Christopher Hitchens Vs. Tim Rutten 2007

it's a pleasure to welcome you here tonight i'm louise Steinman the curator of the allowed series and the program director for the library foundation of los angeles which makes all of these free events at Central Library and its branches possible it's an honor tonight to present Christopher Hitchens the inimitable contrarian winner of the National Magazine Award for his Vanity Fair columns and most recently author of God is not great how religion poisons everything a title which apparently came to Hitchens in the shower which is where most of his ideas come from he told a reporter adding that's why I'm so clean Christopher Hitchens will be in conversation tonight with Tim Rudin who writes the regarding media column for the LA Times and is the primary book critic and associate editor of The Times feature section we depend on Tim's column for penetrating analysis of the media not just in our own city but across the nation and the world and God knows we need that analysis he's not afraid to ask difficult questions and to raise hackles and that's why he's a good choice to interview Christopher Hitchens who me will also be introducing tonight now please welcome Tim Rutten thank you first of all thank you thank you all for coming and I could see that many of you made a great effort to get here and and it's very much appreciated it's my great pleasure to introduce to you my great friend and longtime a long time conversational adversary Christopher Hitchens for several reasons because I think Christopher role as probably the greatest literary journalist of our generation of my generation is widely misunderstood Christopher is often described as contrarian by which I take the meaning I take from that is someone who continually takes an oppositional position it isn't really true Christopher Hitchens has stood for things and he has maintained them things like free expression things like open inquiry things like humane and decent societies he stood for those things when other people were willing to let them go by the board's I guess that makes him a contrary and but I think of him more as in as he he puts it as somebody who comes from the other Island his family did at least to me he's a rooted man he's rooted in great things things a great value and we're going to talk about some of them tonight we're going to disagree about some of them and and then we'll hear from you so I hope you'll join me in welcoming Christopher Hitchens [Applause] we got that bit right indeed they think it's they think it's lucozade or something should I start should I respond well yes please do well that was extremely handsome of you I must say and I want to tell the people have been good enough to come tonight thank you very much by the way ladies and gentle brothers and sisters comrades friends I see nervous reluctance to applaud it anything that I've been up and down the country with this book and not be debating with Baptists and North Carolina and rabbis and Coral Gables and Al Sharpton in New York and so on but this is actually the only evening that I booked on this trip on which I feel nervous at all and that's because mr. rotten here as he says I've been debating discussing familiars really does know what he's talking about when it's come to religion and that can't be said for many of the ministers and if I wanted to in fact if I wanted to ask anyone as I have sometimes had to what what exactly is that if it's been a Melkite Greek Catholic and a Greek Orthodox and a Maronite in Lebanon there's only one person I would know to call who would know the answer this and that's why it's very handsome of him to agree to do this because not to make this to theory between us not to make it too intimate or too warm or friendly I would like on both our behalves to dispel that if I can right now the critical thing is this what is most important to him is most hateful to me and we're here to prove that friendship is possible none of those conditions but we but but that thought should not at all inhibit anyone and hope won't inhibit him hmm from well I think the expression maybe bringing it on he he minds about this a lot it's a great deal to him he's privileged in nonlinear always not just by his study of it but by his devotion to it and I have announced it to be public enemy number one so if this all works this evening it'll be a tribute to civilized discourse if he insists that's my opening statement disarming and provocative honestly the well you know let's let's speak by the book and we're ruined right this is this is the book Chris Brown I'm going to read a passage to you here and just just so we can get the the flavor of the argument here and then we'll go to the substance but if I may you right here about how you tolerate religious expression on the parts of your friends not tolerate well indulge is you say indulgence yes his sword use and and he says he right there is a real and serious difference between me and my religious friends and the real and serious friends are sufficiently honest to admit it I would be quite content to go to their children's Bar Mitzvahs to marv what their Gothic cathedrals to respect their belief in the Quran that the Quran was dictated though exclusively in Arabic to an illiterate prophet order interest myself in Wicca and Hindu and Jain consolations and as it happens I will continue to do so to do this without insisting on the polite reciprocal condition which is that they in turn leave me alone right fair enough but this religion is ultimately incapable of doing as I write these words and as you read them as you listen to them people of faith are in their different ways planning your and my destruction and the destruction of all the hard one human tainment that I have touched upon religion poisons everything so religion is ultimately incapable of leaving people alone is that correct yes I think it is because I take that why not start with the benign this isn't going to go on for too long by the way this this benign version of our to screw but right why not why not continue with it for a little bit I mean hmm for example you was very very serious Roman Catholic must look at me and think if you're true to your faith I can't watch this go on a longer I don't want Christopher to go to hell it's it's not right to do it I have a responsibility to prevent him to exert my best efforts to stop this from happening I can see him doing it it's like watching a friend become a hopeless alcoholic or a drug addict or a serial killer I must his Veen I may not watch this I must do my best and I know that you ought to be thinking that and it makes me very nervous but just as though I debated with a Calvinist in Georgia the other day I said well look do you since you say oh that is too firm John Calvin's teachings on Hell and predestination or do you not and if you do not because I know southern hospitality often inhibits people from telling guests of they go to hell on the first night of their stay and hmm trying to make it easy for him not if you're Catholic if you're a joke if you don't think so can i with it could I know about what authority you don't you don't do this what authority do you disagree as well as on what authority you do so when for example now moving to the vulgar side of your church the the only Catholic almost every secular person I know admires or used to now mother Teresa hmm so-called militaries of Kalkaska journeys to your the country that I know matters most to you Ireland to say no one in Ireland should be allowed to be divorced I've arrived in Dublin a child which I know nothing the capital of a country by which I know nothing to support the view of those who say that the can be no change in the Irish Constitution sorry the Irish Constitution which forbids divorce we don't just fit it for Catholics we forbid it for everybody and is praised by everyone finally Mother Teresa has come to aid us in the argument right and while she's there takes the opportunity to say that not only should Irish people help me about abortions but nor should they be allowed contraception she's not saying I have a great relationship with Jesus and I have a wonderful Church in the wonderful faith and it makes me happy she's saying it's it better make you happy too because whether you agree with it or not we're going to impose it on you now that distinction must clearly be apparent to everybody here the situation after a semester