Christopher Hitchens vs Larry Taunton | God or No God? Debate

I'm Larry taught an executive director of fixed-point foundation and what your see is my debate with Christopher Hitchens Christopher is a friend of mine and I've debated him many times but always privately this particular debate marks our first public encounter the topic God or no God is it preferable to live in a society where Christianity holds the the greater influence or in one where a theism holds the greater sway at the time of this particular debate Christopher was suffering from esophageal cancer he had been through several bouts of chemotherapy nonetheless he rose to the occasion and made a strong defense for his own position as for me it was my desire to not attack the man but to attack the ideas and we think that what you'll see is a very friendly but hotly contested encounter enjoy imagine a society without religious influence for some it's difficult concepts a picture for others maybe the answer to many of the world's problems it is a question two men with opposite beliefs will attempt to debate tomorrow night right here in Billings as color eights Lindsay sheets reports these men may not agree but it's because of the conflict they've actually formed an unlikely bond for nearly four years Christopher Hitchens and Larry Taunton have considered themselves close friends like any friendship the two share many things in common we both share a martial heritage we both love literature we love lively conversation but there's one thing that makes these two an unlikely pair and it's the very thing that brought them together it may sound a bit limiting or dogmatic but it's the only way I know how to think it's not a belief in itself that I've never been able to persuade myself be of any alternative the alternative Christianity Christopher a world-famous author is an atheist and Larry he's dedicated his life to defending Christianity I'm not about living in some sort of Christian bubble I think that we're called to engage that is just what they will do Tuesday night both men are set to take the stage at the Babcock theatre and go head-to-head in a debate about whether it's more preferable to live in a Christian xiety or an atheistic one it's a discussion the men have had several times before and although they have yet and most likely never will agree both say they've learned a great deal from each other if everyone in the United States had the same qualities of loyalty and care and concern for others that Laotian had we will be living in a much better society than you do I believe that it's true that I should be willing to subject it to some scrutiny and I do believe that it's true of course both men hope those who attend will learn something from the experience but ultimately this duo is proof that friendship can develop from even the most unlikely of sources well good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's event this whole event is by the way being sponsored by the fixed-point foundation I'm Erin Flint the host of voices of Montana the only statewide radio talk show heard here locally on 7:30 a.m. kya you know it's interesting a lot of us kind of wondered hey this is a great event why did they choose Montana and then I heard that some of the fixed-point staff had a chance to come out and see Yellowstone National Park get here a few days early and so they got to go out and see a little bit of as they would describe it gods country and I know there might be a debate as to whether that's actually God's creation that they've been enjoying over the last few days or not but I think we can all agree and even mr. Hitchens might agree that that whether it was that if there indeed is a god that Montana surely is God's country I think we can at least agree on that point tonight at least those of us from Montana can't well before we get started if we could just do a quick programming note if you have seats to the left or the right of you on the ends that that are empty if you could just kind of everybody could slide in towards the center so we can get some more folks in here see it looks like we've got a pretty packed house tonight and you know tonight we really are honored to be joined by two intriguing men Christopher Hitchens the famed atheist and author of the book and mr. Hitchens is the famed atheist and author of the book God is not great how religion poisons everything and of course Larry Larry taught an executive director of the fixed-point foundation the foundation well I think we're hitting some mics there the fixed-point foundation is an organization dedicated to the public defense of Christianity the question God or no God is it preferable to live in a Christian or an atheistic society that's what both gentlemen will be debating tonight here's kind of the rundown we're going to four topics they'll each get about three minutes each followed at the very end by two minutes of closing remarks topic one are all religions the same topic to ask Al's wager and of course mr. Hitchens will get an extra little minute there to define for those of us exactly what Pascal's wager exactly is topic 3 atheism in the 20th century and topic for vicarious Redemption so each side gets three minutes on the topic I'll kind of be giving some hand cues here I'll give a one for one minute I'll give the radio Q little C here for 30 seconds if that helps I know these gentlemen have done this a lot and then I'll just do the closed fist for for the final time there you know and although we may not realize this is this passionate debate gets underway both of these gentlemen I think this is very interesting they're good friends they've driven down the Shenandoah River Valley together out on the East Coast and they've had this debate numerous times but tonight here at the Babcock Theatre in Billings this is the first time that these two gentlemen will be debating one another please give them a round of applause before we get this started okay let's get this monumental occasion underway our first topic tonight are all religions the same and mr. Taunton will take the podium to start the or starting with the opening statement I'm sorry yes this opening statement ten minutes of opening statements for for both well good evening it is a delight for me to be here in Montana it is my second occasion to be in this this state and I must tell you that I am delighted to be here because I do love this state is it it truly is a gorgeous state and in Alabama and Alabama and like myself instinctively appreciates a place like this the topic we are debating this evening is whether or not it is preferable to live in a society whose ideals have been chiefly influenced by Christianity or in a society where atheism holds the greater sway as we begin it is perhaps worth noting that I have much in common with my baiting partner and friend Christopher Hitchens we both love literature and lively conversation each of us is descended from a Marshall tradition and we share a deep concern for the growing threat of radical Islam we also hold a number of ideals in common he loathes tyranny and injustice so do I he loves freedom and liberty of conscience so do i and he believes in the dignity of the individual so do I even so there are points upon which we differ and the focus of this debate is one of them you see while Christopher is a man who