Christopher Hitchens vs 4 Christians - Does the god of Christianity exist? [2009]

well welcome to our panel discussion that we've all been waiting for does the god of Christianity exist and what difference does it make sponsored by the Christian Book Expo which is a company of the evangelical Christian Publishers Association and also Christianity today I'm Stan Guthrie managing editor special projects for Christianity today and author of the book missions in the third millennium 21 key trends for the 21st century I'm also your moderator today some of the authors here on this stage will be available immediately afterwards to sign their book so please do look for them it's a great opportunity as a sponsor of the panels at the 2009 Book Expo CT is pleased to offer you first a one-year subscription to Christianity today which is the nation's premier evangelical Christian magazine for only $15 that's a savings of nearly $10 off of our regular 24.95 subscription rate second for those of you who will be going to college or sending a loved one to college we're offering two three years of our Christian college Guide which is eight issues in all nearly a $40 value for free it has lots of practical advice about choosing paying for and adapting to college life and insights about today's leading Christian colleges when you came in you saw a response card on your seat just fill it out and we'll collect it from you in the boxes at the door on your way out at our booth number 12:30 or you can go to our website directly Christianity today dot-com / CBE we make it easy for you to get the best Christian news and commentary at an unbeatable rate thanks and now onto our workshop a little more than four decades ago America was told God is dead but a funny thing happened on the way to the funeral the god hypothesis refused to die and today strong majorities of Americans continue to believe in God and there has even been a resurgence of theism in the Academy according to one of our panelists dr. William Lane Craig author of reasonable faith Christian truth and apologetics dr. Craig is research professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology yet the atheists have not taken all this good news from the Christian perspective at least lying down rebranded as the new atheists in recent years they have gotten off the mat and come out swinging and with us today is one of their most accomplished pugilists Christopher Hitchens who is a contributing editor for The Atlantic Monthly and Vanity Fair Christopher's author of God is not great how religion poisons everything also with us is douglas wilson co-author with christopher of the book is christianity good for the world doug is a pastor of Christ Church in Moscow Idaho and a senior fellow at the new San Andrews College another of our panelists is Lee Strobel formerly with the Chicago Tribune we as author of the case for the real Jesus the case for a creator and other bestsellers last but certainly not least Jim Denison is theologian in residence for the Baptist General Convention of Texas he is author of the book wrestling with God how can I love a God I'm not sure I trust please won't you welcome all of our guests again now panelists and audience will have plenty of time for questions later during our discussion but in this first part of the program this is where you get to say anything you want there's only one limit and that is you have four minutes and I so it comes with an important caveat but I will give you a cue that you have about a minute left so please do try to stay within the time frame I'll cue you and we'll start with Lee Strobel go ahead Lee Thank You Stan there was a time in my life when I would have been an enthusiastic supporter of mr. Hitchens positions since I used to be an atheist that was until my wife was an agnostic became a follower of Jesus and I was encouraged to use my legal background in my journalism background to systematically investigate if there was any credibility to the Christian faith took me two years of my life to do that and I just want to hit on a couple of things that I learned along the way first thing I looked at was the scientific evidence pointing toward God first from cosmology scientists now agree that the universe and time itself began in the Big Bang that leads to the argument whatever begins to exist has a cause we know the universe began to exist therefore the universe has a cause and as dr. Craig who's an expert in this particular matter has said we can draw logical inferences from the evidence and that is that this cause must itself be uncaused timeless immaterial powerful and personal very good starting point for a description of God then I looked at the physics of the universe and I found that there are certain aspects of the physics of the universe things like the force of gravity the cosmological constant the strong nuclear force that are fine-tuned on a Razors Edge to allow life to exist in the universe in fact they are so finely tuned that to such an incomprehensible degree that I think it makes a naturalistic explanation pretty silly and it points more powerfully toward the existence of a creator then I looked at the evidence of biological information that inside every cell of every living thing is volumes of biological information that is in the form of DNA which spells out the precise assembly instructions for the proteins out of which the organism is made now it's interesting that nature can produce patterns and even complexity but whenever we see information whether it's in a software code whether it's in you know painting on a cave wall whether it's in a book universally we know there's an intelligence behind it now looked at consciousness materialists can't account for such things as freewill and intentionality but Christians can because God is an unembodied mind and it makes sense that we would have finite minds if we're made in God's image finally looked at the evidence for Jesus and I personally found extraordinarily compelling evidence that he first of all made the claim that he's divine and then secondly he backed up that claim by his resurrection from the dead I used to think that the resurrection was a mere legend but there are multiple independent early reports of the death of Jesus Christ is empty tomb and is post-mortem appearances in fact we have a report in the form of a Creed of the early church on the resurrection of Jesus mentioned specific eyewitnesses including skeptics that has been dated backed by scholars from a wide range of theological belief including atheists - as early as 48 months after the crucifixion of Jesus and therefore the police that make up that report go back even earlier virtually to the cross itself so there's not enough time for legend to have developed I spent two years I said investigating this I finally came to the point where I realized it to maintain my atheism I would have to believe that nothing produces everything that non-life produces life that randomness produces fine-tuning that chaos produces information that unconsciousness produces consciousness and that non Reason produces reason and frankly I just had enough didn't have enough faith to continue to believe that to me the most logical and rational thing that I could do was take a step of faith not against the evidence but in the same direction the evidence is pointing which is a logical thing that we do every day in various ways and put my faith in Jesus Christ how is that made a difference it's made all the difference in the world I mean many of us could talk personally about the difference that Jesus made I like will probably talk about the impact of Christianity as a panel on the world I will say personally that to me the idea that Christianity poisons everything is simply not true it's something I can personally testify in that the way of Jesus that Jesus has influenced my life has been positive has been good especially knowing that I have confidence and I will spend eternity with him there okay I'm going to do something that moderators often do and that's going to ask you to hold your applause until the end otherwise we'll all be applauding the whole times is we've got a lot of brain power up here so we please anywhere your praise belongs to Allah okay Chris for your nose oh god I'm not ready um very well my first duty actually not a duty at all it's a it's a pleasure is to say that when I asked my publishers when I began this little book please to arrange that I'd not just do the New York type book tour but to go to the places where Christians were and ask them if they would be kind enough to debate with me was one of the happiest decisions I ever made I'd be very impressed ever since by that by the warmth and the generosity and then I once said the tolerance because that would be patronizing but the the very the the the right spirit in which my challenge was created most particularly in most early by pastor Wilson with who's and co-authored work you will find fine bookstores are equipped everywhere including here today all right now there was a there was another bestseller just before the First World War some of you may even have heard of it and it was a sensational bestseller in the english-speaking world it was called when it was dark and the author was a man called guy thorn and the the meson sand of the novel is this that archeologists digging in the Greater Jerusalem area come across a big round boulder and they roll it away and there's a tomb behind it in the hill and on the slab of the tomb is the Britain really quite well preserved cadaver of someone who has been badly scourge dwith a horrible whip who's had nails driven through his hands and his feet there's a terrible wound in his side and has a crown of thorns pressed down very hard on what's left of his scalp and this is an absolutely certain discovery also it is reported on the wire so the London Times which was printed and then the story spreads around the world and as the story spreads darkness descends people cease to care for their wives or their children to the coin a phrase when I think Lady Bracknell they start doing it in the street and threatening the horses they borrow and they don't return the money they take money they help themselves there's no no no standards left it's all over until it's revealed that this was a cruel hoax and imposture probably a Jewish one and the normality can be resumed people are okay to behave well because of the resurrection has not been disproved now I submit to you ladies and gentlemen that it's pure ups think that way and serve I'll - but if it could be shown as I cannot in fact that the story is entirely not as partially but in entirely legendary and mythical I believe I could get quite close to doing that I do not believe that any one of you would start behaving worse I don't know you but I love you as if you were my brothers and my sisters as I am quite entitled to do without being in communion with you and I have the feeling you could survive that news and still be decent to your friends and a great river of support and strength to your families and still feel solidarity with other humans you hadn't even met because you know that without that we couldn't have evolved we couldn't survive as a species and I submit that as a proper basis for ethical study and in the belief of the proper study of mankind is man I do think that Jesus was on the mythical verge of where history starts and prehistory and there will never be anything like conclusive proof but I don't mind because the more that the fabrication is uncovered and many of the stories about him are known to have been untrue the more one is impressed by people's wish that it be true at the time and the more one feels that this all this invention and all this fabrication wouldn't have been worth it if it never been any such person paradoxically the more effort that goes into the myth the more you think well maybe there was a King Arthur after all it isn't just mentioned but that this person was the Son of God and proves it by having a virgin for a mother and by being resurrected is these things are incoherent someone could have a virgin for a mother and not be the Son of God every every prophet every holy person ever born right right up to and including Kim jong-il has had miraculous scenes at the birth usually involving the unlikelihood that the mother ever had a sexual intercourse that's commonplace resurrections are repeatedly drugless some house describes them as resuscitation resuscitations to distinguish them because these people go on to die again but nonetheless there is other people dying is what is known to have happened in the in the greater jerusalem area at that time whereas a certain to do so might not prove anything on its own all right now really got to be quick does it do any good in the last week the Pope has gone to Africa and said aids may be bad that condoms might be worse the Archbishop of Canterbury has said a man who I deal with he's a shepherd or nobody does a very good impersonation to a sheep has said that Muslims in Britain should have Sharia law and the church should help them to install it and the Russian Orthodox Church in in Moscow has become the official Church of Vladimir Putin and his new dictatorship and has started minting icons actual icons with portraits of Stalin in them to sell not just in Georgia as wonder-working and miraculous objects and these are just only the three largest Christian denominations in the world and I'm perfectly well aware that's many urban you in this room those people aren't really Christians at all hands up who doesn't think the Pope is a question or that the Greek Orthodox Pope is a Christian or that the Archbishop of Canterbury is really a spiritual leader you're not putting up your hands but you know who you are when the trick and the fact that this new at the fact that there's no agreement on who is what is the Christian what it is to be one is not my problem and it's not burning is the least of yours I've just mentioned some of the others thanks for having me thank you don't even think about but we would love you can laugh you can cry no clap is Bill Craig okay I want to begin by thanking Stan for the privilege of taking part in today's panel discussion and to say how pleased I am to be on this panel with these other distinguished colleagues a case for biblical Christianity can only be outlined in four minutes so let me give you some of the reasons for why I believe in Christian theism first of all I think that God is the best explanation for why anything exists rather than nothing this is the deepest question of metaphysics and it seems to me an argument for God along these lines is valid and cogent whatever begins to a rather whatever exists has an explanation of its existence either in the necessity of its own nature or else in an external cause if the universe has an explanation of its existence that explanation is God and the universe obviously exists from that it follows that if the universe has an explanation of its existence then God exists and since that first premise requires that I think this is a good argument for God's existence that one could defend in more detail Lee has also outlined another argument for God's existence based on the beginning of the universe that whatever begins to exist has a cause philosophical and scientific evidence shows the universe began to exist from which it follows there is a transcendent cause of the universe beyond space and time which brought the universe into being from nothing Lee also mentioned the third argument that I would appeal to the argument based on the fine-tuning of the universe the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life is due to either a physical necessity chance or design and I think it's implausible and improbable that it's due to either physical necessity or sheer chance from which it follows that it's due to design a fourth argument would be a moral argument that would run like this if God does not exist an objective moral values and duties do not exist and by objective values I mean values and duties which are obligatory and binding independently of whether anybody believes them they're not I would argue secondly that objective moral values and duties do exist that in moral experience we apprehend a realm of objective moral values and duties from