of our Muslim brothers and sisters they say you may not know it yet but our prophet had the last revelation the only one right look my client there's always a final result in you yeah your revelations were not bad we agree with you about the virgin birth we agree with you about various of the more horrible mosaic prohibitions you notice that Islam plagiarizes from Judaism and Christianity era the most horrible bits and leaves out the Greek stuff a dozen but they do all that we even think your people in the book tolerate you in other words they say which or irate you I'm not going to be tolerated by these people hmm they say but we've got something last and final ultimate you only need this one book if you only get round to believing it you would be happy but we can't be happy until you do now I'm very sorry I'm extremely sorry to say this and I'll put it as mildly as I can but I declined to be spoken to in that tone of voice by anybody I hope that's played fair enough I hope that's absolutely played I won't be talked to like that I'm not going to be tolerated by the admirers of an of an illiterate Middle Eastern peasantry now I tell you right now he's better off outgrowing it we thought you know this is also a bit of if I may say the the method the method of this book which I enjoy immensely by the way you know the I do agree with Shalom alayhim that there in the shtetl there were only two people who are really serious about God one was the rabbi and the other was the village atheist everybody else was just sort of going along now but wake-ups I have to do this now you've done go right ahead the third was the guy is mentioned in a great story by Irving how which I think he borrowed from Isaac singer the man who stands on the wall of the shuttle I think it's the town of helm and when the visitors come he's always turning on the city wall looking out over the plains and they ask him what are you doing there just standing there he said no I'm not just stunning they pay me to stand here what did they pay you to do standing there will they pay me to watch out for the Messiah and to tell and wring the spell when he's coming and they say so what's it like said well steady work that's right off that's true it's math it's man-made ladies it's man-made yes and in the and you know and constructed in much the same clever way that this argument is constructed because we've slid from the debatable point to lien arguable ones and the debate but let's go but I want to circle back to that debatable point because we have experienced a drawn you and I have been friends for how many years well I remember very well remember very distinctly when I first met you hmm which would have to be 83 so we're getting on for a quarter of a century or a quarter century of doing this and we've done we even we even did a film yes together on religion mr. rotten and I circled Los Angeles interviewing everyone from Lubavitcher rabbis yes New Age mavens to Wiccans and Satanists and the people who wish up the atomic bomb remember them yes remember they were the followers of a deranged fisheye nobody remember the bomb Bush was but then eschatology is one of my big worries especially now but those are all religion in the sense has to hope for the end of days does hope fridge but Christopher secretly or openly wants this to be over so one of the things I don't like I have to say no of course yeah but they can I don't want to go but I don't want them taking me with them rapture yourself big boy but Chris free in all this time have I have I ever made a single proselytizing remarked you know you have not but and it wouldn't be your style but that's why I took you up perhaps preemptively on or very serious and devout Catholicism in that I think it could could perhaps only be good manners no I don't I don't need remark I don't me to say a thing what about what about it is a personal large indeed but you ought to have said to me look Chris with it the lease in your own within what I understand me your own lights and you could you could very well contradict me now and I'd have to accept but your negation but you it seems to me from what I've read of your doctrine that you ought not be to me without trying to save me a word from you would have impressed me by the way if you'd said look close to it that was fun we had a great evening hmm most our friends are secularists where we all know the jokes that we can be but do you mind if you know I just detain you for a minute before you get home are you sure are you sure I can't help you to save yourself but that would be profoundly disrespectful look no I wouldn't mind maybe yes but someone might ask you a question and you would be available in response but I think this undercuts this notion that that and it's one of the threads that runs through this book is the necessity of making valid arguments in this absolutist way and I wonder is it necessary to state these propositions quite so absolutely to find to find any use of them to save it okay say that some forms of religious expression are destructive just in the same way you mean look there are some religious systems and sets of religious beliefs like some people who are no damn good but that's not the tenor that's not the tenor of the argument you've advanced here no I mean I've only had a poorly evolved mammal half a chromosome away from the chimpanzee or the pig is you pointed one g'd and able to take a heart valve from a pig and may possibly soon be in need of same or skin graft which would negate quite a lot of religion right there by the way kosher I'm not okay oh oh but and I think religion shows every sign of having been invented by a species that is half a chromosome away from merchant plants area but I still take what the religious believed be in that sense morally serious and I can't write a book for everybody I meet which I discovered on this tour I would essentially have had to do they say listen I don't believe in the virgin birth I don't believe in the rapture I don't believe in predestination and hell and so people who have said absolutely under there Catholics Calvinists Muslims is it well that's what your text say that's all I can write back hmm if you're all going to take it out of cart and decide which bit you believe I still want to know on which authority you don't believe it now you're interviewing me there's a world yes but so I shouldn't return the question be pumping people right here if you do not believe that Jesus was born of a virgin had God for his father went through unbelievable suffering to be the vicarious recipient of your sin your guilt take it away from you hmm didn't in fact die but rose again and will come again to judge the quick and the dead if you don't believe any of the Nicene Creed are really a Catholic it seems to me this is absolutely true and since I I find great difficulty in believing that someone like you does really believe this I don't know what book I should have written to unpersuaded you can't quite apparently get your mind to assimilate well I guess what I'm kidding I would say that your doubt is a point for me rather than a point again no I would say I would say I would say that one one of the deficiencies in this in this immensely thought-provoking book is that it does not allow for the progress of religious institutions along with other human ones and one thing that anyone who claims to be a religious believer today must have forsworn not only in there not only in a formal way but but I think in their hearts is any notion of coercion because coercion religious coercion has you know undoubtedly proven to be something evil and that brings me to if I may since I am the interviewer absolutely the point of poetry there's a wonderful wonderful argument that you raised at the end of the book that you call the your anticipated objection where you go to the question of the the terrible killer Society so the 20th century yes your own experience with some of them and you lay out a series of arguments about the problem here is that if we look back across this terrible century that we've just completed murder occurred on an unimaginable scale and it was done primarily by societies which were formally atheist formally atheist societies societies where atheism which you advanced here is this you know as not changed the necessary good and unavoidable good that was the official orthodoxy Stalin did not act in the name of Russian orthodoxy Hitler did not