Vegas JREF TAM

say thank you first to that suspiciously brief introduction I should thank you ladies and gentlemen brothers and sisters comrades friends for coming I I think it was time that you had a guest who has no humour no no tricks and who though he knows is blocking the way between you and clock Taylor is fully aware of it has no intention of being brief but who for all that is very glad to be back in Las Vegas I can't be the only one of you to have noticed that went to the Bellagio this morning for a fast one fast what you asked ha that these Pulitzers these pyramids and ziggurats and skyscrapers are not built are they by the winners by what I would describe as a simple process of elimination we have a rough idea who did build who Edward earned money did build these cigarettes and temples and skyscrapers and actually I suppose this will win this like everything else is getting nearer to being over someone might let me know no they're not gonna do that we old troopers don't repine we play the provisional halls it all hazard that might be it I think it would be as true to say that every Cathedral every every temple I'm punctual I'll use this for punctuation every temple every Cathedral every mosque every synagogue is built in roughly the same way they're all built like the cigarettes of Las Vegas on the priesthood who were smart enough to understand which side of this wager to be on and who could not believe in sue still cannot believe how many credible credulous excuse me gullible saps there are in the world so I think we're well met in that sense and well met in the right place let it be the fools who make the wages and the cynics who take the profit and the difference it's why I've always found so disgusting the concept of the wager as proposed by Blaise Pascal often thought of as a serious thinker by serious people who simply said since the benefits of belief are so great and the disadvantages of disbelief so obvious why not simply place your bet on the chance that God exists because then if he does what so to speak can you lose there it seems to me is the route not just of a morality but immorality here is why religion is not just false but actually an inculcation of of the wicked of the immoral way to think of the selfish as well as the irrational way to think is there no one who could say for their God that this supposed deity or creator would prefer someone who at the close of day unlike Bertrand Russell who simply announced that he would come to the pearly gates and say I can sometimes do his voice Lord you did not give us enough evidence who would perhaps a little improving on that from the ethical point of view who would say don't you prefer someone who could not bring himself to believe in the propaganda of your priests but who tried to lead an ethical life in any case would that perhaps not be a more winning bet if it is a more winning bet more ethical bet we can at least be certain that monotheism forbids it so I frankly prefer the Randi wager every time any miracle you can do we can do better and you lose and we keep the money that's talking it seems to me and that's why I feel so honored to be here I have had a sense or week a sense that I don't usually inculcate it myself at all the sense that I am not worthy around any corner in this hotel I might meet Michael Shermer again fortunately for me this time I have met him before I might meet professor Dawkins I might meet James Randi I might meet Penn I might meet Ella I feel overwrought seriously deeply overawed by all that but I'm comforted by an even more refulgent faith than that of hero worship that I generally profess because the great thing about our sodality our company ladies and gentlemen is simply this we don't need heroes we don't need a priesthood we don't need a papacy we don't need positive reinforcement we don't need incantations we don't need weekly ceremonies to drive it all home we don't need nightmares and dreads and guilt in order to confirm us in what we think we'd certainly don't need excommunication or anathema we belong to a natural community a community that arises in the ordinary course of events of people who are skeptical who can come to the same conclusions independently of one another and calmly compare and contrast these conclusions when we're lucky enough to meet I suppose that not Randi supporters but Iran supporters do occasionally have schisms and excommunications and there's nothing like a good schism among Objectivists to teach you how there are pitfalls even in non-religious cultism but we prepare ourselves I think fairly calmly for those two we don't even need to stress something that will keep us a secret between these walls we don't even need to stress our moral superiority that's something we can just keep to ourselves all right we hardly ever need to stress our moral security but that's what's meant by our superiority over the sordid calculations of somebody an overrated surfaced like Blaise Pascal now sceptics non-believers are unfortunately also doomed to be accused though from being joylessness excuse me being joyless of promoting joylessness even a certain frigidity I don't think anyone who'd been to this meeting would think of the sceptical or agnostic or atheist or rationalist community as a joyless one - to the contrary I think it's pretty a great deal more fun to be here than at say Jerry Falwell's Liberty Baptist College showdown but it's acquits it's it's an accusation we might spend a minute or two discussing amongst ourselves after all isn't it is it not true that in Las Vegas even the losers freely taken as they are by their by the clever priesthood who built the temples and the ziggurats here even those losers do have sort of a good time my youngest daughter in fact was conceived in Caesars Palace about 1112 years ago now on a losing streak which I wouldn't have been without and isn't the consolation to be had after all in this vale of tears and misery in the supernatural why should one want to deny people be simple in these humble pleasures and who in any case are we to deny them this kind of happiness and so I suppose if I had a title for my