which it follows necessarily and logically that therefore God exists the ontological argument I think is also a sound argument for God it shows that if the existence of God is even possible then it follows that God exists and the idea here is that God by definition is a maximally great being there can be nothing greater than God and a maximally great being would be a being which is omniscient omnipotent and morally perfect in every possible world when I would if it's possible that there is a being like that it follows that there is a possible world in which a maximally great being exists but if a maximally great being exists in any possible world it exists in all of them including the actual world therefore it follows that God exists so if God's existence is even possible it follows that God exists the Atheist would have to not merely deny that God exists but that it's even possible for God to exist I would also then argue as Lee did on the basis of Jesus radical personal claims and his resurrection from the dead that Jesus is the revolute a revelation of the creator god of the universe that is apprehended through the arguments of natural theology that the best explanation of the facts of the empty tomb the post-mortem appearances and the origin of the disciples belief in Jesus resurrection is that God raised Jesus from the dead and that therefore it follows that the god revealed by jesus of nazareth exists and finally I would say that God can be known immediately through personal experience philosophers call beliefs of this kind properly basic beliefs they're not based upon deeper inferences rather they're foundational to a person's system of beliefs these aren't arbitrary rather they're founded in experience and that's what makes them properly basic and I think for the person who knows God who has a personal relationship with God the belief that God exists is a properly basic belief grounded in his experience of God and that therefore using it is both rational and justified to believe that God exists in a properly basic way so those would be seven arguments that one could use in defense of a Christian world in life view all of which I think are sound and and therefore cogent and provide justification for believing in what CS Lewis called mere christianity thank you Jim thank you saying so much when you walked in today you thought well this would be the highlight of the day it sounds a bit like a joke did you hear the one about four apologists and an atheist that gathered at a Christian Book Expo I am delighted to be part of this conversation and honored for what's going to come ahead I'm prepared my remarks for today as I was staring at a painting of the island of loganville in South Pacific my father was stationed on this island in World War two three hundred men were placed there seventeen survived one of the seventeen was a painter he made seventeen renditions of Bougainville and gave one to each of the survivors I have my father's hanging in our study at home I stare at it each day and I think about my dad's faith dad was a Methodist sunday-school teacher until he fought in the Second World War he never went to church again after that he struggled in questioned the very existence of a god it was all perfect and all-powerful and all-loving in a world like this but that had his first heart attack when I was 2 in died of a heart attack when I was a senior in college and never came to terms with the faith issues of his life and I grew up with all those questions I grew up with all those issues inside of me they led me eventually to a doctrine apologetics and the teaching apologetic materials on four different seminary faculties into our conversation today I'm honored to talk with you about my father's issues they're my issues I think they are your issues as well we are here today to talk about two questions the first has to do with the reality of the god of Christianity and the second with the relevance of such as regards the reality of a god of Christianity my central assertion today is going to be this faith in God is a relationship all relationships require a commitment which transcends the evidence and become self validating that is the case in a marriage when a person examines evidence but then steps beyond the evidence into a self validating experience that's the case in choosing a school or a job or a friendship or any relationship we examine the evidence and we'll do a great deal of that today you've already heard today about cosmological teleological moral ontological arguments for God's existence we'll talk together today I would imagine as regards evidence for the authority and trustworthiness of Scripture and the divinity of Christ but I'm going to say at the end of the day that faith in God is ultimately a relational decision a relationship that must at the end of the day be experienced in that regard I rather envy mr. Hitchens his task today I would think that it must in some ways be easier to question the existence of an experience one has not had then it would be to argue for such an experience with a person who is unwilling to do but is necessary to have that experience at the end of the day I'm going to be arguing for relationship as the category of faith as regards the relevance of that relationship I would make these assertions first I would remind us that we're not dealing with religion per se mr. Jones has said that religion poisons everything I would suggest religion has no ontological status it has no independent reality there are religions there is no such thing really as religion just as there are leafs but no such thing really as leaves to put all religions under one category and castigate religion because of the activities of some religious people seems to me something like condemning medicine because of the practices of some doctors again we're going to talk I think about religion in the abstract but I'm hoping we'll think about relationship I'm going to assert today that we cannot measure the moral relevance of any religion necessarily by the life of each of its adherents there's a causality question how do we know the degree to which the religion caused the behavior how do we know the degree to which the behavior is consistent with the moral values of that religion it's a cause and effect and then ultimately I'm going to suggest today that God redeems all that he allows in that relationship a personal interaction with the God of the universe has enormous relevance for all of us who live in a chaotic world God joined us in that world to paraphrase our aeneas God became one of us that we might become one with him it's that relationship I'm looking forward to defending today with you thank you pastor Wilson yes thank you it's an honor and pleasure to be invited here I'm very grateful for this opportunity so my thanks to the organizers of this event those of you have seen the movie collision or who see it tonight we'll see that Christopher and I are in danger of becoming friends if we don't watch it we'll see what we can do sue it is right and I would Ryan Christopher showing up at events like this the scripture says the bad companions corrupt good morals so you need to be careful and thanks to you all for coming to this event to watch Christopher Hitchens thrown into a den of lambs so what I'd like to do is I'd like to address my comments at perhaps a different level I I'm in obvious sympathy with what my fellow Christians here have said and familiar with the arguments and appreciate them but I'd like to speak at on a different tier and that when you look up here you see us sitting behind a table and we're all speaking and you're listening to and watching what's coming out of our heads but if there's another thing you can do and I would urge you to do this and say what what are they all sitting on up there what's supporting all of them we eyes hear what they're saying and they say and different things and they qualify or agree and nuance and so forth but there are certain fundamental assumptions that all of us share we're saying different things but we're all sitting on a chair we're all on this stage and we share those things in common and this is the level I would like to address here in my comments if what kind of universe does it take to support a debate like this what would the universe have to be like how would it have to get here in order for this to be a reasonable debate Christopher thinks the universe is a certain way and I want to maintain that the unit the way that Christopher thinks the universe is would not generate a debate like this it would not generate this kind of collision we to illustrate is if you were to take a bottle of Mountain Dew and a bottle of dr. pepper do you want to be the Mountain Dew or the dr. pepper okay well if you took the two bottles of Pop and ship them up and put them on the table and they are both fizzing over you it wouldn't occur to you to ask which one was winning the debate they're not debating they're just fizzing they're not debating it's just matter in motion they're not debating it's just a chemical reaction well what does that mean if you're an atheist and you say that all that is the cosmos is just matter in motion it's just it's just stuff moving around it's this infinite billiard ball table with what the balls go in every direction it's just this complex chemical reaction now we are complex chemical reactions I think Christian according to Christopher I think Christian thoughts because that's what these chemicals always do at this temperature and under these conditions I don't think them because they're true or false I think them because this is just the way it is the problem is that doesn't that doesn't just apply to me that applies to him also so he's making this claim about the way the universe is but he's not making the claim because it's true he's making this claim because he's fizzing just like I am life is Christianly he fizzes atheistic Lee but we're both fizzing neither of us are arguing or debating in order for a true debate to occur we have to be made in the image of God in order for a true exchange of views we have to have something here in us that goes beyond the matter of motion goes beyond our physical construction now this relates to something else this I think this applies to morality I think it applies them but to rationality I think it applies to aesthetics truth goodness and beauty I think this reduction that I'm proposing is something that makes it impossible for an atheist to mount a case against the Christian faith that doesn't mean that there aren't that there is not room for questions I'm a pastor and I brought up kids and I've taught in Christian classrooms I would want to distinguish between however a doubt and a question are those sorts of things that can never be answered in principle dirty city a doubt cannot be answered a question can be answered why does Paul say this and James say this why does one of the synoptic Gospels say this and the other synoptic gospel say that why those are reasonable questions I want to maintain however that Christians don't need to answer anything coming from the Atheist quarter because those are simply doubts Universal doubts they're not questions because atheism can't support the kind of universe that is necessary to generate a question in order to generate a question you have to know where you are to begin with God had to put us here thank you very much gentlemen huh as moderator I'm going to take the opportunity who's just a bit of fizzing on my own and I was at the movie last night which I found very interesting and informative and as I got out of there it just got me to thinking and I'd like to tell you just a little story because this question is going to be directed to you Christopher before I came on this business trip to lead these panel discussions I was in a hurry to get my bag at my office and got a call that the car was sitting outside and so I hurriedly went to grab my bag and I threw myself off balance in that moment and ended up on the floor I have a case of moderate cerebral palsy that I that I was born with and it's part of my life I got up I'm hoping that no one saw me I don't think they did but it's happened before and it will happen again in fact there's no guarantee that I won't fall off this stage at some point so you may want to be ready to catch me yeah I found the intellectual discussion exemplified in the movie and the books I've read your book it's it's very helpful I love these arguments I get into this stuff but I'm wondering Christopher it seems to me that your philosophy of anti theism is a philosophy for the strong it's a philosophy for the intelligent it's a philosophy for the well-connected and my experience of Christianity is that Christianity I do believe it's true I understand a lot of these arguments that have been put forward here but Christianity has something to say for people who are not strong who are not intelligent for people who fall down Christianity Christianity gives people a reason for dignity human dignity we're all creative in God's image it gives us a reason for dignity because Jesus took on our suffering and our frailties and our sin it also gives us a reason for hope because he conquered death he conquered the things that hold us down and I know that as a believer that at some point in the future I will receive a resurrect a resurrection body and these limitations that I've had to deal with for whatever reason God has will one day be taken away from me I guess my question for you Christopher is you know regardless of the truth or falsity of my beliefs I would like to know what your antitheism has to offer in the way of dignity or hope for those who are not as intelligent as who are not as strong as you who are not as well connected what hope can you and your philosophy give to people like me and frankly people who are much worse off than I am very well thank you for the question and if I may say so for the way in which you asked it um but like before I go to it I can't resist herbs lamb challenge which is well here's the lamb challenge is in a way what one way one could describe your your own challenge to me you remember the movie Quo Vadis well you know what I'm talking about the end of the Roman Empire the persecution of the Christians the throwing of the levers to the world beasts in the Coliseum family in London takes their little boy that's very exciting really he's been begging to stare for a long time climactic scene comes the arena the Coliseum is there the other foot the reporting scenes the voice starts to cry on considerably he just can't bear it and they they take him out to the lobby and they ply him with ice cream and things try and soothe him II he just can't stop weeping I said what's the matter I can tell you know what it's too awful finally they gave us in Adana - what was so terrible he said there was a poor lion that hadn't got a Christian you accuse me sir being on the lioness side of the target hoping I didn't I had no idea how well-connected and wealthy and strong I looked my reply will check if I may I'll have to give you'll have to take two forms first I don't think that it's true though it's widely claimed to be true the christianity is particularly a religion of the weak the the downtrodden the lost the the abject those who have been perhaps adults a bad hand by life in the first place what does what does it mean to believe that there is a divinely supervising father who noticed that there is a creator but it was not a deist belief there must be first cause but a theist believe that the someone who knows and watches and cares what is men to believe that I think it has two very disagreeable implications one is that we are subjected all the time to a permanent unending round-the-clock surveillance that begins at least when we're born some would say before and doesn't even quit when we die there's no privacy there's no freedom there's nothing you do that isn't watched over and then you can be convicted of thought crime you were already guilty because we know you at least we're going to think about it this is an absolute definition of unfreedom it's what all well means when he says that all totalitarianism is essentially theocratic is this for the weak no it postulates a hideous strength to borrow a CSS term a horrible unchallengeable despotism