act in the name of Christianity Mao did not act in the name of Confucius 'im North Korea which you you know as you say you still cannot remember without a shudder is certainly not a religious state it is an officially atheist state so you make an argument about this in which you you say that that that or suggest at least that these states were murderous because their leaders were acting on remnant religious impulses or appropriations of religious impulses is that really your position yes it is I mean at a fair summary it is those by the way a very good summary of my my case though just to cheese people that make them by the book where I have an old chapter on this available fine bookstores everywhere and it's a very fine chapter my dear you don't and now because of of course this question comes up at every store I would now be able to write that chapter that's the great thing about writing a book by the way you come into contact with the people and the arguments you should have met before you wrote it but that's a common experience of authorship if that's it not too postmodern and observation I was so I was so huge who what I say in it it's not possible to say of fascism they which is the movement that invents the term totalitarian hmm that it's secular just not possible to say so I mean of Mussolini Franco Salazar the ustasha you know this very well because your churches Slovakia yes yes okay where the head of the Nazi puppet state was actually a man in holy orders that's right ISA your father your Holy Father in your church been through agony about you can't still seem to apologize quite in the right tone about that fact and its implications so that I think excuses the secularists not for everything that doesn't implicate of German National Socialist my way my way my way MIT beak you can't you can't think of fascism as having a religious base it was it was tolerated by religious conservatives and reactionaries in those societies but certainly not it was certainly not I mean in order for example to for fascism to take hold in Bavaria I mean you know Pius the 12th had to gut the Catholic Auto code in one country boo yeah right because we haven't moved to the German national social event no but but to not to be willing to concede as at least the church has been that didn't in Spain and Portugal in Italy so it was essentially empowered by a con quartet with Vatican I think you would not know not German National Socialism is a somewhat different thing because though it draws upon process whereas Catholic Christianity and anti-communism and I think above all anti-semitism and prayers were said here's a fact by the bishops of Germany every year in April on Hitler's birthday on the instruction of African you can't say that that's a Catholic movement because they wanted to replace Christianity with a German paganism and Nordic myths combined with ethnic blood legend essence or ghastly nonsense and but so you can't call that secular by the way it's still mythology and blood worship and Odin is no better than any of these other imaginary failures but but it had a hatred for Christianity I will say that again and it did also arouse some sort which it didn't elsewhere so much some very very brave and distinguished and famous just a Christian opponents who paid for it with lives and seems intense but it seems to have been glad to do since we're going to single out Pius the 12th for his dereliction we probably have to cite pius xi from it brothers onigen yeah but it's a bit it is kind of amazing that the anti-nazi Pope dies in 1939 and the pro-nazi Pope is appointed by God in 1940 that's that seems like a lot to expect of the Vicar of Christ it's a lot to believe if you are a Catholic and of these so it's not I would not say National Socialism was secular in any sense at all right let alone atheist and then remember of the third pillar of the Axis powers the terrifying dictatorship of Hirohito it's held in power by two considerations one its leader is not godly but is a God it's himself a god yes and it's ideology is Zen Buddhism which is the training of its soldiers it's a Shinto not sin no then to do Brian Victoria's book which I mentioned in my book Zen at war absolutely confirms it Zen discipline was the order of the day in the Japanese Imperial Army Shinto too I think is actually more Shinto the trend the Kamikaze Urban Zen as well the leaders himself a god that's not a secular state what he means by oh wait I don't know if this is true because I haven't checked but it's it comes from a good source some of you may know Michael Krasny because it's brilliant shown interviewed me the other day in San Francisco home of the American Buddhist said um and I followed the video genocide trials in Cambodia and I said you know what I've been busy I haven't been doing this I probably should have done I'd used to civil society is recovered in Cambodia to the extent that it looks as if the Khmer Rouge criminals are going to be tried for genocide now the Buddhist party in Cambodia doesn't want it it says why do I do this all those people who were killed had committed sins in previous lives this is a mental surrender and moral one to this kind of contemplative nonsense surrender off the mind and you'll have bliss has ghastly consequences the sleep of Reason brings forth monsters that's Buddhism hmm but one that but that's Buddhism the resort that everyone goes to when they've exhausted Marathi right it's a fair it's a fair it's a fair point it's a it's a it's a fair point how you got to sit on it leaves it leaves leaves aside the fact that that the killer upon whom they're common you're making this moral surrender was in fact an atheist no well the name of the community Cambodia I mean Pol Pot yes yeah well in Cambodia all I know it and I know this much is that the the ruling power the mysterious ultimate absolute hope was called the anchor which is a reference back to Angkor Wat and the ancient Buddhists mysterious dictatorship that existed in the Stone Age of Indochina and you'll find if you look into it the current extremely repellent dictatorship in Burma it's also the great builder of Buddhist temples and the great producer mass producer of Buddhist statues and rules in the name of Buddhism as did lon Noel's original army and that was the agent of the United States invasion of the country I'm the defender and profit here from its I'm not so sure that these some are not so sure that if you change your climate from east to west that you escape human your rationality or civility it seems to me that it follows you wherever you go as long as you're willing to surrender your mind and to put your trust in faith I think they are the outcomes there are always the same sleep of Reason will bring forth monsters I may not know much but I think I know that much I think that's quite correct but but it doesn't get around the fact that that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were an officially atheist party well I'm not sure you see if they were I think they had Buddhists ur ass of ancient ethnic pseudo confessional mystical nationalism to them and you have not your question about Stalin yet no because I battled a bit I ought to I don't want anyone think I've dodged it well put it like this with communism which is unlike fascism and National Socialism officially materialistic you're Joseph Stalin it's 1917 in Russia millions of Russians have been told for hundreds of years that the head of the head of the Russian government is something more than a human being not God it's not as bad as Japan and not quite a pope either but he's ours a head of the Russian Orthodox Church he stands between heaven and earth a bit more like the Middle Kingdom civility and credulity is for mass in Caucasian right across the country millions of people have no know better if you Joseph started you by the way this is an opportunist point of mine but I have to mention it was a longtime seminary student had rehearse to be a priest you shouldn't be was he not expelled I think he may have just cleared out but yeah I think yeah but you shouldn't be if you're registered you shouldn't be in the dictatorship business if you can't exploit a great pool of credulity civility like that there you have it it's waiting you audio need to sell many years are and what happens a new Inquisition a heresy hunt show trials the traitors are among us the heretics are here trying to poison the wells miracles