Does God Exist? (Frank Turek vs Christopher Hitchens)

well welcome everybody to the night's event my name is Laurie Roberts I am the President of the United States here at VCU the United States is a group of atheists agnostics secular students apparently the people in the back cannot hear me can you hear me now good okay like I was saying I'm Roy Roberts president of the United secular Alliance we are a student group dedicated to promotion of secular ideals and I provide and providing a community for the non-religious students here at VCU I would like to thank the Honors College and the College of Humanities and Sciences for their financial contributions without which this event could not have happened and I would like to thank some certain individuals such as Shelley Mount Joy which I'm here at the moment Anthony Ellis who Larry Mendoza and Dana marks who I believe is manning a camera at this moment for their help with making this a possibility I would also like to thank Dean Timothy Halsey of the Honors College who will be moderating this event and I will yield the floor to him Thank You Roy and thanks to the VCU chapter of the United secular Alliance for arranging tonight's event good evening and thanks to all of you for coming to what I am absolutely certain will be a very entertaining and informative evening this evening as you all already know we're honored to have Christopher Hitchens and Frank Turek with us to debate an ancient and modern question does God exist there is perhaps no more contentious issue that we could consider accordingly this debate will follow specific guidelines to begin each speaker will have 20 minutes to make his opening statement dr. Turek will speak first since he argues in the affirmative following the opening statements each speaker will have five minutes to rebut his opponent followed by an opportunity to question his opponent directly each speaker will be allowed three questions of the other with questions limited to one minute and answers to five after the direct questioning speakers will respond to questions from the audience asked by me from the cards that you were handed when you entered the room as your questions occur to you please write them on these cards and at a point in the debate I'll ask the ushers come forward and collect them if you would pass them we will ask as many of them as we have time to do given the nature of tonight's debate it is vitally important that everyone in attendance act in accordance with the highest standards of social behavior anyone acting rudely or behaving disrupt League disruptively rather will be thrown out really and now our speakers Frank Turek is a speaker author columnist and founder of cross examine org an organization dedicated to preserving rather to presenting evidence for the Christian worldview at universities high schools and churches he is a columnist for Town Hall comm and is the co-author of two books including I don't have enough faith to be an atheist he has appeared on numerous TV and radio programs including The O'Reilly Factor Hannity and combs and politically incorrect with Bill Maher dr. Turk has a doctorate in apologetics from southern evangelical seminary in Charlotte North Carolina at a master's degree in public administration from George Washington University where he also taught courses in leadership and management Christopher Hitchens is the author of more than 10 books including most recently God is not great how religion poisons everything he is a contributing editor to the INEC monthly in Vanity Fair and has written prolifically for American and English periodicals including the nation the London Review of Books Granta Harper's Slate and The Washington Post he's a regular television and a radio commentator appearing on hardball with Chris Matthews the Charlie Rose show Real Time with Bill Maher the Tavis Smiley show and c-span's Washington journal among others mr. Hitchens is also taught as a visiting professor at the University of California Berkeley the University of Pittsburgh and the New School for Social Research in Manhattan now according to the rules of our debate dr. Turek will make his opening comments dr. good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Frank Turk before I get started let me ask you to ask you this how many have heard me before or this is your first time how many of you are here tonight how many do not respond to surveys three out of 10 don't respond to surveys Dean this is my first formal debate so give me a little grace if I can't cram everything I want to say into twenty minutes I will say however I've had many informal debates most of them with my wife and I have not fared very well there I will say however that she is probably the perfect sparring partner for Christopher Hitchens because her nickname at our house is nails and nails is the type of woman that if she ain't happy ain't nobody in the house happy so hopefully I'm prepared for a very formidable opponent in Christopher Hitchens and I do want to say that I very much like Christopher Hitchens I've been following him for many years I'm kind of a political junkie so I've seen him around quite a bit and I appreciate his charm and his wit and I agree with him on a lot of things obviously not the issue of god that would make a very boring debate but I will say that I went up to Christopher just about a half-hour ago and I shook his hand I said Christopher I'm actually a fan and he smiled and he said the night is young I want to I want to thank the United secular Alliance I want to thank Daniel Pendergrass where's Daniel you here Daniel he was my contact here I also want to thank Dean Tim Timothy Halsey I also want to thank of course Christopher for doing this debate I think it's impossible not to like Christopher and as I mentioned I do he's carrying the cross for atheism and he carries it very well tonight I'm going to carry the cross for theism and I want to point out that I think we're both trying to explain the world around us we both have the burden of proof to explain why reality is the way it is I have to show how reality is best explained by theism and Christopher has to explain how reality is best explained by atheism and I think we should follow the evidence where it leads I think that the evidence we see all around us and within us leads to a spaceless timeless immaterial personal powerful intelligent moral creator ie what we would call a theistic God and this creator created this universe and the life within us or the life within it I should say now I'm going to try and summarize my 450 page book at least the first 200 pages of it in the next 20 minutes or next 18 minutes at this point now and that is an impossible task that would be about 20 pages a minute actually I probably can do it because I'm originally from New Jersey see I speak it 150 words a minute with Gustav 350 so if I go a little quick and you want to see more of the evidence please get the book I don't have enough faith to be atheist and I want to point out that all the proceeds from the sale of the book will go to feed needy children mine okay see I've got three sons the oldest two are in college right now so I need a little help and one of them is sitting right over here all right Christopher on page 282 of God is not great available at fine bookstores everywhere says this thanks to the telescope and the microscope religion no longer offers an explanation for anything important I think that is exactly wrong I think due to the telescope in the microscope we are seeing evidence that leads directly to God I'm going to give you three major arguments for this and then I'm going to give you four more that are a result I think of a theistic worldview and spend most of my time on the three and then I'll just mention the last four the three are the cosmological argument from the beginning of the universe the next one is the teleological argument from the design of the universe and the design of life and the third is the moral argument let's start with the cosmological argument and this is basically the argument from the Big Bang that the universe had a beginning if it had a beginning it must have had a beginner now for some reason Christians are afraid of the Big Bang I'm not afraid of the Big Bang I believe in the Big Bang I just think I know who banged it now the evidence for the Big Bang is good I'm going to give you evidence in an acronym Serge su are GE I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it because I think even Christopher in his book on page 65 says the Big Bang is the accepted origin of e of the universe S stands for the second law of thermodynamics that the universe is running down as that Sun is up there it is burning out ultimately we will go to heat death as Christopher has said in his book well if the universe is eternal that Sun would have burned out a long time ago but since the Sun is still up there and we still have energy here the universe must have had a beginning the second law of thermodynamics also says that ordered things go toward dis order it affects the this school we have to paint the walls we have to put gas in our car the second law of thermodynamics also affects us as human beings when you get older the second law of thermodynamics is is seen by the fact that we all get dressed or diseased that's when our chest falls into our drawers see that's the second law of thermodynamics the UN surge is the fact that the universe is expanding discovered by Edwin Hubble in 1929 Hubble deduced that if the universe is expanding if you watched everything in Reverse you would see it collapse back to a point mathematically and logically to nothing so the universe exploded into being out of nothing the G stands for the great galaxies R stands for the radiation echo discovered by accident by Penzias and Wilson two scientists working at Bell Labs in Holmdel New Jersey they discovered basically the radiation afterglow or the remnant heat from the initial Big Bang explosion the heat is still out there it's just a couple of degrees above absolute zero now good theories predict predict future discoveries and they said if the radiation afterglow is out there and the Big Bang really did occur we ought to find very fine temperature variations among the radiation afterglow so they set up a satellite in 1989 to circle the earth it's called a Kobe space satellite to measure this radiation afterglow and for three years they found nothing until they tuned their instruments just a little bit more precisely and found that there were temperature variations in the radiation afterglow and they were down to one part in 100,000 George Smoot the leader of the expedition said if you're religious it's like looking at God Stephen Hawking said this is the greatest discovery of cosmology perhaps the greatest discovery of all time those temperature variations allowed galaxies to ultimately form so we could ultimately be here the Ian surd stands for Einstein's theory of general relativity which says time space and matter are Co relative you can't have space without time you can't have time without space and matter and in effect it says that the universe came into existence with space and time together in other words once there was no time once there was no space once there was no matter and then bang out of nothing the universe exploded into being what is nothing Aristotle had a good definition of nothing he said nothing is what rocks dream about nothing there was no thing there was not positive and negative energy as Isaac Asimov has said there is not a vacuum there was not swirling mathematical points as dr. Atkins has said from Oxford there was nothing what rocks dream about which means that the universe exploded into being all space all matter all time out of nothing and several scientists have pointed this out Stephen Hawking said almost everyone now believes that the universe and time itself had a beginning at the Big Bang agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow the man who sits in Edwin Hubble's chair or who did until February when he died he was an agnostic he sat at Mount Wilson and looked through telescope he wrote a book in 1978 called God and the astronomers and here's what jestro wrote or here's what he said actually in an interview he said astronomers now found they painted themselves into a corner because they have proven by their own methods that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star every planet every living thing on in this cosmos and on the earth and they have found that all this has happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover that there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now I think a scientifically proven fact why isn't it agnostic astronomers saying supernatural forces are at work why couldn't nature have created the universe because there was no nature there was nothing what rocks dream about and then the entire space-time continuum left into existence if it's not a natural cause by definition it must be a supernatural cause something beyond the natural in fact Arthur Eddington the contemporary of Einstein who was an expert in general relativity said quote the beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agreed to look on it as frankly