Christopher Hitchens vs. Rabbi David Wolpe: The Great God Debate

good evening thanks for being here on such a wretched night and what a big turnout we've busted right out of the temple tonight I'm a little intimidated with America's rabbi and the Godslayer Chris Hitchens are here maybe you should be a little intimidated in this treaty for all you know I'm the son of snake handlers and primitive Baptists in fact the I am so we'll see what happens here I hope that doesn't mean a prejudice in this debate made a mistake in with my third child I waited until she could speak to have her baptized and when the baptism you know water on him and when the preacher you know got the water with the droplets and began to put on her head and he said it is the name of God and she said what is God let's just do it let's start with the simplicity of a child what is God rabbi well it depends who you're answering if you're answering a two-year-old you answer one way but if your answer discussing it with an adult you begin with a recognition which actually the entire debate should be framed with of human limitation in the following sense when you were two years old could you imagine what it's like to be an adult of course not a two-year-old has no idea what an adult is like and yet we make definitive statements about God all the time when in every religion that I know of the distance between God and human beings is infinitely greater than the distance between an adult and a two-year-old so when I say as I'm going to in a second I'm not going to avoid your question but understand that I say it against the background of a religious recognition of our own inability to understand that which is infinitely greater than ourselves I my thumbnail definition of what God is is that God is the source of everything that exists and God is someone something with whom a being can have a relationship and that you can live your life in alignment with a godly purpose but any definition that is greater than that is in some ways to troduce God which is why by the way the title of Christopher's book is exactly right God is not great because to say God is great or God is something is to put a definition on God which we know from classical Jewish philosophy you ought not to do so in fact Christopher is exactly right we can wrap it up right now thank you very much for coming it's been a wonderful evening of apologies perhaps to Muslims in the audience who say God is great all the time we'll circle back okay Chris Hedges to you it answered my daughter's question maybe it'll warn her off if you don't mind it would be Christopher and hitched yes sir Chris Hedges is a horrible edges nicely yes you did forgive me precession is a horrible apologist for liberation Christopher Hitchens how many guests still annoyed by exist too if you see what I mean yes yes as well start by establishing that ontological yes I'm well Friedrich Nietzsche famously said that God was dead and Sigmund Freud can be rendered as having said that God was dad and I think both of them are probably right the the concept of God is like everything else in our vocabulary man-made it's an invention of human beings unless you take the view that God made us in which case would be a lot to explain how many why did we in that case make so many gods it does seem to be much very much more probable that men and women made many gods than that any one God made all men and women and the rest of creation and as well as being man-made it's fear made it is the unexpressed or partial expressed wish for a protector a parent someone who will never desert you someone who will do in a way of thinking for you especially on questions of moral philosophy at its best it's that it's a it's a wish to be loved more than you probably deserve and at its worst it's the underdeveloped part of the human psyche that leads to totalitarianism that wants to worship and that wants a boss that wants a celestial dictatorship and that's the bit that's now threatening to destroy our secular civilization and so you're quite right to start where you do it used to be believed to mean the number of gods now is it it's infinite and the new God is created almost every day by some cult or other but it used to be that there was a belief that gods were in the trees and though in the woods in the springs in the sea and the clouds and so forth poet he has another kind then something a bit more polytheistic like Olympus where there was at least a location for the divine but it was multifaceted and then monotheism getting it down to one so I regard this as progress of a sort because they're getting nearer the true figure all the time I actually grabbed I yes progress are maybe which is well which by the way is more the Vatican in its old pull des was very upset by the concept of zero didn't like zero to a most important number of all the number without which you can't do anything which wasn't there in Roman numerals now it was invented in Islamic civilization I also struck them as a sinister import from from in part of us in fidelium from from pagan lands but also the trouble the concept of zero was very troubling for theism and must be and does indeed remain so as one of the many many ways to which theism is not compatible with Sancho fit worldview rev I hope they may ask you I want I just want to point out without even taking issue with the incorrect statements that he made um look but I want you I won't you and I want you to understand wait wait I want you to understand the the progress of the argument that you just heard because it's important that people do this all the time and at least you should be aware of it whether you accept it or not very often when people argue with you especially when they argue about religion they attribute their own beliefs to logic and your belief to psychology so religious people believe in something because they need to be loved or they need a crutch or they're weak but I believe what I believe because it's true and scientific and I just want you to be aware that you cannot actually disprove someone's belief by imputing and unworthy motive to it you actually have to disprove the belief so don't let Christopher pull the psychological wool over your eyes you can actually be just as worthy or unworthy of love just as tough-minded just as thoughtful just as deep and still believe in God as most human beings have throughout all of human history as if you are first of her head Christopher are you a trickster well I don't think that you couldn't use that would be an incorrect statement you would accuse it of being an incomplete one I didn't give all the reasons why people believe in God thoughtful you did write a whole book that argues that the belief in God can be very useful to people in times of crisis did you know I mean that's the and that was why you should believe in God and better think it is the reason why many people do but remember that there are two questions were better now say lest I be accused of not having exhausted the entire Soviet in my first response I better say there are at least two questions one is this is there a God they a creator a prime mover an uncaused cause whatever you like to call it and this was the question answered at a certain point not very long ago in our history by the deists people like Thomas Jefferson Thomas Paine and many others who said that the order of the universe seemed to suggest that it couldn't just have been random that the the maybe no designer whether the designer didn't take any part in human affairs and that in the in the late 17th early 18th centuries was probably sorry late 1839 centuries was probably a very in charge of position to homes as for pre Einstein pre-darwinian far as you're likely to get with philosophical speculation but so believing that there might be a cause or a mover or creator is one thing but believing that there is a supervising intervening entity who cares who wins the war who cares who you sleep with and in what way who cares what you eat and on what day and in other words who makes you the center of the whole cosmos is another thing altogether so people who say I believe in God I'm a deist have all their work in front of them before they could say that they are really religious are you prepared to be a deist no no divine mover even at the whatever the origin there's nothing in the natural in the cosmic order or that's the macro level or the micro level that's to say the constituent of our own DNA and the things that we have in common with the other animals and indeed other other forms of life like plants it isn't susceptible to a much better explanation well here's time it was as the great physicist Laplace said when when he demonstrated his working model his RA as it's called of the solar system to the emperor and Napoleon said well I see there's no God in this system and Laplace said William arrastia works without that assumption well III don't want to play God not to give form to this sure it's 2010 you said you you think of God as the source of all in the year BCE 2010 why in tribute the source of all to divinity what about science and you just said so I'll enter exactly I was just going to address is the first of all there there are two separate ways of thinking about this both and I'll offer them both briefly and you can decide if both or neither is congenial to you one is that of course you can't equate God and proof for God and discussion of God with the demonstration in a laboratory that's never been the case the idea is different to shift it differently which is this I would ask you this question instead deep down do you believe that the universe is constituted only by stuff by material or is there a mystery at the heart of things do you believe that you are purely samantha's or is there something immaterial and eternal about you and those you love do you believe that things like love or just an epiphenomenon of the way evolution has put us all together or do you think there is something that in the fact that immaterial things like ideas and love and consciousness have such a profound influence on our lives that lead you to believe that the intangible can be at least as real or more real than the tangible if that way of looking at the world appeals to you or speaks to you then you understand that Laplace in order to explain how the heavens go may not need the hypothesis of God but that in order to explain why there is something rather than nothing why there is a deeper meaning to life than stuff alone that that's something that speaks to you and lets you understand that God is real that's part one wait wait wait part two part two is there are in fact things that are suggestive of something greater in even the scientific world ooh which is why by the way in the american academy of science more than half consistently and this has been true for the last hundred years fifty one fifty two percent of scientists say that they believe in God and that is the fact that everything exists rather than