Lysenko our great new biologist has so shown how we can grow twenty five foot wide tomatoes that will feed an entire families to kind of like Saints I get the entire thing is it's completely replicated and collapses as the acquisition did so now so stop murder it's because he's animal its replication it's a surrogate for the same thing it's a replication of a counterfeit or if you like a true bill copy the same thing but here's what you need to have a level playing field between your point and nine you would need to find a society giver to pious and devout and organic and stable that adopted the views of and in Kyle tried to teach his children the principles of Lucretius Epicurus Spinoza Galileo Einstein Thomas Jefferson Thomas Paine rush and Russell the first person to greatest atheist of his day of the first person to work out the Lenin was a new God to adopt those teachings and then to see if that society fell into famine war terney torture gulag and so on that would be the fair test and that test is yet to come but I believe myself that we can we can recover the lost connection to one of the monotheism severed between Athens and Jerusalem and we could get back a world where philosophy was valued the beauty of science was was salud worth studying worth reviewing even when literature will be the the key to the study of ethics and morality and if you wanted the transcendent you'd have love and sex and music and you wouldn't need any supernatural permission for any of this nonsense well I think I think I miss it terribly I feel I feel as if something was torn away from me before I was born by the loss of that but we're smart enough to get it back if only we will leave behind the hideous nonsense of the holy books and the and the vile preachments of those who want the world to come to an end well I'm for that The [ __ ] for that see on the other hand it is has there been such a place well we I hate to sound like I'm speaking on behalf of our fallen nature but but has there been so well the country I happen to be may I use exciting Andalusia in Spain de made no no may I just say something that I hope isn't Lea doesn't seem too populist but some an expression I've been waiting for a long time to employ not you so much but sit but YouTuber to the audience um my fellow Americans yeah I've been wanted a long time to say I took my oath of citizenship last month on the 13th of April which is my birthday and also mr. Jefferson's birthday and he's I'm his biographer at at his memorial in washington DC by the tidal basin just before the cherry blossoms were blown away by the next breeze and and i was able to take my oath and say that i specifically wanted to take it to the only constitution ever in human history that doesn't mention god except it doesn't mention religion except a separated from party right and to the preamble to the declaration which mentions only a creator but no intervening god hmm a personal god no which we won and to say how extraordinary it is that most Americans be born to this right and this beauty depreciate it because it's comes to them as a birthright and the Virginia statute on religious freedom the basis of our fantastic First Amendment means a huge amount to me no tithe can be paid by an American to any Church the government has no right to tell anyone how aware or which way to worship at all and that in the response to the the petitioners of Danbury Connecticut the president wrote back then and said there will be a Wizzle wall of separation to protect your rights in your freedoms so have a new slogan mr. Jefferson build up that wall but I hope to be joined in this servant well actually I join you in that slogan because I think one of one of the curious things about and remarkable things about Jefferson's genius and one of its unintended consequences is that that religion as a as in all its variations has flourished behind that wall here in the United States as it has nowhere else the religion severed from state support and from the notion of the official church has flourished here okay Tokyo was right as are you if it's a voluntary Association it could be very pluralistic after all do you know you do know so you don't you say because you know but I wonder if anyone here knows who were the DAP Baptists of Jamboree Connecticut writing about to the president who were they afraid of who do they think was going to persecute them why did they what a wall the congregation lists of Tamra the congregate that's who they were afraid of vicious bands ro was killing who was killing the Quakers in Pennsylvania the Presbyterians of Pennsylvania in Maryland at the time of the before the Constitutional Convention you could only be in office if you were Catholic in New York you couldn't be in office if you were a Catholic yes it was in Georgia you had to say you were a Protestant whatever that meant in Rhode Island you could not be a Jew and hold office in oh the youth in every Connecticut you could be a Jew and hold office but you couldn't be a Catholic at home it was it's going to be religious chaos on the European scale unbelievably we have the Philadelphia enlightenment that said no we don't have to go through this again the United States will be different about this we won't allow it there will be no such tests that we know such people should know honey how lucky they are III think it's the absolutely first importance to to defend it Christopher claiming let me ask you is in all in all seriousness this is a profoundly post 9/11 book yes he wrote this book I think because of what occurred on 9/11 and because of the struggle that we now confront with fundamentalist jihadists Islam or if you've called it his llama fascism yes okay does it is it possible that in making the argument there and in trying and in you know giving that argument as much breath as possible you've overlooked the virtues of religious pluralism in a country that enforces albeit imperfectly in it with continual struggle separation of church and state it's as if this book for all of your admiration of Jefferson sometimes behaves as if that wall did not exist here that it had never been made to work anywhere is it is all conceivable there is a problem with having said as I did that religious pluralism is a is a great thing in itself is a can only be guaranteed by a secular state the fact the point the religious to keep on not getting is he if only this state was cool Baptist we'd be fine they want to teach creation in school we say alright I'll teach you the Hindu creation myth it's your children and now are you happy now I'm sure not and say well you asked for it you know now you've got it there is a problem of that kind which is reverse ecumenism well i'll tell you what i mean by that apparently arcane statement i'm sure of what he remembers the assault on the tiny European democracy of Gen Mart last year hmm why was the - economy subjected to a campaign of international sabotage backed by not just movements but states why were its embassies burn down in countries where demonstrations are normally allowed why was all this because this Prime Minister could not be forced or persuaded to censor cartoons in the afternoon press in Copenhagen because it's against Danish law of him to do this so you and I members of the script profession did the Los Angeles Times published those conscience no it didn't but I wrote I wrote a column in the Los Angeles Times that began the editor the Los Angeles Times will not allow you to see these cartoons voila and went on to argue that it was a great breach of faith with the people of Denmark and with Danish democracy and that column appeared was one of two I did about this and about the the cowardly surrender it was one of about five that did and I remember them I remember vividly because you and I were in such a small minority in a media totally dominated now by image totally dominant images it was not considered appropriate to tell the American public here's a story it's all about the fight over some pictures but we're not going to show you what the pictures are listen it's a religious believe in myself I'm totally unaffected by Lisa oh wait there's no you I'm trying to persuade all right thank point he if it's dominated press said no we're not going to show you neither are the Solidarity of our Danish colleagues which would be a good point or just to show you what the fuss is about no they wouldn't that's either out of fear of the religious or