is renowned for his ability to hold his liquor and I can I can testify to this personally he is nonetheless intoxicated by the not so charming notion that the affer mentioned ideals can be maintained in an atheistic world this fascinates me not the least because Christopher underestimates the degree to which he has been influenced by judeo-christian principles indeed that he should value these things at all is evidence of it now he's a formidable and much more experienced debater than myself and Oxford pedigree a best-selling author a celebrated public intellectual all of which are complemented by a marvelous aristocratic English accent and that always adds a few IQ points in the minds of Americans as for me I'm just a just a boy from Alabama but I but I do have one advantage this evening that he is largely without and that is the truth and while Christopher while Christopher and truth has Aristotle once said of his old teacher as while Christopher and truth are both dear to me it is right to prefer truth for the last decade a group of atheist fundamentalist the so called New Atheists a group to which Christopher has the dubious distinction of membership have been busy revising both past and present in an effort to eradicate Christianity from public life these ivory tower theorists never tire of telling us that the world really would be a better place without Christian influence atheism they say is the way the truth and the life in the time that I have I would like to offer three compelling reasons why this is not so more than that I would like to demonstrate why an atheistic world is a place where none of us not even the New Atheists want to live first of all the world would literally be a poorer place where atheism ever to eclipse Christianity among the many things for which Christopher Hitchens has gained notoriety as a challenge he puts to his audiences or readers naming an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer the idea is that there is no good thing that a Christian can do that an atheist cannot do also at first blush the challenge seems to have merit an atheist can for instance perform works of charity and maintain high moral standards just as any Christian is supposed to do but that is as I have said only at first blush because the challenge is a sham it's kind of like asking what can a herbivore eat that a carnivore cannot eat also after all a hyena can eat grass leaves and bark just as elephants do but the fact is - don't eat grass leaves and bark because it's not in their nature to do so similarly while a theist can perform works of charity and maintain high moral standards history reveals that they don't with any degree of constancy of consistency the statistics bear this out according to a study conducted by the Barna Group Christians are the most charitable segment of the population the same study indicates that the average evangelical gives almost ten times as much money to nonprofits as the average atheist now this is to say this isn't to say that there aren't some charitable and decent non-believers or even some uncharted and immoral believers rather that when atheism is adopted as a worldview at a societal level be it passively or actively its effect on that society is detrimental The Canadian magazine McLean's not a Christian magazine by any stretch of the imagination commenting on a similar study of their own concluded without organized religion the world would be a much poorer and less comfortable place for the less fortunate secondly atheism is dehumanizing in the Christian view man is a moral and teleological being made in the image of God he has intrinsic value as the pinnacle of God's creation a composite of both flesh and spirit he has one foot firmly planted in this world and one foot in the next from the atheistic perspective man is nothing more than a soulless animal it is this impoverished concept of humanity that has led atheists like Princeton bioethicists Peter Singer dear to all Montanans as the father of the animal liberation movement to advocate infanticide mothers he says should get up to 28 days to decide whether or not to keep their children their newborns or to exterminate them the singer does not stop there he has also endorsed euthanizing the message mentally disabled and the non-contributing elderly and why not if there is no God then there is no such thing as sanctity of life you're an animal like any other and we may therefore choose to put you down in reaching these conclusions singer is simply being a philosophically consistent atheist now let me say at this point that I'm delighted that my friend and colleague Christopher is not a philosophically consistent atheist it is also this sort of thinking that permits communist regimes to treat people like raw material let us not forget that atheism is not merely incidental to communism it is a defining characteristic in the Christian worldview the state is a temporal institution meant to serve man an eternal being in the communist model this is reversed man a temporal being serves the eternal state people people are merely commodities as a consequence there is no consideration of and no room for man's non material needs hope love faith freedom and purpose nowhere was this warped thinking more evident that in the system of orphanages devised during the Soviet era and still in use today orphanages provided a perfect laboratory for the atheist diehards who spiritually assassinated generations of Eastern European children with their soul destroying educational theories their premise there is no God there's no soul there's no afterlife and the supreme responsibility of the state is to make good communists to visit a state operated Eastern European orphanage is to see the logical consequences of atheistic social engineering I know I have seen them it is a place where children are frequent treated like animals which is of course perfectly consistent with a theism and this brings me to my third point the appalling record of atheistic regimes John Lennon famously sang imagine there is no heaven it's easy if you try no hell below us above us only sky imagine all the people living for today like the New Atheists Lenin spoke about such a world as though it would be perfect he could not have been more wrong but Lenin was right about one thing it is easy to imagine such a world without God if you try because Russian atheists to cite only one example of atheists gone wild they did more than imagine a godless world they built it for 75 years the world's atheist elites had their way with foreign and domestic policy the military the economy the secret police and the lives of countless millions of people the result seven decades of unremitting turmoil bloodshed famine theft backwardness incompetence and continual promises of a coming utopia in his great novels demons and The Brothers Karamazov Dostoyevsky predicted that if Russia's communists ever gained control of the levers of power it would lead to the expulsion of Christianity from public life and with it the annihilation of morality the rise of totalitarianism and the proliferation of state-sponsored genocide he would prove prophetic the twentieth century was an experiment in atheistic society and governance that witnessed the deaths of no less than 100 million people globally where did the atheistic utopian dream go