supernatural so the cosmological argument leaves us with one question either no one created something out of nothing or someone created something out of nothing the atheistic view is no one created something out of nothing the theistic view is someone created something out of nothing which view is more reasonable I think Julie Andrews had it right nothing comes from nothing nothing ever could that's the cosmological argument the teleological argument the design argument actually has two arguments contained within it it is the argument from design and there are dozens of factors about the universe that are precisely died of design for the existence of the universe and life so not only did the universe explode into being out of nothing it did so with incredible precision Stephen Hawking has noted that the universe would not exist if there was a decrease in the expansion rate one second after the Big Bang by only one part in 100,000 million million this led Hawking to conclude it would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way except as an act of God who intended to create beings like us not only is it designed in terms of its expansion but the gravitational force is so precise if you change the gravitational force by one part in 10 to the 40 nothing would exist what's one part in 10 to the 40 stretch a tape measure across the entire known universe set gravity at 1 inch on that anywhere on that tape measure if you move gravity the force of gravity one inch in either direction we don't exist there's also factors about our universe in particular our solar system that cannot be explained unless there's a designer behind it for example the earth rotation 24 hours just right if it was a little bit more a little bit less we wouldn't be here the axial tilt 23 and 1/2 degrees just right change that a little bit we're not here the Jupiter being in its current orbit if Jupiter wasn't there we'd bump up be bombarded with space material why because Jupiter acts as a cosmic vacuum cleaner it attracts all the cosmic space junk to it rather than us there are a number of other factors I don't have time to get into but Arno Penzias the man who co-discovered the are in surge the radiation afterglow said this astronomy leads us to a unique event a universe which was created out of nothing one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the right conditions required to permit life and one which as an underlined one might say and one which has an underlying one might say super natural plan a friend of Christopher a theist Stephen Weinberg who is an atheist put it this way life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values so not only is the universe precisely tweaked and by the way there would be no life unless the universe was precisely fine-tuned as I just mentioned but life itself is designed let me take you to your breakfast table for just a second suppose you wanted to have a bowl alphabet cereal you're a teenager and you come down ere's have bowl alphabet cereal and you see the alphabet cereals knocked over and the letters from the alphabet cereal are spelled out on the placemat and it spells take out the garbage mom what are you going to assume cat knock the box over earthquake shook the house or are you going to say no that's intelligent design from an intelligent being or let's say you're laying out on the beach and you see in the clouds drink Coke what're you going to assume unusual cloud formation no you're going to say there has to be a skywriter up there even if you didn't see and why because messages oh we only come from mines well it turns out there's a message in all life called DNA we all know about it all life has a message I have DNA you have DNA a banana has DNA in Darwin's day it was not known how incredibly complex simple so-called simple life is and they thought that maybe simple life could come together without intelligent intervention and ultimately natural selection could take over it's the theory of macro evolution I'm sure you've heard of it from the goo duv of the zoo from the infantile to the reptile to the crocodile to the Gentile that's the theory of macro evolution the problem is is that now we know that this intelligent life couldn't have come together by natural laws because we now know that the simplest life has the amount of specified complexity or information and in terms of DNA about thousand complete sets of Encyclopedia Britannica now who is that according to not a Christian not a theist that's according to Richard Dawkins from his book blind watchmaker I think it's page 116 now to believe that that resulted by natural laws like believing that the Library of Congress resulted from an explosion in a printing shop see I don't have enough faith to believe that so life appears to be designed in fact Antony flew who was a atheist a very prominent atheist but recently became a theist or at least a deist as a result of this evidence said it is impossible for evolution to account for the fact that one single cell can carry more data than all the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica put together it now seems to me that the findings of more than 50 years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormous ly powerful argument from design how am i doing on time Dean five minutes okay thank you it design is so prevalent that even people like Francis Crick the co-discoverer of DNA sir Fred Hoyle who can who coined the term Big Bang in a derisive way are now or were proponents of panspermia seeds everywhere in other words that life got deposited here by aliens which is just kind of a backhanded way of saying that there's no way we know how life came by natural causes here there must be aliens out there that brought it here which of course just puts the question off one more step where did the aliens come from right there's a lot more on the design argument but I'm running out of time here let me just give you one quote from Chandra Wickramasinghe who is a student of Sir Fred Hoyle he said the emergence of life from a primordial soup on earth is merely an article of faith sir Fred Hoyle said a common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics as well as chemistry and biology and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature so cosmological argument teleological argument now let's move on to the moral argument if there is no God you can't say that decapitating a man on a bus is objectively morally wrong that's just your opinion as Dostoevsky said if there is no God everything is permitted now I want to be very clear here I'm not saying that a theist can't know morality they do I'm not saying that a theist can't be moral they can I'm not saying that believing in God makes you more moral as Christopher has pointed out and as they say I agree with much of what he writes here I'm not saying that religious people are necessarily better than atheist that's not the argument the argument is is that there's no way to say that a given act is moral or immoral unless there's a standard beyond humanity it's not just my opinion it's not just Christopher's opinion or Mother Teresa's or Hitler's there's a standard beyond everybody that defines what is right that standard is God's very nature since objective moral laws exist there must be an objective moral lawgiver you say no there doesn't need to be any moral lawgiver if there's a prescription there must be a prescriber if you go to the pharmacist and say here I'd like you to fill this prescription and the pharmacist says who prescribed it you go nobody are you going to get your prescription no now there's again there's a lot more on the moral argument maybe we can talk about a little bit during the QA but what can we learn from these three arguments for God we can learn from the cosmological argument that this beam must be spaceless timeless and immaterial why because it created space-time and material it must also be powerful why because it created out of nothing must be personal why because you can't go from a state of non-existence to a state of existence without making a choice and only personal beans make choices impersonal forces do not it must be intelligent why because it created in such a highly designed razor's edge way it must be moral why do to the moral argument and of course it must be a creator these attributes are the attributes of what the Bible would call God let me sum up what agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow said after going through evidence like this he said for the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason remember he's the agnostic the story ends like a bad dream he has scaled the mounts of ignorance he's about to conquer the highest peak as he pulls himself up with a final rock he's greeted by a band of theologians who've been sitting there for centuries two more minutes take three thank you sir those are the three main arguments now I'd like to say there's four additional truths about the universe that are better explained by theism than by atheism first of all reason in the laws of logic Christopher is a self-described materialist but if atheism is true we have no grounds to know it because reason and thoughts are just chemical reactions in the brain how can you have even Einstein believed this Einstein was a determinist how can you trust what Christopher says if it's just chemical reactions going on in his brain and chemical reactions in our brain see chemicals don't reason they react now I'm not saying there's no connection between our thinking and chemicals there is but if it's nothing but chemicals how can we trust them even Darwin recognized this it's called Darwin's doubt he said if we are just the product materially of primates why shy to even why should I even trust anything much less my theory of natural selection so the next major reason is the laws of mathematics science depends on the notion that the universe is rational and mathematical at all levels but how does rationality and mathematics arise from randomness how do they come from matter rationality and mathematics are the product of mind not matter so you got reason in the laws of logic the laws of mathematics and then number seven or seven in my list here three in the edition human freedom and the ability to make choices Christopher is somebody who is very concerned about human free and about freedom as I am but again if we are just molecules in motion how do we have human freedom William provine from Cornell he's the materialist of Darwinist he points out that we don't have any human freedom if all we are is molecules in motion now Christopher ought not scold anybody for being a snake handling bible-thumping fundamentalist Preacher because according to his own worldview that person is that way because these are just chemicals going on in his brain neither could you say that Hitler had done anything wrong if it's just chemicals going on in his brain I mean what is the murder molecule how much does justice weigh these are questions that have no answer in a materialistic worldview but that is Christopher's worldview it seems to me that it makes much more sense to say that reason and laws of logic mathematics and human freedom come from a great mind that granted us these immaterial realities the final argument is consciousness do you know that a heap of sand and a human brain have the same elements why are some carbon-based molecules conscious and others are not materialists have no answer for this Daniel Dennett another person who would agree with Christopher on many things he's a materialist says that consciousness is in a lucien because he's a materialist you're not really witnessing right net this right now you it's just an illusion now one wonders if he was conscious when he wrote this but again there is no explanation for this in an atheistic worldview now I have a couple other arguments on the bench but I don't have time to get to them let me just sum up in one minute we need to take all this data in context not just one argument but all of them what is the best explanation Christopher has to explain these eight truths about the universe from an atheistic perspective he must explain how the universal rose from nothing how extreme fine-tuning and design rose from chaos how life arose from non-life how morality arose from materials how reason in the laws of logic arose from matter how mind arose from mud how mathematics arose from molecules how human freedom arose from blind repetitive forces and how consciousness arose from chemicals if he can't give evidence to explain these truths about reality from an atheistic perspective if he's just going to state unsupported speculative possibilities that rely on faith then I think theism is a more reasonable worldview thank you for your attention I appreciate Thank You dr. Turk will not have 20 minutes from mr. hitches at his opening State Thank You mr. chairman thank you ladies and gentlemen for coming thank you dr. turret for that very spirited opening to the evening I should say first it's a great honor to be in the capital of the great state of Virginia I'm a in a small way a biographer of Thomas Jefferson and his memorial as you know omitted dimension of his presidencies and vice presidencies and preferred to