nothing that consciousness which is still inexplicable to human beings is real that I make sounds and which is immaterial and it touches you in some way that what makes you want to change things the way of looking at the world even from what we can see and touch and feel suggests that there's something greater than what we know and now go right ahead I can't I can't paraphrase improperly but we really ought to get hold of it's easy to find on on Google electro given by Lawrence Krauss so I regards the various living physicist and it's about the quantum and it's about a whole universe of nothing it's exactly how you get from nothing to something in fact quite a lot of things one means by which this happens is the following every second that we're speaking a star the size of our Sun or bigger goes out blows up or goes out that's been the case every single second since the first moment of the Big Bang it's a lot that there will be a lot of sun's going out as we speak and there's a lot of annihilations lives a lot of destruction it's on a it's a rather what you might call almost a wasteful scale it does have the positive outcome there that we are all constitutive of those materials we are made of Stardust now I find that a rather more majestic and wonderful and even beautiful idea then say the idea of the burning bush bit more impressive gives you more to think about it usually exclusive also has neither neutrally explicit will not make you a star as one has the virtue of being true and provable and study abou which the other doesn't and I do think that the verifiability of something is is a virtue are we simply material this we didn't have bodies we our bodies until fifty thousand years ago there were four other kinds of biped humanoid not unlike ours Stirling on the planet died leaving no descendants were the only survivors of those people that that family were the last they we don't know if they had gods or not so you think sorry no explicable no religion ever invented it appears to have known that these creatures even existed because the the religious are forced to believe that they're a really significant event that happened in the human story happened about three thousand years ago inexplicable are we just waiting it's not true no it's the right place now factually where is this all of this all this massive big bang caused cosmological churning and destruction and and B'nai elation which is paralleled by the way on our own earth where 99% of all species that have been on the planet gone extinct leaving no descendants all of this could be part of a plan there is no way no theists can prove it's not but it's some plan isn't it with mass destruction pitiless extermination annihilation going on all the time and all of this set in motion on a scale is absolutely beyond our imagination in order that the Pope can tell people not to jerk off that I apathetic right now I think that is diffic here we need satellites childish to be reached an area of agreement I to repudiate that statement by the Pope and I'm happy to do it publicly no no no no wait just a second hold on the first of all it's just not true that religions don't actually acknowledge very important things that happened before their own founding just read the beginning of the Bible which goes back far beyond the founding of the Bible but more important than that there are actually things that if you are material you can't give an accounting of for example you might not believe that you have free will you might think that everything you do was predetermined from the beginning of the Big Bang and just the fact by the way that all of the universe physics tells us came from something tinier than the head of a pin is to me there is no word other than miraculous for it but nonetheless you might believe that all be everything you did though words tonight the fact that those flowers will be orange on the table that was all predetermined from the beginning of time but if you believe that you actually make a choice that human beings have free will then I asked you how you account for that you didn't pick your birth your genetics you didn't pick your environment so from the very beginning all of that was predetermined for you and unless there is something immaterial about you that allows you to choose then everything human beings do is already set from the beginning of time I don't understand how you get free will if you don't have God it's pathetic I'm sorry to say it's up to say of the the cosmology and the genetic that these are deterministic processes they're not at all they're full of extraordinary randomness and in the genetic case of mutation Stephen Jay Gould the great paleontologists wrote a book which I'd recommend to you called the Burgess Shale which is a it's the side of a mountain in Canada Canadian Rockies that sheared off so you can read you can see the inside of a mountain you can see it as if you're looking at a blackboard and you can see the growth and develop of the species so you realize that it's not a tree it's more like a bush now because the reverse branches that go off and go nowhere and the others that succeed and and the different kinds of failure and different kinds of mutation his most exciting thought most revolutionary thought is this if you could so to speak pull all that onto a tape and rewind it and then press play again there's no certainty would come out the same way in fact is every reason to believe that it would not so there's nothing predetermined something deterministic about this at all but thanks to our understanding of our genetics which are also not predetermined because they're result of random mutation and natural selection as everyone now knows and that's why we can have sad to say for the kosher but we can have skin transplants and organ transplants from pigs were much closest to us than we used to think we can also sequence the DNA of viruses and learn how to immunize ourselves from it works in other words but yes it can be tampered with it can be engineered for good as well as for ill there's nothing deterministic about it at all it's much more exciting it's much more interesting much more rewarding it's verifiable and yes there are elements of I was trying to save the miraculous the awe-inspiring the tragic the majestic in this that the simply are not in the incantations of Genesis where the suppose Adolphus claims to know the divinity the Creator on personal terms this is nonsense it's for children robot there first of all it is in tree I mean Stephen Gould who was by the way very sympathetic to religion and wrote a book called rocks of Ages which I also recommend to you where he said that religion and science don't overlap the shorter he went second if you read his book on the verge of sale he does say if you rewind then you assume if you push play again you would get a different result and that's certainly true unless the result was intended but more important than that yes there's randomness in the system nobody would argue that there isn't randomness in the system but randomness isn't freewill randomness is getting a result you don't expect the question is how do you get a directed choice which isn't random I choose right now to pick this glass up now how did I make that choice if I'm purely a product of my DNA and my environment then it's not a choice then it was programmed in then it's instinct and the whole point that religions always made about instinct with the human beings can rise above it unlike animals which are the same at h2 as they are at age 10 as they are at age 15 a human being grows and changes and chooses that's the basis of religious I have actually to me it doesn't seem a matter of religion that I can choose to pick up this glass that seems to me to be well within what could develop how purely scientific base now I'm not a scientist but it doesn't sound like a mystery of God so sure to me personally it is well melted cheers to where where does the element of fire ice comet I could be purely instinctual and put my head in a stream and drink and chill not to do that by the way we do it now you say choose wait wait when you say choose where does that where does the choice come from anymore they might then the choice of this glass to fall down where do you get a choice as opposed to a complex interaction of DNA and environment neither of which you chose again piling on completely unnecessary assumptions is also inviting inviting a question that will make you uncomfortable if you say that no is because God has given you free will I have to ask you how do you know that well are you assuming that we have for one one mine are you showing that we have free will if your honor if yours then give me and also a question me another source you answer my question with another key another zero answer it okay I will still answer it though your question is an answer to mine Robin Norton also responds to mine yeah I'm the view I take about freewill is that of course we have free will because we have no choice but to have it I am a dime there I was I wasn't a sonic lint now that was a nice tool to some extent I'm a dialectical materialist and I also think there are some there are some ironies in the universe as words of history but to say of course we have free will the boss says we've got it is to make a mockery of the whole concept and it's also to invite the question what kind what kind of Tony is this that you want you want all supervising all deciding person I asked you first what sources of information do you have about this person's existence that I don't have that are denied to me I'd like to know in second why do you want it why do you want to arrive at a terminus of unfreedom where there is a celestial authority upon whom all things depend and from which all things flow why do you want that and how on earth do you know that there's any case to be made for its existence yes please that's all I don't I don't think that's a terminus upon freedom I think you're indeed everyone you've declared against it frankly that's the beginning of freedom is the emancipation is that they coded it tyranny the tyranny of of theocracy yes I actually think that the whole point that I was making was that a belief in a God who creates you is what gives you free will and that without it you have to fall into a determinism and by the way you may not you may think that science gives it to you but every scientist I've asked on this question including David borrow shoes and evolutionary biologist says that it's Steven Pinker had the same reaction is that it is more or less a commonplace of modern science that determinism is the only worldview that's consistent with an understanding of the way science works so you may be able to find it in science but I haven't met a scientist yet who's been able to account for not a reality that is the believing that aside no of course not I'm saying then those new zones use determinism as their philosophical assumption but let me answer his question to which