wrong the answer is simple atheism removes any moral imperative where Christianity seeks to restrain our darker impulses atheism exacerbates them having no fear of judgment in the next life for actions taken in this one these governments were free to treat their citizens in whatever manner they deemed expedient and yet in spite all of this a new atheist syndicate would give us the 20th entry in perpetual rerun how many genocides must the world suffer before people realize that belief in God is a necessary component for the stability of civilization ladies and gentlemen no matter what spin the new atheist put on atheism there's nothing new about it it is what it has always been a hopeless a pitiless worldview anything else is just so much whistling through the graveyard thank you alright enough that was the open statement of mr. Larry Taunton the executive director of the fixed-point foundation now the opening statement by mr. Christopher Hitchens well thank you well thank you mr. chairman Thank You Larry Thank You Larry above all for how shall I put it low balling this evening sir contestant if only by phrasing it as a contest between a anova promoted Oxonian elitist and a mere hick from Bama but uh you'll have seen already the injustice that Larry inflicts on himself I mean but it is he I never I never we give the same address twice ladies it was wait to see what it's going to be this time from the other side sometimes they tell me that the earth is 6,000 years old and God made it this way and wants it this way sometimes they say that if I'm not a Roman Catholic I haven't chance of salvation even if I'm a Christian because there's only one true church some people say if I don't believe that there was a dictation by the alkenyl Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad I have no chance of avoiding hell some say if I don't believe in gold plates left in upstate New York by Joseph Smith I mean pretty much this I never know what it's going to be and tonight a guy one I actually Hamas say I have heard before it's that religious people give more money to charity well I'll get to that but I want to start with a little thought experiment suppose you were to read today there's a candidate a leader had emerged from among the Opposition in Iran the challenger to the theocracy and to its attempt to develop and to deploy illegal thermonuclear weapons or subject which I know you're all familiar now this candidate was completely new to Iranian politics he had a certain integrity it was said and you've been in jail great courage great as he would need to have and as he would need to have been if he wanted to emerge in such a country essentially and that he'd given an interview which he said that's unlike most Iranians he had no faith at all in the immediate coming or even eventual coming of the 12th Imam the hidden the occluded of the mysterious 12 disciples of sheer Islam who will come back and of course on the day he comes back will bring about a rain of universal peace and justice the outline of that idea at a rate may already be familiar to you has made the idea of the 12 said I don't believe that at all says this job I don't believe a word of that I don't think it even rises to toothfairy levels of believability I think we'd be a lot better off without it and I think that belief has helped to beggar and and oppress our country and keep not just the country but the minds of many of its citizens completely in Chains suppose you were to read that there was such a man who said that he thought his country should not be an Islamic Republic but but should be a secular one and that he himself had no religion well you would have to believe according to mr. Taunton that here was another case of the complete breakdown of somebody's moral compass oh dear you'd have to say now Iran is really in trouble how will this guy know right from wrong how do we know that he won't start making women into second-class citizens issuing genocide all threats against the Jewish people you name it stoning people he doesn't like the look of he doesn't believe in God he's capable of anything who here I asked you who here is as Thomas to believe such a proposition but if you don't believe it if you see the intrinsic absurdity of such an idea I can sit down now and we can speed up and get more quickly to atheism in the twentieth century which is on our agenda already before Larry decided that he couldn't get through his ten minutes without spending the a lot of three minutes on that already I ask you now the fact of the matter is my challenge still stands because in fact we are all herbivores in this dismiss not there's no species difference between a believer and a non-believer and the attitude to say your analogy falls sir the question remains and I'll phrase it again properly if it is believed that without religion there could be no safe judgment about right and wrong no evolution of proper and serious moral and ethical ideas if that is true then you ought to be able to have named instead of knocking the question a moral statement made ethical statement made or or action performed by by a believer a person of faith that I couldn't replicate now I've asked this question in public on television in face-to-face encounters on the radio and in print to the Archbishop of Canterbury Cardin Archbishop of Nigeria various important rabbis Christian apologists in the Academy I've never had a reply to it and I think that's interesting and I not only didn't get one this evening I got an attempt to change the subject there's a prize for it by the way and I've come up with an answer myself a partial one which is better than any that yet I believe has come up with tease you about what it's going to be you might have to might have to beg me later but there's a corollary to my question it's this can you name for me a wicked statement made or a wicked action taken by a person of faith because of their religion can you do that yes you can you've just thought of one in fact you've just thought of another one the genital mutilation community is almost entirely faith-based for example the suicide murder community is almost perfectly faith-based and in each case has absolute textual scriptural authority for what it does the Old Testament contains the warrant for genocide for slavery for the murder of children and old people in heaps by the way no Peter Singer blush on his worst day it's right there and it's a commandment and it's in the same passages as the original as the Ten Commandments appear several times as you know in the Old Testament different versions proving the triumph of relativism even in those pages and approximation there those Commandments aren't there they stand and it's only by deciding that in fact no there are no religious and structural absolutes it's only by that and by resorting to the Socratic dialogue and to moral suasion and to taking above all our own responsibility for ethics that we've managed to escape the terrible consequences or that attend societies who take their commandments morally in tablet form and don't examine or discuss what it is but the mix for the good life so that by way of an immediate report charity I'm not going to duck it was MIT was brought up so it was brought up um to I would say there were two obvious replies first do you grant this to all religions in other