Christopher Hitchens vs Dinesh D'Souza | God on Trial Debate

[Applause] welcome to powell hall in god on trial i'm i'm larry cotton executive director of fixpoint foundation the sponsor for this evening debate our two combatants are widely recognized as powerful and an eloquent spokesman for their respective worldviews to my right and representing the Atheist perspective is none other than author journalist and philosopher I think we can say that he has a philosopher Christopher Hitchens if the title of his bestseller God is not great how religion poisons everything left me wondering precisely what mr. Hitchens thinks about religious belief I'm confident that by this evenings conclusion you will have no doubt opposing him it to my left is Dinesh D'Souza a best-selling author formerly a fellow of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University a White House policy analyst he is first hat best known for his political writing however in his most recent book what's so great about Christianity mr. de souza weighs in on the subject of this evening's debate let us give both men a warm welcome a word about the debate and the format the subject of tonight's debate is is it good to believe in God in this sense it may be said that God is on trial here this evening or belief in God depending upon your perspective by God we mean the Christian God we will begin with opening statements those men will receive about 10 minutes apiece this will be followed by five-minute rebuttals and then a 15-minute rapid-fire Q&A session this is kind of like ping pong here where the two of them will be questioning one another and then after the series of short exchanges you the members of the audience will be invited to offer your own questions there are you will see two mics down here in the front of the stage and you'll just simply queue up there at the appropriate time finally mr. D'Souza and mr. Hitchens will offer their closing remarks now if perhaps goes without saying that passions run high with issues like religion and politics and you will very likely get both from these men this evening many of you are bound to take issue with what you hear from this stage tonight but we ask that you extend to these gentlemen every courtesy I can say without reservation that if you knew them regardless of your opinion on the issues you would like them tonight to you I promise we will begin with mr. de souza good evening everyone and welcome I want to thank the fixed-point foundation for putting on this this debate I noticed we have a rather exotic set up some other unusual podiums I'm relieved I remember to wear pants I'm delighted to be here from California Christopher Hitchens came in from Washington DC I used to live in Washington DC the city that seems to combine northern efficiency and southern charm we're here to debate is it good to believe in God and specifically the Christian God now in some senses when you talk about God here is a topic on which nobody really knows for sure in other words we approach this topic to some degree both of us in the dark what comes after death no one knows in a sense I would in calling myself a believer distinguished beliefs from knowledge when you believe something you don't know I wouldn't say I believe in my brother I know the guy in that sense there is a gap between belief and knowledge I would like to argue that it is it makes more sense it's more reasonable it will make our life better it will infuse our life with a sense of purpose and destiny if we acknowledge that there is a God and I will also make the case that it makes the most sense to believe in the Christian God and in Christ why should we believe in God what are the indicators that point us to God well the first one is there needs to be some explanation for why we have a universe interestingly we have a universe and modern science tells us that this universe had a beginning which is to say not only that all of matter but space and time itself had a beginning what is the cause for which the universe is the effect now you might say there could be a natural cause or there could be a supernatural cause we can write off the natural cause because the universe encompasses all of nature therefore it would seem to make sense deposit a non natural or I will say supernatural cause I'm going to argue that it makes sense to believe in God Christopher Hitchens is going to argue it makes sense to believe that we are in a sense evolved Darwinian primates without the need to posit a creator but if we are evolved Darwinian primates evolved presumably to survive and reproduce to perpetuate our genes in what sense can we hold our beliefs to be true in other words in what sense can we hold even this debate to be a debate not just about what's useful or what's adaptive but what's actually true we might have evolved larger brains in order to get along better in the world but how is it that we can posit laws about the universe the rotation of the planets e equals MC square those would seem to be very unnecessary propositions for us to survive as Darwinian primates and then of course there is morality and what I mean by morality is not the low level of morality which is essentially you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours what I mean by morality is that little voice inside our head when when we want to do something the further ourselves or fulfill our desires or promote our self-interest the little voice that seems to urge no in other words morality defined as a force that operates against self-interest and we see this both in the great sacrifices of people who give their lives we also see it in the very simple act of someone who gets up and donates blood or someone who gets up to give us heating up to someone in a bus something for which you have no possibility of gain what is the Darwinian explanation for that I would suggest that there isn't one the mathematician Pascal many years ago offered a very interesting argument for how you decide when you are as we are in the dark when you don't know about something and there's really no possibility of empirical evidence on questions of things like is there life after death we can't wait for dead people to come back and tell us we've got to think about it with what we know now and Pascal says when you're faced with an important decision of that nature you have to weigh the odds you have to consider the chance of being wrong in each case and so in this case we can say what if I believe in God but there's no god what's the downside and the downside Pascal points out is simply metaphysical error if you believe in God and you turn out to be wrong you will have gotten a retroactive see in philosophy class but what about the opposite what if you reject God and it turns out that you're wrong Pascal argues in that case you face a much more troubling prospect separation eternal separation from God so Pascal ask given this what rational guy acting in the dark would vote against God now let's note that Pascal is not making an argument for Christianity he's making an argument for the acceptance of God I want to talk a little more specifically now in the time I have left about Christianity because you might ask why do we accept these exotic Christian doctrines the fall the resurrection the miracles Jesus and so on in some ways I would put it sort of this way I would begin with the proposition I think that there's no one in this room would deny things are not as they ought to be is there anyone who disputes that things are not as they ought to be now things are not as they ought to be it follows that we live on two levels here's the way we are as human beings and here's the way that all of us in some senses understand that we should be you may say the level of what is and the level of what should be the human level and you may say the divine level the distance between those two levels is what Christians mean when we use the term the fall and in some ways all the religions of the world are efforts to bridge this enormous chasm between what is the case and what ought to be the case we find in the Eastern religions a very easy diagnosis of what what's wrong what's wrong is the self we are the problem and what is the solution abolish the self in some senses if we can eradicate the eye that is experiencing all these difficulties then according to Hinduism and Buddhism in slightly different variants we solve the problem I regard that as an intellectually sound conclusion but a little impractical then you have the Jewish and the Islamic solution to the problem which is essentially ruled you can look upon the rules of Judaism and the rules of Islam rules of diets rules of kosher rules of circumcision rules of facing in the direction of Mecca rules of praying five times a day as a human effort to construct a ladder to cross this enormous chasm if you will from the human level to the divine level it's the premise of Christianity it's actually the anthropological observation of Christianity that no matter how high you build this human ladder it's not going to get there it's an adequate that if this chasm is to be crossed it's only going to be crossed in one way and that is in some senses for the divine level ie for God to condescend across the chasms is a human level and that is the emissary that is Christian we would point to in Jesus the crisis if you will the divine enterprise of reaching into history crossing