is therefore I assume that as a religious person you're granted freedom that's the whole point is you do make choices once you said greater choices what's never granted you've made my point and was English you know about your granted thank you thank you for making me for your graduate no you're granted freedom so you're granted freedom by the evolutionary process I'm granted freedom by a creator are either way what you have no budget all sorts of free do I mean the course scientists are right to that this extent there are Einstein says the miraculous thing about the laws of nature is they're never suspended that's what's so amazing that they are immutable regin claims that on occasions the laws of nature are suspended in order but many in order really what they wouldn't otherwise enter you ask not Maimonides it depends who you ask in release is there a fundamental contradiction in your mind forever between Jewish teaching and evolution no none at all no not but evolution as we learn it doesn't require a deity no it well it depends it to me by requiring deity it's just like saying that building this stage doesn't require a deity the question isn't whether the the discovery of the mechanism by which God made the world requires God it just requires the discovery of the mechanism by which God made the world but it also doesn't outlaw God or may God impossible or make it in fact less plop what are the difference to your mind between mystery and in comprehension in comprehend in other words right we offer hence it describes my reaction to the question oh great America's my questions and comfort I'm not sure I understand tell me about some other ways progressively made a lot of things comprehensible yes mystery mystery means those things that by the very nature of the world are unfit uribl no matter how no matter how bright we are no matter how hard we work out how do you know that they're undeterred you're out well you're asking for that over incomprehensible you're asking no in a way that I'm not willing to concede is the proper way to describe religious conviction it's like saying to me how do you know that love exists or how do you know that another human being is beautiful or how do you know that that I don't know that these that these lights are a pageant of gorgeous colors the answer is you don't know it some things you have is the deepest conviction of your soul and they're things that make sense of the world in ways that nothing else makes sense of the world but if you ask me do I know that God exists the way I know that that glasses on the table then I say you're putting it in an empirical scientific framework which is exactly the framework that religious people want to keep religion out of but I want to posit the other way about how do you know the mystery won't be solved to one day because the because it's not a mystery of a question that's solvable it's like saying do you how do you know the mystery won't be solved that that you have a haven't in a radical sense that the world is wondrous I don't know how you would even think about solving such a mystery I could understand it and still find it wondrous Christopher what about you if it's not God is all soluble well first one day you're right that science has made many things more comprehensible to us and it's explained things the religion used to take credit for in other words now we know there's a germ theory of disease diseases are not curses or Avengers from heaven same with earthquakes and so on the stuff they used to teach us and many of them still do is nonsense evil nonsense as well as even a nonsense but it's also taught us it just in my lifetime an enormous amount more about how little we know we're much much more ignorant yes than people who lived before Galileo we just because we have a now an increasingly large idea of that fantastic expanse of the unknown that's precisely the moment at which to say that skepticism is what's necessary inquiry debate doubt where's faith in this where's the usefulness of faith there there's no use to it at all Socrates who as far as I know existed but may well not have done it doesn't matter to me no one will insult me if they say Socrates you're your great hero didn't exist try on a Muslim tried on a Christian their prophets didn't exist or so people that Moses as a myth they start hurling themselves about making menacing noises virile Sabra she said you're only education when you've understood how ignorant you are and you're only going to even find that out by doubting everything all the time there's all the difference in the world between that outlook and that mentality now adventurous your faith and second on on metaphysics which you I noticed take refuge in several times already this evening like what is love is something poetic or is it prosaic very good questions but metaphysical ones those who say God exists and intervenes in the world in other words those who say there is a religious God the god of religion are saying that redemption is on offer to human beings that salvation is on offer to them and that if they reject the offer they can be in really big trouble now don't start talking on tuner wins like this or if you don't mind to a debater debate partly like me as if religion was a private matter because everybody knows that if it was there wouldn't be anything to argue about it's precisely because it claims to be a total solution a complete solution to all problems available on on pain of death sometimes in some forms but available to you if you only have enough faith where we have spawned out the faith is probably the most overrated of the virtues and the one most least useful to us in the real dilemmas that we actually have to face there there are so many things to unpack in that statement that I'll just pick on two or three the first being interestingly that Socrates whether he exists or not existed or not according to Plato at least believed in the gods and even in an afterlife so he didn't doubt everything gods maybe but wherever it didn't didn't interrupt you but I want you to know and use even though this is particular I didn't interrupt you twice um but I want you to know you were quick enough maybe it may no it may be true that part of it wasn't was speed but I also think it's because civility is very religious virtue so he I'm there I could have said that the the Jewish tradition actually doesn't tell you that everyone must do this in the world rather it prescribes goodness and that's what is that religion is supposed to bring into the world now can you point to examples of religion religious wickedness of course you can but that's clearly what Judaism asks of people the first obligation that you have is goodness and that's why when you talk about religion as though it is inherently totalitarian it tells you you must act this way it makes two mistakes first of all it doesn't see religion as evolving as everything else does when in fact the Judaism of thousands of years ago ought to be must be should be is expected to be different from the Judaism of today till heaven Commandments it's none of our guiding some good nights you have to let me finish my statement okay please it's thank you um you look I feel a little bit between a sandwich here but the second and the second part of it is that if you say that faith does nothing for you as Christopher repeats over and over again it's very hard to explain why it is that millions and millions of people all over the world and throughout history have felt that faith deepens their life gives them meaning increases their goodness and why it is for example in America that people of faith if more to charity vote more in elections volunteer more help more do you know what the largest aid organization is aid and development organization in the United States it's not care it's not Save the Children it's a one world which is a Christian organization out of Seattle which not only gives millions and millions and millions of dollars across the world but sends people all across the world to the most beleaguered helpless places and they do it because they believe they're called to do it by God it's just not true that having faith makes no difference in this world it makes a tremendous difference and the vast majority of that difference not all of it but the vast majority of that difference is for goodness let me put a question than if you'd be so good the rabbi feels it the rabbi feels in the sandwich and I don't mean for you to feel in the sandwich so if it is you that's okay Christopher what about the solace of faith some of the most religious people I know ended up there oh the softball hardcore no I mean I know what he's going to say to this well maybe but he'll hardline did hard-hearted song leader is always worse you're a misanthrope because you're not sympathetic to people's need for religion I send my book available at fine bookstores everywhere that as as long as I don't have to hear about it I don't mind what people believe if they say well thanks to Joseph Smith in his gold plates I have real faith now and I've got a family and I have friends and I have a real system and so on I said fine fine just don't come to my front door with it don't ask for tax break for it don't ask my children to be taught it in the school did you sign up your life in a way hear about and I asked I asked them acquit I asked the question in the book people think they have a personal relationship with creator and they're the possessors of a wonderful secret it must feel I've never felt it I presume feels great why doesn't it make them happy they're not happy they can't be happening everyone else believes it too they go out and proselytize very often now I just I can't let your glossed also good though if in the guise of charity you dose how often that religion Roseanne answer the questions that I've put like how do you know there's a God what evidence do you have for it which you say well lots of good people do good things because they're religious well let's say the most recent repressing case Richard Dawkins and I and a few others in the response to the Haiti earthquake set up a an emergency charity for people of non-belief to give to you because so many charitable organizations are in fact proselytizing groups so we raised about two million in a weekend and all that money goes straight by the way thank you if you go to Richard's web site you can find out more about how to ditch this because it's permanent it's going to stay in being all that money went straight to Doctors Without Borders of course and the International Red Cross which though it has a cross isn't a religious organization both these order is already in Haiti they're proven none of the money goes to support any missionary activity none and the Scientologists and all the others who turned up in Haiti and the people turned up and aged to kidnap babies to convert them to their faith and the Catholics who turned up and said standing in the ruins of their own Cathedral with a