words you must have heard or read as must you ladies and gentlemen that the reason for the power of Hamas in Gaza a totalitarian theocratic racist dictatorship or the power of it's it's almost sister party in Lebanon that Hezbollah the so-called party of God comes from the extraordinary ability it has to raise money and distributed in the form of charity and welfare this is indeed is how it cements its well-known popular base as far as I know no evidence that that's not true these people really give till it hurts they tied each other they're intensely charitable so how happy are you with that do you admit this as a as a as a valid example or counter example I don't know I just offer it as as true as anything Larry said when the Roman Catholic Church spends money in Africa for an example how much money and we'll certainly counted in the MacLean survey that you say how much of that money is spent making little children into Catholics is that not what the money is spent for find you think your phone that's true pretty much every other Christian denomination that spends money too they spilled on proselytization first then come to the soup or whatever it may be then comes the advice equally helpful so the spiritual and moral growth aids will be told as bad not as bad as condoms the bad a net loss and net wipeout for Africa right there this Pope would have to live three lives to live down just just Janet she's inflicted on Africa by those teachings and those preachings it's a bug it's a it's an absolute negative there is actually only one cure for poverty as it happens and everybody knows in and is well understood and it's perfectly simple it's called the empowerment of women if you give women control if you will allow women control over the number of times they have babies I'll just put it as family style as that if you'll give them that and maybe throw in a handful of seeds and a bit of credit if you do that the floor the floor of the whole society will rise everything the whole floor development will rise that's the proposition Mother Teresa dedicated her life to opposing named me a monotheistic religion will stay with monotheism just for now that dedicates itself to the empowerment of women I was about to say one of my one of the things that I was about to say is that one of the things that makes me a doctor pitying stand towards religion and towards the religious is that wherever you look and see its activity you cannot not notice that it is man-made after all what are the chances are the god made man or that men and women initially made very many gods different gods and therefore different religions observable reality suggests that the second proposition is very very much more likely don't you think there are there is the possibility that God made only one religion and only one of them is true but there's also a third possibility which is that all of them are in their different ways and despite some of their admirable attempts to spread themselves or to survive that they are all equivalently false at all events we now live in a world which has which can partake of a better tradition a better understood it starts with Lucretius of Democritus who came up with the atomic theory heaven knows how they did it Christianity tried to ban that work for many centuries nearly succeeded but it's taken up again the threat is taken up by Galileo by Spinoza who teaches people to think for themselves and to say that there is no God even if there is a divine presence in the universe can't disprove it there is no God who intervenes who answers browse through Voltaire to Thomas Jefferson and the founders of our great Republic including Thomas Paine through Darwin through Freud and through Einstein people who teach us that risky though it is terrifying though it can be that our only hope and and actually also our only joy with with this great risk is that of thinking for ourselves and realizing it cannot be done for us there are no Redeemers there are no eternal fathers there is no dear leader there is no great leader there is no supreme leader for whom to whom we can look for our own rescue a morally or intellectually I'll leave you with that thought and I thank you very much for your attention to me and that was mr. christopher hitchens now we'll get into three minutes of rebuttals from each starting with mr. Larry ton well interesting excursion into Iranian politics totally irrelevant evil in the name of religion why I imagine they probably just saw one of your buses are you familiar with the Atheist bus campaign of which Christopher was a part they they purchased signs on the side of buses that said don't worry there's probably no God enjoy your life I can see one of these Catholic priests wandering down the street seeing one of those buses and saying Oh children I don't know perhaps maybe you have contributed to the evil that you so lament as for the Hitchens challenge I think I answered that rather well the point ladies and gentlemen is that is that the data demonstrates and this is not just just by some Christian group that's doing this this is the data demonstrates that a robust Christian presence in society is a good thing that it is a benevolent thing for the poor speaking of the the orphanages that I was referring to before I can tell you that many of them rely on external external support not from from from the state itself they receive their support from Christian organizations overseas and that would mean particularly in the West and as for as for Christianity itself I want to share this I think this is quite interesting none other than atheist Richard Dawkins in April of this year was quoted in The Times as saying this there are no Christians as far as I know blowing up buildings I'm not aware of any Christian suicide bombers I'm not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity insofar as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse well I suppose that conversion comes better late than never thank you and a rebuttal for mr. Hitchens yes sorry I raced to the podium to try and emulate Mary's admirable terseness um not my idea to have that bus since I have to do this it not matter have that bus so even actually not they're not the atheists idea either in Britain which is still a officially religious country which is whether we have to pay to keep the Church of England going and we're bizarrely enough Prince Charles will become head of the Church of England on the day his mother dies Islam fancying chinless resentful no taste in women Philistine will become head of the church as well as the state and the Armed Forces that's what you get when you found a National Church on the values of Henry family values of Henry the eighth in Britain you can't put what you want if you're an atheist in a public adverse Minh advertisements have been circulating saying you're going to hell if you're not a Christian spoiling people's day it was replied by it was applied there is no God was the proposal so forget all that nonsense and don't be frightened by you had to put in probably by law which actually I think rather made the campaign in a way but I don't know what whose expense this irony comes if any I could have done without that example frankly in the name of religion is a cop-out it is not in the name of the 12th Imam that's year and it's Andy then the imminent