focus on his work at the University and his authorship of the Virginia statute on religious freedom which is the embryo and basis of the First Amendment to our Constitution which makes this the only country in the world that has ever decided that God and constitutional matters should be separated and it's in defense partly of a civilizational impulse that I rise this evening to satirize the idea that we're here by somebody else's permission and owe that person an explanation which is what it is to be atheist if not a dears to say Lyrae I almost never watch television and I'm usually glad that I do but now I'm glad that I sometimes I'm forced by my daughter to watch Family Guy because you may possibly have seen the moment when the chubby father comes down in the morning and looks at his cereal in the bowl accepting your some one of your more sophisticated challenges and he says it says woo and it's always says there's a Cheerios but I accept the ontological challenge and I accept it in this way the answer to the question which with with which we confront ourselves tonight or are confronted if you prefer does God exist is to me yes it does it must do it must do because it is so real to those who do believe in it there are people of whom it may be said that for them God does exist I've become perfectly persuaded of this by now there is no form of persuasion that would make me assent to this proposition some of us are born we are born to in answer to Blaise Pascal's own problem the one that made him write his plan say and addressed them to those who are so made that they cannot believe those of us to whom almost everything that dr. Troy just said would be the mere equivalent of white noise I suppose it's my job deceive you to explain on to logically how that is the case perhaps I'll do it by a force of example recently very recently that as little go in time as last year the Vatican announced that limbo the destination of the unbaptized child soul no longer exists there is no such place Saint Augustine was in error it appears in sending so many children at least the souls of so many are baptized children to this destination for so long among the comments that I heard about this one the mildest actually was that of a woman raised in the Catholic faith whose child had died before baptism could take place who had for many years believed that that's where her own baptized child had gone and she said they can't tell me that place doesn't exist it's been as real to me as anything possibly could be for so long they have no right to tell me now that this no longer is it ontologically limbo exists for those who believe in it just as God does I'm not here to deny that it's only a few decades now since the rival church Church of Rome the Church of England announced really no one actually goes to hell it could be that after you die or forbidden God's grace but there's no real place of eternal unending infinite torture and torment with which those who claim the grace of God in the redemption of Jesus made a living for so many years and how do they make their living by lying to children think of it hundreds and hundreds of years of people proudly earning their keep by lying to children and terrifying them and saying that because they could do that they were morally superior to us reason common sense decent ordinary decency rebels against this kind of mind forged manacle however charmingly or humorously it's expressed but hell exists in the minds of several people I've spoken to you just today on this campus in the in the intervals of other conversations for them it's real and I don't say that it's not what I want to show is that it can if it does exist nonetheless be abolished like many other mine forged manacles and manmade tyrannies that confront us and in fact that this belief in a supreme and unalterable tyranny is the oldest enemy of our species the oldest enemy of our intellectual freedom and our moral autonomy and must be met and must be challenged and must be overthrown I want to argue for nothing less than that it's actually rather wonderful isn't it the religious authorities used to say they were infallible say just take the last Pope just the last I know I'm not talking with the Catholic apologist this evening but nonetheless the church when people say the church they know which one they mean they mean the one in Rome the one where when Stephen Hawking was invited and was asked at the conference on the church and science is there anything he'd like to see in Rome while he was there he said he'd like to see the records of the trial of Galileo don't please be invoking mr. Hawking by the way as if he was a deist the last pope just in the last decade of his tenure apologized he said we were wrong about the Jewish Question we probably shouldn't have said for so long the Jews were responsible for the murder of Christ we were probably wrong in forced conversion of the peoples of the Indies as they were thought of the Isthmus and the Southern Cone of our hemisphere we were certainly wrong we owe an apology to the Muslims for the atrocities of the Crusades we are an apology to the Eastern Orthodox churches for the incredible butchery to which they our fellow Christians were subjected by us the Roman Catholic and we probably only polled you to the Protestants for saying and so many awful things about them and torturing and burning and killing them too so having now said we were completely wrong and completely cruel and completely sadistic and completely violent and [ __ ] human civilization for that many centuries in that many countries and continents we're quit and now we can go back to being a fallible all over again there are there are people who on faith will accept being spoken to in that tone of voice and in that way but I ladies and gentlemen and not one of them and I don't think there's any form of persuasion that should allow you to be spoken to as if you were serfs or slaves either proceeding with the ontology with which I began the Aquinas point that if you can conceive of something whether it's a ghost a phantasm or deity if you can conceive of something it is in some sense real if it's real in your mind and showing with the obvious fallacy that has always attended that is it nonetheless possible for an atheist to say it proclaimed atheists to say as I do proclaim myself to be that God positively can be said not to exist no it's a very common misunderstanding about my fraternity sorority I'll just take a moment to clear it up the atheist says no persuasive argument for the existence of God has ever been advanced or adduced without convincing rebuttal that no argument in favor stats or has been found to stand the test of we cannot say that we know that there could be no such entity among other things we are too reverent of the extraordinary time of discovery innovation pushing back of the frontiers of knowledge and and understanding that's taking place just in our own time to make any such remark but by saying this we say I think quite a lot there is no valid or coherent or consistent argument that would not work if it comes to that for the existence of any God now I noticed it was a by a slight work of elision a bit of tap dancing there the doctor turret went from being a deist to a theist and then from being a theist to a Christian now I know he does not believe in the existence of the Sun God raah I'm practically certain he doesn't believe in the existence of Zeus if you'll pick up a copy of my portable atheist a selection of the finest writings by non-believers Charlie isn't just turn to the three pages where Menken HL Mencken lists the easiest to name 3000 gods that used to be worshipped and that no longer a hell to exist by anybody you'll spare me the trouble of reading them out no he thinks he doesn't just know dr. Torah that there is a God he knows which one is the right one from a potentially infinite list actually from the list that's as long as the number of people there are or have ever been in the human species because if you ever argue with a theist or a deus as I do every day you'll find they all believe in a God of their very own do they often say a personal God indeed they often say a personal Savior so out of out of what are we really a concept that applies to all of us out of nothing but wish thinking and nonsense and fear and ignorance and above all and I'm not quitting on this point servility everyone in this room is an atheist everyone can name a God in which they do not believe let them advance the case that the one in which they believe is the superior one dr. torrid be the first person I've ever met to do that convincingly this evening and I will show him due respect I don't think the task can actually be undertaken now the same trap dancing hopes you will not notice but deism and theism are two quite different things the Deus argument says that there is so much order apparent in nature and in the cosmos in the universe that it might be unwise to assume that such order has no-one interested in ordering or design that assumption might be a nun might be not Safeway the philosopher Paley in his natural theology said desire implies a designer he came up with the very famous image of the watch if you come across watch if you're a primitive tribes person in the Sahara you may not know what it's for but you know there's not a rock or a vegetable you know it has a purpose and someone made it that way until quite recently that was the default position of most intelligent people including mr. Jefferson who despite his intermittent atheism my judgment was a theist I'm so sorry it was a deist was a deist he would debate with among the many skills he had was a very advanced level of paleontology he would debate with the greatest paleontologists of his time the Cantor before how how comes it how can it be that we find seashells so high on the mountains of Virginia how can this be not even the most intelligent people of that day and it's very recent it's an instant in historical time had any idea how that could be there isn't anyone in this room who wasn't educated and brought up knowing exactly how that is it's just a shame that Jefferson and many other intelligent and humane and will education literate people just couldn't see that far he wasn't to know though Darwin was born in his day on the same day actually in 1809 as Abraham Lincoln the very same day the two great emancipator's Darwin being in my judgment the greater of the two now we know we know this proposition to be true the proposition that was ridiculed so so pathetically I have to say I thought by dr. Tory there is no explanation for the origins of our species for the origins of our cosmos for the origins of our globe itself there is not one explanation left which requires the existence of a deus ex machina in every case we have a better or sufficient explanation I think that assertion of mine will stand any challenge this evening I'm looking forward to hearing some more of them of course jawan used creationist images he actually set out to vindicate Paley's theology thought he could do it by his study taxonomical study of nature Einstein we have used God images when he spoke of the extraordinary majesty of the cosmos it's it's it's in us it's in our vocabulary it's hardwired in us you might almost say to use images of all inspiring godly modes Archean you might you might say or even Shakespearean images when talking about these things but when we come down to the actual analysis of them we find that we don't need the prime mover at all and that most of the prime mover explanations if not all of them have been positively misleading so that the deist may propose a designer and I may not be able to show you convincing you that there could be no such person but the theist has all their works still ahead of them from this designer how do we get to the designer who answers prayers did you hear a thing I mean just as phrase even an implication even a suggestion from anything my opponent said that you could by I know him from design proven answered prayers or prove that someone born of a virgin was therefore the son of a god or could prove that resurrections occur and that by people being tortured to death thousands of years ago we are now redeemed that we are variously forgiven our own offenses by human sacrifice how does deism help you to that it doesn't it quite simply doesn't and can not the attempt to build from one to the other is a conjuring trick of a very vulgar I think kind we live in the childhood of our species so when Stephen Hawking says that if we could understand the event horizon that surrounds the black hole we would in some sense know the mind of God he proves that our vocabulary is still that of our infancy he makes no concession to the idea of a theist or theocratic dispensation I better ask now harm doing for time good not sure I'm going to need all that but I'd like to try and reply and fight on my feet when I can't and I made some notes about about what dr. Turek had said and I feel that they were challenges to me that I would be ignoble if I didn't respond to the first and I thought the most frankly the most egregious was this I find it extraordinary that it can be said on a university campus in this year of grace but that without