that could never be voted out or overthrown or transcend and a parody the horrible parody of the idea of fatherhood I have three children they don't want me to die but I'm damn sure I'm not going to see them die they will be at my funeral that's my job this father says I'll never get out of the way you'll be dead and I'll still be here and I'll sit in judgment only when you're dead as well you'll never hear the of me you'll never see the back of me this is a hideous again tyrannical parody and it's not a weak person speaking it's not the still small voice of compassion it's the utter arrogance of absolute power alright okay if I haven't made that plain this time I won't be able to improve on that as my view as we thought that's what I believe now let's take a case of someone who's been dealt a bad hand what about Fraulein Fryzel in Austria whose father unwilling to get out of the way kept her in a dungeon where she didn't see daylight for 24 years and came down most nights to rape and sodomize her often in front of the children who were the victims of the previous tax offenses and it's only purely by accident that health Fryzel is now in custody and it's a shame that he's 76 because his life in prison isn't going to feel enough like that to him and what you just think take a moment since we're so interested in the jontron and the helpless imagine how she must have begged him not in how she must have pleaded imagine for how long imagine how she must have prayed every day how she must have besieged heaven imagine for 24 years and no no uncertain I think nothing imagine how those children must have felt gnashing what they thought when they saw one of them one of their number the dead twin being born away from neglect on top of things now you say that's all right that she went through that because she'll get a better deal in another life are you I have to ask you if you if you can be morally or ethically serious and postulate such a question oh that had to happen and heaven did watch it with indifference because it knows that that school later on resettled so was well worth by going through it she'll have a better time next time I don't see how you can look anyone anyone in the face or live with yourself and say anything so hideously wicked more or less that or even implied yeah that's my answer well I will I will say just for myself and then I'll throw it open to the panel that I have never heard a Christian say anything remotely similar to that that is a caricature excuse me you just said you'll get a better body having suffered with this one I hate to put it like this but it's your own phrasing she's going to get what in exchange for 24 years of dungeon hood rape sodomy and incest that according to you heaven watch because that was part of Heaven's plan - how will you get one one I have to ask you this how do you know that how what gives you what do you know that I don't that allows you to say that heaven does this second how can you possibly say it's more chickens she lives in universe that I believe in the in which she has justice coming if she's living in your universe there's no justice ever that's the issue in John Lennon's song imagine there's no heaven no hell below us above us only sky above this poor unfortunate woman in your world only sky the yule world a heaven that says this is OK at a heaven that says hold on justice is coming every tear will be wiped dry every wrong will be put right everything will be straightened out trust me it will be reconciled it will be put right so word visit you would have told her that so we're we're in a position well I'm a pastor and I've had to deal with people who have been through some pretty hard provinces and the question that it has been raised is the per any one people suffer people people do horrendous things to each other but I'm living in a world where I can condemn it and say hold on patience confidence faith it will be put right you're saying it will never be put right and that cuts the nerve of being able to say there's anything wrong with it now and and I must interject if I could my question was what hope in dignity - your philosophy offer to people who are suffering what you're saying is not an answer today question the lake is deserted to say that one doesn't believe there is a supernatural dimension to the cosmos or to human existence who doesn't commit you is ready one moral or political or ethical ideological just says let's suppose what seems like least there isn't a supernatural intervening power and it does involve one of the reasons I think it may have a very slight moral edge however is it does involve accepting conclusions that may be unwelcome okay I don't particularly want my own death to be succeeded by annihilation my return to Athens it's not what I wish for myself but I'm not going to say I don't believe it because I don't like it because that would be babyish wouldn't it nobody argues like that the such a thing as evidence as well if the evidence is that there is a sky full of divinity over Ashworth's as Douglas believes then I think it's legitimate to ask what is that sky thinking when it's looking down on ashes may we inquire that's before I ask how does dog know this my sky disapproves your sky doesn't but what the disapproval doesn't seem to have very much weight your skit your sky over ouch wits doesn't care so the question then arises why do you care well at least it doesn't want now why do you go at least excuse me excuse me your sky watches with folded arms and so that's possibly with pleasure we don't know what it's how can we know who in this room is going to claim to know what God is thinking and feeling so what is yours do you have the nerve to do this I bet you don't what is your sky thing well Victor us Your mutt I say there's only sky but we are we have two brothers one with another why we have we have to we have to fight this off we have to out learn why are the presets of racism we have to for our own survival we have to for our children's sake we have been quite enough motive without resort to the supernatural to say why we think and where why we nominate certain things as wicked and inhuman and know what we mean when we say these things which your sky looks at Auschwitz and says I wonder how it's going on today that raises at least the possibility that the sky likes what it sees you can't know that they're not enjoying it so if God gave us a book hey why don't hare kreizel why did you go downstairs do it to her again we'll watch that would you watch that I asking you well why why I'm saying it's ethical to postulate that somebody I think you're making a good point here and Christopher in the sense that Christians I'll just speak for Christians and the limited experience I have with Christians who are suffering when bad things do happen to them a very natural response is to question God why are you allowing this to happen why is this happening why aren't you doing something you can read the Psalms and see that over and over where God's people wonder what God is doing so that is a perfectly natural response however I don't believe that is generally natural for adults they shouldn't say why is heaven doing this to me what do they think having to even knows they're there Jim it's babyish to think like that this was my father's issue as well if there is a God why would he allow 300 men to be abandoned on an island and only 17 survived it's been an issue in a struggle for me as a pastor for 25 years as well I want God to intervene when people misuse their freedom to do for rendus things I absolutely want God to do that if I were god I would intervene if I saw someone misusing their freedom to do absolutely horrendous things so then we ask all right now where do we draw the line let's say that we draw the line that God must intervene if someone is about to misuse their freedom to commit murder I don't want anyone to be able to burn my son's well neither do I want anyone to harm my son's so now we step the line back now I want God to intervene whenever anyone is going to misuse their freedom in a way that will hurt my son's physically well I don't want anyone hurt my son's morally or personally or emotionally and so I'm going to draw the line there I don't want anyone hurt my son's at all so now I'm going to draw the line there at what point once God starts intervening in free use of human will does God stop intervening the Bible tells us that God weeps God grieves at the outrageous that he sees happen among his children I think I can answer your question Christopher how does God feel God as a father and as a father God grieves as his children are hurting he cries as they cry he hurts as they hurt if he intervenes by removing freedom where does he stop that's the issue that has troubled me all across my path experience and that's my response to the issue today and if you can intervene and determine then what sense are we free we up with the properties of an eternal father that's the lesson terminus of unfreedom by definition we know where i'm asked if we have free will i always have the same response of course we do we have no choice you say we've got free will because we've been given it by the boss come on that's purpose morally hopeless or intellectually cooking may I respond to that please buy only very much thank you the question of sovereignty and freedom is one that has trouble Christians of course across all the generations in theology as we understand it Christopher at least how Orthodox Christianity answers the question God because he is sovereign and absolute wants a relationship with us he knows that relationship of worship must depend upon our choosing worship or else it's not a it's not worship it's not love it's not relationship and so God chooses to give us that freedom and chooses to honor that freedom it is God's sovereign choice to give me freedom and to honor the freedom that he has given me that makes him no less sovereign and at the same time allows me the freedom that he has chosen as my Creator to give to me it's the same thing here another minor jords it's the same thing parents do with their children when we give our children limited freedom we give them autonomy so that they can make the right choices and they can grow into the adulthood we wish for them but all this all the while what they are choosing is within the context of our sovereignty that's how sovereignty and freedom work together in such a way the god of sovereign and yet we are free so you knew the mind of God I know what God has revealed of his mind I know how God has revealed himself in Scripture how God has revealed himself ultimately in the son when he became one of us that we might become one with him I could never propose that I myself unaided could ever know the mind of God religion is our effort to climb up to God Christianity is God coming down to us to make himself known to us so that he would reveal his mind to us thank you I'd like to shift gears like did you want to have a no I think I've blown a seed you've been very kind I've said it I would like to add an addendum to this it seems to me that there are two questions here that are getting blurred together one is is the existence of innocent suffering compatible with Christian theism or is Christian theism some way incoherent internally incoherent and it seems to me that Denison and Wilson both suggested ways in which we can think of God Christianly in which innocent suffering could exist and would be consistent with the character of God they talked about the need to permit human freedom and you admitted that constant intervention would rob human beings of significant moral freedom and then they talked about justice in the afterlife desert and punishment that would be consistent with showing that Christian theism is coherent as a worldview even though there is innocent suffering that's one question then the other question is but how do you know Christian theism is true and that seems to be the question you slide to is is when they first explained the coherence of Christian theism this yeah but how do you know that's true now that's quite a different question that would be the kinds of arguments and evidences that Lee talked about and that I talked about but would you admit that if Christian theism is true that it is a coherent view given the sorts of innocent suffering that we talked about if you make the relevant assumptions yes then it's internally fairly consistent I think okay if if Heaven waited until two thousand years ago to intervene in the affairs of a species that's at least 100 for nearly a quarter million years old that let it rot for 2,000 years and then said time to intervene but only in very illiterate parts of the Middle East and by human sacrifice and that'll that ought to cure it that would mean they can be claimed to be saved if you believe anything like that then the rest I guess more or less does follow to me it makes absolutely no sense at all it's it's white it's a white noise of proposition don't know made me answer I wish I have to return dance question to me in that in a similar form he says if I think that the world is only material why should I care well even if my children are only material I still do care for them or do not pass into a program to do so and for other people too I don't feel any need to justify myself on this but it is it is a fact we would be moral if there were no God so you think that Nick you're all here for you Schoenberg was on the level of physically couldn't would be no I don't like you you call it physic not me but if it's the case they said you April the cake it is that guy well I said hardwired might be good bye uncle hard wired who knows well they don't double Christianity or say neither same as hard wires the around the orangutan in the California zoo who picked up the baby that fell into the pit and walked it over to its mother who was weeping and back banging your head against the bars you're a lot of animals have solidarity there form families they look out for each other they have kinship ties they have they they laugh they cry then it love that much they can weep that much we have emotion they don't do this by any recourse to a celestial dictatorship they don't have to grovel to the Kindle song in the sky you won't go away now they can be moral without that in other words my submission is very simple don't make a mystery where none exists we can be moral without the supernatural usually we can't be moral without super using that makes us slave you're using the word moral to simply speak of behavior set a so there are n eight you know mother's caring for the young and instant herd instinct and that sort of thing you're you're describing behavior set a but we also have innate impulses that make us want to go to war with rival rival tribes take people out who annoy us that's behavior set B now also in the image of God presume you've got answer this question okay yeah behavior set a and behavior set B morality is that which decides between those two behavior sets now you can't say that's innate because the vn8 nature of human beings is what gives us the problem innate human nature gives us altruistic behavior innate human behavior gives us Jenna Seidel behavior it gives us both now you can't appeal to some innate thing that will tell us how that this one's moral and that one's not but there's no there's nothing in human behavior that would surprise you if you thought of humans as a primate species who will have a chromosome away from being chimpanzees with war rape various kinds of stupidity cruelty waste so for why do you call one of us a these say these are made in new cities and primates and made in the image of God whichever that is they do now here's my Christmas Mike here's my question work me over there to what I was going to ask you if you say to me my materialism gives me no reason to care about anybody why does your belief that ultimate justice will be delivered by heaven make you care about slavery or the emancipation of the other luckless for a line frazzle from the dungeon it will be taken care of there is in the end no tear that won't be dried why would you care about the suffering of humanity in that case it's just as immoral a proposition if you examine it the way I've put it ladies and gentlemen I feel you've been very generous letting me speak so