the divine level and enabling this enormous gap to be to be bridged 30 seconds I have a lot more to say about all this but let me just say that I think that if you are an atheist what you are really saying is that there is no such thing as enduring morality even though you live by it there's no such thing as enduring rationality even though you assume it and come to debate about it and in some senses you have no basis on which to develop except on a kind of relativistic way a sense of meaning and purpose in life as Christians though not only can we account for the world as it is not only does the world make sense but our lives make sense and we have a morality we can pass on to our children it brings us closer to what Milton called Eden a paradise within the happier far thank you very much [Applause] go ahead okay there was only good Clarissa um ladies and gentlemen brothers sisters comrades friends my teller Americans has taken me a while to get to say that and Philip primates and ironic but accepting Co mammals look you you can't not have noticed not just in spite of but because of the great dexterity of my friend Dinesh D'Souza that he wants to argue for deism in other words you can't absolutely show there's no prime mover you can't absolutely show there's no designer you can't absolutely disprove no atheist has ever been able to wish to claim that you can say there is no author but you can say there's no arguments for the authorship or the design or the deity or the creator that's ever been valid or coherent or integral but he wants to smuggle through the customs of the argument about gears and an argument for theism if he could prove there was an author a prime mover a deity a creator which he can't do and no such person on his side even as clever as he or clever has ever been able to do all his main work as a Christian would still be ahead of him because he would still have to be able to show that this author knew that you and I were here tonight that they minded with whom we went to bed and in what position that they minded what we ate that they minded how we circumcised our children in what manner a genital mutilation was done by us but they cared now there's a huge difference between the concept of an authorship of the cosmos and universe and the idea of an intervening caring utterly supervising knowing and some say loving though they have a lot to prove at that point deity and I shall begin by not attempting everything sub fishes not trying to smuggle through customs a fearsome by deism or an atheism by ver an anti deism I shall say specifically if I'm an anti theist and that I believe that the emancipation from religion is the fundamental emancipation that the human mind must undergo before it can consider any very serious questions and I raise it like this objection my objection on outside to the concept of a divine supremacy is this that it refers all the undecidable agonizing questions of our species of our being how shall we live how should we make the just City is there a point to our existence how are we to consider the rights and duties that we have one within to another and many many other extremely arduous and terrible questions that no one human generation will ever saw or is ever going to be able to solve and refers them upward refers them upward to a totalitarian absolutist unanswerable monarch and says only this tyrant can decide and without him we would have no knowledge of ethics or morality or realism or any of these questions it is the beginning of civility it's the beginning of objection it is the definition of the master/slave relationship it's what needs to be it's what needs to be broken in our mentality before we can be free it is the reason for the Virginia statute on religious liberty it is the reason for the First Amendment for the Constitution it is the reason for the idea of the separation of church and state that it cannot be it may not be theologically legislative the manner in which we discuss philosophy morals ethics and all the other great questions that will always agitated and to which there is it could be fairly said no end if I make no other point this evening if I leave nothing else in your in your mind I'll be grateful if you listened just that far now I know lots of atheists many of them former believers who say they wish they could believe or they miss they have nostalgia for the time when they could go to confession or go to Mass and believe in the sacraments or whatever it might be oh they missed the time that they could say Allahu Akbar and really mean it or go to the Wailing Wall and press a piece of paper into a man-made structure and think that they were communicating directly with the AR way they stopped being able to believe it they wish they still could I say why do you miss it why do you want to be a slave why do you want to be a serf why do you want Big Brother to be in charge do you wish it to be true that there is someone who has you under permanent round-the-clock supervision and surveillance who knows what you think even when you are asleep who can convict you I borrow again from the Big Brother logic of thought crime and you can condemn you forever to eternal penalty and torture if you make the smallest mistake who creates you sick who makes you a sinner who says you you are originally wicked and then orders you to be well and to recover on penalty of torture what is this but the most horrific sadomasochistic prostration of human personality before the most interstellar coldness of authority and tyranny why does anyone wish this was true to emancipate oneself from this it seems to me is the beginning of the long story of human liberation and from very early days from Democritus from Lucretius from Epicurus all the way through to Spinoza to Einstein to our own day that's been the real struggle the right to look the churches and the priests and the and the godheads in the eye and say I don't believe it I don't believe a word of it and you can't make me the beginning of civilization as well as the beginning of liberation today's news from North Korea cheered me up very much I hope he's dying and I hope it takes him I hope it takes him a long time and I hope it's agony and shame and misery and pain for him I've been in North Korea actually and all the axis of evil' country I've seen I used to wonder when I was a child what's it like when they told me here's what hell is like I could I could see what hell would be like eternal punishment for things I've never done I could get that point all right but it subtle praise for an eternal leader that goes on forever always thanking him always groveling - always falling in front of him I thought sounds like hell to me but I couldn't picture it I've been in North Korea I can picture the sprawling the abject groveling of the whole people in front of a Godhead remember when when mr. Bush writes to Kim jong-il he calls him mr. chairman not mr. president why not Kim jong-il isn't the president of North Korea who is president his late father is the president his father has been dead for 15 years North Korea is a net prophecy it's at an autocracy to mores hola Chrissy its current leader is considered the reincarnation of his father it's one short of a trinity it's a totally worshipful state with a God and it's the most horrible tyranny on the face of the earth possibly ever and I've been there and I've know of you so happy to leave anywhere in my entire life if North Koreans can't do they can't they can't get out of it locked in that jail and that godly jail forever but at least is this being filmed Lycoris never mind at least you can die and get out of North Korea monotheism doesn't allow you that when you die according to Judaism of which Christianity is a plagiarism and of and to Islam which is a plagiarism of Judaism and ignorant plagiarism of Judaism Christianity that's when the fun really begins that's when the tyranny really starts that's when you find out who wants this to be true who thinks that this kind of survival abject groveling fearful life the preparation for eternity of misery and shame is worth having is worth defending is worth speaking out for who who isn't delighted to time that the answer to all generations question rhetorical another one deceive me sweetly put as their work to all of them is no no Dinesh no there is no reason to think that the what physicists call the Big Bang now Big Bang requires a supernatural explanation there is you can't find a physicist who thinks that that theory doesn't work without a supernatural work they may say it works with no one will say it wouldn't work if you don't make that assumption there is no biologist there's no geologist who won't say the same about the evolution of our of our globe the layers all the way back to the Cambrian and the devonian that requires a supernatural station none of it requires that but the study of amino acids sorry 36.7 well i need all this the study of proteins and amino acids and their own interior body requires it doesn't as Laplace the greatest of authors has said when asked when you produce the first working model of the universe asked by another arrogant self crowned worship demanding Emperor burned but there seems to be no God in your model Laplace says well sir your majesty it works without that assumption yes it does and so must we if we are to claim the Liberty that is our birthright thank you [Applause] you have