rapture that will come to all those who believe in him that shira's LOM behaves in the way it does it's because of that beliefs are a perversion of the belief it is the belief all right does the Bible or does it not say that the muscle drew must be marked in the flesh for the Covenant mandate for genital mutilation jars the Jewish prayer of the orthotics not begin or the begin will not begin every man must begin his patella prayers by saying to God thank you first for not making me woman second for not making me a Gentile women in case you want to know how to pray thank you for making me what I am don't you see how man made this is how so clearly tribal and human in the in the base of sense of the word are the origins of this cult don't you think you can see beyond that and maybe do a fraction better I don't know either I mean it's up to Larry of course um redneck as he says he is but I don't know if I would have chosen this year to bring up the treatment of children in orphanages as a defense of Christianity I mean okay if you like and I see I don't need to elaborate that but I will all the same just for the fun you think it's ok they're barely apples in it bad apples in every barrel it'll hat can happen in any institution that people take advantage of children in their care I just say that's true I mean I would have to concede it's true after all we are members of a not particularly highly evolved primate species that's what we know about ourselves you can forget original sin the problem of good and evil and suffering all you need to know is that we are primates and it shows we have we're half a chromosome away from chimpanzees and it shows there's no mystery but I don't think it can be it's a journey it can be separated from the terrible where the church is treated at the children it's care from the teaching say of Pope Benedict that the First Communion inflicted on a child must be as early as possible that it based on a principle of as quickly as possible and xìng and dominating the child actually if you if you know of any religion of which that sinister calculation is not true I'd be very interested to hear about it why do i do not want prayer in the planes for example in America why don't they want prayer on the factory floor prayer in the trades prayer on the stock exchange you never know know why in the schools ask yourself that you're halfway to seeing why it's man-made why that's primate made and why that's what you probably need to know about it there's nothing supernatural involved in this we are left alone with our own responsibility to think there is no fixed Authority there is no celestial unanswerable Court of Appeal to which we can refer these questions our own responsibility cannot be taken from us don't trust anyone who under any persuasion tries to seduce you into giving that up all right now it's time to move into the topics in a quick note on these microphones we can stand back a little bit from them I'm used to those mics where you really got enclosed so that's where that popping noise is coming from just to note for both gentlemen here topic one are all religions the same I think this topic was already kind of brushed upon but now we'll get to get into this a little bit further three minutes starting with mr. Taunton are all religions the same well as you've already heard Christopher the the New Atheists have a habit of painting all religions with the same sweeping broad brush they're all dangerous they're all detrimental to society as the line they tend to take they look at events like 9/11 the bombing of the USS Cole 7/7 subway bombers and say what do all these things have in common religion of course a more nuanced a more thoughtful evaluation would include that it is radical Islam that all religions are not the same this was not the Amish you know who were doing these things it is it is very important ladies and gentlemen that we make distinctions when we're talking about religion the the word is is used rather too loosely but no matter what they may say they do make some subtle distinctions Christopher and I as as aaron has pointed out did recently drive through the Shenandoah Valley together and enjoyed that and we'll go through Yellowstone National Park tomorrow and I dare say that Christopher would not have made that trip with a Muslim in a bulky overcoat I I just don't see him doing that but the what but it does seem to me that where they really fail to understand Christianity is that they tend to see it as a religion of law rather than a religion of grace and the central doctrine of Christianity ladies and gentlemen is the doctrine of grace to be found in the person of Jesus Christ this is this is what it all hinges upon you you you discount on the the the cross at the resurrection and you can discount the whole of the faith this is the Apostle Paul's argument in first Corinthians and so what I would would would want to make the distinction is that because Christianity is a religion of grace that grace is there is an inward transformation of the soul there is a corresponding outward transformation of society that is to say that grace itself has some impact upon society and this resonates with my own personal experience religions of law or religions that in in my mind I'm immediately reminded of the fact that I simply cannot do them I can't keep a diet I can't stop biting my fingernails much less am i capable of fulfilling some sort of punch list in working my way to the hereafter so I would want to make the distinction that Christianity hinges on and is defined by and is is distinguished from all other religions on the basis of grace thank you and the question to mr. mr. Hitchens are all religions the same three minutes why was the Amish girl excommunicated ah to Mennonite I mentioned it only I mentioned early because Larry speaks as if there was as if we lived several hundred years ago when there was any one kind of Christianity even then it was pretty schismatic but there was a time when there was such a thing you could on ironically call Christendom the world that had been one so far for Christ where there was rough agreement and though it was polycentric there were always different claims to who was Pope it was nothing like the incredible fissile mess and chaos that you see now we're there any number of different forms of Christianity not all of them I don't think even Larry would say all that filled with grace and apart from underlining and remaking for me my point that that shows that religion is man-made it also may appear to undermine the point that all religions are the same since there are fantastic discrepancies between them when the Baptist's of Danbury Connecticut wrote to President Jefferson complaining of their persecution in Connecticut and eliciting from him the famous promise that a wall of separation would always guard the government of the United States from any intervention in religion or any establishment of it who were they afraid of in Danbury Connecticut can anyone tell me that they were afraid the Congregationalists of Danbury Connecticut who at that point had a theocratic control over the state now we know we now don't think of the Congregationalists or the Baptist's as being particularly menacing I would not ride ride through chander with any of them but and some of these Amish weren't watching - but