it's out of fear of offending them which it comes to more or less the same thing it's blackmail in the United States of America in 2006 there wasn't a single member of our profession in a position to make a decision who would stand up for one day to outright blackmail and people say to me why you keep mentioning the extremists because the extremists are the tail that wagged the whole dog and my profession proves it and your culture proves it and you were humiliated by this and it gets worse because I write for a very small atheist magazine called free inquiry and I'm publisher of Amherst Massachusetts which did publish the cartoons see it's a responsibility first solidarity with the Danes second people should see what the fuss is apart Borders Books takes our magazine off the rack so we can't sell your magazine no I've refused to read or speak in a Borders bookstore ever since at least I could do unless they really really really offer me a lot of money in a complete capitulation a total capitulation and people say why do I focus on the extremists because the extremists have the initiative and because I haven't started yet who condemned what I remind you individual Scandinavians were murdered enough everywhere from Afghanistan to Nigeria by this hysterical pre-arranged campaign 21 ambassador's from Woosley so-called Muslim states how dare they call themselves Muslim he what says his Egypt a Muslim country you can't denominator country as religious waited upon His Holiness the Pope and in fact and in fact two leading Egyptian newspapers as I pointed out it might did run the cartoons they're braver than American papers but his Holiness the Pope condemned watch the cartoons hmm the State Department condemned the cartoons not the violence not the campaign of intimidation his the Archbishop of Canterbury condemned the cartoons every Church I know of condemned the blasphemy the cut is not the campaign of murder and sabotage and intimidation in other words ladies and gentlemen barbarians are not at the gate they're not at the gate they're well inside and who held open the door for them the other religious did is say with Salman Rushdie when the wind of the Ayatollah Khomeini offered money money publicly in his own name without shame for suborning of murder of a novelist who wasn't an Iranian who live in England a pretty radical attack of what we think we live by what our Constitution stands for what mr. Jefferson mr. Paine thought it was worth fighting for the Cardinal Archbishop of New York the chief are above Israel his Holiness the Pope the Archbishop of Canterbury all condemned what the novel the author for blasphemy now get used to this because you may be living in the last few years where you can complain about it because the religious really mean this you know they are not just joking they really mean to abolish everything you care about and they want to take away everything you love and to destroy everything you have and to replace it with a Stone Age ideology derived from the desert of Palestine in a very bad time in human history now just because they were there first they think they own everything they think they have the right to tell you what you can think who you can sleep with what you can eat what you can read and they claim the right to make you afraid even to read in the United States of America this year so I don't want to hear from anybody that my book says well don't judge religion by its extremes okay don't do that well we would distinguish say the cowardice of the Archbishop of Canterbury from the murderous violence of say Amon zawari would that be a fair distinction no because the archbishop is prearranged his capitulation to them he thinks they're people of faith Archbishop of Canterbury says I don't care for schools in England this is happening now that a run by ZOA hero supporters I don't mind it as long as you allow special schools for Christians and Jews and also special different schools for persons and Catholics if you love faith schools will allow them to have their faith schools cultural suicide cultural suicide job related happen to you don't let it happen where you live look how wonderfully it works you know it went very well what happened in Northern Ireland when it was allowed to segregate person Catholic schools after all they have different faiths oh they do I thought they were both Christian I can't arbitrate this no they should have separate schools they should never meet never intermarry never socialized beautifully there worked out how and how let's have it for Jews and Muslims too on the mainland let them all lie to their children then we'll give their special myth there the more say to them that they're different let them not tell them that they're members of a civil society or country or nation let them let them to nominate themselves by faith can't wait to see what happens I think I know what's coming I don't want I don't want my beloved country of birth to be turned into some [ __ ] Lebanon by people have failed I don't want it I'm going to fight it - and you should get ready to fudge it when they try it in your case don't allow this putting the word faith in front of something is no excuse for barbarism and cruelty and ignorance and stupidity just as Polly the word Reverend in front of a stupid name like four wheel or Sharpton doesn't mean he should be on an MSNBC the answer is learn to resist it because you're gonna need to look history is that this is about you I'm right there resisting with you as a the Autry should have the values of the pie learned in Catholic school hmm I'll be there with you resilient because of the values I learned in Catholic you will and you should because after all the Archbishop of Canterbury until you mention is a bland benign what he grant here who looks in his own person to present this well show comedian is good Rowan Williams is exactly like a sheep he's supposed to look like a shepherd he looks like sheep instead one of our list one of my oldest unease is by the way was why do I have to call myself a lamb the entire time I'm not a sheep I don't I don't want to be photo shoot why do they call me member of a frog this kind of kind of a chip off but anyway this this sheep faced figure would until until seventy years ago would have said that a member of your church could not serve in Parliament right could not be the edge of the London Times would not be able to be a lawyer or practice if you're care if you're Catholic kind of Christian we forbid you by law told any kind of service office also take a degree at Oxford University when the present Queen regnant MS Mirren dies when she the Matt the moment of her death here's what you have to understand moment of her death because Jim is asking a serious question he's asking her in a humorous way very serious question which she dies her slobbering chinless doe fan of a son we'll become not as the head of the state this is what it is not to have a secular Constitution you have a defender of your faith will become the defender of the faith the head of the church and the head of the armed forces at the moment of her death this is what you get when you've found a National Church on the family values of Henry the eighth what you're getting an argument for me on a depression approach it's the biggest budgets considered by us to be I'm no longer I mean no but you were an antimatter guy is it I've been a Republican why not but we did it this is the Republican notice for England but we'll see fur island cruelly partitioned by and maimed and amputated by the by the British monarchy but by the forces of the crown as but this is a preposterous state of affairs a no intelligent person could conceivably agree to unless it was sanctified unless it was unless they were told what God wants it this way and so I know we're getting to the end of our we are coming but listen to people who say that religion may not be true it makes people behave better I'm in oil declaration isn't it true and in a makes people behavior doesn't say stupid thing to me was it say if they had senses about it makes it make some people behave better and make some people behave worse just a couple small points and then I was going to ask you to read something before you went to questions real good the goodness isn't the just a couple of small points one one in correction and one to help you out for further arguments the the Cameo he had movie was going to be laugh like we're