quarter of a million Haitians buried under the rubble said God spoke here today and you should listen to his message don't tell me that's good don't tell me that's good that's wicked it's proselytizing it's proselytizing with the helpless using them as objects of charity and conversion it's lying to people but there's also a lot of room to lie equipment it's wrong to lie to people and it's giving them is giving them false hopes and false explanations for their plight now we're not guilty of any of that and now ask you another question we're in the Decalogue is the word goodness appear where that's a good swath of Exodus for you we're in Exodus ters where goodness appear we're in this commandment rich territory does the word goodness or the enjoyment to be good occur this should be a soft body okay it first of all it tells you it tells you what you ought not to do it says love your neighbor as yourself in in the Book of Leviticus I mean I'm allowed to move to Leviticus from exercising that's right yes that's good yes okay thank you I appreciate that it says you should pursue justice just as justice you shall pursue it says it over and over and over again and also by the way I you know no tradition at least certainly not the Jewish tradition and I'm not aware of any other tradition is only the Bible Judaism is a long exegetical tradition and it says several times in the Talmud that the one purpose of the metes vote is let's array Futaba which means to refine human character it's clear that Judaism is directed around goodness it's repeated over and over again the whole system and framework of meats vote are to get people to treat each other decently and if you say what'd you do that people use Authority governmental authority religious authority military authority political authority to do bad things my answer is of course they do anytime you set up a structure of authority people will do bad things that searches other things but that isn't what I thought but that yes of course it's so what you say is what you heard is when religion does good things it doesn't count because sometimes they want people to believe what they believe when it does bad things it's because of religion when you make everything good that happens that religion does invalid and everything bad that religion does representative that's called arguing in bad faith which is ironic for someone who has none Oh it seems a pair of Russian yes but it's not I mean as as I know you know that isn't at all what I said don't say it's the bad things are done in the name of original by authorities I say it's religion itself there is the problem I got my way to make clear that I don't take refuge in any other position now in Leviticus and in Exodus if your neighbor you better know and you you're supposed to love him this person had better not be an Amalekite a Midianite a Moabite better not only obey not be a witch yep the destruction of whom is enjoined right not be a homosexual the stoning of whom is enjoyed will not be a slave the terms of slave of enslavement of which are all laid out now these are primitive tribal agricultural most the commandments but all the Decalogue whether is addressed to the property-owning classes here's what you can't do with your servants here your servants were supposed to obey this Quran why other Commandments addressed to 80 people have staff why the women rather a large objection I thought why the women counted as part of the animal and chattel that's disposable by these holders of property it's couldn't it be any more of this that this is a man-made phenomenon and at a time when people were not at their best to were full of fear and ignorance and greed and covetousness of other people's property how can we be faithful and not be trapped by history not all of its elements so it's a traveling map that as Christopher knows very well I assume that the Bible was put together by human beings and that the Jewish tradition is a long evolving tradition as our other traditions in which the dross of history is gradually refined in the same way that you would not expect someone 3,000 years ago to be able to understand the sort of arguments that you're making tonight people change there's an evolutionary process also not only to biology but to sociology to ideology all of those things and that's why the question is very much does religion make people better and can these systems refine themselves and can they get rid of the stuff that's bad in religion and I think that to assume that you can cherry-pick the things in the statements and religion that are negative and those things are necessarily enduring contradicts the history of every tradition I know what cherry-picking is an odd word to use with something that's thrust upon you I've got no choice but to study the jackal oh no actually I point out it says it's addressed to property owners and joins them to keep women as probed yes how are you oh you're cherry pie are you in are you in favor of theft murder and it psaltery do you think those are good thing there's no here's the is exactly the number for question if what you say is true yes not that I've never said it wouldn't I couldn't be interpreted as having said no religious person can do a good thing if you know I believe what you say is true this should be true and you should find it easy to point it out okay there must be something not that they can do or do but I cannot do that's a good thing either no statement made or moral or ethical statement performed the person of faith could perform that I cannot you must be able to identify that actually your point is to have any file could you how can one human being do something that another human being can't do physically physically of course you could do anything that I could do but I can say lots of things you know I own a more immoral and say lots of things you don't do not that you can't do you probably don't do as I do bless your child on a Friday night you probably don't create great works of art based on religion you probably don't go halfway across the world feeling that you're motivated and called by a God who tells you to help other human beings I mean all those things are things that religion motivates people to do not that you can't do them but that people generally don't do them if they're not motivated by religion to get real I mean pronouncing an incantation yes isn't a moral action of loserdom it isn't it's only it's only not a moral action if you don't eat I'll judge the enormous anyway this one is something today it is nothing I could do it's not I sign of course you can and I encourage you to do it um it's only not immoral I one day you don't feel the unique expression of love when it takes place in an atmosphere of sanctity that is not the same as saying to a child I love you I have to tell you I mean some of you knew my father who passed away in May who was a rabbi when I think of the most powerful and intimate moments that I with my father it was when he put his hands on my head and blessed me on a Friday night now he would not have done that where he not religious and it wasn't the same as when he kissed me goodnight and said I love you because there is an element in which religious people dwell it's called a world of sanctity that you can't invoke and can't dwell in if you don't believe that that realm exists Christopher G we'll wait first I'm sorry for your loss here's the owners say sorry for your trouble right Oh second that but I'm still the good option sister I don't think anyone in the audience can consider that's an answer to my challenge first to say there's a moral or ethical statement or action that an unbeliever could not perform but could not means that you're physically incapable of it and I'm willing to concede nice be honest it when you can do everything I can do well that's important let's go to the bush you can write well then I mean I heard you were say wouldn't do you want the only answers you weren't answer it I'll just leave the question to the audience if anyone hadn't come up to me and say here's a moral thing you couldn't do not don't do it could not do that original only original person knew I'd be vendor stood to hear of it no one's ever come up with it let me ask a session it was a brief corollary think of a wicked thing done or evil thing said that is done precisely because of faith you've already thought of one but any that but any that someone who does not make I wouldn't do and now they tell me one that zone who doesn't that they could not do I didn't say that okay it is but that's exactly the point a human being can do certain things whether they're believers or not they have the physical ability it's still leaving something give you a nucleus you will no problem to you that the suicide-murder community the genital mutilation community these are all faith-based communities um we're on the subject of charity who doesn't hear Hamas saying the reason we're loved by our people is because we provide social services we help the needy we're the only people who come out and do that which is a by the way most horrified to have to say is true but you do you excuse them for that because they're charged of course not do you not think that they bless their children a whole lot yes I think you can if you have a card then you do it right you try being you don't think I'll be a Muslim children an obeah child not be blessed the entire time that's part of the authority that they claim but they in the morning I want to ask who this is all faith-based who steps up to you won't like any of the language but life has a lot of despair people fall into despair who steps up to save and I don't mean in Christian terms necessarily at all but who steps up to reach out to those people and for society as a whole if you don't have the teaching of religion what will offer a kind of moral construct I don't see it in schools I don't the union halls are gone who's going to give people instructions any world it's called Hollywood Hollywood is well exactly what it may have blemishes it may be deeply flawed it may be fatally flawed you would say but what's the substitute what's the structure for moral teaching inning save the despairing I think despair is quite a good starting point myself I mean I think it's very good to know that we're born into a losing struggle I think that the stoicism that comes from that and the reflection becomes very useful I'm not very impressed by people to say well I wish it wasn't true so I'll try and act as if it is it is true everything is governed by an entropy and decline and annihilation and disaster and you're born into a losing struggle and because you're a mammal primate primate mammal you know you are and you know you're going to die and that there'll be a lot of struggle and pain on the way I don't want a world without anxiety and grief and pain and struggle I want I can't get it no one's seen but you've been there so offer it to me I spurn the gift I don't want what you want I don't want the