the that's because they have no power if they had had or being allowed to have don't you worry you would have heard about them and you would be thinking more about these questions now in my book God is not great available to find bookstores everywhere have the following to say it's obvious that Christianity is a derivation of Judaism effectively a plagiarism of it indeed that the New Testament is littered with the scripture of events and sayings where it's then pedantically stitched into the text and so this was done that the prophecy be fulfilled in the some implied reference back very often to Isaiah so things are productive boxes are checked so as it could be shown that the New Testament is the vindication of the of the art now the were early Christians Marcion was probably the best-known of them and there were Marciano churches all across the Christian Near East for a while who did want Christianity to begin again it for it to be just about the Nazarene and his life and teachings and not to be burdened with the terrible guilt and tyranny and parochialism and bloodshed and sadism and masochism of the Old Testament but sorry man you saddled yourself with that and you can't get away from it and you never will be able to and that's why Christianity continues to splinter and also to commit terrible crimes against the body and the spirit I add in the book that the Quran is so obviously a plagiarism from the previous two texts so obviously of borrowing some others that it barely deserves the name of being an independent religion at all but if you live in the Muslim world and you say that the alkane shal Gabriel didn't dictate that then you have no moral compass at all and you're capable of anything is it really time all right then I'll yield Thanks I see they got a video camera here all this these redneck jokes and radical Islam discussion I got to get a copy of this DVD and you know do a replay here well actually mr. Hitchens will remain at the podium to start our next topic and this will be three minutes again for each to talk about Pascal's wager but of course we're going to give an extra minute to mr. Hitchens to define Pascal's wager for us first all right he probably will take about yesterday a minute a Blaise Pascal was the very distinguished Catholic theologian of the 17th century and also very very very distinguished mathematician and and still is considered to be one because he's one of the founders of probability theory and he's the author of a famous book called inferential upon say thoughts which is addressed interestingly it's one of the reasons I'm so fond of it in a way it's addressed to the man who is so made that he cannot believe Pascal knew that there were always people who would always be people who was had been people who are constitutionally incapable of believing this stuff can't be brought to believe it and one of his cruder attempts to break down resistance of people that myself was this said look what are you got to lose say you believe in God and if he does exist you have a chance of his favor if you go ahead like this and say he doesn't what if he does exist you lose everything that's it I don't think I've condensed it in any unfair way that's it that's why it's called Pascal's wager sometimes called Pascal's gambit in fact there mathematicians but it has the correct echo to me precisely of the huckster on the racetrack saying how can you lose how they got a bet for you can you imagine anything cheap really or more sorted the two things that it assumes needs to assume are these one the fantastically cynical God who's also bloody fool a nasty and cynical person who's also so thick that he would be fooled by me saying telly what on the flip coin that you exist and I need a break I'll say I believe in you said oh I'm really impressed now you've just undergone a moral transformation this is this place Pascal is considered in the first rank of Christian thinkers unlike that the second thing it assumes of course is the most corrupting drug a kind of consumer the sort of person would fall for a deal like that and would think that would be nice what I'll bet correctly I am I hope you'll forgive me ladies and gentlemen mentioning this because I don't at all want to invoke my own particular case in attempt to gain your sympathy I'll say this objectively as I can you some of you may have read that I'm not very well may not have very long to live I find it particularly objectionable this wager which Pascal offers to anyone at any time in their life to be fair to him tends to be pressed on you all the time if you don't look as if you're gonna last day long by people who say surely that now you might be frightened and not feeling at your best and afraid of a smelly and disgusting end why surely this would be the perfect moment to repudiate all the convictions of a lifetime for some reason that comes naturally to a lot of people of faith I think it's I don't mind for myself but I think it's the vilest kind of bullying to inflict on on people in hospital and people who are in extremis anyway thus my curtain-raiser to the great to the great Pascal thank you and now three minutes from mr. Taunton on Pascal's wager what what was it that I heard their crimes inflicted on the body and the what did he say the spirits I think it's very interesting coming from an atheist there is no spirit in we're worldview Christopher you can't have it both ways Pascal's wager Pascal was at once as he has as indicated he was a great scientist mathematician and philosopher perhaps one of the greatest of all time but he's hardly a huckster as Christopher might allege and it simply will not do to dismiss him so casually and I assure you that Pascal's wager has a great deal more merit than does the dubious Hitchens challenge the point of the wager has to consider the magnitude of the stakes everything the wager is meant to be a means to an end it's not meant to be the end in itself and for Pascal the end was none other than Jesus Christ now if I can tell a little story I don't think Christopher will mind me telling this as we're driving along we stop I'm getting gas and we're standing at the counter you know you see all these you know BC powders and six hour energy drinks or whatever they are and there was something there called notar and so Christopher leans into the counter and he says excuse me what is this and she says this isn't around Johnson City Tennessee she says well you put that on the end of your cigarette and you don't get any tar and you don't get any nicotine and Christopher says oh I wish I'd known my concern is that my friend will step into eternity and say oh I wish I'd known on the one hand Christopher has stated in a CNN interview that if he convert converts it means that the cancer has gone to his brain and then on the other hand he has participated in this bus campaign with the word probably which he has spent some time explaining away and so forth I would say to Christopher what he has once said to me and that is this don't give up quite so easily thank you and now mr. ton will remain at the podium for three minutes discussing atheism in the twentieth century well as Christopher pointed out I have mentioned something about that in my opening statement I will say that I don't have a great deal more to add to that I'm waiting to hear Christopher Christopher's