five minutes to respond thank you I think we see in some ways I think in a very striking way the thrust of what can be called the New Atheism and I say this because in normal conversation when you talk of an atheist you get a lot of well I don't believe because I just don't have enough evidence if only there was proof that was in front of me I would be a believer I think in Christopher Asians who get something very revealing a certain kind of honest atheism Christians begins with some perfunctory comments about deism he says I don't distinguish between deism and theism well deism is a form of theism every theist believes that there is a creator god who set the universe in motion so the ISM is a subset of theism Jefferson was a deist he was also a theist North Korea now we're getting a little closer to what's motivating modern atheism I will point out by the way that North Korea and Cuba are the two remaining residues of what could be called the great atheist Enterprise of the 20th century when we think of religion we think of the crimes of bin Laden and radical Islam how many people has bin Laden killed three thousand five thousand ten thousand twenty thousand even a Junior League atheist like Pol Pot who doesn't even make it into the top rank of Mao and Stalin Pol Pot in the space of about three years in Indochina after the Vietnam War manages to wipe out with his Khmer Rouge regime some two million people so what we are seeing here is the last gasp and thank God for it of an attempt to create the purely secular society redeemed or removed from the influence without religion without morality a society if you will than worship God we worship if you will to substitute God the dictator the ideology so I think that the example of North Korea far from undermining religion with which Kim jong-il has nothing to do is actually an illustration of what happens to societies when they try to purge religion completely now some years ago the philosopher Tom Nagel made a comment he was thinking about the issue of God and he said it's not that I don't believe in God he said I don't want there to be a god I don't want the universe to be like that now at first glance this may seem like a little bit of a puzzle why would someone not want God to exist I think we begin to get the answer from Christopher Hitchens first of all let's consider for the moment his complaints that to believe in Christianity is somehow to be placed under the subjugation of some kind of a totalitarian regime first of all all belief in God and certainly Christianity is based on free choice no one is being forced into it you are free to say yes when you are free to say no that's the whole message of the Garden of Eden then quite apart from having any totalitarian recipe I agree there are moral codes in Islam and in certain religions that are harsh in Christianity the basic code is so gentle in other words no matter how lengthy the roster of your misdeeds somebody else Christ paid for them all that is required for you is to accept that fact not even to stop sinning but merely to accept that you are not the author of your own salvation and such is the perversity and obstinacy of human nature that this simple act of acknowledgement is viewed as totalitarian why is it beautiful talat area because we can't believe in the resurrection and the miracles it turns out that Christopher Hitchens objection has nothing to do with that thirty Seconds rather the objection you might say is to Christian morality it's to the idea of ultimate moral accountability religions are about moral accountability they're about what goes around comes around in life very often the bad guy ends up ahead the good guy comes to grief Christianity says that there will be if you will a Last Judgement so does Hinduism Hinduism says have you've been a lousy rat in this life will be seeing you as a cockroach in the next life karmic justice time it is a rebellion against morality a desire to escape from the moral rules of Christianity this is what is driving the New Atheism thank mr. Hitchens miss for instance five minute so I would be just as happy to have my atheism described as being old-fashioned kind there's nothing really neo about my beliefs anyone there is without save someone else who initially misrepresented Thomas Jefferson night he may well have been ideas that thought by most first that that was the default position for an educated person in those days after all he would correspond one among the many skills he had was that the paleontologists with a de Buffon of the current leading natural scientist at the time saying why do you think it is in Virginia there are seashells so high up on the mountain tops what we can't work out how that could possibly be or how that should be these fossil burnt questions that to all of us are easily decidable whereas recently as the presidency of Thomas Jefferson opaque and after all Thomas Sousa Charles Darwin wasn't going to be born until 1809 on as it happened the exact same day as Abraham Lincoln Charles Darwin being the I think the greater of the two emancipator's help us decide these questions but it is now accepted by everyone who studies these matters that there is no need for supernatural explanation for anything that confronts us now is pleased not to be challenged on this but you know in the natural world which makes the religious case an optional one which again makes me rephrase my question why do you want it to be true now Gina says you can be a Christian we can not be a question I don't know where he gets this farm I've heard him in recent debates we've met each other before and these matters say he asked his father daddy we're living India we have Portuguese surnames why are we Catholics when everyone else in India attempts we didn't do all of them and his father said I think what's a friendly well it's because of the Portuguese in position forcible conversion that's why a certain number of people in Goa are called this user and are Catholics by the way there is always a material explanation for why any person in any country is a member of any one religion if George Bush should be born in Saudi Arabia he'll be just as stupid and Muslim as yesterday a Methodist and he would be justice and he would be just as convinced that he wouldn't know about morality unless he was a Sunni I underline that point it does Christianity give you the option which says well here's why I think Christian is immoral I'll say briefly since Dinesh's has agreed to meet me on this ground the doctrine of vicarious redemption is in my judgment I'll submit it to you for your verdict and not a moral one an immoral one what is vicarious Redemption say it says you may throw your sins upon another person and have them taken away by his torture today now comrades brothers system of any one of you who is my friend I might say I'll pay your death you're in trouble you have no money I have I'll pay your debt you get forget the debt if you weren't really serious trouble there have been circumstances Charles Dickens wrote about them very well in the chair of Two Cities I might agree to take your place in prison I suppose in the case of the extreme abject soulful as well I could offer to take a place on the scaffold but I cannot I cannot believe you of your responsibility I cannot say you didn't commit this crime I cannot say your guiltless of this sin and cannot say that you did not commit this great offense against morality I cannot take it from you the promise to do that is an immoral promise so is the promise to do it by human sacrifice just as it is immoral for the New Testament to try and vindicate the hideous blood-stained genocide all racist demands of the Old Testament which as you remember how did the other way around in this case God demands that we sacrificed our sons to him as if to redeem that he says all right a makeup prick our murder and torture my son for you what is this but what I said in my opening statement the worst kind of primitive barbaric Bronze Age Palestinian sadomasochism in what sense thirty Seconds I don't need to say I leave the question with you in what sense is this and what sense is this the way the truth or the life it is instead a worship of death a worship of power and an abnegation of freedom and when we have seen through it we will start to grow to our full human height and I hope you'll join me in the enterprise thank you my ladies and gentlemen it is at this time that we will begin a Q&A between the two of them now I'm not entirely sure how I'm to regulate this but nonetheless we will begin over here with with mr. de souza the idea is short questions short responses back and forth gentlemen we will take 15 minutes to do this okay let's begin Christopher if I may with Thomas Jefferson you kind of implied that he might have been kind of going along with the Christianity of his day that may be so running for president and all but in writing the Declaration of Independence Jefferson the product of the Enlightenment had a chance to lay out a drawing from lock or Shaftesbury or anyone else a theory of where our rights come from our basic right what he called our inalienable right and in thinking about this question Jefferson looking at all the possible sources of right social contracts and so on ultimately ends up saying that our rights come from only one source what he calls the creator he can think presumably of no other source of right and