God humans are capable of doing anything that there is no moral restraint upon us if we don't concur in the idea that we are the property and creation of a Supreme Being I am making the assumption that all of you check in every now and then with some kind of news outlet and have a view of what's going on the rest of the world isn't it as plain as could be that those who commit the most callous the most cruel the most brutal the most indiscriminate atrocities of all do so precisely because they believe they have divine permission shall I answer my own question should i insult you by adding more who can't think of an example of this kind let me put the question in another form that I've put in now every forum from YouTube to c-span to the wireless to the print to the radio to the television and it numeral forums to those who say that without God that can be no morality you are to ask yourself two questions you were to name a moral action not to take it or a moral and ethical statement made by believer by daresay you can do it you were then to say that you can not imagine a non-believer making this moral statement or undertaking this moral action can you think can you now think can any of you think you have don't have to answer now you have all night and and you have my email and I've done this with everyone from the Archbishop of Canterbury to even lower people you name me the ethical and moral actual statement that a believer can make in an unbeliever cannot that there's a price and I'll tell you that about it later now there's a second question think of something wicked that only a believer would be likely to do or something wicked that only a believer would be likely to say you've already thought of it the suicide bombing community is entirely religious the genital mutilation community is entirely religious I wouldn't say that the child abuse community is entirely religious I wouldn't but it's bidding to be entirely religious it operates on the old latin slogan no childs behind left how dare anybody how dare anyone who speaks for religion a say of us the secular and the non-believers that we are the immoral ones it is itself a wicked thing to say itself an absolutely indefensible thing to say no the decapitation on the bus is going to be done by someone who thinks God is telling him to do it Smerdyakov is actually the stupidest character in Dostoyevsky's novel he's the one who makes this proposition everyone has to understand everyone has to understand that it is those who feel that the divine is prompting them who feel they're permitted anything and everything and it is those who are the leading most salient most violent most vicious opponents of the values and civilization that Thomas Jefferson stood for and promulgated just on the question of fine tuning I have a number of reports we have to postpone some of the the naturalistic questions for later what I know they'll come up again you mentioned Edwin Hubble and the way that he saw the red light shift and saw that the universe was not just expanding but that the but expanding very fast away from itself that the Big Bang had not stopped Lawrence Krauss great physicists probably the next Nobel Prize winner if it has noticed that most people's assumption was wrong that though this expansion was taking place it was thought the rate of speed of the expansion must surely be declining people still think in Newtonian terms in this way no says Krauss he's pointed it out and now it's agreed by all no the Hubble rate of red light shift is increasing the universe is dissipating itself at high speed and the speed is getting greater what does this mean well it answers the question of why is there something instead of nothing because now we have something we're all here because there's something and nothing is coming right for us very soon the physicist wouldn't be able to tell the Big Bang had ever taken place so far sprung apart will the whole system be and meanwhile look in the sky at night and you can see the Andromeda galaxy headed straight for on a direct collision course who designed that who made it certain that every other planet in our solar system is either too hot or too cold to support life as is most of our own planet and that in just one tiny irrelevant solar system already condemned to heat death and implosion some design wouldn't you say but these are just the poll Turing minor objections that I have to the theistic worldview the main one is the one with which I began religion fears I'm not dear some fearsome and I underline theism says that all our manifold problems what is the good how shall we live it how shall we know it how to explain suffering how to how to confront the possibility of our own perhaps molecular irrelevance all these questions that must disturb and detain us all can be solved by referring them upward to a totalitarian judgment to an absolutist monarchy the other thing that the Virginia statute on religious freedom was supposed to rebut repudiated disown it yes I promise you those things there is no totalitarian solution to these problems there is no Big Brother in the sky it is a horrible idea that there is somebody who owns us who makes us who supervises us waking and sleeping who knows our thoughts who can convict us of thought crime who can just for what we think who can judge us while we sleep for things that might occur to us in our dreams who can create us sick as apparently we are and then order us on pain of eternal torture to be well again to demand this to wish this to be true is to wish to live as an abject slave it is a wonderful thing it is a wonderful thing in my submission that we now have enough information enough intelligence and I hope enough intellectual and moral courage to say that this ghastly proposition is founded on a lie and to celebrate that fact and I invite you to join me in doing so thank you Thank You mr. Hitchens we now have five minutes of rebuttal from dr. Turek fairness to Christopher that statement obviously was his opening statement was not meant to rebut my statement but now my statement is to rebut his and I want to point out that most of what Christopher just said there is pretty much complaints about religion and religious people and has no impact on whether or not God exists religious people can be the worst people that ever lived that says nothing about whether or not God exists people can do evil that doesn't mean the parents don't exist children can do evil doesn't mean the parents don't exist my kids do evil but I'm still here I do evil my dad's still here in fact he's sitting right there what does that prove about whether or not God exists let me try and go down some of the things Christopher said yes I am an atheist when it comes to Zeus but Zeus is not spaceless timeless immaterial powerful moral personal intelligent creator that I hopefully at least I thought I gave evidence for and maybe Christopher will come back to my statements on that later I don't believe in Zeus because I don't think there's any evidence for Zeus but I think there's evidence for the theistic God deism I didn't make the direct shift to theism I probably should have been more explicit I think it's obvious there's a theistic God because life came several billion years after the creation that is not a deistic concept that is a theistic concept I didn't say anything about Christianity even though I am a Christian I don't have time to defend Christianity here I'd love to debate Christopher on the issue of Christianity in the future and I'll publicly offer that right now if he wants to debate whether or not the New Testament documents are reliable and tell us really what happened about what Jesus came and said and did I'd be happy to do it but when I mentioned before I have a couple arguments in on the bench I've got almost a full baseball team of arguments here I've got a couple arguments on the bench it's the resurrection is one of them and I don't have time to get to that here so I'm not backing up the Christian God here I'm backing up a theistic God even though personally I do believe in a Christian God he claimed Darwin was the greater man dissipater and that he went on to talk about atrocities and i think he again missed my point as I said before I'm not saying atheists can't be moral Christopher what he says in his book again much of it is true religious people have done awful things in fact Christianity predicts we'll be hypocrites that's what the church is it's full of hypocrites whenever somebody says I don't want to go to church there's too many hypocrites down there I always say come on down pal we got room for one more that's what the church is we're all fallen we're all sinners that's why we need a Savior because we can't do it and Christopher said well how can you command somebody to be well when they have no capacity to be well well we were well in the beginning and I'm going into Christian theology here I understand I'll just try and answer the point we were well in the beginning but then we messed up and so God the Great Physician came back to save us that's Christian theology as again I don't have time to support it I'm just pointing out that is the theology now Christopher talked about atrocities but again on the atheistic worldview here's the main point how do you define what an atrocity is who defines it who has the authority to find what atrocity is the carbon atom the benzene molecule I'm not saying you have to believe in God to be moral I'm not saying that only religious people are moral I'm not saying atheist can't be moral I'm not saying atheists don't know morality I'm saying there's no way to justify what is right and what is wrong unless there's some Authority that provides it what is the authority in a materialistic worldview there is no authority the carbon atom has no moral authority over you and it seems that Christopher goes on and on about how he does not want to be under any some kind of divine totalitarianism that is a moral rejection of God where does he come up with this immoral totalitarianism his worldview does not afford immorality because his worldview does not afford morality he has to borrow from the Christian worldview in order to argue against it in fact he has to sit in God's lap to slap his face where does he get morality from where does he get reason from where does he get mathematics from where does he get consciousness from where does the universe he said there are explanations for where the universe came from atheistic I'd love to hear them I haven't heard one yet how does something come from nothing with extreme fine-tuning what is the explanation for that he said there are arguments for the beginning of life that are naturalistic not according to the people who are studying the matter how about Francis Crick if I can find his quote here Francis Crick said every time I write a paper on the origin of life I swear I'll never write another one because there's too much speculation running after too few facts Marc Kirschner of Harvard and John Seager Hart of Berkeley said everything about evolution before the bacteria like life-forms is sheer conjecture biochemists Klaus dose admits that after more than 30 years of research into the origin of life has led to quote a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on Earth rather than its solution at present all discussions on the principle theories and experiments in the field either end in stalemate or in confession of ignorance now I'm not saying that this is a default position that must be God I'm not saying that I just lack a natural explanation for the origin of life I'm saying that specified complexity information the DNA structure that we all have is evidence for an intelligent being because information only comes from Minds the laws of ink and paper did not create is a God is not great there was a mind behind it that brought it into existence and there's a mind behind DNA what is the ACA theistic explanation for DNA what is the atheistic explanation for information what is the ACA theistic information for all of these nine things I mentioned how much time glad I have not survey says sit down yes sir well I think I'll just invite dr. Tori to do the following and make available to us in on a sheet of paper which actually has the thesaurus of quotations that he's found from this and that scientists and physicists and Natural Sciences and so forth and you will find when you read them when you look at them I was writing them down as you went through them all of these are statements of uncertainty all of them they're statements of all we know is how little we know that's been for many years my definition of an educated person someone who knows enough to know how ignorant they are it's actually is the only it's not my own original definition it comes from the Greek but it's the only definition that works and no one working at toiling in the field of science could it possibly say anything less or more of themselves especially at a time like this but there you have it right away the theistic and the deistic explanation has to be based on a certainty that there is a supervising and if you want to be a theist a caring and intervening creator who manages these matters and there hasn't been a single sentence so far from