I want to wrap with this and for now leaving it with these questions um named me if you can a moral action I couldn't take or a moral statement I couldn't make because I don't believe in the supernatural I don't believe in gone you have to be able to do that it seems to me them to to a body for for claiming that ethics and morals are founded in religion and then there's a corollary question can any of you think of a wicked action undertaken or wicked things said by someone because they were person of faith I think you've already thought of one the female genital mutilation community for example is more or less as this of the religious Patchen whole genital mutilation community is religiously the suicide bombing community almost entirely faith-based you know where I'm going with this but you can't I dare you no one yet from the archbishop can't be on brown in any debate what if there is any further down from the artificial attachment has ever been able to point out to me a moral action I'm forbidden they stopped from making or statement I can't come up with because I don't believe yeah are you can at the surprise by the way attached I heard you assert this before it surprises me because I think it's trivially easy to name actions that on a Christian world unlike view are morally obligatory but on your view are not morally obligatory as is that what you're asking for no it wasn't the question okay I mean more a Christian is morally obliged to what so I did find if it's morals give money to a church all right so there is a moral duty that given Christian theism one can name that you as an atheist could not name in your worldview doesn't mean doesn't meet the condition social I don't think giving money to an organization that promotes belief in the supernatural is immoral action exactly but we do on Christian theism this is a mystery a Satori is a tautology in that way once you accept the the human sacrifice two thousand years ago solves all problems and leads to salvation everything else does follow well then I don't know Josh but you see I don't understand your challenge than the challenge I thought was to name an action which you as an atheist could not regard or could not also affirm as a moral obligation and as I say it seems it's trivially easy to think of lots of actions of Christian theism is true that are morally obligatory that you as an atheist could not affirm because on your worldview they wouldn't be moral obligations diving evangelism worship yet it's lesson with the tautology that looks here someone wrote me saying here's something you couldn't do you couldn't say Father forgive them for they don't know what they did well no I couldn't but you all know the reason I can't do that because not everyone can only person indeed has ever claimed in that way to be the Son of God and be in a position to forgive anyone and make it midnight that's what that is an emulation I couldn't make even if I and wanted to and by the way I'm not a great believer in forgiveness and besides Christopher giving money to religious organizations is an innate human activity what's your is Jim right no I think my question still sounds like as soon as the latter one what you quickly wrap this up and then we'll move on right I'll try quickly thank you he had two assertions one was that he can think of a great number of things which religious people do which are immoral and therefore castigate all religion that's back to the point I tried to make earlier to castigate all religion because of the activity of a radical Muslim suicide bomber it's like castigating all of medicine because of the activities of a particular doctor Arda castigate all science because of eugenics put them all in the same category and call them all religion I would absolutely reject the decision made by a suicide bomber read who is himself promoting some kind of radical Islam that doesn't mean that his decision impinges on the morality of my religious behavior as regards your first assertion it seems to what we're looking for is something you and I would both agree are moral which you therefore would not do and either four would do if you and I both agree that that behavior is moral then it is incumbent upon you to do that as a moral thing the question has to do with the definition not with the motivation it seems to me the doctor conducting eugenic experiments without anesthetic on twins will not be able to point to the passage in the Hippocratic oath that allows him to do it he will be able to say he's doing it in the name of medicine William B perversion of medicine a suicide bomber acting in the name of his prophet and his God can find Authority all throughout the Quran for his to and always does this couldn't you couldn't have come up with a less persuasive and Hippocratic oath is not a sacred document who cares in other words the Quran what do you think it is the Quran is thought to be sacred by those following it the Hippocratic oath can be followed or not dry to physicians the code medical ethics and what I describe is the epic ratchet ethos that's what may not be considered sacred in the way that you mean the word but it's considered to be pretty that's why that's why Marty needs more than just a lot of vinyl that's why modern docx we're gonna move on here I think we've all stated our positions fairly I think we know where we stand on that one and the monitor circumcised in Italy the genitals of children is right in the Bible yeah now Christopher I don't know why I'm picking on you good I'm gonna ask you another question because you can yeah pretty much abusing my power here then is there any evidence that you would consider to be sufficient in order for you to believe in the God of the Bible um it sounds closed-minded to say no doesn't it but actually I don't think it's as close minded as a lot of if I if I thought I saw a resurrection you say I would first think I was under a delusion I would first consult the likelihood that there was a hallucination affecting me it's more as David Hume puts it it's more likely if you see the laws of nature being suspended that you are under a misapprehension that the laws of nature excuse me it's possible I've been talking too much have actually been suspended if I heard voices in my head telling me that God wanted a word I would not expect when I shared this news with my friends for the motor cluster round and say tell me more when you meet that person on the bus as we've all done what did you do do you edge away from them or towards them so I'd have to be persuaded that for the first let's say the species is 98 thousand I'm sorry hundred thousand years old as I said before but for the first ninety eight thousand years of our existence Kevin just watched us die from largely of our teeth or in childbirth suffering in ignorance terrified of volcanoes meteors horrible wars over territory food all of this millions of people just dying in panic and unhappiness and ignorance and fear only 2,000 years ago decides to intervene I don't see I can be brought to believe anything like that what's a harlot altar and I couldn't be brought to believe into such a thing as vicarious Redemption I think which i think is an immoral doctrine I could pay your debt Douglas if you got into trouble I'd happily do it well some people would even be willing to serve other people's terms in prison but I can't say I'll take your sins on me I can't say you can throw your responsibilities onto me and they'll be washed away that would be asking you to enter into a very immoral agreement would you care I'll pass on to that last boss well you know you raising the issue he's got a lozenge it with a oh thank you very much yes ah all right no I'm good Oh My Goddess will be the judge of that should we open this up for prayer better than saying I'm fine okay when you say that when you encounter supposed to resurrection you would your inclination be say this is a delusion that it can't be true you know that well I think if the claim was that Jesus somehow Roseman dead naturalistically then absolutely I would excuse but that's not the claim the claim is God raised Jesus from the dead we have independent reasons that we cited in which you haven't refuted that point toward the existence of God therefore if God exists for God to choose to raise his son is not an extraordinary event an ordinary event in his economy what that it's no American well you define it as you will it's in God's economy is very capable of doing it then he is capable of doing it so it really is a Anti supernatural presupposition that rules it out at the outset it's or like I'm going to rule out the possibility of financial now give me your evidence for God why does he cry over his creatures as was rich just said and weep over their shortcomings and transgressions and short under piteous Ness when it's just as natural to him as breathing to create these imperfect animals who bound to sin and bound to fail and bound to get angry and bound to be greedy and nasty and selfish because that's the way they've been made how moral is it to say you're created sick and then commanded on pain of horrible torture to kill yourself I think what dr. Craig was saying earlier is true which is that there is no logical contradiction ultimately in the in saying that suffering is this and God exists that with what we've heard before you didn't cover that ground I was internal i'ma tell us you don't mind being a plaything in somebody else's game I or a loved son i amaze you i've made you your you're full of sickness and there's no health in you you're wicked you're selfish you're brutal you're cruel to one another you're gonna get punished for this really I mean really punished so you've been made you've been born ill now the order comes get killed get Get Well that's an order what is this this is worse than any known form of human totalitarianism dish there's nothing accomplished by white washing them or explaining them away sometimes non-believers go too far and make accusations that are not well grounded they make the crimes worse than the action where but wherever the crimes will really did exist I think we should own it accept it and with with this proviso we can accept it as a sin as a crime against God as something that fundamentally unjust because we have a standard of justice because I'm a Christian I have a standard that I can fail to meet because I'm a Christian I have a standard that I that I do fail to me that I fall short of and I acknowledge my sinfulness when I do and I see the same thing in the Christian world there's a standard there what I don't comprehend is how an atheist would look at the Crusades or the Inquisition is anything other than another chapter in this gaudy meaningless show all right stuff happens you've got this parade of foolishness that we call human history some of it religious some of it you know if you want if you're going to burn a heretic at the stake for not crossing his doctoral T's or dotting his doctrinal eyes you might as well wear a robe and a funny hat and have a good time you know why not there is no justice ahead of us just so that I would want to turn it around and say look all the charges that you can bring against the Christian faith Christopher and Christopher can bring quite enough quite a few and I could I as a pastor could bring quite a few all those charges when they really do fall short of God's standard I want to accept and say yes we are sinners we need Redemption we need forgiveness and yes and we've got to repent we've got to put this right we've got to do better but then I would turn it around we can say that that was a sin you can't all right the atheist has nothing to no basis for objecting to behavior any kind of behavior throughout history in the past or the future now Christopher has gone back to what he has would like for his own sons these sort of instinctive things but why would you care what happened to the Amalekites why would you care what happened in Spain during the Inquisition why would you care about what's going to happen 500 years from now that that doesn't there's no traction as Christians we can look at it and say look God the one who spoke this universe into existence has told us how he wants us to behave and I want to love him and I want to be a faithful servant and I want to conform myself to that so I can condemn Christian misbehavior and ultimately Chris Christopher can't condemn Christians behavior thank you gentlemen very helpful segment of our program now is the time for audience members to ask your questions and we have I believe two volunteers with microphones one over here is there another over here yes so stand up let the microphone volunteer know that you'd like to ask a question and ask it briefly courteously and to any members of the panel here and we'll try to answer and we're going to go for about a half hour with audience questions thank you I'm a psychologist in a prison and I can tell you that there is probably no more religious population than prisoners practically all up and more Christians and sociopaths at the same time and maybe one of the apologists and also mr. Hitchens could respond to you you know what how does how does Christianity move people forward more Liam I mean I understand it you know that that there is a moral basis for it all but but I mean how does it really affect the people that I work with on a daily basis who you know the one hand struggle very hard to believe in God but on the other hand get out of prison and continue to do terrible things I'd like to say one thing quickly about that and this will be it for me jesus said I have not come for the righteous but for sinners I've not come for the healthy but for the sick so on a very basic level Christianity is for sinners and I'll leave it there who else would like to deal with that I'd rather I would detect Oh what you got you said when when you establish a church and you start preaching the gospel and you're preaching forgiveness and that sort of thing who's going to come that the people are going to people are going to come or the people who know that they have a problem they they they know they need help and oftentimes they their knowledge of how much help they need is not up to the level of knowing enough how to change it so I've spent many many hours with many people and pastoral counseling trying to trying to fix really deep-rooted problems that you wouldn't find in the average Kiwanis group right you find some of them but not as not abated myth whether they seek help for and and I think there's a higher level of it in the church because what are we saying we're saying come to Christ and deal with your issues yeah well you're going to get people with issues I sure do Christopher well I would say cheer up because very soon there'll be a much larger Muslim population as there is now in Europe electricity in United States and they'll be given as they already being given Mojave currents produced in Saudi Arabia which preach violence against Christians choose an atheist so they only get me twice I think I'm a limiter and that will be all done in the name of the faith-based initiative now that'll be swell and but that's only talking about the prison system which you go to the lunatic asylums and see how many atheists you've like there most these people think that the serial killing was mandated by God after all they were only killing prostitutes and scarlet women for example and it was absolutely they were they were mandated by heaven to be doing it and either that or they think they are God in Jerusalem the Israeli police have a name for it they have a special ward in fact it's called The Jerusalem syndrome people who come to Jerusalem because they've been driven mad by religion and they think that they'll find a solution by going there um it's a it's a it's a very common delusion I just wish people wouldn't confuse it with revelation a next question this is mr. Hitchens first of all to say thank you for the courage it takes to do this I know it's please we're pretty rough it's been we've touched on this somewhat and especially in the moral issue but my question to mr. Hitchens would be do you believe in a transcendent universal laws whether they be logic morality whatever and if you do how do you for those in a purely naturalistic universe well I don't immoral laws are as common and what