moreover it's because the rights come from the Creator that they are inalienable if the rights came from anywhere else if they are my right why shouldn't I be able to sell myself into slavery I own my own body it's mine the presumption of rights from a creator is that no it's not entirely yours you can sell your labor like I can't tell your fourth thing let's what mix are just mr. Hitchens respond well isn't this a good point yes it is they're great I can easily say yes to the last thing ask me it's a reasonable point does this reasonable to know that in his letter to his nephew Peter Carr Jefferson says if you should conclude from your reading which he enjoined him to sue if you should find as a result that we do you believe there is no god you may find him extraordinary happiness coming over you it's something I don't think that Jefferson could have written if he hadn't experienced it himself I'm only speculating as one of his very junior biographers it's as true as Nelson Rockefeller Amos remark which his staff used to mimic from the wings when he made his speech where he would always say Fatherhood of God means brotherhood of man and his staff would say here comes for bomb fo GPA and fatherhood of godfather Levin its mantra it's as if you couldn't have the brotherhood of man without the Fatherhood of God now that's the challenge you makes me isn't it now I will return it to you I'll share with you read it do you think in order to believe in the brotherhood of man of mankind while solidarity Arjuna to each other you must believe in a Supreme Being I invite you don't have to say anything you don't have to applaud never say yes you have to say no I'll be very surprised if any of you thinks I can't believe in the Brotherhood without the Fatherhood I would be astonished I myself as a rage can manage to do so and I was glad of the amendment to the preamble of the Constitution that was made by Benjamin Franklin a definite certifiable atheist provable atheist who said we hold these truths to be self-evident possibly the most muscular statement made in the preamble because they don't require any supernatural endorsement because yes we think that these things are in age that we have these rights of the species or we don't have them at all but to claim that we have them and we need divine permission for them is somewhat over egging the pudding Chris where you're at you're you're posting one to me that's right okay do you your turn do you think that someone whose mother is a virgin has any special claim to attention for the remarks that they subsequently made in other words do you think that if I was to say to you Dinesh it's been fun chatting and everything but um I win this argument because my mother never went to bed with a man well I think you're you think there's this any any reason to think it's for a young virgin birth means Fatherhood of God all divine presence if you do then what makes Christianity different from every other religion whose founder was born of an untainted in my mom when I say your question strikes me with underwhelming force because not only is the argument for Christianity not dependent on the virgin birth but there are in fact many different religions including many from the pagan world that do posit a virgin birth there's nothing that was my point about the virgin claim of Christianity so it doesn't hinge on that I do want to if I may come back if an answer your point about Jefferson for this reason I do think that the brotherhood of man does not follow from from our status as Darwinian primates if you look to the animal kingdom you don't particularly see that theme stress for example in the chimpanzee colony or among a pride of lions the idea of domination the idea of the strong conquering the weak that appears to be evident in the animal kingdom you've argued relentlessly that we are in a complete continuum with that and yet you find us all assenting to a completely non Darwinian principle first of all the guy was a complete stranger nothing to me genetically and I could care less about him I should in some sense positive as equal to me the meaning of self evidence is not that we don't need God for it it means it's not evidence at all it's a moral not a factual proposition because people are not equal in strength or speed or beauty or intelligence or any quality that we could specify the self-evident means that there is a moral equality and I want to ask you what is its Darwinian origin the the debate between William Jennings Bryan and Darrell no Rachel Menken and we're talking I'm sorry about the Scopes trial in Tennessee Dayton Tennessee class day and age make a turn to a great extent there's a very brilliant essay by Garry wills on this on whether or not Jennings William Jennings Bryan suspicion was correct that social Darwinism was in the background in other words that if if the teaching of evolution by natural selection and random mutation that's the bit was often left out it was accepted but it would mean that the the poor the lame the halt the weak and so on could be simply told well it's just too bad you are that way because nature has made you see now as you can as anyone here can tell there is no necessarily such corollary there might be someone who says that so but it would not be I think discernible by anyone here that I for example who do believe that we that we've evolved have evolved by random mutation can by with natural selection for success in certain gene believes someone who is born blind or deaf it's only assumed please we left by the wayside because there's no such rule or knowing that the stronger are likely to survive knowing that for example I've had you must all do this right to the National Geographic get your genome done go to the man who's designed the national Geographics Human Genome Project see what you can get if you send them the scrubbing of the inside of your cheeks in a solution of they'll send you it cost a hundred bucks they'll tell you exactly where an applicator mother came from they'll tell you by what means she got to where you were you were new answers to the board it's remarkable absolutely remarkable seventy-five thousand years ago our species was down to we think maybe two to three thousand specimens in Africa a horrifying court for us that's the nearest we came to extinction probably because of a catastrophic weather event of a Krakatoa kind in Indonesia the climatic crisis of the kind we may face again managed to get off the savanna for which were adapted and out enough to the north and some coolness well we could have gone the way that we know we know for sure thing 98.9 of all species ever to existed on this earth have gone to extinction now I have to return the question therefore what designer did that to ninety eight point nine percent of all the species he ever created and nearly to us to if you're going to argue for that authority if you're going to say that since the one in which you put your faith you only rephrase the question this God this King this tyrant this creator this organizer must be either a very capricious or very cruel very clumsy is very incompetent or possibly entirely indifferent all four or five so you've advanced you have not advanced one millimeter towards an explanation by proposing that all of these extraordinary events require a belief in a God and you have suggested though that you would be willing to worship one who was to marry Coursera degree unknown unimaginable undreamed of in history of human despotism you cannot get out of that moral and intellectual dilemma nothing you have said this evening I predict nothing you will say will extricate you from it either well I won't get out of it unless you put a question to me well I'll leave the question where it lives a commercial I get it exactly the question is your is your is your designer either cruel or clumsy or perhaps unknowing or uncaring of the sexy has on his earth is randomly created species I'm happy to try and answer the question while noting that you sidestepped mine but the wait-wait-wait-wait on raiveer wait wait wait wait wait during the frigid River goes it's now on my go someone has to get up someone who claps has to get up and say what I sidestep who's going to be first come on let it out come on you what did I sidestep mazing was where your beliefs is coming from evolution I'm going to ask if this whip this time we saved the questions from the floor when we get to that point but at this time yes Ron there would be one of that clap anything crowd at this time let's let's have a response here I'm going to ask both of you to keep your questions and the response just a bit more brief I don't all see the clapping I think because well I think if you're going to if you're challenging the Christian theology you've got to face the theology first and then say what's wrong with it you can't stick out one strand of it the Creator God benevolent supervisory and then say well look if he's benevolent how come the world looks like this because Christian theology has an account of what happened to the world in other words in Christian theology the idea is that there was a time maybe a time an ideal time but nevertheless let's call it the Garden of Eden when things were if you will good in harmony then there is a terrible calamity that separates man from God and and has in man a stance of you could almost call it instinctive and obdurate rebellion against