doctorate in a support of that proposition let me give you an example if you do the event horizon of Stephen Hawking that I just mentioned God take a cosmological one to begin with the event horizon is the lip of the black hole it's it's the suppose you could travel towards a black hole and see it and see the lip of it and notice it before you went in and over and down that's what's known as the event horizon the physicists Hawking had a gravely ill colleague in Cambridge who said if he knew he was definitely going to die that's the way he'd like to go befallen into the event horizon lip of the black hole because in theory you'd be able to see the past and the future and time except you wouldn't have quite enough time to do so but there would be a grand way to check out if you were physicist turn away from this says the turn away from that these incredible majestic or inspiring thoughts say the theists think about the burning bush instead think about the trivial miracles witnessed by sheep herding peasants in Bronze Age Palestine and think about the jet that they they feel that we should incur for their sins it was stated by dr. Jory that the sins of these people the transgressions of these people and the debt they owe their Creator bind all of us as sinners what a shame we're not perfect what a shame there's nothing we can do about it what a shame we are created already in prison and have to earn our emancipation I tell you again this is civility to the ultimate power now there are people in this audience much better equipped than I to say that there is so far nothing in our natural world to move away from the cosmological there is nothing in our natural world globe we live on that cannot be explained by random mutation combined with evolution by natural selection nothing works without that assumption everything works with it there are lots of things that remain to be decided but it's not a theory or not just one it does work it is operational it doesn't require a prime mover Occam's razor says we should dispose of unnecessary needless assumptions that's what I propose we do in this case I'll put it another way how long would you say Homo sapiens has been on the planet from Francis not Crick excuse me the author of human the supervisors of Human Genome Project Collins Franklin my new best friend and occasional debating enemy thinks well not more than half a million years Richard Dawkins thinks it could be not just 3/4 million I can sync the number actually if you like we know that the we left the species left Africa about 75,000 years having probably shrunk down to about two or three thousand people as a result of a terrible climatic disturbance probably from Indonesia probably from a predecessor of Krakatoa which meant that we were this close to joining the ninety nine point eight percent of all species ever living on the surface of this plant who became extinct some design by the way profuse creation of millions and millions and millions of life forms all to be wiped out with not even anyone left to testify to their previous existence we really joined that long match get out of it just in time let's call it I don't want Francis's million Orem half a million all Richard Dawkins is seventy five thousand whichever way right just give me that the just give me that amount of time suppose we've only been around for 75,000 years monotheism Christianity Judaism Islam shows up what four or five thousand years ago the most so if you give me my most microscopically small assumption of human existence for at least seventy thousand years heaven watches as the human species is born dies usually of its teeth usually at about twenty usually which infants having about a nine ten to two percent chance of living build you can I don't have enjoy your picture watch is this within difference thousands and thousands of generations were miserable illiterate starving hungry to say nothing of the wars they'll fight with each other to say nothing of the cruel tease they will inflict as well as the ones they will suffer just from existence and only three or four perhaps five thousand years ago heaven decides us enough of that it's time for an intervention and the best way to do it would be in the most primitive part of the Middle East not in China where people can read and said have looked at telescopes you know in the most primitive part of the Middle East basically by offering human sacrifice to them this is a doctrine that cannot be believed by anyone who studied anything scientific anything historical anything archaeological anything highly illogical and think biologic not company believe item can be only believed by someone who wants to be a plaything and a slave of a pitiless totalitarian how how glad we should be that the evidence for this ghastly entity is nil good Thanks I'm gonna style away and let them ask questions of each other and the way that we've scheduled is a minute to ask and five to answer and we'll try to stay to that so that's very generous if you dr. Turk would like to go first since you had already posed some questions to mr. how many times do we do that three times so you get three apiece wouldn't could I just proposed unless you really have three that you're dying to I don't have three I'm trying to duck but that seems a long time for the audience stuff to wait it seems to me could we do it to maybe get to their questions I have six I'm your I'm your witness then so three was right dr. Turk okay Christopher what is your explanation for the beginning of time space and matter out of nothing well we don't know I remember being asked by one of my children once that I said well what what was there at the big bag and I said well you have to imagine this is this shows how poverty-stricken our own vocabulary is and I suspect how poverty-stricken our own a capacity is in other words I think there are some things not that we don't understand or know but that we cannot so we would use to sort of primitive images but I said suppose you could picture all of the matter the whole of matter condensed into I got this from Hawking I think one of his colleagues condensed into something like a very small dense black suitcase of the kind you see people carrying money in in crime for us and it's about to fly up that's what you have to be able and that everything that's ever going to be is inside that that was the best I could do and I don't think many people could do if I say it myself and that much better but I was completely unforced because the kids said well what was outside the city and I thought well I can't like can do that and I don't know anyone who can and that in a way would be my whole point I don't have to know you do you're the one who says you know not me the theists of the deist say oh come on we know this is only possible with an author is very possible with a creator so the Apostle with a master and commander it's only possible with a dictator you're welcome I don't need five minutes is it is it fair to say though that if the creation was out of nothing and that's the common view today that the beam had brought it into existence the cause whatever it was it's a big as what we ground you have a so being because to go from a state of non-existence to a state of existence you need to make a choice you don't you don't have how does something what are you getting this choice from the choice how does a first of all there was no nature there was nothing so if there was nothing how do you get something from nothing without a cause how do you get I can ask the same question and the way I did before how do you get so much nothing from something look into the night sky if you're in say the Carmel Peninsula you can't do it from many parts of Virginia now but if you are certain parts of California as I was recently you can look on the night sky and see universe is blowing up and bursting into flame every night of the week several times they had something and it's all nothing now who's the author of that who mandated that who's the creator of that who's the dictator who demands that sacrifice you're making a rod for your own back here the fact that things go out of existence Christopher doesn't mean that they're not designed the typewriter is out of existence right now thankfully but the typewriters designed so the fact that the universe is going to heat death doesn't mean that it didn't have a designer at the beginning and of course religious people believe that somebody's going to intervene to stop it before it does go anything they do even if it doesn't no office or even if nobody intervened you can go traditionally knows to eat death excuse me did the religious among you ladies and gentlemen to understand I did not that there will be an intervention to make an exception in our case that this will not happen to our cosmos the God will prevent that he does that's the Christian view and as I had no idea and don't have seen new earth would be created Genesis is Paradise Lost revelation is paradise resort island away have you it sounds thatcher us to me yeah how do you get used to do you I am not the one who has to answer the question excuse me you're the one who has to answer but you you're the one who claims to know you say there was a creation moment and a creator I want to know why you're changing the subject it seems to me how do i how do I not know this when you're the one where's all the information I also want to know I also want now I also want to know this I want to know what sources you have that are not available to me how do you know that an intervention worker to prevent the entropy an implosion and destruction of our services do you want to go to our second debate I'll I'll provide that but but what would I say it is let's say there's no inner inch let's say there's no intervention we go to heat depth does that mean in the universe was not created and not designed it doesn't entail that belief no but it makes it actually what makes it seem a very capricious designer shall we say rather as I said it's an old verse of full grevilles created sick commanded to be well why would why would people be told okay I can create you but I'm going to create you with original sin misery shame death of children disease and so on just to see if you can pass a test the mean I might not send you to hell I don't say that that didn't happen I say that I'm very glad that the evidence for it is very scanty and I accuse those of who believe who do believe it and I can't have been showing this understood on this point of having harboring a very sinister desire to live in a church a latarian system if I sister let's get let's design to be safe masochism I think I regard masochism your ego masochism name beyond I'll say that I think masochism is a sinister and creepy impulse here mr. Hitchens question for our doctor jerk alright I won't take a minute to ask in the eye I don't just support and try and help out the those who descent from the ridiculous belief Christianity the horrible idea of vicarious redemption in other words of the idea that by watching another person suffer an innocent person suffer that you could be free not just from your debts or your sins but your responsibilities you could cast your sins on escape I don't just oppose that disgusting belief I oppose the Judaism from which it's plagiarized and the Islam that plagiarizes from it and I give a publicity and exposure whenever I can to those who were brave enough in old times to oppose this this nightmarish belief and one of the great opponents of the Islamic totalitarianism in ancient Persia was the great Omar Khayyam perhaps the greatest poet of Persian whose Rubaiyat I'm sure is known at least to some of you and my favorite verse of this comes from the Robert legaly and translation and it takes the form of a question the quatrain is in the form of question it says and do you think that onto such as you a maggot minded starved fanatic crew God gave a secret and denied it me well well what matters it believe that to to this magnificent astronomer and scientists and physician and humanists of Persia who opposed the cruel sadistic verminous ignorant mullahs of his day I borrow the question what is your authority for saying that you know something that I don't Chris Wragge probability are as you said before you can't disprove the existence of God and you can't prove beyond any doubt that there's a God I'm giving probability I'm giving cosmological teleological moral consciousness reason mathematics all of those things I listed before it's open the evidence is open to everybody and this is related to your 70 thousand years a point that you've just made there from a Christian perspective God has always had a revelation even before Christ it talks about the fact that God has always had a witness there's three witnesses there's creation everyone has creation there's conscience everyone has conscience and there's Christ now Christ's true only came 2,000 years ago but his sacrifice how some published on again excuse me his sacrifice of atonement is retroactive to everybody that lived before him so he's always that awareness it is quite convenient and that is the very nature of God you're absolutely correct well I got him to say it you see if we were if we were only discussing