should we say irrefragable as say the laws of formal logic or mathematics or astronomy no but it is it is the fact that they they a certain common moral code does seem to be an H of the species for example though if you take the so called golden rule which it is differently phrase but it essentially means don't do to another person what would be repulsive done to yourself there's an element of tautology in it but it works as a kind of injunction well it's certainly certainly was offered by rabbi Hillel Babylonian rabbi and it seems to be phrased in the Analects of Confucius as well in other words it appears to be common to anyone who's thought about the good or how to lead the good life and that seems to be enough for me me I think one of the dangers of if you'll excuse me those who a Christian who say I wouldn't know any of this if I wasn't Christian is it runs the very dangerous risk of saying that the common knowledge of the moral properties of behaviour and humanity are exclusive only to those who confess one faith that would seem to me be an immoral position to take on its face now it seems to me that you're running together again two quite distinct issues one is the issue in what we call moral ontology that would be what is the basis in reality for objective morals and duties the other is morally pista mala G which is how we come to know moral duties and values and the claim here is not that we need to know or have belief in God in order to discover what objective morals and values there are as a Christian one could be open any manner of method coming to know moral values and duties the issue is the ontological question that the what is the basis in reality for the existence of objective moral values and duties and I think a number of people on the panel have suggested you yourself seem to admit that there really isn't a sort of transcendent basis for these moral values and duties that these are just the spin-offs of sociobiological evolution and if you were to rerun the film of evolution backwards and then started anew a very different sort of creature might have ever emerged from the evolutionary process with quite a different set of values and secular for us for us to claim that our values are objectively true and binding is to be guilty of specie ism a sort of bias in favor of your own species and and so it does seem that there's a lack or an absence of a foundation for moral objectivity on the naturalistic view but you knew but set a trap of your in making there the human the human primaries is but a lot more moral and uh able to apprehend moral this is more questions and and in behavior a great deal more immoral than any other species and we bear as Charles Charles Owen says we bear inevitably the stamp of a lowly origin it's very clear who are cousins in our close relatives now we are animals but if morality is just a function of what whatever it is we happen to be doing evolutionarily speaking then that doesn't make any sense doesn't even use the word morality or immorality it's just what we're doing no well it's let's say if you wanted a working definition of the moral or good she would have to include some element of what we call the girl other was caring for other people not just because you want them to care for you but because there's pleasure and caring for them available for you too I just happen to include that what well it happens to be happens to be everything else as you as you say would be reductionist will be functionalist only which is a rather arid way of addressing questions of nobility that honor the obligation and the most mysterious of all the words agape love we can't we can't prove the existence of love but you sure can't disprove it either and you can't imagine the world where the word didn't have a meaning and people looked at you blankly but none of this requires the supernatural there's the numinous and you mentioned sir the transcendent these are dimensions of our own imagination and our own cortex well if that's very like our like our susceptibility to music for instance but it doesn't require there's all the difference in the world between the numinous and the transcendent and the supernatural especially the supervising in superintending intervening horsemanship of of a divine unchangeable authority if there is no transcendent then these are just the accidental byproducts of the sociobiological evolutionary process i insist there is a transcendent and an imminent you and you insist I've just been making that very distinction I'm sorry if I not not as a writer I was no I express myself poorly I appeal to the I put myself in the safekeeping of the audience and you know did I not just say that the struggle is to realize that there is that well there is a transcendent and a numinous available to us through our imaginations I would give the examples of love susceptibility to music landscape poetry architecture and so forth there is no need for this to become a supernatural especially not a supernatural that contains a hidden but unalterable supervising superintending in turning give agitator let's have one brief reply to that they will get to the open to display what sit transcend thank you now my question would be upon what basis does the transcendent possibly come to exist there if he said was a product of our imagination products approach of our magic so but I call that it's our analysis of our matters affecting let me give you the case in point so dr. Francis Collins will be known to you gosh and I'm sure known to everyone here or should I say who would i insult if I identified Roger cause he's the very distinguished scientist who completed the work of the Human Genome Project which were all enormously in his certainties are confessing and believing Christian and in his own account of matters he says he's an outdoors man and he went on a long hike I believe it was in the Pacific Northwest and one morning he came to a frozen waterfall Waterfall frozen the three waterfalls coming down like this imagine this with a fork of three frozen and he said at that point he dropped his knees and accepted Jesus as his personal saving it ago I think that I perfectly understand what's being said there though I regard it as questionable in a number of ways whatever the hadn't been three I'm presuming the three is important somehow with Christian sages what had it had been for what if it had been two would he not have accepted Jesus as a personal Savior what what is there about frozen water that makes you think one religion is more true than another it wouldn't be just as good if he said I suddenly realized there's only one God and Muhammad is His Messenger with somebody just like the same wonderful with someone quickly deal with it well this is this is it still like I said I still know that some people are powerfully affected by landscape imagery and music here's the problem you can't have you can't use the word transcendent without saying it transcends wise right the native the the space-time continuum is all it is we win it with our imaginations bump their head on the ceiling there's no way to get out there's no transcendent the imagination is part of the space now who's being reduction in this now I'm just using here I'm applying to your cell you'll say if I went by the whole supernatural I can't even have loved music landscape and poetry you can't help it I can't have the meaning here well be careful and you can't explain them right anyway to me or dr. Collins Marcus is touching and affecting and makes me think in some ways more highly of M this person but it is a completely meaningless not to say nonsensical signals okay next question loudly hi there this is for mr. Hitchens and mr. Wilson one of the kind of the subtopic of this has been is Christianity been beneficial for the world and I think that like look at if you look at the Christian Reformation right in the reform movement you see in this like the beginnings and kind of the seeds of like the progressive movement the humanist movements in the in the liberal kind of revolution that's existence and so you know by saying by turning the you know the kind of roman sacra totalism to a position of individual responsibility for faith you invest the individual with a new role of action in our society you see that when everything is to the glory of God you know kings and nobility suddenly are called into question you even see something like with the Westminster Confession like something though it's very similar to the written constitutions that came later for states you know Cromwell undermines the king and brings parliamentary power into play and if you look at the history of the early radical Reformation you're looking at places like Switzerland the Netherlands and England which kind of form you know the the base for these for the early expression of these ideas and then the most radical the reformers are shipped out of Europe and shipped over to the United States and form this revolutionary experiment in this country so what my question then is is do you accept this as being true that that the Reformation has is is inextricably tied to the progress and human freedom that we've seen over the last several centuries and if not why not and if so mr. Hitchens wouldn't that maybe suggest up for this particular branch of Christianity the reformed tradition is you know is maybe more good than bad and for mr. Wilson what does it say about the internal consistency and the eternal immutable of this position that you can draw a lot that it seems to consume itself because you can draw a line from Calvin to Hume - you know mr. Hitchens here not to give you a big head comparing you to David Hume or it was to question let's get this deal with those quickly there's other people waiting Thank You Georgia first go ahead well you're right in guessing as I think you have that I am a Protestant atheist as I think well you laugh actually someone I know was pulled out of his car in Belfast and at that moment you don't want legend or fuss a guy in a ski mask saying what religion are you and he said I'm an atheist there's a short pause of a Protestant atheist Road car you don't want that with a gun to your head anyway well some idiot reads your passport upside down George Orwell in 1984 postulates this is my this is my strategy and reading my close reading of the book the book is about the struggle to possess an inner book a secret book that's the property of an inner party that's what it's about and in doing so to bring to make people know that they're free to show them the truth and let the truth make them for you would perhaps be my friends and it's no there's no doubt at all in my mind from the reading of a will and Orwell's attitude towards Milton Tyndale that the Cromwellian revolution the struggle to translate the Bible Coverdale width that he regarded Protestantism as as the liberation of Europe from theocracy and the particular thing was the struggle to have the Bible understanding of the people as it says in the thirty-nine articles available to and in the vernacular without the intercession the interposition of a a priesthood dinner party and the stained glass and Flammarion ritual of the telescreen and the Big Brother and all the rest of it so that was one reason why that's such an imperishable book and all Wells favorite line is from is been John Milton becomes John Milton it's just like this by the known rules of ancient Liberty very good very good assertive claim we never mind there was a time when the word Kings when the word priests when the word Pope's and bishops when people understood that they were free and untrammeled and we want to get back to that time so it's still a wonderful poetic and literary the tradition it has a very honorable parts of play in European history and yes it is it is Christian in some ways and it certainly is Protestant yeah yeah I would really I would just briefly say that I believe that medieval Catholicism was an improvement on the pagan world that went before and I would say the Reformation was an improvement on the medieval world that went before but as a pastor I'm fond of telling people there's always a ditch on both sides of the road you know and I do believe that the processes of secularization were oftentimes continued by people who took things Liberty of conscience let's say that the Reformers came up with and then absolute eyes dit and drove them to the right ditch I do think that we needed to get free of some of the superstitious nonsense that had kept the Christian world Christendom captive and I'm very grateful for the work of the Reformers and what happened but we need to be guard our own police our own borders and be careful not to veer off on the right ditch simply because we used to be in the left ditch Martin Luther compared the human race to a drunk who falls off the one side of the horse and the next time make sure to fall off the other side to compensate you know but that's not balanced fruit neck next question please I would like to ask you do you speak right into the microphone do you allow for a power that might be greater than our own perhaps a species beyond our understanding is that part of your possibilities in your writing I'm not a biologist or a physicist I the Sony power greater than ours because you will study the residual fat if you study the big nine I think of extraordinary energies and forces were compared to which we are we're dust I don't know the superior species to the human race but I do believe and all the evidence is that we are still evolving when our brains are actually improving that getting larger or getting more sophisticated it's a millimetric Li small process but that I have the evidence in my book available at fine bookstores everywhere for this being a real proposition and in fact one of the most arresting sentences I've ever read came from Sir Martin rile he's in Britain is called the astronomer royal he's that he's the Queen's own appointment of the most distinguished astronomer and riche excuse-me research did I say round modules there is another one Martin Rees says it will not be us it will not be us who watch as the Sun goes out as our star swells up into a red dwarf and dies as extinction comes there will be there may be creatures on earth watching but they will be human they'll be first human they'll be smarter than us they won't have quite as many for the stamps of our neurology and as we bear we hope their prefrontal lobe to be a little bit bigger the adrenaline gland perhaps a bit smaller and the wisdom teeth a little less obviously chimpanzee like and so forth it can be hoped for this little not just to be hoped for it can be observed happening yeah it's that's much more inspiring to me than any encounter on the Jericho Road next question please hi mr. Hitchens one of the foundations of your argument seem to be that God created us here I'm sick already I'm create a sick and kind of watches this I just said maybe even enjoys us I'm getting tortured and other things and I wanted to ask where you get the basis for the argument and then also we really have someone the panelists say what the Bible says about what God originally is created here as me I'm sorry I didn't get the last few words but I got the first I didn't I I did not say that it is that I know that the creator could be laughing at our sufferings and enjoying them but I can say that you couldn't prove that he didn't because if you are postulating that everyone is made in the image of God and that for some reason is the insistent claim of Christian how they know what God looks like by analogy from us has always seemed to be very mysterious but that we are certainly made originally sinful is part the Christian dogma is it not so you're born is it in here originally simple no new generation Adam and Eve in a will yes until Adam and Eve of course I was forgetting sinful innocent sinful since the talking snake episode yeah now you're not able not able to say we've not never born innocent again booing you know was born in debt more heavily in debt might be another way of putting it and asked to pay it off made to pay off that does seem to me to be like most totalitarianism not systematic as what we often say of charity but precisely the contrary capricious capricious playful unsystematic ludecke toying with people I don't like it okay you can like it