never enjoined to eat meat to eat fish on Friday they were prohibited from eating meat and so ate fish by choice so you you might in when I'm del down must be another parent another printing you've missed your no no it's a serious plan you've also missed your grape you've also missed one of your great opportunity since you're very fond of Tertullian yes and I think not not since a very ancient English Jesuit avaya quaint so I met anybody who quoted to Julian quite as much as you do but you've missed his most extreme pronounce pronounced en toe which is that any woman who swallowed semen in the course of oral sex had committed cannibalism now I find it shocking that you've missed this point I mean it's so good and Tertullian is for those of you who've been spared the the lectures of their right right-to-life movement cousins as I have not you would find true Chilean comes up a lot in their argument so you say but he is remarkably like a lot of these guys a remarkably unreliable guide to sexual ethics I think or at least I hope so in any event the this a this is a how did you know there never got you also get Aquinas to be alone but you get you always want to know what were they thinking about with it so was they know what they're thinking they were thinking they were they were thinking about the most extreme examples they could make in support of their arguments so sort of what we're talking about here tonight but the Aquinas did say that that the coin is just say and believe that the whole human was contained in every sperm he thought the woman was only the bearer no no no that's not quite right mean what he said was actually Aquinas is quite interesting on this question because he believed in a process called insolvent and that he believed in fact that that abortion was licit until the child quickened in the womb at which point in Solman had occurred now he did believe that male children quickened at 3 months and female children at 6 but that wasn't that's another kind of who doesn't or that yeah who doesn't know that but but what's interesting about all this and it comes to what we're going to ask you to read is that Aquinas got his biology from a source at the very heart of the moral reasoning project that you now recommend Aquinas didn't get his biology from his colleagues zigger of Brabant at the university of paris he didn't get it from he didn't get it from albertus magnus he got it from aristotle whole by way of somebody you and I both admire of eros something to ponder fire anyway anyway I wonder if you'd read yes this this passage and notice anything about the previous go right ahead is we're trespassing on their time yes I would simply say Aquinas did believe that there was a whole person inside he'd sperm he's at least in perchance in potential yes but not actual nose hand Alister McGrath is Christians seem to know at least the person who believe is the champion who I'm going to debate from Oxford in a few months says that Julian did not say Cray do quia absurdum he never actually said that no he said borrowing from Aristotle that there are some cases where the extremum probability of a story makes it more likely that it's true hmm with this I these are the as I began by saying this is not wonderful about writing a book and going out and discussing it is you you refine your argument and you hope to refine others but is that not argument from said that's Marisol spirits from the poetics yes but but but and I don't think that finally that anything that they got back from the Greeks was just returned to them and it had to come back by it enormous leap sinuous roots from Andalusia and Baghdad yeah you could be robbed a lot where they they had for so long denied themselves the possibility right that there could have been the Nicomachean ethics or any other discussions of morals before Jesus Christ how could it be that there could be any ethical there's be remember Erasmus is great remark upon the green Socrates for the first time but when Erasmus read he didn't he didn't have Greek so he when he finally read Socrates there and in the high Renaissance in in Latin he read it and he wrote in his journal a pagan wrote this and yet it has justice and mercy I can hardly restrain myself from saying Saint Socrates pray for me well that's beautifully phrased and so this is really will be my last word before we hand it over I have a challenge that I've put on the Christianity Today website which has been very kind inviting me to debate and exchange every day of this trip and with jawless Wilson who you probably know hmm I put everyone else is simply this any of my antagonist and I can't wait to see how the challenge eventuates has simply to do the following they must resume idea they must come up with a moral statement made or a moral action performed by believer because some huge range of possible that could not have been made or not have been performed by non-believer so I'm not leaving until nine I won't leave what anyone can say I didn't answer a question so that's my challenge and thank you very much for prompting me and by the way thank you very much for all this and what do you want me to read but I thought maybe you could just read the start of that chapter actually which is quite quite good and before you do you know I do think that you're a little a little light on the heavy lifting done by the great triumvirate Aquinas of arrows and Maimonides in reconciling faith and reason and I would in fact say to you that the that the problem of militant Islam today really stems in large part from the different choice that of arrows who we both admire and whose whose tomb or his monument we both gone to that the quota bleep we have a mutual admiration for Andalusia in Spain and you remember a varus dealt with the problem of Aristotle how he said two truths there's the truth of Revelation there's the truth of the natural world and the two are completely different proceeded long different courses we need not concern ourselves with their conflict Aquinas Maimonides said though that's intellectual suicide truth is unitary it must be reconciled no matter how I'm perfectly without that act of reconciliation there'd be no modernism and you and I wouldn't be here discussing this tonight no but up with you because I agree Stephen Jay Gould is wrong and saying there's a non-overlapping magisteria they are in fact antagonistic and people should be honest enough to say that it's one or the other one in a non historian well you know again because we'll have to concede or fall Joe John John's go to Sarah Gina John's go to Sarah Gina the great the great Irish no theologian the Carolingian you have the de jure era Gina in at the court of Charles the bald the Carolingian court said the truth and reason could never conflict and that when they appeared to it was the human duty to give the benefit of the doubt to reason because it was our only tool of reckoning well I to that extent he conceded and once that concession is made I believe as you may have found or suspected that is not possible to be a little bit of radical even when the human people in this room please please how'd you want me to read the quotations as well you may indeed it well he wants really really feel soon we should make room well it's my chapter 5 which says the metaphysical claims of reversion of false are bold statement and I fronted with four quotations one I am a man of one book that's Thomas Aquinas we sacrificed the intellect of God that's ignatius loyola reason is the devil's harlot who can do nought but slander and harm whatever God says and does that's as you all know Martin Luther and then shifting to someone with real culture and sensitivity and I must have I must add the love for Christianity the faith from which she was excluded by his own personal desires Oda Jordan in a beautiful poem called the more loving one looking up at the stars I know quite well that for all they care I can go to hell I think that how long we want that's it okay well it's been very nice to be our prisoner I assume that it's your anti faith point of view that caused you to support the war in Iraq is there a danger in being her ethically anti religious as fanatically for religion well your assumption is not radically we're very slightly mistaken I mean my view was that slobodan milosevic the Taliban sort of Zen the Rwandan genocide uh the Hutu power force and others were eventually radically incompatible both