ontological questions that would be all very well and it could be quite amusing I could say that you require a higher degree of standard of proof for your proposition than I perhaps do for mine and you probably accept that and so forth and we could go back and forth we'd be pull Turing the gain with the essence of the matter which is this the difference between the theist and the deist is as follows the deer says may not make sense without some kind of designer the theist says when I tell you what to do Christopher I have God on my side you're the deer says he can tell what God wants of me what lengths I should shave off the end of my penis if I'm boy I'll have a male child or off the clitoris if it's a female child he knows through the exactitude what the proportions of that should be what the diet should be what the dietary laws ought to be who I should sleep with and in what position and various I think you can and since God doesn't ever directly appear and say do it this way it's done for him this is really convenient by human representatives who claim to act in his name so that's why I think your standard of proof should be a great deal higher because if you you're you know the reason this point is important to you is because it would mean real power in the only world that actually exists which is the material world of you over me and you wonder why I'm not keen okay the the material world is all that exists that thought that you just mentioned Christopher the material world that all that exists is that thought material and if it is why is it true that sounds like has mystery to me but I mean I think that that everything that I am a capable of thinking saying feeling and so forth does depend on my continued existence as a what should we say mass of molecules or yeah I should shoot me in the head and I go I can't go on like this and I won't be coming back to bother you either question sure nor am i going anywhere after that Sam Chris I don't wish it otherwise by the way I don't wish it God gives you what you desire would that that were the case I have a bear with me a relatively long question here after admitting that an unborn child is a human being you write on page 221 and I thankfully you you say in the book that it's nonsense that an unborn child is not a human being you admit that the unborn child is you say this and I quote there may be circumstances in which it is not desirable to carry a fetus to full-term you then go on to advocate termination of pregnancy if birth control fails here's my question why is it that according to you when God plays God by taking a life prematurely in the Old Testament for example it is a moral outrage but when you play God by taking a life prematurely through abortion it is a moral right well it's a false distinction I mean I don't that's not what I say I mean I say that the the great abortifacient is I would say nature I don't say god of course God does not decide so many pregnancies are not character full-term nature knows in the case of our species as with every other mammal and primate that some fetuses are not going to make it and flushes them out that that's just a brute fact we wouldn't be here if that wasn't the case because we're as you know adapted biologically to a to an environment we've abandoned the savanna that's why we have appendices that is designed for grass eaters and you know will this see it's all very well knowable you can't be having a brood of sickly half-baked children and get away from the Predators I mean so nature is the great abortifacient I certainly don't blame God for it I do as a humanist believe that the concept unborn child is a real one and I think the concept is underlined by all the recent findings of embryology that by the early viability of the well-conceived a human baby the one that isn't going to be critically deformed or even some that are will be able to survive outside the womb earlier and earlier and earlier and I see that date only being pushed pushed back and I feel a responsibility to consider the occupant of the of the womb as a candidate member of society in the future and thus to say that it cannot be only the responsibility of the woman to decide upon it that it's a social question and an ethical and moral one and I say this as someone who has no supernatural belief so your question ought to have been this how do I have any ethical opinions since I don't believe that I'm created and I don't believe I'm going to heaven I prefer to first question if you don't right but okay but I mean it just isn't this entailed but I've have i well I appeal to the audience have I not answered the question about the termination of pregnancy which bit of I had not answered you better prompt me that I'll read it again why is it that according to you when God plays God by taking a life prima luckily it isn't according to me God I don't say God does that you measured in your book which is right over here you have an entire chapter about the atrocities in the Old Testament yes and the atrocities have to do with God commanding genocide and those things and and and you obviously have a problem with that as many people should so my question again is why according to you when God plays God by taking a life prematurely in the Old Testament is it a moral outrage but when you play God by taking a life prematurely through an abortion it is a moral right once again I'm sorry if my work is so obscure but I don't say that I have a moral right to terminate pregnancy I have given all the reasons that I think hedged that question ethically and morally very sternly there stringently and in any case it's not like saying that every living child of the Amalekites should be destroyed and an injunction by God to Moses to say he's been too merciful he spared too many children and enslaved to a few women didn't make the genocide complete I I'm sorry I've never been accused of and I expect not to be if I'm lucky in a my life of any such thing and the the idea there's a moral equivalence between the two or handling the really difficult question of a a non-viable fetus in what should be done about it isn't a moral equivalence at all so do you want to say that all unborn life is like you say in the book is a human being and therefore you should not kill it is that what you want to say to get out of this dilemma or what you want to know but I think no but I think the presumption that I've long said that the presumption is that the unborn entity has a right on its side and that every effort should be made to see if it can be preserved and I think that's I think that's an ethical imperative is what I do say in the books I think the Roman Catholic Church makes this argument immoral when it could be a moral one by saying that contraception is not to be allowed by saying the contraception is the moral equivalent of abortion in other words to say the contraception is also murder which is a nonsensical and disproportionate position I quote some serious Catholics in my book William F Buckley the late is one Clare Boothe Luce is another by saying if the church says the contraception abortion are morally the same it degrades the opposition to abortion why and by making absurd arguments as it has in the past Aquinas believed that every single sperm contained a micro embryo inside it and thus that if you like I hope hope don't offend anyone handjobs our genocide as for [ __ ] don't start that electric pregnancy Adele was a direct threat to the life of the mother fallopian tube pregnancy is instead of a direct threat to the life of the mother and an obvious no starter for a human embryo because that's going anyway is someone who should be allowed to vote this is nonsense it's casuistry it's immoral it's superstition it prevents people from thinking seriously about matters that humanism can decide for itself for heaven's sake without any supernatural intervention your question sir oh well since I probably answered the your last question with a question of my own I'll make it my question to you I'm very keen to know how it is that you in a sense that you dare to say that without a belief in religion I would have no source for ethical or moral now what I'm saying you seem to hint at it now did he not oh I'm not saying you don't know morality Christopher I'm saying you can't justify morality without a being beyond yourself so that just if I okay good so that if I say that for me it's enough to be willing to love my fellow man and perhaps hope that my fellow man and woman will give me some of the same consideration in return and that after all the the Samaritan of whom we've all heard was the only one to help after the priests and the Levites had passed by Anderson Arjun also though he's talked off by Jesus can't have been a Christian because he appears in a story told by Jesus so there can't be any Christianity before that somehow he knew the moral thing to do is to help his fellow person without your religious instruction yes that's actually the whole point of the parable though it's not the way it's usually told and that's what Christianity teaches you know morality it's written on your heart you don't need the scripture to know right from wrong and this was only available to us 2,000 years good no no you've known it from the beginning of time conscience has been on humanity from F forever you'll have to let me press you a little bit on that I mean William Gladstone spent a huge amount of his life and he was great scorer of Latin and Greek showing that every one of the Greek Socratic and other moral precepts all they were were just pre figurations of Christianity these are the best the Greeks could do before Jesus arrived we didn't face the idea that these solidarities and moralities and understandings are in asian people and don't require divine permission I just have to ask you if you could do it plainly which side do you come down on do you think we need divine permission to act humanely to each other no it has nothing to do with permission it has to do with the ontological category known as morality where does morality come from does it come from the benzene molecule the carbon molecule the oxygen molecule in your world here where does it come from suppose that we were having this discussion before the existence of molecules was understood it's a relevant name it's not because the the discussion about where does the good come from was being conducted before Lucretius developed the atomic theory before um Democritus and Epicurus I should better say understood that the whole world was made up of atoms and molecules before that was known people were arguing why do we behave one way to our fellows and we call it good and another way and we call it work it because it's written like that you can't I don't think you can build in a molecular distraction that's it I don't have the molecular problem you do it's your materialist I'm trying to ask you where does morality come from in a materialistic worldview well did I not just acquit myself of that charge and say that the argument precedes the knowledge of the atomic and molecular structure no it doesn't no not that I think by the way that the atomic and molecular structure is irrelevant and it could be that we might find out that there are who knows pheromones or this other phenomena that do have an influence on our moral conditioning this still wouldn't to a morally normal person relieve them of the responsibility leg that I I feel I know what's right I feel that some things my children don't need to be told they already know let me let me let me interject here and just ask a question another way you are asked to tell a child you you go to this church which means you'll go to heaven but your little playmates don't go to that church and therefore will go to hell seems to me to be an unpleasant thing to be saying but bless that is maybe I in a minority that that could be an unpleasant thing but how do you dimension evil the--what's calling me risks aren't only a religious person would dream of saying let's call it evil where does evil come from religion and Maru our actual CEO next question morality comes from humanism and is stolen by religion for its own purpose humanism cording to who Hitler Mussolini Stalin who you saying that Hitler was the humanist just Hitchens I've lived to hear it said Hitchens had been in Virginia Hitler was a Catholic you men are you know as a Catholic so Hitler was a Catholic says muscle in it give me a how how does morality exists my opinion you know official border with the Protestant Catholic churches both of them wanted the worship of themselves as well as of God so I suppose no evil coming later and their third main ally Hirohito the Emperor of Japan not content just to be theocratic was himself a god so anyone who says the fascism and Nazism was secular he's an ignoramus why is it not gigantic scale I'm asking it ontological question I know as being older Hitler right because I'm a humanist I'm not asking a sociological arrestin all right let me ask a question another way this is my last question if God does not exist why do all people have a fixed moral obligation to love and not murder how do molecules in motion have any authority to tell you how to behave when you do something wrong whose standard are