sermon today I've only just cleared my throat I want to warn you it would be does credulity matter he is credulity a problem this is often stated actually most often stated by a famous Mis quotation from Karl Marx who is supposed to have said that religion was merely the opium of the people anyone who studied it at all will know that in his introduction to the critique of Hegel's philosophy of right Karl Marx says no such thing he says that religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature and the heart of the heartless world and the spirit of a spiritless situation and he adds surly then the punning remark that it's the opiate of the masses and goes on to say that criticism of it of religion has plucked the flowers from the chains not so that men and women shall wear the chain without consolation but so that they may break the chain and cull the living flower and to appreciate that difference I think is to appreciate quite a lot of what I intend to say and as I must be very clear as you now jokes in this story unless you include the one about the rabbi and the priest and the mullah who go into a bar in New York and the barman looks at the masseuse what is this some kind of a joke I want to argue that it is in fact some kind of a joke and also some kind of a of a fraud I want to say why I think the credulity and gullibility however apparently harmless ought to be resisted or to be fought or to be combatted first I think that arises from a natural respect for our fellow creatures our fellow humans it isn't pleasant to see people being cheated or robbed or forced into meaningless applause even when the occasion is apparently a trivial one it wasn't pleasant when people were told that their unbaptized babies or their babies who died in childbirth were going forever to limbo as a consolation when the church decided after a long rethink that there was no such place as limbo after all after hundreds of years they said actually there isn't a limbo I knew many people who said you can't tell me there's no limbo now you can't tell me that I and my child have been living there for decades don't you tell me there's no such place now that's what's evil that's what's evil about taking the innocent for a ride or it's one example among many even when people's trusting this is in other words is innocuous or innocent or arises from innocuousness or innocence harmlessness it isn't harmless in itself because it can be exploited by people who so far from being innocuous themselves or innocent themselves are entirely unscrupulous those who can't believe the number of saps are born every day and who believe that perhaps we could get them to wear a colored shirt and join the party or support the leader or endorse any program or policy or embark on a crusade or a holy war we have to make it our work to ensure that the average human type is raised to the point of educational culture where he is beyond the reach or she is beyond the reach of that kind of demagogy and we don't just do this because we're sorry for the saps and the explosion we do it for ourselves we do it because we know what a terrible threat can be presented when the cynical meet enough members of the innocent to start a movement of their own teaching people that thinking for themselves is painful is also painful but it's worthwhile and you don't suspect your motives for doing it it's worthwhile and it's ultimately satisfying in teaching people to think for themselves and to take the risk of reason and of doing the hard work that's necessary to return to a point I made earlier are we robbing them of their fun are we cheating them of their happiness are we teaching them to live without or I'm talking about Awet I mentioned that because how many of you have ever seen John Wayne playing the Roman centurion and the greatest story ever told how many would that be good actually bad I wish it was fewer but still at the moment when the crucifixion is culminating and the heavens open and the veil of the temple was rent in twain if you recall having tombs open and the dead run gibbering through the streets of Jerusalem and other things that you think local historians would have noticed at the time but did not at this moment the rain and wind machine is turned on and all flies into the face of John Wayne standing with a leather tunic and a spear I was censuring he's supposed to say truly this was the son of God so he did rain and wind flying at him notwithstanding but the director cut it and said William Wyler I think was the director and said John that was great that was really great but do you do you think we could have it with a little more or it's a great action said okay q do rain again do wind and earthquake and temple fail rent in twain and lightnings all that came on in Wayne really held onto the spear this time and said ah truly this was the son of God well we didn't want people to live without war we know what people should just think they're insects clinging to some doom drop why don't you try it sometime why don't you take a look at a page of Stephen Hawking for example on the event horizon follow the event horizon the event horizon is the lip of the black hole from which we think escape velocity cannot be achieved by light but from which we know that much proceeds if in theory and if it ever became possible in practice you could get to the lip of that black hole you would have met the event horizon you'd be on the event horizon as you fell in you would in theory and in practice be able to see the past and the future you build a see time except you wouldn't have enough time quite to realize that this is what you were doing but one of Hawking's colleagues says that if you ever discovers himself terminally ill that's how he wants to die now to be able to reflect upon the event horizon I would submit that as a gentleman is a great deal more awe-inspiring than a burning bush or a wooden statue that weeps or pees or bleeds and that there is a great deal more majesty and an inexhaustible source of wonder to be found in the in the struggle to uncover why it is that we are now so near to knowing not just our origin as a