rebuttal to that a hundred million dead ladies and gentlemen in the previous century by secular regimes now that is more than all of the religious wars from all previous centuries combined the problem ladies and gentlemen is human nature Democrats say it's Republicans Republicans say it's Democrats the environmentalists blamed it on on those who are who are doing damage to the environment and so on but the reality is as William Golding the author of Lord of the Flies once observed that the problems of human society are the problems of human nature and what I would suggest to you is which of our two philosophies which of our two philosophies restrains the darker impulses of man and which ones which one's a sir Bates it atheism ladies and gentlemen absolutely exacerbates the darker impulses of mankind because it offers no compelling reason why I shouldn't just tea treat you as an accident in space and time you see so I'm interested to hear what Christopher has to say about the atrocities the real atrocities that took place in the 20th century if he can divert from speaking of maybe some things that are taking place in Iran or in Vatican City thank you and now mr. Hitchens three minutes atheism in the twentieth century I just have to say again I had nothing to do with the bus campaign and I'm just amused by the insertion of probably by the government well now George Orwell once said that all totalitarianism is essentially theocratic by which he meant not that you can't be a totalitarian and religious unbeliever or not or non-believer after all well as the author who helps us perhaps better than anyone else in the twentieth century to understand the phenomenon of the totalitarian and of the person who thinks of human beings as raw material he meant by it that tatata totalitarianism has to put certain things off-limits for discussion it was to make certain things scriptural so to speak or matters of faith you may not challenge the one book of the inner party in 1984 you may not challenge the supreme leader in this case a big brother these things must be taken as matters of faith if you look at the 20th century dictatorships that we are most interested in and most horrified by if you start which I will with with fascism international socialism then my point is a very easy one and you don't need all wealth for it if you take out the word fascism from history of southern Mediterranean and bulk and Europe and some of Central and Eastern Europe to everywhere roughly from Portugal to Slovakia in the 20s and 30s take out the word fascist regime and just put in conservative Catholic you don't have to change anything else that's what it was the church was an official state accomplice of Mussolini Franco Salazar Pavelec in in Croatia in Slovakia the the Nazi installed clerical dictator was actually a priest and Holy Orders Father T so everybody knows it the church has never stopped trying to apologize for has never quite come up with the words so National Socialism is a little tougher proposition than that it did make its first diplomatic agreement with the Vatican both on foreign and domestic policy that's true Hitler remained a Catholic till the day he died in mind Kampf in the the end of the first chapter he says and the church reviewed his book and didn't ban it has it banned almost every other book it didn't like in those days that in destroying the Jewish people he knew he was doing the work of the Lord he says actually throughout mine camp that's what he's doing you can look it up it's easy if you want if you when you were made to take your oath to Adolphe Hitler of the earth of ultimate loyalty as a German officer you raised your achieved with this hand and said I swear by Almighty God it's how it began the church's celebrated Hitler's birthday every year of his regime until the very end and continued to harbor the refugees from his regime well into the 1960s it's a case easy to rest on the question of communism I'll I'll take the minute I didn't take on Pascal how's that fair wager it's a little tougher you don't understand communism at all oh and I should add the third member of the axis the Japanese Imperial member had as its leader the Emperor of Japan someone who was a god and was worshipped as such by his there's not exactly a secular dictation now you don't understand communism in my submission I've studied this a great deal if you think that members of the Bolshevik Party thought gosh now there's no God we can do anything we like we can kill anyone we want that's actually not how it went you should read the memoirs of the people who did the collectivization who actually arrived on their horses and ripped open the sacks of grain to see if the peasants were hiding any hoarding any keeping it and beat them up till they'd say where have you hidden the grain the city's need the food you dough the peasants don't we need it went on in this way and brought our brought about show trials inquisitions in other words the worship of an under saleable leader like Joseph sign they were all doing it in the name of a doctrine that said if you if we do this that will be heaven on earth and it's precisely the way in which it decayed into a pseudo religion that made so many of its adherents break from it and make it repulsive to us but it's attitude as a dictatorship had little or nothing to do with its attitude to to religion that's why Joseph Stalin of course always kept the Russian Orthodox Church on his side and in his corner as the Russian Orthodox Church remains to this day an accomplice of the Putin regime of KGB tactics at home and great Russian chauvinism abroad so really the case that the woes of the 20th century are to do with the collapse of faith which had already happened because of the first world war which was a war between Christian empires and a religious war in every sense of itself is completely a historical and leads to no understanding at all of what it is that makes the totalitarian principle so dangerous all right and actually mr. Hitchens if you'd like to stay up there we're going to move on I think you may have earned a couple of minutes there mr. Taunton for your closing remarks there as well we're going to move on to the final topic topic for which is vicarious Redemption three minutes to discuss by carries redemption and then two minutes of closing remarks so we can just take the full five minutes in full from you I'm doing via yes yes yes and then your closing remarks as well cursed redemption about this is what I mean by it the idea that you can give your sins to someone else and have them taken away it's one of the many reasons I believe Christianity to be an immoral doctrine as well as an untruthful and fictitious of mythical one the idea that a scapegoat can be fixed upon and your responsibility dissolved by handing your sins to him and then the ensuing and disgusting human sacrifice that's required there's no conceivable moral mechanism or process by which crimes that you've committed actions that are your responsibility can't possibly be removed from your record by the maltreatment of somebody else even if you've asked for that to happen let me make the case a bit clearer excuse me my voice is a little weak these days if I like I can pay your debt even if you don't ask me and that debt goes away okay I like I like this person he's a friend