if you like I don't Jim I'd like to propose an alternative way of seeing that what if God is a father what if as a father he creates children he knows that his children are going to have freedom because he's chosen them to have that freedom so they might be able to relate to him he knows that they're going to misuse that freedom he knows that they're going to experience pain he knows that they're going to go through great suffering but he also hopes and knows and believes that they will experience times of great joy and privilege and he at the end of the day wants a relationship with them wants them to have relationship with him and creates them knowing they will have freedom they will misuse that freedom but at the end of the day the good will outweigh the evil because they will have an eternal relationship that's how the Bible pictures God's relationship with us that's the kind of father and child relationship that Jesus taught us to pray and that I think is a better way to see the evidence as it is before okay does this apply to other primate species as well ridiculous I think those you care about the sufferings of his other creation and does you think they have to earn their passage this way I just wonder since you know what he wants I so seldom meet anyone who can actually inform me of God's will but I don't want to miss the chance well I leave while you've got me what we might not meet again anytime soon well I'm delighted anyways liken me on whether he whether the sufferings of other primates and I delight upon your side Matthew if you're wanting to know what God thinks I'm delighted to share the Bible with you as any of us would be of course again as I said earlier Christopher none of us are claiming that we speak for God we're claiming that we're telling you what God has himself set and that's what I know excuse me it's that's my favorite bit about Christian I think I'm so modest I'm so humble but I can't introduce you to God's will and I'll tell you and what a privilege that is yes I'm somewhat a remarkable and with what humility you offer and we would be glad to share that with you today I know you would you look weak boys lay hands on him next next question for mr. Hitchens you alluded to how the human species is ninety eight thousand hundred thousand years old around there out I'll be interested to see we get those numbers if you can and you said that how it was kind of like four ninety eight thousand years we were kind of running around into volcanoes and didn't know what to do and then I feel without and years ago God sent his son mm-hmm the bobble seems to look at differently in that sense the since as we can both agree I'm sure that Adam was the first man that I'm suggesting that God isn't wanting us to himself that he has been you're naming us he you know with like the ten commandments I was a covenant and then we would break that covenant and then there was coming at renewal he would give us on the chance and then we would break it and then he would give us another chance and that's been kind of the cycle and so he sent his actual son and gave us I saw when Christ said that I give you grace upon grace that the law was actually grace for all those years he was showing us the way to himself so the person in a question if God has indeed been and calling us to himself the entire time not didn't just leave us to ourselves held what I mean how does that strike you and for mister Strebel is the is the Bible true has a remote yeah he was first where I get the figures about how long Homo sapiens has been on the that I've asked this to Richard Dawkins and to dr. Francis Collins they they would say the minimum we can say there's been independent species the primary Hermosillo us he's a hundred thousand years dawkins thinks it could be as high as a quarter of a million there isn't enough archaeological evidence i two hundred thousand seems reasonable I low figure because I think I only need ninety-eight thousand years worth of paternal neglect followed by human sacrifice in illiterate part of the Middle East as the redemption to show that there's something wrong with the path also some would put it the design and that as with everything else you just said it would have to be someone who was very playful very capricious very willing to allow long periods of total indifference very much like someone who probably is made in our image in other words I may not be an accident just like us just like we might be it would be pretty rule indifferent incompetent and with a warped sense of humor by what standard excellent I can feel anthropomorphic lis related to this Kai I would like someone one of the Christian gentlemen on the panel to respond to mr. Hitchens repeated sighting of 98 thousand or 200,000 years what is a Christian response to that argument that God was just sitting on his hands for well I think one of the things we know from Scripture that the atonement was an event that went retro actively and in the back end in the future a comedian that well yeah gyah may be designed by God you know it was something that because we can see in the New Testament the references to people from the Old Testament who are redeemed so we know that it acted retro actively and so I think people who you're saying or completely lost in that for that period of time if they indeed were you know making God's image I don't know you know various theories about when how that happened would have had an opportunity I'd like to just throw something in briefly about that and one of the things that struck me in recent years as I've gone on with Christ is that I'm learning more and more what I don't know and I'm beginning to learn that there's mysteries that I won't have all the answers to on this side of life I just won't and that is probably one of those questions that I just don't know that like Jim has said faith is a relationship and so I'm able to trust that person even though he hasn't provided grasping me with all of the data that I would like to have this side of maternity stand if I can add something very quickly at that point the Bible is a practical book we live in a speculative worldview you and I inherited a worldview from Plato and Aristotle we're not contradiction is the test for all truth and were fascinated by speculative questions how long have we been on the planet how long has Homo sapiens existed as a distinct species how long ago to God create the world when will the Lord come back if you believe in the second coming we're fascinated by such speculative questions none of which would change our lives in the present tense today the Bible is a practical book it's written in have break mindset which is very interested intensely interested in practical issues in the here and now and so when we ask the Bible what happened to the dinosaurs and don't get a good answer we can be frustrated that the Bible doesn't answer every speculative question we ask but if you had the answer then it was a meteor that landed in the Atlantic and created some kind of dust cloud that created an ice age and killed the dinosaurs what would that do for us on this Saturday if you ask the Bible practical questions as opposed to speculative questions now you're asking what it intends to ask it's like using a cook book to repair a car or trying to play tennis with a football that's just not what it's made for most of the criticisms over the years that I've been involved in Christian ministry that I've seen come against the faith our speculative questions asked of a practical book such as how old is the earth or how old is human race and why did the Lord wait until 2000 years ago as we understand things back earlier Christopher had said that it would be a wrong position to say I don't believe something because I don't like it and yet at this moment in time that seems to me to be a physician that's being taken I don't like the fact that we would be here for 98 thousand years let's say and yet the atonement would occur 2,000 years ago and so I therefore don't believe it because I don't like it oh that's not it in being being in denial at all it's what I said was what you would have to believe and I say I don't think under any forward persuasion I could be made to believe that but why not I don't like it because it's not nice it happens not to be very nice but that's not my voice or the route of my objection but why else don't you believe it except that you don't like it I think it's in the highest degree improbable that that can be squared with the idea of the benevolent father but what you're doing is you're saying it's improbable because you point to a storyline of 98 thousand years and two thousand years and so forth and what we're saying is that Christian theology is naritai ville the its creation fall flood the Messiah and the eschaton we there's a last chapter and you can't be reading through the Lord of the Rings and be halfway through the top two towers and say you know I've had it up to here with Gollum and throw the book against the wall actually that's just when I do this I might have guessed that you did that just right the question related to this timeline issue you've mentioned what will eventually happen to the earth when the Sun becomes a red giant and incinerates the planet and there will be a very different sort of creature existing at that time than what we see today suppose that humankind it continues to exist for another ninety eight thousand years on this planet in that case it would mean that Christ came right in the very middle of human history rather than near the very end would that ameliorate your objection at any degree if Christ came right in the middle remember that we're talking about another species by then according to Sir Martin Rees but the middle I suppose better late than never I'm still a bit look I'm a bit worried about this retrospective baptism aspect you see that is part of a bit your beautiful more gentleman's positions are you gentle switches are unfalsifiable I can't having having made this point about the missing at minimum ninety-eight thousand years that's all right it's been taken care of over the shoulder at how we know this now that it was really no way to prove that to me and I'm a Navy brat as brought up in Portsmouth and there's a famous story about a young cadet being examined for his master certificate Linda as told have I got time for this well I was just going to say we have time for one more question we'd have your bow they've got three skip the Mattala story good this is good it's a good one even though the bookstore just take it on faith maybe you maybe you'll come back so one more question then we'll allow our panelists to sum up go ahead Chris we deeply admire you for your willingness to stand up here with other minds on the stage and with an opposition view and not that's to be greatly admired but this question is specifically for you and I believe your life in there at this verse and John chapter 14 verse 6 it says Jesus says I'm the way the truth and the life no man comes the father but by me and the evangelical view of this is that Christians those who believe in Jesus Christ died for us are going to heaven and those who don't go to help what is your opinion of Christians who believe that statement but don't try to evangelize to others but don't try to evangelize to others yes none those those that don't try to share their faith but believe that those who don't share the faith could help well my attitude towards someone who says I have a meek and mild Savior for you and if you don't like it you can burn forever and be tortured infinitely is the same where they keep it to themselves or try and pass it on to someone else personally believes that is it a wicked and delusional idiot do you really believe that about all yes the manager important I shall simply have to say as someone who is a beneficiary of a birthright of Liberty in two free countries one of my birth and one of my adoption but I declined to be spoken to in that tone of life I will not be told I have a supernatural offer for you can be redeemed if you believe just in me but if you don't like it you can be tortured forever I won't be talked to like that that is the language of fascism in the Train it's directly immoral and it's a very great relief to know that it's completely mythical that there isn't a rag of truth to the story I'm glad you have the freedom to say your beliefs and I'm glad I live in a shorter where I want you to share my beliefs as well and now if we could well why don't you ask a very brief question because it's time to sum up what did yesterday tanka give him the microphone what if he's talking you should be sitting it seems to me we got way off base here this gentleman started off with this thing was about the existence of God and all I've heard is morality and lots of psychobabble and religious babble and my question is simple and I haven't read your book didn't know anything about you and I saw your picture in the paper but with the precision with which the universe does revolve which is very precise gets off a little bit where we're done and I'm not a scientist the complexity of your human body is so complex given five billion years if we were here do you really believe that evolution the Big Bang and the the degree with which the universe revolves could just happen do you really believe that I noticed this big tendency lately it's called the fine-tuning argument to impress me what's China press you a second look how nearly nothing happened at all look how nearly it was all a complete failure I've failed completely to see the force of this argument either scientifically or by analogy here's the situation Edwin Hubble as you know discovered that the effect of the Big Bang was that the universe was exploding away from itself at a faster rate that had been thought but it was a very quickly indeed it's called the red light shift most people thought that if only for Newtonian reasons that would go on but if the rate of expansion would slow it just couldn't possibly keep going that fast but Lawrence Krauss and other various Jewish physicist of shown relatively recently the rate of expansion is going up it's burning away from itself faster than it was before so very very soon you won't even be able to see from the red light shift what the evidence of the original Big Bang was we were lucky to catch it while we could it's going and in the mean time so a lot of work wherever the something came from there's a huge amount of nothingness headed our way at warp speed and in the mean time if you want a smaller example just look at the night sky where you could not see the Andromeda galaxy almost without a telescope headed directly on collision course for us that's coming who knows which will happen first a lot of nothingness not if nothing a lot enough will well not well if all this you've got all this somethingness I'm gonna have to tell my Navy story now but how does this add it directly relevant now you can tell that in your closing what does this refute the fine-tuning argument since the cosmological constant which drives the acceleration in the expansion of the universe has to be fine-tuned to one part out of 10 to the 120 of power in order for us to exist then let's take leave a smaller case I mean I was doing just the suburban one of the Andromeda galaxy is headed for us take our own just tiny little village or the solar system of all the other planets in the system and all of them are lifeless except our own either because they're much too much much too bloody hot or much too bloody cold and that's true of large tracts of our own a planet as well which are the climatic knife-edge as we have good reason to know studied more and more and threatens us with extinction relatively swiftly and if we were to become extinct all we would be doing would not all but one of the things we've been doing will be joining the 98.9% all species ever created on earth that already become extinct as we very nearly didn't are very early days in Africa so some design huh and some tuning it's basically an extinction racket a huge lottery which most people and most things lose which we are fated and slated to do so so you since you're it's used to me that this is me expressing continual thanks and gratitude for this and retrospectively conferring baptism on the people who died before