species but the origins of our universe and if I turn to the origins of our species and we look at the miraculous uncovering and unraveling of the strings of DNA that have shown us our kinship and fellowship with other creatures and other species that have abolished just by the study of themselves the whole bogus medieval concepts of racism and tribalism as well as creationism have shown them to be unfounded can anyone studying this extraordinary story not be a little more impressed than by a talking snake we don't aim to take people's all and mystery and wander away by any means we have for them real stories we can break the chain and we can change people to cull the living flower at the same time now why is that not just desirable but also necessary gullibility and creativity are unsatisfying it's like being given a wonderful truffle and throwing it away and chewing on the wrapper instead and the exploiters and the practitioners of gullibility and credulity know this very well they they know that these pathetic stories and myths and morality tales are not enough how do I know that so certainly I know it for this reason if you or I believed that we had a redeemer who cared about us and who cared about us before we were born and for every heartbeat of our lives every heartbeat of our lives and after we were dead as well and minded how we would doing and cared for us now loved ones if we believed we'd found her a demon who really was this way wouldn't it make us happy shouldn't it make us happy should it not make us contented should we not feel we don't lock the the keys the most marvelous secret ever presented well why doesn't it make them happy then why can't they be happy to everyone else believes it too why do they have to tell me that if you don't believe in this wonderful offer we have another one for you that you go to hell and are treated abysmally and forever now in North Korea the country they must seem to admire where the concept of paradise is continuous praise of the leader and continuous wonder at the mere the mere the mother the fantastic the magnificent coexists the coexistence between you and him you can sometimes hope to see his face he's given you everything he is he is what you adore he's what you worship you have the right only to praise him for his many gifts were leased from North Korea you can die and defect from the other Dear Leader's you can't they'll follow you all the way to hell and gone so the insecurity that's manifested by the faithful interests me very much he doesn't seem to content them and they don't seem to be sure that their right to lay but everyone else to believe in it too and the threats the user ones of the most hideous moral blackmail and state-o masochism so again I think we have to care whether people are credulous or not Thomas Jefferson about whom I've just finished a short book Thomas Jefferson was wrong when he wrote so laconically in his journal it doesn't matter to me if my neighbor believes in no gods or in 100 gods it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg I wish I wish the sage of Monticello was right those who believed in the twenty gods will certainly pick your pocket and break your leg unless or until you believe in one or other of their deities which is why we have to try if we can to confine credulity to the home at best something that can be escaped from in real life did any of you read yesterday in the New York Times the account from Sri Lanka about tsunami theology was worth reading everyone in on the coast of Sri Lanka thinks they have a cause to attribute or an explanation to offer in the case of the Muslims if Soraka they say that it's the very large number of people who have not been following the commandments of Allah obviously this creates earthquakes and waves in the case of the Christians is because there are too many Muslim heretics and this goes back and forth but what was interesting to me was that the worst of the lot were the Buddhists the Buddhists said of course we knew this would happen because of Christmas only just the other day the Christians were eating meat and drinking alcohol and if this didn't bring it on we don't know what does and furthermore there was the photograph this woman pointing to the Buddha heads on her gate say the Lord Buddha was on my gate he wasn't on the Christian Gate down the road or on the Muslim families gave they've all gone I'm still here I mention it because a lot of people think well some of these religions are not as bad as the others they're contemplative they're they're Eastern they're friendly they're furry well they're not why don't you try and look at a book called Zen at war which shows that Japanese imperialism in its military arm use Zen Buddhism as its training manual the ideal soldier was a Zen spear a person erect the mind at rest the body all ready for action waiting for orders contemptuous of the mind contemptuous of reflection contemptuous of the intellect the perfect fascist robot who would die for a god-king well people say well surely the Dalai Lama's a fairy figure oh yeah he says he's born a god and born a king and we have to begin with that proposition before we can understand how sovereign here and who has also published a manual on bedroom strategy and upon what you may do with whom and at what time in the sanction of your bed always a bad sign that are the dietary regulations I find all these religions are the same they represent the surrender of the mind of the only thing that distinguishes us from the roundworms and other creatures who are also in our DNA string and they try and snuff out and blow out the poor candle of Reason which is the only light that we have and if it was true that sodomy caused earthquakes as used to be believed in the ancient Christian days I spend my summers in San Francisco I can sort of see why what they're talking about but there hasn't been a really big one since 1906 and I have a feeling that these events are probably not determined by the will of any deity so it isn't the will of the deity or the priests you notice that all these are voluntary statements by the believers that I've been quoting