God I think you know the emotion you've been exhibiting all night so you got this let's let's hear a response well no I haven't I haven't had a chance to answer for seconds okay the point here is that the world is out of whack and according to Christian theology to some degree it has been jettisoned by God you could call that the expulsion from the Garden of Eden which is to say that you and I are to some degree on our own pal and that means that a Hitler a hurricane a tsunami is going to be unleashed in the world without if you will God being a cosmic bellhop to jump in and stop it at every juncture for that Christian theology you can refute it as a whole but I don't think you refute it effectively by just refuting Part A by leaving out the rest of the story so then my question will be very simple you're wearing to cloud practice anything well I just went after you do you or any of those who clas believed that there was a time when there was an agenda k-- utopia from which we fell or were expelled but that forms a real part of human history and that all of us are guilty of that school that who believe that you do that's is it do you believe it let's hear the result and well I don't ask them I can ask you I got at least ask you what reason do you have to believe that well first of all I believe it but I will say that within Christianity over two thousand years there is a debate over whether some of these things being described are to be taken literally or metaphorically but let me just point out this in the Western tradition here is Rousseau imagining natural man long before the advent of civilization here are Locke and Hobbes and Machiavelli and others talking about the state of nature you've never been there and neither have I so you have a completely secular project which is not dishonest I take it by you as absurd of positing what things were like in the original condition and then how things got to be as messed up as they are Christianity is responding to a fact that the way we are is not the way things ought to be and there have been numerous attempts to account for that while you're tweeting the Christian explanation as prime Aspasia absurd but while admitting all the others as worthy of thoughtful consideration to say it was a visit exclusive world difference between saying that there is an innate freedom or right belongs to us also say that the very exaggerated terms of her soul and the opening of his famous essay the man is born free but is everywhere in Chains in other words that there is no one who has the right to oppress or to deny the freedom there's all the difference in the world within that of what you've stated firmly which was that there was an agenda utopia from which by our source we sell and with me a Kuwait we owe a for which we owe a king an unelected monarch a Supreme Being an absolute tyrant an explanation let me in other words we could be punished in deliberately for our fall let me in any hope that is not a resilient view and you have no right no right to confuse the two well you're the president ladies and gentlemen you should ladies and gentlemen and now is a opportunity to come forward to the mics you would like to ask questions let me tell you what you're hearing on the stage tonight is nothing compared to the car ride over here now let me say something about the this question and answer time first of all we're not interested in statement from the floor people are here to hear the few gentlemen who are on the stage so we ask that you keep your questions brief otherwise it will be my responsibility to cut you all and we will move from one mic to the next and I'm sure these two gentlemen will have ample opportunity to respond to one another during this QA time at which time towards the end we'll take an opportunity for them to have their closing remarks and statements let's begin over here who's your question for my question is directed at mr. Sousa but also mr. hitchens the seasons like to give the response I would definitely love to hear it thank you both so much for being here first of all let's just sue them there Ben I'm going to obviously take on your word that you believe what you have professed tonight that's the only way for what you call salvation is through Christ does it strike you as immoral that any of the theist or atheist among those who we've discussed tonight Benjamin Franklin mr. Jefferson and who I would add mr. Einstein mr. Thomas Paine did not make this profession that they were sent by your Creator to live in an attorney of Hell informant even though they would they buy I think we would all agree with good lives it's not great live it have made significant contributions to all of us does it strike you as a zit in a moral thank you I think you you've stated two propositions as identical that are actually distinct the first one is is Christ the way to salvation as a Christian I answer yes and then your next question becomes that you've got a whole group of people some of them Christians but you might say unorthodox Christians I don't think that Jefferson would deny that he was a Christian he praised Christ for his moral teachings while denying his divinity and so you have from deism to atheism a spectrum of views the same thing with Einstein I sense that I don't like these atheists to keep trying to recruit me as a member of their camp and the reason he did that was he had if you will a tremendous reverence for what he called the mysterious natural order of the universe in order that he knew could not have generated itself so now you're asking me what's going to happen to all their souls and my answer is I don't know I'm not standing in judgment of all these people who took this view or that view on the Trinity or sat around and chopped about chopped off the parts of the Bible they didn't want I'm not dispatching Thomas Jefferson to hell so don't make the confusion between the positive Christian message about here's how you get to heaven with a kind of negative judgment which is ultimately not yours or mine to make I mean you that I don't particularly disagree with that though if Jefferson denies the divinity of Christ I think he denies that he is himself a Christian that just make that obvious but you wouldn't know from this what I know and what I don't think is disgraceful that domestics is there is a communicating member of the Roman Catholic Church now that I don't know what Jeunesse tense and I don't think he's ever been asked to legislate on the point but the head of that church the the purpose is caught by his supporters the Bishop of Rome as is known to hang with them Joseph Ratzinger's he's known by me says that you may only hope to get to heaven by adherence to one Christian Church it's not a matter for the national legislature that is if you don't believe that you're not really a Catholic if you don't believe that those who don't believe it and don't accept it may be faced with eternal punishment you know that counseling whether it's only two years ago where the church decided with great reluctance that limbo was not the destination for the souls of unbaptized children ever since of Boston I say well maybe that's not true anymore well for the for the millions of parents for the hundreds of years who thought that's where their unbaptized children had gone it was a real place ontologically and the church insisted that they believed in it I think people are responsible for the logical and moral and probable consequences of what they believe I think they should have the guts to stand up for them what's that next question from the floor here the discussion tonight has been regarding whether or not got it real whether or not Christianity is true but the topic was raised early on what is wrong leaving God if we remove the issue of truth for a moment and just look at it out come from your position if we assume everything that you believe is true what is the harm and having 90 percent of the population believe in religious ideas that cause them to give more to charity that cause them to donate more in their civic responsibilities and their family responsibilities an atheist regime certainly killed thousand times more than any Christian or religious war have today very good look let's go ahead and get this time I will you you won't think I'm dumping the question of answers in reverse order I hope Hitler's regime was the regime of a fanatical Catholic who had a Concorde out with the Vatican same is true of Mussolini same is true of Franco the word for fascism if you take out the whole just take out the word fascism from the whole history of the 1920s and 30s put put in the phrase Catholic right wing you don't have to change the thing Concorde out with the Vatican political support of the Roman Catholic Church endorsement of Crusades of from Abyssinia to Spain to Libya it's the same thing the other hitters hitters were Hitler's birthday his birthday was celebrated by order of the church from every pulpit every year so the very last day of 945 April 1945 all the other of the other member of the axis of Nazis and fascism the the Japanese Emperor he wasn't just a fear crack he was actually a God you tell him Lee Nazism fascism when the axis was secular you don't know what you're talking about fifty decision if you if you've got tile I'll tell you why I'll tell you why Kim jong-il I'll tell you what Kim jungle is a Confucian and I also explained to you how Joseph