they knew that we were all going to go extinct is analogy define okay thank you all for your questions I'm sorry we didn't have more time for more now it's time for our closing statements we're running a little bit behind so I'd ask each of you to take three minutes to sum up for us and leave us with something to chew on we'll start this time in this order we'll start with Jim and work our way down that so go thank you thank you Stan and thank you each of you for joining our conversation today I am especially grateful for lady and I've been friends for years and I'm so grateful for his work in ministry and I watched dr. Wilson and dr. Craig with great gratitude and it profited from what they have done I have enjoyed immensely my reading of Christopher Hitchens prior to his writings on religion and a founder today today and I found in today to be exactly what I expected I expected him to have humor I expected him to be insightful and bright and brilliant and it has been an honor to do this with you Christopher thank you well three points I would make by way of closing that seemed to me to be part of the issue that has been discussed for two hours as we have looked at the reality and the relevance of the god of Christianity first has to do with the uniqueness of the atonement it continues to bother so many people that Christianity we claim that Jesus is uniquely the way to God and that his death 2000 years ago is uniquely our hope my mother suffered from colon cancer a number of years ago there was one particular chemotherapeutic he that saved your life we were not frustrated that we didn't have 29 options we were grateful for the one chemotherapy that was effective in combating the disease that would otherwise have killed her Jesus is the only person ever to have died on the cross to pay for our sin the only person ever to take our place that offer is available to all of the human race it's not a problem to have only one key as long as that key opens the law it's not a problem to have only one road as long as it leads all the way home the uniqueness of the atonement is that God loves us and is made possible as left for us through Christ a second point I would want to make returns to the distinction between Christianity and religion again and again today for these two hours we have discussed the problems and struggles that world religions and I continue to want to say Christianity is not religion it is relationship and to condemn Christianity because of the excesses of other religions is simply patently unfair to the Christian faith my last point that I would make would be and I was fascinated to hear this before that Christopher had said that he did not understand really what it could be that would persuade him against his atheism or away from his atheism Antony flew years ago made an argument against Christianity that it was not falsifiable that in fact no argument can count against Christianity which made a meaningless speech Antony flew has since become a theist which is a fascinating step that we all hope Christopher will take as well in the course of the conversation I would want to make the point out of first Corinthians 15 and it returns to Christopher's original opening statement if someone could in fact prove to us that they had in their possession the corpse of Jesus Christ Christianity would be false the Bible says that if Christ be not raised from the dead we're evolving most to be pity I believe a theism is non falsifiable Christianity is falsifiable relative to resurrection it is demonstrated by the reality of the resurrection my last point would have to do with again the meaning and the significance of this personal relationship yesterday I was part of a service a memorial service for 98 year-old member of our church who had lived a remarkable and distinguished life from there my wife and I went to the hospital where we waited for one of my dearest friends in the world to come and tell us that his wife had completed the childbirth process for a baby who was 19 we sold and would not survive and when he came to tell us that their child Charlie had been born at 2:17 yesterday and we could go back and we could see him and we could be with them and now we're planning a memorial service in a few days I can tell you that if that father and mother were here today they would tell you that their faith in Jesus Christ is the only hope they have and the ultimate hope they have and the meaning that they find in such a chaotic and fallen world as this and I am so grateful they have that home and I would want to offer that hope to all who are willing to consider the claims of Christ today we I have to say I share this gentleman's frustration a bit because and I share it not only in terms of today's discussion but also in terms of reading books by Christopher yeah his book God is not great and some other books by some militant atheists recently that you know we just kind of refused to deal with the kind of affirmative arguments for the existence of God it refused to wrestle with those refused to respond to those and instead kind of you know it reminds me of a court of law you know trial lawyers will say you know if the if you got the law on your side you know then argue that if you've got the facts on your side argue that otherwise argue the opposite and what he doesn't have the facts on his side in terms of the evidence that points toward the existence of God and so we kind of have focused a lot on various permutations of the pain and suffering issue in various ways for which there is a Christic in a Christian response that's been articulated and I think makes sense so you know I would encourage some further discussion at some point about these arguments that stand unrefuted I mean the fact that they met you know Christopher said a minute ago he said there's not a rag of truth it's a Christian ago that's a statement an opinion it's not that's not an argument that's not evidence of points of something and you know I I I would challenge anybody to transcribe his response of the fine-tuning thing and read it on paper and see if that makes one shred of sense in terms of answering the ultimate question of the fine-tuning of the universe you talk about disc geology and we can get into that their answers for that sort of thing so I think my frustration is as someone who had been an atheist and being persuaded that the Christian case is a better explanation of the universe and their life - to hear some at some point writing a discussion really wrestling with these classical and I think evolving in terms of getting sharper with Viking argument and cosmology increasingly potent arguments for the existence of God Thank You Lee god I thought of one thing in this last question about the complexity of the human body you know if you want to if you want to be an unbeliever you can always spin it that way my brother-in-law had a professor in medical school who was an atheist an unbeliever and his reason for atheism was he said the liver is so complicated God couldn't make one and when you look at the human cell and you look at the complexities of the world around us and there's much more going on there's there's much more of a prima facie case for a designer than I think the mill an atheist want to want to let on the center of my closing remarks I'd like to address speaking for wicked delusional idiots everywhere the problem that I I think many Christians have when they hear someone like Christopher say this the year this is theological fascism it's Orwellian ISM and that sort of thing we want to say as Christians our immediate reflex action there's no no or not we're not trying to be wicked we the motivated by love if we believe these things then then surely we're going to share the good news with others so we don't this is not motivated by wickedness no we're not wicked we're not delusional I used to be delusional I used to take drugs all the time until Jesus saved me and you know that sort of thing we try to answer it at that level but I want to encourage you and leave this with you when Christopher says wicked delusional idiot says who in what universe what universe what does the universe have to be like in order for wicked delusional idiots to exist all right what kind of world is that it's not a time and chance materialistic universe in a time chance matter in motion universe there's no such thing as a wicked delusional idiot there's no such thing Christopher is telling you these things but he doesn't have a chair he's floating up here I tell you you come look good there's no foundation for his moral claims there's no foundation for what he's saying and so consequently it's good polemics Christopher is a gifted wordsmith he's a gifted wordsmith but he's got these moral judgments suspended from an invisible sky hook somewhere and I don't know where what were the bolts are so I don't have to be truly good words mister point out you what he must have noticed had come all the way to Dallas to be told it because I don't believe in the supernatural the material world doesn't exist because I don't believe in the supernatural I haven't got a chair sat on I mean I'm sorry that was I've I've heard you do better than this and I was a mystic mrs. Jennison that wasn't an ALICE Jesse um I don't want to seem insensitive but the friends have you also undergoing this to stress but I want to draw attention to something that you said you said that their belief on Jesus in their suffering was their only in other words what you're saying what you're asking me and others to believe is that if Christianity is false these people have no hope now do you really mean that is it would it be the case that if Christianity by chance was found to be just one of many other man-made faiths but think a case for which I think can quite strongly be made that it isn't really that much different from all kinds of other religions of humans who invented for themselves that we would therefore be condemned to utter despair there'd be nothing to hope for nothing to live for nothing this is a Council of just there it's at one it's both a too arrogant it seems to me to coercive heinous implications and also to abject to slavish it seems to me to exhibit both us deformities I'm not admirer of CS Lewis but I did think it was very brave of him to say I'm going here to the traditional point very brave of him to admit that if Jesus of Nazareth was not the Son of God the Incarnate son the Redeemer if he wasn't that then his doctrines his teachings with the ravings of an evil mad person image you cannot say as people like Thomas Jefferson and the deist used to say he wasn't divine but he was a great moral preacher no these doctrines are immoral they say leave your family don't care about the moral don't care about thrift your investment all your loved ones do give up everything follow me because the earth is coming this vale of tears is coming to an end bracelet and vicarious Redemption is available and you'll go to hell if you don't do everything I say and these would be these would be with would be delusional idiotic ratings and Lewis was was brave enough and honest enough for once in this rushing career what to make this play ok now I'll close on Douglas his question to me because it was a good challenge he says why why do I care about things like the Inquisition or the Crusades I would have the jihad why do I find these things more repulsive than others I'll give you a simple answer there's enough trouble from people who want to run my life from people who want to tell me what to do to take my property to order me about to tell me what books I can read who I can sleep with in what position what food I can eat or not and on what day there's enough coercion and threatened question without some other closer relative of a chimpanzee some other primate telling me that he's got the right to tell me these things because he's doing God's will the initial Emancipation the first emancipation an intelligent human being has to be able to come up with is this the beginning of freedom and liberties to say there isn't a human who can do that here there is no human who knows God's will there's no human being looking to point himself and say he's got God on his side and that's why he has the right to tell you what to do this is the first and greatest of our emancipations all others flow from it you'll all feel very much better when you let go belief in the celestial North Korea Thanks bill well as I look at my notes from our discussion today I see on the one hand about 10 arguments that have been offered for theism or Christian theism almost none of which have been responded to or refuted the argument from contingency for why something exists rather than nothing the argument from the beginning of the universe explained in philosophy and cosmology the argument from the fine-tuning of the universe was not answered adequately the mere mortality of human beings doesn't in any way show that the universe was not fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent life the moral argument has not been refuted because it's been simply subject to the confusion between the basis for moral values and how we come to know moral values and the argument is not that you need to believe in God in order to behave properly the argument rather is that without a transcendent foundation there is no objective moral value there these are just the sociological biological spin-offs of the evolutionary process the ontological argument hasn't been dealt with the argument from Bialek biological complexity and DNA information Lee's argument from consciousness mind Doug Wilson's argument from the impossibility of rationality in a naturalistic universe in which everything is just fizzing rather than the product the result of rational thought and finally Denison's appeal to self validating experience seems to me all of these provide very powerful reasons for thinking that theism is true and then the radical personal claims and the resurrection of Jesus which I think are historically well validated provide good grounds for believing Christian theism is true so I have to disagree with Jim Denison when he says atheism isn't falsifiable on the contrary I think it is very plausibly falsified not simply false of a falsifiable it is falsified now on the other hand I hear one argument basically for atheism tonight and that would be the argument from problem of suffering but here the difficulty is that Christopher admitted that given Christian theism it is an internally coherent worldview Denison and Wilson explained that given God's desire to create human beings who have freedom to make significant moral choices and that there will be justice and desserts appropriately given in the afterlife it makes perfectly good sense to think that there would be a world that would be so fused with natural and moral suffering and Richard not Richard that Christopher doesn't refute the point he just senses but I don't see any reason to believe this worldview is true but we've just given ten reasons to think that it's true and none of these have been refuted so I think Christopher needs to come to grips more rigorously with the arguments I also heard from Christopher what I expected to hear today colorful phraseology rhetoric congenial of personality but little intellectual engagement with the substance of the argument and so so so I want to invite Christopher for our debate on April 4th and Biola University that you do some more preparation and come prepared to engage specifically with these arguments because I think that's where the the real issue is going to lie we need to ask ourselves are there grounds for believing Christian theism is true or is this as others have suggested simply a dislike of the Christian God that leads one to say I'm not going to believe in him because I wouldn't like it if it's true that would not be a rational way to behave it's got to be made more based not simply on personal prayer such a session was ever made by me no that was the accusation made of you and I I think that it sticks given the absence of argument on your side your admission that Christian theism isn't a coherent worldview if it has good evidence for it so I think we need to see more specific engagement with the arguments have been offered tonight thank you very much gentlemen that thank you sir