these are not hateful statement statements made by mullahs or rabbis or priests or other vermin these are things said by the congregation to New York Times reporters it is in other words not a problem that there are those who wish to command and wish to preach Dogma and wish to be obeyed it is the willingness it's the willingness of the congregation to be a slave it's the willingness of the congregation to believe it's the it is the it's the servile instinct that lurks in every human being that is the one that we have to combat with eloquence and with irony and with country of course and with tricks and with humor but also with a certain intransigence because what they want from us is everything we've got they want to destroy everything we care about they want to take everything that we have I'm almost a quarter of a way through my remarks by now so please feel free to relax and have a drink in a smoke no actually days and gentlemen I think I can I think I can become your hostage soon a prisoner joined the panel I just want to say a couple more things in my book I give that account of being summoned by the Vatican to testify against the beatification of Mother Teresa the woman recently calling herself Mother Teresa of Calcutta most people think they know about the Catholic Church that it has a Devil's Advocate Advocaat st Avila the present Pope actually abolished that office quite recently in order to fast-track beatification and canonization he's made five times more Saints in the last ten years than his five predecessors combined and doubled I think he may think that the faithful need a bit of cheering up and I think he may be right a church after all that said there's no wiggle room on divorce no wiggle room on contraception now will room on remarriage no wiggle room on priestly celibacy another fairly trivial sense has asked for wiggle room on the rape and torture of children which I think most securest s-- find repulsive without being told from a holy book at all events he had to abolish the office of devil's advocate in order to put mother Teresa on the fast track so when I was when my testimony was or was invited and accepted I realized that I become the first person in history to have represented the devil pro bono and it would have been just as easy of course to write a book saying pat robertson sucks which I hasten to add to assure you he does but there wouldn't have I think it's been quite as much education in that as they trying to show to people that someone who they themselves thought was a heroine was in fact a dangerous crooked fanatical nasty fundamentalist but again all the work all the work against me was not done by the church but by the believers by the rank-and-file by the credulous and that's what taught me the real lesson I remember when Salman Rushdie my friend was hit with a life sentence and a death sentence by the Ayatollah Khomeini just for the action of writing a novel in other words the theocratic head of a foreign state announces in public that he will offer money in his own name to suborn the murder of a writer of fiction who isn't an Iranian a pretty frontal challenge to what we hold dear a friend of mine suggested to someone that his sequel should be called Buddha you fat but I hope I've said enough to show that there the irony there would be at the expense of those of you who laughed now I once this really is my closing paragraph I once said Abba Eban very brilliant Israeli former foreign minister and ambassador to the United Nations who some of you may have heard or read yourselves make a speech in New York where he said about the most pressing foreign policy issue that faces us now the Israel Palestine dispute he said what strikes you when you first look at it and when you second and third time Soviet as well the first thing that will strike your eye about this dispute he said is the ease of its solution you will grant me I think not most speeches begin not many speeches begin on this topic with that sentence but it's true when you think about it there is a fairly small country which contains two roughly symmetrical peoples roughly symmetric point of number and and confessional persuasion and the solution has been obvious since at least the Balfour Declaration there should be two states for two peoples in one that it is the common sense of the question why does what everybody wants and what everybody knows is reasonable not in fact eventuate why does it not happen why hasn't it happened because there are those who say that God gave the land only to one of those peoples and they want to occupy it all themselves and bring in all other Jews and exclude all non-jews because then the Messiah will come and they have their counterparts and those who say no no no you're right essentially but it was given to another people actually hours to be exact and all of yours have to leave or be killed and then God will be pleased and its seconded there's a sort of coat holding role played by them creepiest Christians who say well if we help the Jews to do this perhaps it'll bring on our Messiah though he will of course have to kill all the Jews who don't convert before the end of days occurs and the struggle really begins well look this is the contribution of monotheism to civilize in our day and right in front of us and we have a president who believes in all three of these calls and we're getting to the point where there isn't enough kool-aid to go round and so I discovered that I am a traditionalist after all and that I am with the I am with Voltaire and I think that I think that for all our country and humor and irony and which and forbearance and tolerance and pluralism we still have to agree with with with Voltaire and to say a crazy a crazy Lapham destroy destroy this dangerous thing before destroys us thank you you joy this dangerous thing before destroys us thank you

Channel: Muon Ray

Views: 54,393

Keywords: Christopher Hitchens, Speech, Amazing, Meeting, International, Conference, Group, Dawkins, Richard Dawkins, James Randi, Las Vegas

Id: hDQWp3-xJKY

Length: 31min 2sec (1862 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 11 2012