with the rule of law internationally and with principles the United States Constitution and with the values that we almost here there would have to be a confrontation with them sooner or later it didn't occur to me to present this in a religious light or faith based light of any kind no so I can't agree with with the grammar of your question that the parties of God were on the wrong side of all this in each case would certainly be true and I have a long section in my book about why that's so but I couldn't I could not possibly say that I was in favor of overthrowing the loss of the choice and I was saying because I'm an atheist that would be absurd I think would certainly sound bizarre it's just as a radical incompatibility between totalitarian expressionistic leadership and our survival I wish more people realize that that was so section I move across no here there's gentlemen here sure oh did I was at a complete waste of my breath it's lovely to think that all that was wasted on the desert air gotcha she's not full enough I just thought I had a carrying voice hey hi how are you Oh too soon to tell enjoy enjoyed the top now can you hear me yes thank you um I'm a believer so I I have a living watch uh well it doesn't matter but that's what I think so I'll take you up on that look I didn't plant this guy I mean I promise you daddy I told you not to do this um so I'll take you up on your little challenge so my problem with they do it briskly if you don't mind up to you sure with the with your argument as well as the atheist argument which I'll call the Objectivists argument if that's okay no so okay well let's say I'm not around here okay well according to from what do I look like a random whenever do you say no no not at all actually um at this slumped right the problem with why I hear you saying and also what I've read another like in Dawkins book is that the problem with denying religion in its entirety is that to me there's an aspect that none of us can deny believe or not to ourselves that's boundless alright it's similar to knock me on the back of the head they could take out a lung arm whatever or not even touch me and without any conscious objective reason I'm going to be here I'm going to be okay and so it seems to me that that aspect of balance is something that we need to deal with science doesn't deal with or can't deal with it yet because it's tied up with consciousness and our very being and it seems to me that religion is the province that however ineptly it happens however they never lead they're doing it deals with that aspect of boundlessness within this hall and every object around us we're all part of the universe so how do you how do you reconcile to that argue with that question it's for me right no well I can tell you well okay um if they keep taking these limbs and lungs away from you by the way it won't go on to reveal that fantastic lead on and even if they don't all your your sound in wind and limb as we used to say those were fact the precise worth its so what God not terrifically enough just isn't and we live on a very small planet in a very minor solar system on the very edge of a gigantic galaxy where the remainder of the planets just in our own solar system are either too [ __ ] hot or too sodding cold to support life a very kind as is true of a very great sways of our own planet which is on a climatic knife edge as we if we didn't know before we know now so to say that this is the center of the universe and the whole objective of the cosmos is to produce this conversation is an extraordinarily self-centered thing to do and it seems to me yeah and and also doesn't in return to its self-centeredness which might be excused we're in the round ear in terms of these at least let's think we're gods at least let's believe that we are most they're beautifully charismatic sex maniacs have ever appeared on any planet doesn't yield any knowledge doesn't help us in the least to clarify anything no it I think we would do much better to understand our place in the cosmos and I think if we did we'd turn to each other with a little more respect and concern and compassion and understanding and maybe char up the people who we found a spliced into our own DNA as well this having this wonderful sequencing having abolished racism and creationism at one stroke I theory guard that as a huge step forward I must say Chand understand once kinship with all other humans with some other animals with even with vegetables and plants it doesn't make me feel worse a metaphor better listen make sure that I know where I am which the other stuff simply doesn't so I wouldn't trade that for any of your pseudo universality sorry here well thank you all very much for a very profound dialogue about what I see to be about tyranny versus human freedom in the mind and the spirit so but we know who made his points but both a man of faith and a man not of faith have completely slurped up the new civic myth and religion which we you but we've identified as guat the global war on terror so let's let's look at the mid your eyes is there a question yes okay okay question being being that anyone with moral and intellectual fortitude who looks at the evidence of that day sees that no al-qaeda jihadi had the means to schedule the war games that actually stood down all right no no no that's all right being that ideal wasting your time being that any member of al-qaeda had no motive to anthrax the leading opponents of the Patriot Act wasting your time I'm not going to assume why won't you answer you can speak here's the question you can space you are an intellectual you can speak I'm not bothering with you I have no time to waste on people at you stop it I can't make you stop I can't make you stop but when you stop it's all over no sir I'm not no sir I am NOT for a migrated by I'm not I'm not I'm not gonna buy a pencil from your car no.not that's correct I'm getting way in the back there this gentleman William way in the back thank you good evening um that was a big that was a big big Wow from a small mind um forget it I have no time to waste on people like you very great mmm don't never leave him alone leave him leave him alone as long as he stays quiet he had his turn you heard his question I'm not wasting my time on him next next next hi um just a real quick question in in Sam Harris's book the age of faith he does seem to leave open the idea of either spiritual mystical experiences on an individual level having just begun your book I I don't know if you're hit in that direction or do you part company with Sam Harris on his position on that mr. Harris is a very brilliant man in Teaneck who knows much more about neuroscience than I do does think that the can be consciousness independent of the brain and we are at my I think very attractive and I hope I could recommend to you exquisite magazine free inquiry having a debate I mean he's he's our newest colonists and we're having a discussion about this very thing about whether to be an atheist is to be a materialist or not some house is definitely an atheist he's some kind of a Buddhist because he doesn't think that it's religion obviously the case we made saying it isn't one and that kind of conversation I think it's really incredibly worth having I mean I do not know whether a neuro scientific breakthrough will ever discover that there could be a numinous penumbra around the brain that can't be explained by the meat of the of the cerebellum itself I I am certainly not going to be the one who arbitrates on this point but I must say very skeptical about Buddhism and I just say you know what the Buddhist says to the hot-dogging you don't he says make me one with everything yeah well that's wait wait that's only part one because the Buddhist then hands over a fifty dollar bill and waits while he munches and nothing happens and he says to the hot dog vendor okay what about my change and dog vendor says change comes any from within I myself have never heard anything more profound than that from Eastern Circle contemplation I told you what I thought was the atrocious and immoral line of predestination and reincarnation of the Buddhists take on the masculine in in Cambodia and I don't like the idea of the Dalai Lama being an inherited kingship and God ship I think that's a disgusting idea and I don't like the way that the situation of the neutral mutation in Burma is one of building entire temples in the name of Gotama Buddha