Stein was running off jobs if you've got but there's no secularism now summer has to as to does why did you know your Mayfield give to charity why would I care well try to work through as many questions from the floor as we can we have long honey let's have a man over here the gentleman's question is not answered yet let me answer he said why do I object after I feel believe in God all they'll do is give money to charity isn't that what you said that was his first question I can't duck it can i well you've had plenty of trajectory without religion makes people behave better I don't mind if you say that I don't mind if firm though I would be embarrassed by if you had to hear me saying I give blood because I'm a secularist would you think there was a sighs sappy thing for me to be saying after all I'm a socialist I don't lose a pint I get it back with a cup of tea and a bit of water but someone else has got one it's the perfect socialist exchange and I feel better for having given someone a pint of blood without losing one myself I don't have to be a masochist I don't have to grovel and suffer I've done someone a favor I've lost nothing couldn't be better but anything that's all if that's all religion did but what religion does is this religion says when someone comes to me and says I want your children to be taught stultifying nonsense in school I want them to be taught that they lived with Dinosaurs and could have ridden on saddles on dinosaurs back I want this done and I'm going to court for it why because God wants me to do let's hear a response from mr. de souza that's why that's why I'm not letting that go I can't let I can't let that Doraemon locator in motive the reason Christopher feels good when he gives blood and the reason that lions don't donate blood is because we as human beings have this rather unique quality that seems largely absent in the animal kingdom call it the moral sense now I do want to correct a couple of shocking statements and mischaracterizations that have been made here first of all I've written extensively on the issue of Hitler you should read Richard Evans multi-volume history of the Third Reich and a very interesting book called Hitler's Table Talk edited by the eminent historian Hugh trevor-roper which is the private statements of Hitler in the three years when he was in fact at the height of his power it becomes very clear that Hitler hated Christianity wanted to destroy the church in his cunning away as he could and in fact mocked and scorned religion he was in fact an atheist now in the early years of Hitler he sounded like he would say things like I want to do the Lord's work and why because he wanted to try to win over the Lutheran Church in Germany and the Catholic Church in Bavaria but this idea completely so what I'm saying is there is a huge literature on this if you go on the Atheist website they have a lot of crosses and swastikas from 1931 to 1933 but nothing at all once Hitler comes to power when he Hitler began a systematic campaign to destroy the churches a final thought about it his statement of what the Catholic Church teaches about salvation is flat out and dead wrong nowhere who has Cardinal Ratzinger or the Pope or the previous Pope that anything to the effect that salvation is only within the Catholic Church in fact that idea was condemned in Vatican 2 as a kind of a heresy and people like father Feeney who were teaching this doctrine were were in effect shut out from the Catholic Church so I would say to Christopher that he is entitled to his own opinions but he's not entitled to his own fact good go to the gentlemen let's go to the gentlemen here and you'll have an opportunity with well let-let's that year question is for he's been sadly well that actually is from Sousa uh I'd like to state my respect for both of you I have we had a meaningless exercise on our website at work where everyone was required to post let let have to fight with me I'll get right to access meaningful set up who would you most like to have a beer with you know a meaningless question my answer was alive or dead dead pictures Ronald Reagan for his moral courage a stance his in the Soviet Union in it Christopher Hitchens was my living men by day I thought I would stir it up but it seemed that no one had heard of mr. Hitchens so it really caused no jerk I love to church with my wife every week although I try to believe as mr. Hitchens Prince do I'm not able to because I have many of the same questions whenever I ask the pastor let religious they're not let's have a very good question they're reduced to okay this question if God is a loving God and he is all-knowing he knows your destiny as your soul is created your soul has been created and predetermined some have to be predetermined for a life of hell and torture if he knows her destiny before you're born he creates souls knowingly destined for help how does a loving God do that okay I'll ask you a question will in arm well you have you have let's look at for example some of the things that Christopher said earlier he said if there is a god I want nothing to do with them if there is a heaven I don't want to go there for me it's celestial North Korea I don't want to stand in line and hand out darling so when all I'm saying is in a universe of freewill all that God has to say to Christopher is you have chosen freely and I accede to your wish God has been flinging grizzly-bear Hitchens into hell Kru heaven is available to christopher hitchens but he doesn't want to go there I have to say I have to be I have a sound more judgmental than about so having up said but a half-truth is an absolutely terrible thing what he just said is very nearly true but if it was true morally true telling' intellectual integrity to it I'd have to believe that free will is something I can be given you know if I can be given it gifted it it's not free will and we told you can refuse my offer of heaven Italy like you can refuse my human sacrifice my willingness to be tortured to death in your sight to save you you can refuse this wonderful offer if you want you can't duck the offer it will be made to you if you do refuse it you have to depart into everlasting fire this is not free will this is the most capricious form of journey and sadomasochism surely that's plain to everybody here yes sir now while on the subject while on surrogate half truth I simply have to say that the it is not true that it was an te Hitler some compromise with Catholicism ended when his regime began his regime began in fact with a Concorde the first treaty that the Nazi regime sign in its first week of existence with the Vatican giving the Nazi Party a monopoly over education and the raising of all children in Germany in exchange for Catholic monopoly in written liturgical matters and the Hitler's birthday was celebrated from the pulpit every year of the regime and I love Hitler stable talk - and I agree with you - I'll go this far you should all read it I'll tell you why it's been asked ever since Nuremberg many many times why was no member of a Nazi Party ever threatened with excommunication for taking part in the final solution how can that be the church would condemn people for the smallest thing they would deny them the sacraments 25% ago in - Paul Johnson Catholic historian of the vafan SS were confessing commune no one ever threatened at any point with x3 education before the church knew was going on but there was a member of the Nazi Party who was extremely I'll have to cut you off take away the children here I've got to do it root and it was Joseph Goebbels and do you know why he was thrown out on the church shall I tell you for marrying a divorced Protestant Magda Goebbels let's go to the giant down that's where he crawled up behind that's a Hitler stable talk to let's go to the deck around the Vatican the Vatican does have expanded as overall to home sir do you direct your question the questions directed to both individuals but specifically to D'Souza and you earlier I felt like the character characterization of atheists was that they were dodging belief in God because of moral issues but the atheists and skeptics that I know it's a matter of honesty so I would like to ask both this question what kind of person burns other person's alive for unflagging and unflinching honesty Thank You D'Souza well I confess no urge whatsoever to burn you alive I'm delighted to entertain your question however and maybe burn it alive but the here's what I'm getting at and that is if you don't believe in something because there isn't enough evidence normally you just kind of go about your life as if that something didn't exist for example I don't believe in unicorns but you'll notice I haven't written any books called the end of unicorns unicorns are not great the unicorn delusion you want you won't find you won't find a lifelong obsession with unicorn I don't hold conferences on unicorns to denounce them here's what I'm getting at when the atheist goes beyond mere disbelief into what you can call evangelical atheism missionary atheism a desire to proselytize which is a hallmark why are you shouting at me I'm answering your question I know painfully for you but I am answering it let us let us go ahead and in order to move this along we have a lot of people waiting in line and we'll just have a simple response here let us go ahead and go to this this woman here in the front to whom is your