of mine or I'm sorry for him what's the amount I'll write the check that debts gone people have even been known to volunteer to serve other people's time in prison and in very extreme cases the best-known I suppose is Tale of Two Cities Sydney Carton taught to volunteer to substitute for someone on the scaffold that that can be done and it's rightly admired because it can really only be done once you can't make a practice of it you can't make a ritual of it by definition that would degrade it if it became a thing of habit and something that could be performed secondhand but what I cannot do for you my dear brother my dear sister my dear comrade what I cannot do is take away your responsibilities you are still stuck with you with what you did to incur that debt you'll still start with what you did for that prison sentence I can't take that away from you and no I offer because it would be to offer to remove your responsibility which is the moral core of the human being now all this would be true if it was already taking place once but instead but it's worse it gets worse I'm approached by Christian proselytizers and told you may not realize this but somebody died for your sins but roughly two thousand years ago happens to be in the Son of God he took them away he took all this away for you all you have to do is invoke it throw your sins on him and your plans you can be even hopeful redemption you have the means of grace you have the hope of glory even hope to live eternally pretty amazing offer for a human sacrifice 2000 years ago that you had no part in that you would have stopped if you could if you were a witness to it that you didn't ask for that was not conducted by you or before which your in any sense responsible but do they leave it at that nose you're free to speak like Pascal's wager again you're free to say no to this you can refuse this offer if you like but God help you if you do you are going to be terribly punished for turning this kind offer down now that's the totalitarian principle again and I say it with what you may I'm sorry you must not think as my last breath I say it I say it decidedly and after much reflection I declined to be spoken to in that tone of voice and I hope you will too thank you and now three minutes for the discussion of vicarious Redemption from mr. Taunton followed by two minutes of closing remarks I am somewhat amused ladies and gentlemen by these continual expressions of moral outrage we have seen it throughout the debate on the one hand he keeps appealing to some sort of absolute moral law while simultaneously denying the existence of a lawgiver where does he get this code his own vague inner promptings those are no more valid than anyone elses ladies and gentlemen sacrifice for others is both noble and Christian jesus told His disciples greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his life for his friends it is an oft-repeated theme that sits at the heart of Christian theology christopher however has misunderstood it he has confused the taking of one's life with the giving of it but this is to a confuse authentic sacrifice with with something else one of the extraordinary things about Christ's historic and real death on the cross is that he chose to do it the Gospels are at pains to point this out Jesus knew what was coming Jesus I might have avoided it but he chose not to when the time came Jesus who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross and despised the shame and as the Apostle Paul has pointed out if the resurrection is not true then Christian's above all are to be pitied because it means that there is no hope ladies and gentlemen there is none for any of us and as for the point concerning fascism and communism it is perhaps at this point worth stating that that I taught Russian history and European history for some time and I can tell you that that this is indeed a revisionist version of history Robert conquest who is regarded as one of the pre eminent historians of the the purges collectivization Stalinism states that quote a vicious a vicious atheism accompanied all of their activities in in the villages in the countryside that motivated the purges that motivated collectivization that motivated the murder of no less than 30 million Russians and that's that is just a conservative estimate and as for as for Hitler Yola confessed who has well known for his biography of Hitler he has made this point and it's it's it's a it's a powerful one as with Hitler's protestations of belief and tradition and conservative values or in Christianity the socialist slogans were merely movable ideological props to serve as Camelot a camouflage and to confuse the enemy Hitler himself said Christianity is the invention of sick brains I'll make these damned Parsons feel the power of the state in a way that they would never have believed for the moment I'm just keeping my eye on them but if I ever have the slightest suspicion that they are getting dangerous I will shoot the lot of them those who could not be paid off were shot those who could cooperate it as Christopher has pointed out in 1937 alone ladies and gentlemen 80,000 priests were shot in Russia and it doesn't really sound to me like Christianity was playing too much of a role in the events that were taking place in that country indeed I would argue it was the absence of Christianity there was no counterbalance to a super state to tyranny as for my closing remarks I think it's interesting it's one of the things I admire about Christopher and can enjoy about Christopher is the fact that in some sense he does observe the judeo-christian worldview but he wants to he wants to retain elements of it while simultaneously kicking out the foundations of it proponents of a society free from Christian influence component point to no nation or civilization that was founded upon atheistic principles that we might call even remotely good thank you very much well police folks final round of applause for both mr. Christopher Hitchens and mr. Larry Tom you can you imagine the drive-through West Yellowstone tomorrow alright yeah well and this is this is just the end of the the on stage portion of this event if you folks have Christopher Hitchens books that you want to get signed or if you want to buy a book you can buy it in the back fixed-point DVDs with several more of these debates are available in the back and then I understand mr. Hitchens will be signing books up front here and mr. Taunton will be talking with folks as well all the folks from the fixed-point foundation could you please stand up we want to thank you as well for putting this event on and and just a final note and thank you for me to both of you gentlemen I think both of you obviously you're on opposite sides of the of the spectrum when it comes to ideology but if you two who can disagree about the most fundamental of issues can get in the car together and ride down through Yellowstone National Park I think the rest of us can do the same no matter how much we might disagree so thank you for that you

Channel: Fixed Point Foundation

Views: 188,740

Rating: 4.6357579 out of 5

Keywords: Christopher Hitchens, Larry Taunton, Larry Alex Taunton, Debate, Atheism, Christianity, Faith, God, Religion

Id: mrOXeXgbMhE

Length: 69min 14sec (4154 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 10 2017