you breaking who are you displeasing the carbon atom the benzene benzene molecule who this question has been asked at the Socrates answered it like this when he was on trial for his life accused of blasphemy by the way he said that he had an inner game on the way he put it not demon the demon a spirit a an inner critic a conscience would be one way for him and that he he knew enough to know even when he was making the best speech of his life that if he was making a point that was somehow dishonest or incomplete or shady the Damon whatever yeah that was clever but you shouldn't have tried it he knew any any person of average moral equipment has the same knowledge I hope you'll if you don't I'm very sorry for you Adam Smith are called it the internal witness who we all have to have a conversation with all the time it's been CS Lewis decided to call it conscience and to attribute it to the to the divine but he didn't improve on what Adam Smith said in Theory of Moral Sentiments or what Socrates said went on when standing trial for his own for his own life it's something sometimes colloquially defined as why do people behave well when nobody is looking I don't believe there's anyone in this Hall who doesn't know what I mean by that why when it won't do you any good will you decide I could have kept that wallet I found on the back of the cab see but I'm not going to I'm going to turn it in I'm going to see if find find its real possessive there are people to whom that those thoughts do not occur who are deaf to that idea who only think of themselves who wouldn't worry about the internal game on or censor or Oh companion and there are of course people who only get pleasure from being unpleasant to other people in inflicting cruelty on them the first group we call the sociopathic in the second group we call the psychopathic my only plan they occur in nature and in society my only problem is with those who think that they're all made in the image of God the one explanation that absolutely doesn't work at all that gets you nowhere that explains nothing Christopher it's your turn to ask oh really yes sir well my question is this would anyone in the audience like to join this conversation we actually have we have questions if you're ready to move along yeah I am there are a couple of questions a lot with several similar questions the board onto a couple of questions for each of you and then one that I'll end with that I think is an important one to address to both of you since you gave your turn away mr. Hitchens I'll ask you first if the questioner asks if God does not exist what then is the purpose of life well I can only answer for myself what cheers me up I suppose mainly gloating over the misfortunes of other people I guess then and you say evil come from religion master I guess that has to be I think you're mainly crowing over the miseries of others it doesn't always work but it never completely fails and then and then there's irony there's irony and which is the gin in the Campari the cream in the coffee sex can have diminishing returns but it's amazing ah no that's pretty much it there is a clear run to the grave dr. Turek yes do i you want me to answer that or not somebody else if Christianity is true then why aren't the differences that Jesus makes in the lives of Christians more powerful or evident than the impact other religions make on their adherents I don't know if I accept the premise of the question well the the questioner adds Gandhi was every bit as influential as any Christian yeah that's true and that's one of the problems with Christianity the biggest problem with Christianity's Christians I admit it but the question tonight but the question is asking a more central question which is if this is the truth yes why then doesn't that truth by the weight of its infinite being cause its adherence to behave in a way that we can all notice well I think you can notice it several Christians I think Christians for years have been the ones that have built hospitals and cared for the poor and cared for the weak and the sick so I think it does make a difference my problem which is part of the problem that the questioner is asking is why doesn't it have this effect on everyone and I'll throw a little Christian theology in here the problem is isn't that we don't have all the whole court if we don't have all the Holy Spirit we do we just don't allow all the Holy Spirit to do what it should do it's our problem we are fallen human beings and that's why Christ had to come because we are fallen human beings and has to come again because he didn't get it right the first time I agree I agree with you that the grammar the question is wrong but for different reason I don't see what's moral about Christian preaching for example apart from the horrible idea of vicarious Redemption I'll say again in case I missed you the first time what I mean by that I could pay your debt even if I didn't know you if I was a friend you're in debt I'll pay in extreme cases people to be known to sale serve your sentence in prison I could do that for you what I cannot do is relieve you of your responsibility I can't say throw your sins on me they'll melt away immoral people not allowed to be you know entitled to be relieved with their responsibilities and the vicarious Redemption by human sacrifice is a very primitive and horrible scape urging idea that belongs to the barbaric period of human history so all pardons are immoral so no knodel pardons I didn't say that I said vicarious Redemption is an immoral doctor it's also immoral of the Nazarene to say take no thought for the morrow not to clothe not to eat not to invest leave your family leave your children leave everything give up the world no investment no thrift no thought for the future just follow me I think that's only moral if if you are sure believer in the idea the world is about to come to an end which was the case with this apocalyptic I guess you never read the power of the talents he said the the prophecy is that the world is coming to an end real soon there's no point in caring about anything else that's not a moral preaching to me at all there are many other ways in which I fail to see how any bad behavior can ever be described as unchristian and of course it's completely laughable to say Christians build hospitals they've just many Christians have bombed hospitals have built them and as many Muslims have built hospitals as Christians have and as many Babylonians have built great buildings as Christians have if that's the best you can do that's the best you can do one of the questioners repeats a a point from dr. Turks opening statement to that apparently here she feels you did not address mr. Hitchens about the irreducible complexity of DNA and is it possible for such structures to have formed by chance well though - I have two responses to that one is what would she have said before she knew about DNA what does that have to do with anything we're just existed prior to anyone knowing about them yes it's gravity existed before we knew about it that's true you need an explanation right and Christianity thought it could explain everything and then it fell not everything's wait this very simple same as your point about molecules that I said these arguments predate Epicurus Lucretius and the atomic theory christianity used to say can explain everything it is all you need to know is there's no powerful or loving or intervening all-knowing omniscient God okay well then wait wouldn't DNA explain more ah well that only shows that God's even cleverer than we thought so it's an infinitely expanding tautology there are many of the some Christians who accept in fact it was actually a catholic physicist at the University of Leuven in Belgium who first came up with the idea of what we now call the Big Bang and most Pope's not all most Pope's have accepted it someone thought of it as a challenge to Christianity the Pope Leo who he went to the I can't remember the scientists name for a second maybe someone here can help me he went to the Pope said look that looks like this is how things started the Pope said if you like I'll make it a dogma that every Catholic has to believe it said that would be slightly missing the point your holiness as for what it is they do with the origin to be ended well because the it is true to say that religion as Stephen Jay Gould said the religion and science belonged to non-overlapping magisteria I think these magisteria are in many ways incompatible and in many ways irreconcilable but it is no more true to say that the existence of the complexity of DNA shows that God was more ingenious than we thought than it is to say that it necessarily shows by its self revealing ingenuity that we don't need the hypothesis of God both of these positions would be in my opinion somewhat reductionist though I would have to say that I think the second one is more persuasive and more elegant now Gould is wrong will that do Christians or religious people religion is trying to find out what how the universe began it's always science they're not no religion says it does no excuse me it's try it drives can also process of scientific and religion is an affirmation of faith it says a radius person Christopher says it always be evidence to try and point out that the universe exploded into being out of nothing and you have scientific evidence for the view that an intervention will occur to prevent the implosion and don't forget that ah let's start at the beginning I can't forget it let's start at the beginning there may be anything you've said all evening I'm going to remember Joe that's for debate - no no I mean don't say you what here do yourself do yourself your faith the honor of saying it's faith generally no Lance Bass the argument you get away with it look the argument would be Christopher is that if the universe exploded into being out of nothing then miracles are possible because the greatest miracle of all has already occurred the question is have miracles occurred in the first century mirror that requires another debate whereby we have to look at the historical evidence and see and if it is true that the that Jesus really did come and say and do the things that the New Testament writers said he did then whatever he teaches is true because if he rose from the dead he was God if he taught that there will be an intervention then there will be that's the argument enough time to support it you'll need it it's fallen off if I a sentence or two from David Hume would correct what you sow a miracle is defined not as a part of the natural order but as a suspension of the natural no an interval you can't say I'll say of a of the Big Bang which is the foundation of a natural order that it's a suspension of what it starts you may not do that however if you meet someone in the street who you yesterday saw executed you can say either that an extraordinary miracle has occurred or that you are under a very grave misapprehension and David Humes logic on this I think is quite irrefutable he says what is more likely that the laws of nature have been suspended in your favor and in a way that you approve all that you've made a mistake and in each case you must especially if you didn't see it yourself and you're hearing it from someone who says that they did I would go further and say the following I'll grant you that it would be possible to track the pregnancy of the woman Mary who's mentioned about three times in the Bible and - sure there was no male intervention in her life at all but yet she delivered herself of a healthy baby boy with I can say I don't say that's impossible parthenogenesis is not completely unthinkable but it does not prove that his paternity is divine and it wouldn't prove that any of his moral teachings were thereby correct nor if I was to see him executed one day and see him walking the streets the next would that show that he's father was God or his mother was a virgin all that his teachings were true especially given the commonplace nature of Resurrection at that time in place after all Lazarus was raised never said a word about it the Daughter of Jairus was raised didn't say a thing about what she'd been through and the Gospels tell us that at the time of the crucifixion all the graves in Jerusalem opened and their occupants wandered around the streets to greet so the resurrection was a something of a banal at the time not all not all of those people clearly were divinely conceived so I'll give you all the miracles and you'll still be left exactly where you are now holding an empty sack no Christopher you have to look at each miracle in light of the evidence and the context um was wrong because his premise that was wrong was the one that said the evidence for the regular is always greater than that for the rare it's not from Yume's own worldview if you were you if you were here today he wouldn't even believe in the Big Bang because it only happened once it's not a regular event it happened once he wouldn't believe in the spontaneous generation of life which is what a materialist must believe because it only happened once he wouldn't believe in his own birth because it only happened once in fact he wouldn't be able to believe in the whole history of our solar system because