feeling of eternal love and peace love and peace very very overrated in my view one reason one reasons one one of the many reasons that says I should despise all religions equally but one I and I do in a way but it one way which I prefer Judaism to the its rivals is that the emphasis ISM is more on justice than on love I want to go there ever why is that not misanthropic of you that attitude misanthrope it doesn't mean I have to hate people but it means that babies I respect hard it means a rectum and it means a respect him enough not to offer them false consolation I do think it's important the realm of illusion will not help you to cure this condition I do think it's important to say that part of this part of this is based in temperament but also part of it is based life experience I spent a lot of my time at the bedside of people who are dying with parents who lost children with husbands who lost wives and wives who lost husbands the sense of community that is created by religion the sense that life is meaningful even if it's short all of that it's not trivial it's not cheap consolation it's not illusion it goes to the depths of the questions that human beings ask themselves and I know that you can make a clever remark about the sheep selling of religious consolation but you know what the remark gets melted by the heat of human anguish when you're standing beside the grave of a child who died and the mother is saying a prayer and that brings her some measure of comfort because she really does believe that this world in some sense is meaningful and is not my allistic and is not empty and is not foolish and and although I can't prove to you in an empirical sense that in fact the world is meaningful at that moment even as I questioned it it seems to me the deepest instinct of my soul but if you'll gosh well if you'll pardon me I won't sharing it my griefs with you but I've never had one or had any known anyone who had one who had the faintest consolation from religion and indeed being told as the Christians tell them that they're off to a better place and so on I think it's positively wicked thing to do and he lying to the dying for a living what what what what self-respecting person can do that and you know it's alive watching tell me how you know it's a lie since you asserted again and it was the person saying it cannot possibly know it to be true and therefore they'll have access to information even if they believe it it's a lie yes that's it's a lie but how do we create for those who aren't able or don't desire to walk around in despair or to walk around in irony in in a world that brings can bring trennis baer try try it fine but I think it's manifestly clear lots of people don't choose that so what does atheism offer well it offers the chance of living without illusion which I think it says velocity philosophy and literature will do a great deal more for you there much more there's a lot more morality in them there's a lot more ethical discussion in Dostoevsky say they amaze you but we will present them in also sign or your society who goes into my way I'm betraying it so now I'm present arias from now I'm presenting I can't do you're going to be very busy I can only appear in my own person here I can even say that some external works me this irony I think is tremendously useful as as its philosophy especially the philosophy of Spinoza especially in times of anguish and the the realization that there's no false consolation can actually cheer you up but once you face the fact that you're born into a losing struggle things immediately appear a great deal more manageable in some ways and really of the remarks against this paper not why these remarks couldn't have been made by a devout member of the Muslim Brotherhood and what I want to ask him is this if anything of what he says is true is he really saying that he would he would prefer me not to be myself not to be an unbeliever and someone who believes in irony and at the UH illusion world I'd be morally better off if I was a hobby Muslim for exhaust me as a woman cocky me the serious are you innocent out I mean according to you I would be a ballad only it was a question that you asked me the question if you're not allowed to answer it for me you imply hi I'm four I want to know if you really mean actually I never said that you were automatically better off if you believe than you didn't believe I think Christopher is very useful in the world because he forces religious people today I mean he's useful for many many reasons obviously to the world but he also forces religious people to think seriously about their faith and as I understand the God that I believe in and the God that judy's and presents the first and primary demand is not belief the first and primary demand is goodness that's exactly what characterizes Judaism and therefore if you say to me I'm a good person but I don't believe is it better that I would be a miserable person who believed I all I have to do is look at the sources and say obviously not obviously it's better for you to be who you are and to promote goodness in the world that's exactly what Akeno Lamba mouth Kucha die is what the Jewish tradition teaches to make the world better under the sovereignty of God but notice the the first clause in that is to make the world better so if you do that that's the primary demand of any fate that I think is worth its salt may we turn on that point to what very shred grazed as an acute concern that is violence and the question of whether violence is integral to religion or exceptional and an offense to religion or both are all three violence and religion okay so I'm going to try to abbreviate this there are two things to remember first of all most religious conflicts are not about religion what you find is religions will fight when there's land when there's power when there's resources when there's water when there's money it's very rare for a religious group not not inconceivable very rare for a religious group to say hey guess what there's someone halfway across the world who believes differently let's go get them it's the people who live next door to us who are other than us which other than us we should get them and by the way along the way we're going to take their land and were going to take their riches and we're going to take this and that's because and if you look in the encyclopedia of war which is probably not something that you peruse in your leisure hours but if you do you will see that it identified seventeen hundred and sixty-three wars since the beginning of time one hundred and twenty three of them are identified as religious wars when you take religion out of his society you don't get a more peaceful Society we look at the 20th century it was like a laboratory for that Stalinism maoism Nazism Cambodia and North Korea versus South Korea on and on and on and on the fact is the record of extracting religion is very poor and the final point is this which is if you ask why religious people fight the answer is clear it's because they're people I have a colleague in not a rabbi but a psychologist in Los Angeles who studies bullying do you know at what age bullying is most prominent think to yourself what age and then I'll tell you the answer by far the answer is preschool because we're not born all sweetness and light it's why it's so much hard work to get a kid to be good right parents don't have to say to their child why don't you share a little bit less you know because you're really you're too selfless you're too kind instead it's very hard work to get people to do well what religions are known for is their attempt to make something straight of the crooked nature of human beings and they fail again and again and again exactly as you would expect if you know human nature but that doesn't mean that the attempt to do it makes people worse quite the opposite at least according to the evidence of history well violence there's no mystery but violence mean violence arises because we are primates imperfectly evolved of prefrontal lobes are too small our adrenaline glands are too big they're worse other deformities of this kind sexual organs designed by a committee all the rest of it and we're greeted we're greedy and probe active politics reading we're greedy and fearful and but adds covetous of other people's put and also surprisingly it's our biggest defect given that the reason we're so successful is there's almost no genetic difference between us if we were dogs we'd all be the same breed a fantastically little variation we're incredibly prone to tribalism and ethnic and racial what Freud calls the narcissism of small differences so of course if a tribe let's say that's calling itself the children of Israel for the sake of argument decides they should kill all the other tribes in getting its way take their women the slaves butcher their men take their land take their cattle and so battle in this way across to Canaan and take everyone else's land and burn down their if that's going to happen well there's well there's religion or not but it'll happen very much more intensely if they believe they have a mandate from heaven to do so it's a terrific force multiplier I think there would have been a quarrel between the Hutu and the Tutsi of Rwanda say once Belgian colonialism had established that there were these two different character groups type said it's the tribes but it's a terrific force multiplier that the Catholic Church was as strong as it was in Rwanda the most Christian country in Africa made it infinitely worse what makes the israel-palestine two-state solution ungettable because there's a chunk of people on both sides who say they have God in their corner and God gave only their group the land and they can negate the votes of everybody else including the whole of the international community by the way just because of their faith Northern Ireland is the same there would have been a Republican nationalist dispute it's infinitely worse because of religion so I think that the the possible the corollary I'd like to hope would be that the less religion there was the less violence there would be but I can't I can't him good I can't in good Darwinian conscience say that but I think the more that the more the people refused orders that were divine as for example to take the preposterous allegation that the rabbi makes that the Wars of the 20th century were secular wars the belt buckle worn by every soldier in the Nazi army that says got mittens got on our side I don't think that was a help to you things were bad enough as they were on page 70 I think there's of mine Kampf Hitler says that way in taking on the filthy virus of Judaism I know I'm doing the work of the Lord and I'm called i'm summoned by the Lord to do this work a book one of the very few books the Vatican didn't ban in that period by the way I joined that was a help either so I'd say on the whole we'd be better off without the belief either in a supreme dictator because that leads to