question directed don't worry I'm not going to drag you kicking and screaming into heaven mr. D'Souza I have read every single one of your books and I know that you're a truth let's have the question yes of the question question is mr. Hutchins have you ever truly studied the Bible the archaeological the the written evidence the prophetic evidence have you truly ever studied the Weisse very good said your question your response I remember the almost the first book I read when I began these investigations at the age of about 13 it was was an extraordinary book by german archaeologist probably some people here read it but called vernacular called the bible as history the subtitle of which as archaeology confirms the truth of the book of books and very a very impressive book indeed and i've since followed the work of the greatest railey archaeologists who were given the mandate by ben-gurion as he was as he put it to go out and dig up the title deeds of our state particularly Professor Israel Finkelstein the head of the very distinguished archaeology department at the University of Tel Aviv who impresses me very much by his scholarship and his honesty because if there was any of you - hoped he would find the evidence for Moses for the exodus for the wandering for the conquest of Canaan and so it would earn the Exile it would be him and they had control over all the relevant territory at the time and they've been forced to concede what I think probably was all known all along there isn't a word of truth to the story at all there's nothing to it none of this ever happened the whole of the New Testament is a very clumsy man-made fabrication and we can be grateful for that because if it was if it wasn't true we'd be living under the tyranny of a God who mandated genocide genital mutilation mass murder expulsion theft and infanticide so as I began by saying it's not just that I don't think it's true but my wish is not father to my thought I don't think it's true I add that I'm glad it's not true I don't get those things the other way around I don't think anyone who believes in a divine redemptive Savior Father so can really ever be acquitted on the same charge in the same way of saying that there is no wish thinking element to their belief and in that respect I defer to Sigmund Freud's famous essay the future of an allusion to which I commend or you have not yet read it well look let's go ahead and have a question here and then of course in your summary remarks you can always address each other if there's anything here that that you'd like to respond to sir your question it for previous counsel and questions for those of you as well as everyone here have your like everyone to think about this if we assume that the average age 50 Section C is 80 years old you spoke to the Last Judgement how is it justified if we only live 80 some odd years that we can be damned for all eternity and I would like to say that I think this is not justice stated Thank You mr. D'Souza let me say two things about it number one it seems to me that you have first of all a concept of eternity that is forever right it goes on and on it never stops time never ends I want to be the one to break the news to you but time is a property of our universe the Christian understanding is not eternity is essentially 1 million AD the Christian understanding of eternity is a realm outside of space and time so in that sense your objection is based upon a human understanding of historical time if evil is great right right now now come to the come to the the rejection that you're talking about the rejection you're talking about is not a prohibition don't sin stop sinning or we're going to fling you into eternal damnation it is simply accept that you are a fallible human creature is that how so hard to accept know that you have committed sins for which you have not done full atonement you accept that as everyone here would and if there is a way to pay for those sins and all you have to do is utter the word yes to salvation why on what grounds do you refuse it's what is available to you is eternal happiness and if and if refusing has even the possibility of eternal separation from God what obstinacy forces you to say I won't do it I will risk all of damnation with my full intelligence and freewill and asking you I will give you a question today don't rephrase an answer hi my answer is if we only live to 80,000 any other be rewarded with eternity of happiness old animation it seems in them let me rephrase your question a little differently you basically want to live in a world without moral choice and moral consequences isn't that what you're saying you're saying why do I have to make a decision why do I have to choose one way or the other why do I even have to sign on the dotted line I'll tell you why I'm not attacking you I'm attacking your right the argument I'm not attacking you I don't know you let's hear it let's hear a response from mr. Hitchens look I've known um I've known genetic for a long time I know him to be a very humane and courteous and considerate and decent man and I didn't think he understands how wicked he sounds for so many people in this hall tonight when he says look you've made a perfectly fair offer we can talk to you to death if we want so the crime only are being born all you have to do is throw yourself on our mercy and it'll be okay why don't you just do it my dear my dear genus my goodness do you not know what you sound like when you say that I can hardly bear I can hardly bear to look at you you're implying there were something through evil so evil so stupid so nasty and so intolerant it is the it is what full Greville says this wonderful verse it says here is the order you are created sick and you are ordered to recover and you ordered on pain of death and torture for ever this is totalitarianism to the nth degree now it is the most refinement of cruelty and stupidity that's possible to picture it's really not getting lost does it seem okay to you see you always have the chance to sprawl and grovel and beg and plead and you might get off now if you're the wrong hands around let's hear the response now let me answer if there is a place you've already answered I know I have an answer sighs now I tried to answer new caricatured my response if there is a place called heaven in which there is no sin how are we human beings who are sinful able to get there you haven't confronted that question squarely you want a deconstruct Christian theology well let's look at its premise now here's the point there are certain decisions in life on which you will never have full information and yet you still have to make a decision I'll give you an obvious example let's say I'm dating a girl for 10 years I now have to decide should I ask her to marry me I could say you know what I really don't know what life is going to be like with her for the next 40 years so I'm going to be an agnostic I'm going to keep waiting until the data comes in the truth is the data will never be in even if I dated her for another five years at some point I either have to propose or if I don't make a choice she will marry someone else or we will both be dead the practical necessities of life and also death forces us to make certain decisions even though we don't have full information now we are always a human being trying to a deny our sinfulness which that's why I asked you the question not because you're a sinner we all are but once we admit it we then have to take seriously the idea that unrepentant Finns do carry some consequences just as they do in this life unfortunately unfortunately ladies and gentlemen this will be the last question and what I am going to ask these gentlemen to do is that that in answering it both of you responding to it that you that you may also make your closing statements and remarks and we will begin with mr. Hitchens once this gentleman has asked the question thank you let us assume for a moment that atheism takes hold and that religion in general and Christianity in particular begin to decline into a small minority I would ask both gentlemen what would be the characteristics and markers of a society as the decades unfold from there just to be sure so I don't want to appear to understand it you want the one you want to know what how I visualized a post-christian society or post religious life well I think we're lucky enough to live in such a society already one that says that you may not be required by the government or by the school or by the state or by the local authority to subscribe to or pair ties to any religion of any kind I often think that those of us like myself who was not born here appreciate this Liberty more than those who were and the uniqueness of it that in the United States you may not be replied to exert yourself for any faith or to contribute to the upkeep of any such thing and so you already have the lineaments of the first religious country religion is a private matter in other words it's up to you you may send yourself that hell or decide that's where you're going you can't take me with you and you can't ask me to pay taxes to someone who says otherwise and this is the beginning of Liberty politically and I think the beginning of Liberty morally and intellectually that that'll have to be my condensed statement on that point to make my closing remarks I think I'll make sure that Ganesh cants within the time available say that