Channel: CaNANDian

Views: 1,430,799

Rating: 4.7028184 out of 5

Keywords: Christopher, Hitchens, vs, Christians, Does, the, God, of, Christianity, exist, 2009, William, Lane, Craig, Douglas, Wilson, Lee, Strobel, Jim, Dennison

Id: 2j3VU1T8ALU

Length: 119min 57sec (7197 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 24 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/thesunmustdie]

So far the Christians have argued:

• Atheists have faith

• Empty tomb

• Fine tuning arguments

• Atheists believe everything came from nothing

• Cosmological argument

• Arguments from ignorance

... I'm going to have to tap out soon. This is painful.

[u/MeeHungLowe]

It is absolutely amazing. Hitch is the only honest one in the group. The rest immediately slip into "preacher mode" every time they open their mouths. 90% of their arguments are simply appeals to emotion. Pass the friggin' collection plate...

[u/[deleted]]

[deleted]

What is this?

[u/korsair_13]

This is also pretty old. Hitch is not a philosopher and has issues dealing with problems regarding how we as atheists can have morality. What he often misses (especially when dealing with the disingenuous of WLC), is that objective can mean a great deal of things. We can have objective moral values in the same way the law can have objective measures of appropriate behavior. That is, viewed through the lens of a reasonable person, apprised of all of the circumstances making a decision. Using this, it is easy to determine what values or mores make a better culture than which ones do not. That is, the outcomes from the decision and the thought processes should be reasonable and based on evidence.

[u/johnnyfatsac]

I was lucky enough to be at this debate at the Dallas Convention Center! If I remember, it was the Christian book expo... Hitch single handily destroying this group of high profile Christians weak arguments in front of an overwhelmingly religious audience was an incredible thing to witness!

[u/eye_goober]

Watched it in its entirety. One thing I wish Hitch would have done to refute the repeated "how can you care about the (insert historical human genocide event here) if you don't have faith"objection is to point out that we as a species wish for a fair outcome for all since we never know when we might face the losing end of said tragedy.

[u/[deleted]]

I'll check it out, but these debates always bothered me. It'd be far more interesting to watch a non-believing scholar of religion or philosophy argue with similarly matched people. The problem with people like Hitch and Dawkins is that they're arguing outside their field of expertise.

Of the people Hitch is up against here, the only one I'm particularly familiar with is William Lane Craig, and I don't have a whole lot of respect for him. Still, might be interesting, or at least entertaining.

[u/mikeoc1969]

Spankin'!!!!! This iconic man has such great intellect and rational appeal. I started reading his newspaper articles as I was finishing up reading the bible in its entirety. C.H. was much more though provoking and mentally stimulating then anything in the bible.

[u/ryatt]

I love this debate, and I love the late, great Hitch.