violence all the idea that God takes sides in our pathetic mammalian disputes I want to just sign as a coda to this when you say that we shouldn't take orders I just want to remind you of a long history for example the abolition of slavery was almost entirely the work of people who believed they were taking orders from something higher in societal orders Wilberforce in England here you know Beecher and John Brown and so on they believed they were doing God's work by abolishing slavery and it's interesting to slavery it's the interest in the abolition of slavery was a Christian movement but the idea is it's not an issue of who you take orders from it's an issue of the orders you take that's the issue and it comes down in part to one kind of religion you practice not whether you practice religion comrades I just I'm sorry comrades just what kind of orders you take well there's an Excel brothers and sister that's better home right right I suppose it is somewhat to the credit of some Christians that in the waning decades of thousands of years of slavery they were biblically mandated some of them belatedly joined things like the American anti-slavery society stars of which were Thomas Paine Benjamin Franklin non-believers right whereas to the last day of the Confederacy the flag of the Confederacy said day of indicia God on our side and every justification for that slavery came from the Bible where indeed is not hard if I'm going to take questions from the audience I did about one minute there are microphones if you have questions make your way and we will take them very shortly as we begin to do that may I ask Christopher Hitchens you have debated Rabbi David Wolpe on this subject you've debated the reverend al sharpton yes what's the difference between these debates well the reverend al sharpton is another case of the damage done by Sosa to society by religion because once it was agreed by the rest of America that black people are best led by preachers and once it was agreed to right out of the civil rights record the heroic black secularists like Bayard Rustin and the great black union leader philip randolph who actually organized with the help of you know he automobile workers the march on washington once all that had been forgotten and we decide here black people who really love their preachers then once georgia King has gone is one succession of demagogues after another all of them given the mantle because they're in holy orders there's no fraudulence you can't get away with in this country if you can get the word Reverend put in front of your name questions sharpish a very conspicuous example of that will begin right here madam your question sir sir I can't see where I'm sorry the letter hedges hit you mr. hedges sir and it couldn't be and beat you up later okay it seems to me that you know most religions deal with the operational aspects of life such as human capital development at is the accumulation of literacy and Technology economic development mental and physical well-being and public service which deals with charity and those kinds of things these are the these are the work of religion yes that they profess this yes and that all faiths profess these things and since they do it seems to me that it's not so much their profession that causes the negative externalities but between people who profess these things but it's the labels that they that they take hold such as I think mr. Hitchens alluded to the fact that people say things about their faith that they actually don't practice or believe and so I'm saying that should we just abandon these labels and stop corn ourselves use Christians and Muslims or whatever and deal with the operational facts of life which deal with again human capital you know literacy you get economic development mental and physical well-being and public service and charity helping others without the labels rabbi if I understand your question correctly I would say this the largest organized groups of charities in the world over and over and over again all around the world organize themselves around religious groups I don't think that that's a mistake and I don't think that that's a coincidence so that in fact if you disband the idea that we're doing this as a religious group you will in one stroke undo a great deal of the good that happens in the world so no I think that communities which by the way without religions I don't know where you get communities we're young and old sit together in common purpose it's very rare especially in our atomized society if you disband that I think you'll get trouble Kristopher without community without the label I'd implied it works david says is that a person exists who would say now that I don't believe in God I'll stop giving money to charity I don't care anymore I don't know I don't think there is such a person and if that were so it would be very strange religion that they've been professing with who will organize in the alley but why is it that in survey after survey religious people do give more and religious people watch less television and have used drugs less and here's an alcohol size what religion is damage it has social utility very impressive to me okay good often it's very often the first thing when it will debate with Catholics they always change the subject to charity right away with Jesus usually little later you just says the thing with Muslims and with his limbs and with Muslims it's at the real world time because what what else can they they don't want to defend their fight you just said it is deficit they just said they didn't want you didn't believe you won't do it reform their faith they don't want to say they don't they feel are easy to worry about redemption salvation was consider but but look at the good work we if you talk to the moments they'll say you should you may not think much of Joseph Smith and I say you got that right but boy you you should see our missionaries in government will do the work your religion what has this got to do with the existence of God or the validity of religious claims it has nothing to do with this also juicy alliances in change there's a time wasting time where we're raising now is don't applaud that nothing to do with it all all of you are probably I just wanna ask you this if Christopher says to me God doesn't exist and I say but we do good things he's got a point but his previous comment was people who don't believe in religion do good things in response I say in response to the question people who believe in religion do good things in a group to a greater extent and then he says well why aren't you talking about whether God exists you made an argument against the social utility of religion I then made an argument Eleonora logically not conceded that it's to a greater extent let me give you an example with the great Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado who's wonderful work on the primary produces of the third world your chest you ought to be familiar great like one of the great photographers he's the ambassador as the UNICEF cause of the United Nations Children's Fund for the eradication of polio I went with him all over Bengal we went we got it down to the point where except for a few bits of Afghanistan and El Salvador polio was almost gone from the world it could go with smallpox not a small thing done by UNICEF a secular or secular organization and we nearly got who was the date was announcement from pretty sure polio be gone and it spread back because largely Muslim groups in Nigeria and also in parts of Bengal in Afghanistan told people don't go get your children inoculated it's a it's a plot by scientists and Jews and others to sterilize Muslims and that plus the Hajj that plus the wonderful devotional habit of going to Mecca which I'm taking all your diseases with you as men to polio is back all the way across Africa now so I'm not going to have it said that in order to do good you've got to be more religious than so on it's complicated by only another question macer full approach Blevins is the other way and it's nothing to do with the Paul's afraid not okay sir thank you thank you first comment to mr. Hitchens thank you for a very well argued book oh you and I are in violent agreement second it seems to me not to talk about religion and faith for the moment but the question as to whether God exists let's not duck that one it seems it seems to me that to discuss that subject one needs to have some scientific knowledge my question is very simply to rabbi won't be and please take a second to think about it my question is and I've asked this of priests reverends and rabbis many times already my question is if no one ever explained God to you not in writing not orally would you have figured it out thank you so first of all I think that it's important to understand that the idea that there's an inbuilt opposition between scientific knowledge and belief is contradicted by some very prominent scientists including Francis Collins who's that of the human genome project who wrote a book in favor of God oh and Gingrich who's an astrophysicist at Harvard who wrote a book talking about his belief in God I always find it interesting that people assume that the expertise they have is necessary in order to make the assertion that someone else makes and if they don't have it then they can't speak about it I grew up in a home where one of my brothers is a PhD in bioethics and the other one is a PhD in developmental biology they talked science all the time I think for a layperson I have a reasonably good grasp of of some sciences and I would say absolutely I can make the assertion that God exists precisely because the criteria that is used for a scientific assertion is not used for a religious assertion nobody asks in the same way that you make philosophical statements that are not subject to scientific criteria if you for selling that's not human to a bat to an ant the answer is we can't possibly know that because we can't unknown oh and we can't look at the world through different eyes so if you ask me what I have come to this belief it wasn't explained to me my only evidence to answer that is yes human beings did and either it was explained to them by God which is what I assume or you would come to it naturally so yeah I think I would come to it naturally but can I prove that to you no it is precisely one of the many examples of unprovable questions that we nonetheless can feel deeply about my point though is that early on the debate or it is early on going around let me put it to Christopher do you assume that everything will one day be solved scientifically it does it matter to you know absolutely all the size is going to do is keep on teaching us a little wiener and multiplying the distance between our own attainments and and our desire to master these matters these many's questions will remain undecidable which is the way I like them religion and science can coexist in the same person that's true I know Francis Collins you right it's