I didn't respond to his points just about his own church because this has now become a salient matter after Dinesh is not just defending religion here or even just Christianity here or even simply saying that there might be a deist possibility or theist one he is actually saying that he defends a church that says that salvation is on offer here redemption is on offer he's making he doesn't make them publicly to you he rather smuggles these things through customs he's making very vast claims in a rather selfish manner now as it happens he's right at the Second Vatican Council the church or the muted the idea of the Roman Church that only by here could salvation be achieved those who were other kinds of Christian had just got it wrong and unfortunately we do Protestants Eastern Orthodox others who they'd persecuted in the past Jews who were considered responsible individually as well as collectively for the death of Christ all these pacifica dem some of that was rolled back and dumped for a bit but under the regime of Joseph Ratzinger many of these teachings and tenets are being retrieved and retooled including the one that says there is an exclusive Catholic route to redemption and I'll add another very sinister thing that's happening the purpose started offering indulgences again so we remembered the Protestant revolution in the Lutheran revolution begins against the sale or offer of indulgences of remittance of time in purgatory or health in the future those who attend Catholic youth festivals now if most recently in Australia are told if you come in a certain spirit and you make a certain contribution you may have a certain remittance of time and poetry or hell in the kitchen or after your death but if you if you make a really full hearted commitment you may get what's called a cleaner indulgence and that means sorry to bore you with distance I think it's important remittance remission for all the sins that you've committed up till now which can only mean that the spatial temporal continuum in the afterlife is considered to be the same as it is here this is the most barbaric nonsense and it's the sort of thing we thought we had left behind before even the protests made by Luther and horse and the other martyrs of the protestant revolutionary it is a repulsive concept now on the question of pascal the famous wager that ganesh put forward so softly i think the best way perhaps to distinguish my view from here is to say what i think about it the wager this vulgar gamble this this three-card monte offered by our catholic reasoning says huh what do you got to lose buster bet it's true and you win that it's false you lose why is that true and why is that moral have to wrap up yeah first first who's that who's asking who's asked you to mix wait who's saying which divinity is saying get this wrong and fascinated to see which way you bet if you bet wrong again straight to hell what about that for one thing ii which DC is not capable of saying well mr. Hitchens I noticed that you even on penalty of hell and condemnation will not agree to worship you've been told what the odds are you've been told what the stakes are they must have impressed you in some way but you say the evidence isn't good enough and the reasoning is even worse and would not the sort of deity that you might expect dinesh d'souza or mr. Taunton to respect say oh I make some allowance there for a little intellectual courage perhaps made a little moral integrity no no you've been wrong you're going to be tortured not just for a long time but forever that's why I think I can close by saying that religion as as offered to you by it sir because is immoral and irrational and that the tyranny that it proposes you live on fortunately has no evidence to support it it's the idea of its existence and that by this discovery and this alone we are made aware of the truth and that truth can make us free thank you I want to begin by noting a and Christopher Hitchins a little bit of a would say obsession with pinning me as a Catholic and I think the reason for this is because as I mentioned myself my ancestors were arguably bludgeoned into christianity by some stern missionaries I'm sure my ancestors would disagree but I'm actually glad that those missionaries came and here's why someone asked us earlier have you actually given any thoughtful consideration of the Bible you notice he didn't say yes because the answer seems to be no he attacked a Christianity that he constantly misdescribed and miss characterizes let me give a couple of examples of why what I think his stronger arguments don't hold up he says that our religion is the product of where we were born true but that is in some ways what you could call the genetic fallacy if you and I were born in Papua New Guinea most likely we would subscribe worship the local deities but neither would we believe Darwin's theory of evolution we are very unlikely to accept Einsteins proposition that e equals MC square conduct a vote among the Papua New Guinean and see how they come out on that one the truth of Darwinism or Einstein or Christianity has nothing to do with whether or not we come to believe it because of where we were born that's a fallacy Christopher also allied himself with Freud's idea which is that religion is a form of wish fulfillment I believe it's because I wish it to be true now imagine we all got him to screw here this evening and we we felt that life was tough we have all kinds of ailments diabetes death is waiting for us so let's we're going to make up a religion to make us feel good I can completely see how we come up with the idea of heaven which fits anyone's definition of wish fulfillment eternal bliss no suffering no pain I really don't see why we would come up with the idea of hell why because hell is worse than diabetes hell is worse than anything we would experience on earth so why would a wish-fulfilling jewel or Christian come up not only with hell but all these strictures of Christian morality the Ten Commandments thou shalt not do this sow shalt not do that if this was all a matter of wish fulfillment I'd get up and strike three of them myself the Jewish it might be true of some other faiths but the Jewish and Christian religion do not look to any fair-minded person like they were invented because we wanted to feel better about ourselves Freud was totally wrong in that sense now I think the reason that I think a couple of questioners and Christopher Hitchins have been able to get on their high horse this evening is the following there is a total unwillingness to face up to a simple fact and that is even as Darwinian primates there is evil in the world that makes no Darwinian sense for example for example in the animal kingdom you might find a lion that wants to chase an antelope but will you find a lion that wants to wipe out the entire antelope population from the planet in other words I can understand why human beings to survive would want to kill off a rival I don't understand why they would want to exterminate an entire population this evil seems distinctive to human beings it is an Imagineer image of God nowhere in the animal kingdom the point I'm trying to make is a Darwinian explanation is inadequate and if you look at religion it is an effort to account for phenomena that have no easy natural explanation 30 seconds what would a world be like to answer your question in which there was no Christianity in which there was no God you can't look at the example of Europe or the United States because we are cultures built on a Christian foundation one of the most comical aspects of this debate is Christopher is standing on a Christian mountain even while trying to pick the ground out from under his feet even the moral principles he talked about came into this civilization because of Christianity here's my point you want to find a secular society you've got to go look at the communist societies which try to completely extirpate not only God but also the morality that came out of God philosophers like Nietzsche who have thought hard about what a secular society would be like Nietzsche says if you want to get rid of God you got to get rid of the idea of human dignity you got to get rid of the idea of human equality you got to get rid of this idea of Liberty and why because those are imports from the notion of a transcendent creator who created us special if there is no god when special so what I'm saying is we haven't seriously confronted secularism in its most profound sense not even I'm sorry to say the eloquent and worthy opponent Christopher Hitchens thank you very much well I I don't know I don't know about all of you but I am exhausted I think you'll agree with me that these are two of the most interesting and engaging people that you're likely to encounter and indeed you may encounter them in a moment as there will be a book signing in the lobby so you can queue up for that audio and video recordings of this will be available on the fixed-point Foundation website you can make your way there thank you so very much and thank them for coming [Applause] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Fixed Point Foundation

Views: 253,856

Rating: 4.7122068 out of 5

Keywords: Christopher Hitchens, Dinesh D'Souza, Debate, God, Atheism, Religion, Christianity, Apologetics, Faith

Id: VZ_WGb8X3L8

Length: 95min 14sec (5714 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 30 2017