and above all I don't like the idea that the Buddha the Gautama was born through a slit at his mother's side because yet again you get it anything but the vagina disgust for females contempt for females revulsion from menstrual blood revulsion from the female genitalia I personally do not regard the female genitalia in that way I hope you don't either no I didn't say email genitalia I'm sorry God is always someone who doesn't get it I have many trying to distill some of my thoughts because you evoked an enormous amount of reactions within me well I consider myself a traditional Jew and I agree with everything that you have said I also disagree with the appellations of this is a man of faith and this is not a man of faith I mean I think that is is very unfair and absolutely very wrong to say I don't think that Judaism quite fits into your category of religion with a capital R because it offers you so many different parts of being Jewish you can be an absolute atheist and be part of Judaism you could be Orthodox ultra-orthodox conservative reform reconstructionist humanist who does not want to even go in a moment how the concept of God and also be anything that you care to be and Judaism accepts you if some ultra Orthodox rabbis issue statements that are that are not in consonance with what have just said then we don't have to agree with him and we're still do so this is my question yeah when thank you when of Christian religion ascend banjo vocals say to me but you don't understand we have a mission for you you need to be saved you must accept Jesus Christ or you cannot be saved what shall I answer them God well I'll be that's the second bit of the questions very easy to answer I mean no children [ __ ] off [Applause] my friend katha pollitt Mitch the Southern Baptist Convention announced they does it almost every year this time we're raising a real fund they do it all the time for the conversion of American Jews we must bring them back to Jesus we must save them and katha pollitt who have had many many quarrels with in my life about many many things but is a beautiful writer in a way said she waited in night after night on the Upper West Side in West 88th Street just waiting for them to come and knock on her door she was braced she was ready they never came to hear huge disappointment of course the Christians can't ever be happy until Jews do do this because and it's the same with the Muslims and by the way having I may say apologize a slight flip and say my first answer here's the situation if the Nazarene preacher from Galilee every really existed and there's no question who he met he met the Jewish people first and became partly from their tradition if the Prophet Muhammad really ever existed I doubt both his propositions very much but to the extent that any now Albert this can be told the first encounter he had wasn't was with people whose first originalist Judiasm the Jews took a blow of both his eyes and said no this is not Messiah this is not the Redeemer we reject them do you suppose they're ever going to be forgiven for it of course they're not of course they're not the hatred for them there isn't a Christian or a Muslim in the world of real serious kind who wouldn't who wouldn't have to hope to give everything they own for a chance of some face time with other is Christ of the Prophet Muhammad it would have to be the thing they most wanted to do they must want it in the same way as I would like to have met Shakespeare or George earlier they must be the most important thing - and only one people and it's the same in both cases met their false prophets and they both turned away said this isn't genuine do you think it's going to be forgiven No do you think this has led to a huge amount of violence and turmoil and heresy hunting and fascism and genocide yes do you think it's over yet better not believe that the worst is yet to come they're never going to forgive it that's what you get when you set Bronze Age myths in conflict with each other and let's civilize people act as if they're as if they're for real actually our history it is possible to taking exactly the opposite meaning from that the example yeah I think that you know one of one of the interesting things about the the gospel narratives at least in the Christian scriptures is that if you know if you're going to believe any part of the evidence of the gospel there were people who who heard the Son of God teach them about morality in life and said he turned around went away so there was there at the beginning an absence of coercion Xand certainly if he was the son of God he could have he could have persuaded them through what some some force or other but didn't so [Music] couldn't you take a hopeful you know what I think not because um I have a passage about this in my book is a basically a check on yeah an Australian fascists Mel Gibson yeah his very steamy gorgeous but was come from as you know very theologically praised wrong who wants to reverse vatican ii if you remember he wanted to rip out my lungs indeed and in mine too and and anyone who came into contact with kill french franc one of those people shouldn't have a drink so whatever but his father his father's attack on Vatican 2 was a very serious now here's a situation it is film he tries to restore the idea of Jewish kill for dear side as you must have noticed [ __ ] a lot of people didn't notice it but okay now the church has repudiated this yes no straight nose prayer today now you'll correct me if I'm wrong with no stretch RT is 1968 eight women I'm sorry I'm wrong about that sixty earlier and written by an American by the well I was allowed to say that it was fractionally earlier yeah near the time of Vatican two bird how many notes okay in the 1960s at least they say that mr. varakin counsel yeah I think it's I think it's 65 because I I thought I had it down as 20 years after the start of the Nuremberg trial twenty years after the South the Nuremberg trial the church officially says we do not hold all Jews guilty of dear side that's quite late now very funny moves very fellows you try to make you cry rather make you laugh but okay giggle all you want why do they wait that long ask yourself so in my book why because if the story is true which I do not believe it is but if it is true the only people present definitely present certifiably present are the Jewish people they were there they were there and he was one of them if you say ok the Jews oh excuse they can go how can you go on saying we were all present at Calvary we were all guilty of nailing the hands and the feet that we all spat in the face of Christ how can you keep anyone else guilty of this if you if you have let go the one people you can be reasonably sure were there that's when they hang on so long 2000 years of lying and bigotry and fabrication and Prejudice and pogroms every Easter and hideous representations and misrepresentations think why couldn't they give it up why wouldn't it would be so easy if we think of the church as yet another ecumenical thing we're cleaning up let the Jews go you've let everyone go we're not all guilty we're not all soaked in original sin we're not all saved by costly human sacrifice we're not all implicated in this filthy cult of death that's why it took them so long and that's why the real believers in this myth can't let occur that's why I'm right I think in saying the religion so far from making people behave better has always been responsible for making them behave very much worse in barbaric arcane elaborate ways that no morally normal person would ever allow and we will be better if we outgrew this is barbaric autism and that'll have to be my last word because it's 8:30 and it's cocktail hour and from now on [Applause] and from now on I can only be compassionate to anyone who has a receipt this is America thank you [Applause]

Channel: ChristopherHitchslap

Views: 327,498

Rating: 4.7600527 out of 5

Keywords: Christopher, Hitchens:, God, Is, Not, Great:, How, Religion, Poisons, Everything, In, conversation, with, Tim, Rutten, Darwin, Dawkins, Richard, Debate, Creationism, Design, Truth, Logic, Proof, Response, Reason, Kent, Belief, Evidence, Theory, Theism, Hovind, Morality, Intelligent, Delusion, Theist, Genesis, Biology, Universe, Rational, Creationist, Selection, Harris, Holy, Natural, Does, Exist, Experience

Id: _TTkrRoiQyE

Length: 83min 30sec (5010 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 25 2011