brilliant on the genome but if you've read CS Lewis you don't need to read him on religion it's unbelievably naive so Isaac Newton was an alchemist very strong with other superstitious Christian before the Pope was the Anti Christ might have been onto something there but a very very weird for a very weird beliefs I thought if you knew the measurements of the old temple you'd know more than if you understood gravity Alfred Russel Wallace who did most of Darwin's work for him was a spiritualist recurred a table rapping sessions listening to burbling z' from the beyond Joseph Priestley was a Unitarian and believed in the phlogiston theory in that PLA it's really only until I would say it's only until Albert Einstein not not until early in overdyne stein but you get a scientist who's also essentially a philosopher of pure mind that's the great breakthrough and now you can have private beliefs and be a scientific person but no one says my science helps to vindicate my religion no one says that anymore that that's not too I want to get two more questions please yes I have a question for both of you regarding the existence of a universal universal morality my question for mr. Hitchens is there one and if so where does it come from and my question for the rabbi is if there is one and it's for example in the 613 mitzvot how do you personally pick and choose which ones to follow because I notice you know you're not wearing TTD and some of the other prescriptions so if it's my person might be under my shirt well there are uh I won't go there but um generally speaking can you be a good - and not follow the 613 if that is the prescription for universal morality well the most commonly taken universal absolute moral statement is what sometimes called the Golden Rule which well rabbi Hillel says don't do to another person what would be repulsive to you others say do as you would be done by just putting the other way it's in the Analects of Confucius it's very few societies don't have it so I think that's what we'd have to take as the nearest to an absolute it's obviously subject to various relativities alas for one thing it's only really as good as the person saying it should I not do to Charles Manson what I don't want him to do to me well if you see what I mean I mean should we say that let's do to Charles Manson what we wouldn't want done to ourselves obviously not it's just like the contradiction in Duke between the old the New Testaments the Old Testament says an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth which would lead to a higher lesson to this world and then then that the Nazarene says you can't condemn anyone unless you can cast the first stone actually that bit was knitted into the Bible quite late and is almost certainly a fabrication but it's believed in by many Christians who you know as you know we're pretty approaching anything but if you can't contain anyone without being yourself without sin then we can't even arrest Charles Manson unless we were sinless ourselves so these moral absolutes are actually more full of more Roza vism than you might think and they said the reason people want there to be absolutes is this they want there to be an absolute authority who can give them to you because wouldn't that save you all the trouble of thinking out ethics for yourself which is where I started why not take that chance more enjoyable less subject to appalling Commandments to stone which is and the perfection all the rest yeah oh we have a universal morality and if there is the I'm not I'm not entire I'm not sure that Christopher said whether he believes in a universal morality but yes someone who believes in God assumes that there is a universal morality but also assumes that it's very hard and it's not that the 613 meets about instantiate universal morality and moral reasoning as far as I know is certainly in other traditions but but obviously in Judaism is an essential part of the Jewish tradition it's not that you get out of thinking by being part of the Jewish tradition in fact questioning reasoning wondering thinking objecting is an essential part of Judaism anybody who studies Talmud knows it's filled with objections and questions but the assumption is that there actually is a right and a wrong in any given case if all human beings are evolved primates there's not a right and a wrong there's a better and a worse there's a more powerful and less powerful Nietzsche was exactly right if God is dead then power is all that matters because ultimately there isn't a right and a wrong there's something that promotes your interest and something that negates your interest but I don't believe that excuse me do you or do you not believe that human beings are evolved private yes but I also believe they the more than else as I said it all they are I said if all they are is evolved primates as opposed to evolved primates we'll have a spark of the eternal in them which I believe we do question two questions for mr. Hitchens the first one is I was taught by a physics professor that if you go back to the Big Bang beginning of the universe in the first one to the sixty-first of the first second Thai universe is in a tiny amount of space and that size space and time can cross and his point was that the whole universe came into existence out of a hiccup in the space time warp and therefore it's just kind of a big accident that we were here and so my question is the same one that I posed to him that day why is there a space time warp which leads me to the second question which is wouldn't it make more sense that there would be nothing there is should be no universe there should be no space-time work there should be none of us and unless we're hooked into the matrix right now we seem to be here and so we take that as argument for God is that what you're saying for something there's a great mystery at the core of the universe and then why are we here is the second question to argue zone okay thank you very much um well I'd again I'd commend to you someone as much for that expert on the subject I've started by mentioning Lawrence Krauss is lecture on a whole universe from nothing but is what where's the grounder where's the divinity in the hiccup and who produces the hiccup ER in all you get from this is an infinite regression who creates this creator who it gets you nowhere and again as a if you do make the assumption which I can't dispute or certainly cannot refute that there is a first cause and one uncaused cause it still doesn't mean that there's a God who takes sides answers prayers enjoins may ask about that yes so what I mean so I'm afraid you only you compel me to somewhat to repeat myself can I just ask a quick question about what you just said if it's an assumption that you can't refute I which I understand I think everybody here would say you can't prove that there's not a god but that doesn't mean that there is one but if it's in something that you can't refute why is it that when someone says I believe that it is true do you say they're lying this isn't the line you said to me when someone standards they know so when you lie so one who goes to the sort of goes to tell a child if they don't behave well they'll go to hell not that like the example that so he goes to the deathbed over and says oh I believe that there's a world other than this you're going to a better place is a I think a shot chosen nausea now I'll let it and the question is whether religious people at the highest level have a better understanding of themselves than people who claim to be atheists and in particular we can ask the question is mr. Hitchens himself really as great an atheist as he claims he's pretty good uh yeah pretty good mr. Hitchens are you a closet believer know a point of agreement between the rubber and myself is that the human species mammalian primates on dirt undoubtedly is and made out of the dust of exploded Suns but does have a need for I would say the transcendent would one word the numinous even the ecstatic wouldn't trust anyone who hadn't felt this it has obviously to do with landscape light music love and I think also a permanent awareness of the transience of all things and the the melancholy that invests all this so it isn't just gaping happily at a sunset while listening to music you're doing that knowing that it can't last for very long very important part of the awareness people who didn't have this would I think be beyond autistic but there's no need for the supernatural in this at all there is no supernatural dimension of which this gives you a share and yes of course for poetry and literature where we are rather stuck with the pathetic fallacy if you know what I mean - potato fallacy is giving human attributes to material things so which empted to do that - rabbi can be saved on the word evil though I personally find planet said a word you absolutely have to have I decided this in Iraq as a matter of fact after I'd seen the Saddam Hussein's attempt with with chemical weapons to destroy the Kurdish people of northern rock and sealy as well a stench of evil I thought now everything else you could say about Saddam Hussein psychopathic dictator mass murderer genocide lists bad guy as some people used to call him things this was wasn't up to it there was a surplus value to totalitarianism a sort of a numinous bitch a shimmer around it that meant that we evil is the word we could not do without did you see in he who speaks up for the numinous the possibility of belief do you smell a potential person of faith and Hitchens or no way I think no I I mean to be perfectly honest and not to make a cheap joke about it I think that Christopher's a person of tremendous impressive faith not the faith that I have at all but faith in justice faith in goodness I mean what he's done with much of his life is I think really all inspiring that doesn't mean for a minute that I think that he's being dishonest about his lack of faith in the things that I believe but does he have faith in a different sense absolutely can we do more yes mr. Hitchens you are likely the the world's most charming roguish and enlightened atheist and I love you for that but as a Sufi Muslim I'm very ruffled by the title of your book of all the titles that you likely had at your disposal did you have to settle for the literal negation of Allahu Akbar yes I thought yeah thank you for that thank you oh it's a very good question I'm glad I wanted to go back but I yeah the as I said I think that for religions are wrong in the same way in that they privilege faith over over reason but they're not all equally bad in the same way all the time I mean if I've been writing in the 1930s I would certainly have said that the Roman Catholic Church was the most dangerous religion in the world because of its open alliance with fascism and anti-semitism which the damage from that our culture has never recovered from and never will but at the moment it's very clear to me that the most toxic form that religion takes is the Islamic form the horrible idea of wanting to end up with Sharia with a religion govern state a state of religious law and the best means of getting there jihad holy war that Muslims have a special right to feel aggrieved enough to demand this I think is absolute obscene wickedness and I think their religion is nonsense and in the attire in its entirety the idea of God speaks to some illiterate merchant warlord in Arabia and he's able to write this down perfectly and it contains the answers to all human today don't waste my time sure but you're saying this thing about it also that God the God speaks york angel Gabriel speaks only Arabic it see I just want to say in retrospect we were very simple actually I don't know what I was thinking this is no this is if it is a verification of all religions well actually no because remember is not makes one special claim for itself all religions claim to be revealed truth that they were all founded by divine revelation but Islam more dangerously says ours is the last and final one there can't be any more after this this is God's last word now that's straight away temptation to violence and intolerance and if you note it's a temptation they seem quite reading too full for rabbis I think I had another motive I've never met which this if you remember Dick Gregory the older comrades here will great black comedian and civil rights activist when he came to write his memoir he called it nigger upset a lot of people including his old mum who called him and said why doing this he says mama every time you hear that word again they're selling my book so every every Allahu Akbar reminds people that were in a very serious struggle we were very depraved religion and there are other sources a real friend you you you give no quarter I look he believes in the prophecy of Mohammed I'm sorry to say I think he's been at best conned you know our time is ticking down on with respect if I may be the protocol guy sorry I want to go back to your answer to the question just before this because I think and particularly I want to interrogate you rabbi because you in your earlier discussion than your answer to a couple of the questions you seem to suggest that if there's something beyond the material that's evidence for God or it and then on the question of whether there can be moral behavior one can have a reason to act morally you say that only you know that requires the existence of God if there's no exist if God doesn't exist you don't believe in God you don't have reasons to behave morally but then I think in your answer so I think that's where it was until your answer to the question before last and at that point you seem to grant that the gentleman sitting to your left actually did have reasons to act morally even though he does not believe in God yes and I'm trying to figure out explain the the difference is not whether people in their own minds have compelling reasons to act morally the question is if you don't believe in God and you say you know what I'm going to free why would you do good in secret as as as Balzac put it perhaps only believers in God do good in secret now obviously that's not true but you understand the ideology behind it which is if you don't believe that there's a universal moral code that comes from beyond us and that human beings make up what's right and what's wrong why is it that I as a human being can't decide this is right for me even though I know it's going to be wrong for anyone else in other words the standard that arises only from human beings is easily broken by human beings whereas if you think that goodness is woven into the fabric of the universe which is what a believer says then it's always wrong at all times in all places whether someone's watching where they're not watching whether you're a believer you're not believer that's always true and that's the distinction I was trying to get us I was very struck because this is the core question so we might as well revisited today struck this week reading I'm sure you saw it the Pope's brother Monsignor Georg Ratzinger who runs the choir school and Ray he's discovered recently there's been some unpleasantness of this school which he was the steward for about twenty thirty years he said he didn't know about any of that and sure he claims not really taking any party but he said he did used to smack the boys around quite a lot so until Bavarian law changed and made it illegal for teachers hich I thought well I don't want to be told anymore that without religious people we wouldn't know what morality was he didn't know this until the secular law intervened and taught him how to behave not only wait wait what is the church defective what is the whole racket of the church in this protecting yourself oh it's saying they were ordered don't go near the courts don't live near the police will sort will sort this out among ourselves and they say they're the people who prevent us from succumbing to moral relativism I'm not hearing it from them I'm sorry it's insulting to be talked to in that way the great recent governor of this state mr. Romney wants to be President okay there's a constitutional issue here Mormons are supposed to say that their prophet as they call their leader his word is sovereign over anyone else's including the Constitution of the United States so Romney has to say and finally people did force him to answer the question well do you think that about your property said no the Constitution takes precedence in all cases fine there's the extent that he's an acceptable person it's the extent he's not a Mormon the discipline of the disability secularism the discipline of secularism is necessary to civilize these superstitions I hope very few of you begin your day by thanking God that you're not a female or goy our timing we're all going to swing around just a little bit yes back here okay this is for mr. wall P at the start of your talk you've said your belief was scientific but you spent the rest of talk backpedaling from that but my real question is about free will you say that you cannot get free well from a deterministic system I can create a pseudo-random number generator that you cannot distinguish from randomness no matter how long you look at it it can it'll take longer than the life the universe right so you so win it and that gives you randomest that doesn't give you intentional free will and I know but if he did but it's usually at the beginning by the way that my belief was scientific what if you now put it's deterministic but it gives you a random result that you can write your free will now where did you do get free will if it has it if it doesn't have it it's not much of a deity if it does have freewill either God in itself why can't we do it or some other deity gave your deity free will which gives you infinite regress well your last question I'm afraid the answers the answer is that there is no analogy between the deity in between human beings just like when someone says who gave birth to God that's a misconceiving of the religious concept of God which is that God has always existed and God isn't a biological creature therefore God doesn't get freewill the way human beings get freewill the objection and the problem with human beings getting freewill is that if we're purely biological how does that alchemical metaphysical freewill get into us and a random generator doesn't give you free will even if it gave you rim numbers that's quite different from actual choosing to do something or to do something else but what do you think in our society is winning this debate the atheists the New Atheists the religious was the center of gravity going and this will be the last question I'm afraid I think a very large number of people do they say this based on experience debating in a large number of churches and and synagogues go there for some of the reasons the rabbi gives community talk villian reasons you might say American American community charities self-help often they run a school this kind of thing they don't really believe the holy books they don't think they have been specially noticed by God or have it can expect any special favors from him but they see as it were no harm in it and there's a great deal of schism among those who do believe enormous amount of schism so when people say in opinion polls that when you read that ninety percent of Americans believe in the virgin birth and in sation and so forth I don't believe it at all I don't believe in I don't believe people have judged about it would tell it was someone who rang them up in their kitchen on the telephone either I think that underneath is there's a huge crust of doubt and a great resentment against American theocrats they if you wanted to know how to piss off an American Protestant in the South say are you one of those Jerry Falwell people they hate that right Lee Jody saying you think you're winning then you don't know no I think that I think that the the supposed religious monolithic nature of the America is grossly overstated it doesn't describe reality and it is certainly true as one of the questioners mentioned that the number of those who say not of their atheists we're still a very small minority but those who say that they have no faith in their allegiance to any church has doubled in the last few years and that's according to a decent opinion survey the pew one not a random pray rabbi where do you see the center of gravity it'll double over you toward Christopher somewhere else I I'm not I mean I don't have a sociological expertise I can't tell you in terms of statistics where it's going this is what I would say I think that there are lots of reasons why organized religion has trouble many of them have been enumerated by Christopher up there are various other reasons as well but I actually think that the impulse to piety and the sense of something greater than ourselves is deeply implanted in human beings and will never go away and in that sense although people will find different expressions for their religious belief I feel quite confident that actually most people will continue to be religious in the sense of believing that that in fact life isn't an empty howling wilderness the way the Christopher describes it but that in but that there is that there is something deep lasting eternal meaningful about you about those who love and about the world that we live in Rabbi David Wolpe Christopher Hitchens your state audience thank you

Channel: WGBHForum

Views: 1,388,791

Rating: 4.7472463 out of 5

Keywords: Christopher Hitchens, David Wolpe (Author), Rabbi (Profession), Debate (Quotation Subject), tom ashbrook, wgbh, boston, god, theology, atheist, anti-theist

Id: 2kZRAOXEFPI

Length: 91min 31sec (5491 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 06 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/ianyboo]

I remember this one as being almost unbearable, Wolpe is one of the most dishonest thiests I've ever seen on stage. Worse than Craig and Dinesh, which is a very high bar to get over.