it only happened once you don't need regular events to know whether or not something happened singular events happen all the time this debate will never happen again yet you're here to witness it there's a there's a I mean I'm just going to put my repose my trust in the audience here there's a there's an obvious difference between a singularity and a miracle and I I mean I think it would be embarrassing to try and explain it will be patronizing to dr. Turek why a member of the audience takes issue with your claim that objective morality necessarily relies in an absolute deity asking instead what about empathy for which there are significant apparent biological basis right in here that empathy for which there are fairly well-established apologies he's a very human emotion cannot empathy lead to morality is it right to be empathetic that's the question I'm not saying there's no chemical connection between morality and or for morality I should say I'm there certainly when we think they're chemicals going on the question is what is the standard that makes empathy or love right what is the chemical composition of love what is the what how much does justice way well these are all things that make no sense in a materialistic world but that's not entirely true let's say for example that neurocognitive neuroscientists are able to determine with scientific levels of precision that in fact certain neuro chemical and cognitive events always essentially always co-occur with the experience of empathy but that wouldn't mean that empathy is right see there may be chemical compositions that cause that guy to chop that guy's head off on the Canadian bus that wouldn't make it right the question is what makes something right in a materialist worldview there's nothing that can make something right or wrong as David Hume has said you cannot get an author from it is well happy to agree with that I mean I think I think that's true but um but I have to add only that there are we've all song has to be lucky enough to see it or meet people who've done it and all of us it's read about there are people who will when they when a grenade is lobbed through the window throw themselves on it before it can blow up it does happen there are people who who died under torture without giving away the whereabouts of their comrades there are people who go do bomb disposal working defusing huge device they know a minute it does happen it's always happened it's common to every known human society it's a part of every heroic narrative of every known Society there's ever been those who do it are honored they are sung as we say and the times when there was no literate no literal record and it doesn't require divine sanction or permission it is we're proud to say if not innate in us we would be too humble to say that it's in Asian our species is something we can all aspire here yes you know we do not we do not get it from Big Brother if we did that would degrade it it would mean it wasn't heroic it wasn't brave it wasn't individual it wasn't exemplar why are these things of anything what I would because it would be in the hope either of a reward from Big Brother or for fear of punishment from it it would have robotics morality weiss Troy's ethics it means it means the end it means the it means the individual example is dust Christopher you've already abolished validated by your materialistic worldview there's no such thing as morality if you're just a bunch of chemicals weight Sigma it's okay I already know some people will clap anything I do you need to say do you mean to say that the human that the body of a mammal the primate is not the chemical composition no it is oh good I'm questioning why do you why do you why do you act as if this has only just been discovered and as if it's a theological point because you apparently have I say that although I I would rather say in spite of the fact that I am a primate or not notwithstanding perhaps I'd better say that I am Brahman nonetheless I'm capable of thinking about heroism self-sacrifice example and so forth why are all those things turn to me and say how did you say that and be a primate why I go I'm eight I can't also the fact that I'm a primate I can concede it better than some people that's the best I can do why your ear I made as well you'll have to agree with both of us that it shows okay let me let's finish with this which is the fundamental question and I think deserves serious answer the writer says gentlemen I'd venture to say that no one no one is two words by the way no one came into this room without already deciding who he or she agrees with and no one will leave with a different mindset what would it take for each of you what evidence would you need about what basis would you make a decision to change your mind fundamentally about the question that we gathered here to discuss this evening great question well Christianity would be refuted by somehow discovering the body of Christ theism might be I don't know how you could refute these and if all the scientific evidence somehow changed if I don't know how you deal with the morality issue if the fine-tuning didn't occur if we could find the universe is eternal it would need a cause but all the scientific evidence seems to suggest universe is eternal so it needs a cause and the cause must be immaterial spaceless timeless but if all that changed that might be at least get me to doubt theism sir you know most of the debate I wish I'd thought of this this evening sorry much too laid-back in most of the debates I've taken apart and I wish I thought of doing it this evening too we took a vote before the debate including registering the undecided and then at 1:00 at the end to basically see where the undersides had gone so and I was always surprised by how many people had come or at least willing to consider themselves as having come with an open mind I my view is this very few people have that much difficulty thinking of themselves as objects of a divine plan the great advantage religion has is our own solipsism it's the same as people who don't really believe in astrology but they'll take a quick peek to see what's happening to Taurus today and if it says well might be a good time for a flutter on the stock exchange not to think hang on the planets don't really move to determine my investments but maybe you know it's not it's not impossible it could all be about me I think about it quite a lot actually because I have the same birthday as Thomas Jefferson in April the 13th except that I don't because he was born under the old calendar and I think his though it says on his tomb he was born on 13th table he was actually born on something like the 25th of April under the Ocala I've often wondered how the horoscope people managed the transition the time when everyone had to change which star sign they were I just say it got done easily enough religion works for most people because if to have people in a sense horribly do want it to be true that they are supervised that God looks out for them that they might be rewarded or they might be punished it has this terrible surveill advantage that's why I consider it to be morally superior to be an atheist to say I would rather live without that ghastly master/slave and their mentality and no evidence or no event that could change your commitment to that belief I can only say that if there was I'm very relieved to find having studied what I think of as the best evidence in arguments physicists biologists paleontologists students of mythology history archaeologists are very relieved to find there's no evidence for it at all if if I thought it was true I would consider myself condemned to live under attorney and I've spent my entire life repudiating that idea and helping I hope others to think the same but there is not a chance of course it's not it isn't a single chance that anyone will find that hey after all we can definitely know that a virgin conceived or that a condemned felon walked gain and it's quite absurd for anyone to argue in scientific terms as if any of that is even thinkable what I don't understand I suppose I should close both is why anybody should be so contemptuous I suppose is the word also insecure about their own faith as not to call it that did you hear him say at any point the city this is my faith I believe it in spite of the evidence to the contrary I lay my life on it I believe I'm redeemed by it I think I will live eternally because no he has no confidence to say anything like that instead he tries to mix it up in an area scientific inquiry where he is no more competent than hey even I am and that was where he made his big mistake thanks gentlemen what are we sighs five minutes to a close uh since dr. Turk went first in the opening would you mind going first now I thought I'd just wrap oh you can call it a wrap unless you'd like five more minutes when asked when I think of the most erotic words in the language I sometimes think German relayed back now when asked what I think of the most erotic words in the language I sometimes think slowly captive audience um no you know what if I haven't made my case by now brothers and sisters I don't think I will make it in the next five I ask you to excuse me if anyone thinks that there's a question having who's heard me who thinks is a question I answered poorly or inadequately or badly or failed to answer at all I would like to challenge me I'd happily give them five minutes but I've I have to say shot my belt otherwise it is there anyone who would like to charge me yes please if there is no God why don't you spend your whole life try to convince people that there isn't why don't you just stay off was the repeat that was the cost yeah the question is if there if there is no god why spend your life and career trying to refute that why not just leave it alone and stay home fair enough well it's it's not my it isn't my whole career for one thing it's become a major preoccupation of my life though in the last eight or nine years especially since September 11th 2001 to try and help generate an opposition to theocracy and its depredations internationally that that that is now probably my main political preoccupation to help people in Afghanistan in Somalia in Iraq in Lebanon in Israel to resist those who sincerely want to encompass the destruction of civilization and sincerely believe they have God on their side in wanting to do so the thing maybe I will take a few minutes just to say something that I find repulsive about especially monotheistic messianic religion in it with a large part of itself it quite clearly wants us all to die it wants this world to come to an end you can tell the yearning for things to be over whenever you read any of its real texts or listen to any of its real authentic spokesmen not the sort of the pathetic apologist who sometimes masquerade for it those who talk there was a famous spokesman for this in Virginia until recently about the rapture say that those of us who have chosen rightly will be gathered to the arms of Jesus leaving all the rest of you behind if we're in a car it's your lookout that car won't have a driver anymore if we're if we're a pilot that's your lookout that plane will crash we will be with Jesus and the rest of you can go straight to hell the the eschatological element that is inseparable from Christianity if you don't believe that there is to be an apocalypse there is going to be an end a separation of the sheep and the goats a condemnation a final one then you're not really I believe it and the contempt for the things of this world shows through all of them it's well put in an old rhyme from a an English exclusive brethren sect says that we are the pure and chosen few and all the rest are damned there's ruin up in hell for you we don't want heaven crammed you can tell it when you see the extreme Muslims talk they cannot wait they cannot wait for death and destruction to overtake and overwhelm the world they can't wait for for a what I would call without ambiguity a final solution when you look at the Israeli settlers paid for often by American tax dollars to sign if they can steal enough land from other people and get all the Jews into the Promised Land and all the non-jews out of it then finally the Jewish people will be worthy of the return of the Messiah and there are Christians in this country you consider it their job to help this happen so that Armageddon can occur so the painful business of living as humans and studying civilization and trying to acquire learning and knowledge and health and medicine and to push that can all be scrapped and and the cult of death can take over that to me is a hideous thing in eschatological terms in end times terms on its own hateful idea hateful practice and a hateful theory but very much to be opposed in our daily lives where there are people who sincerely mean it who want who want to ruin the good relations that could exist between different peoples nations racist countries tribes ethnicities who say who openly say they love death more than we love life and who are betting that with God on their side they're right about that so when I say is the subtitle of my book that I think religion poisons everything I'm not just doing what publishers like and coming up with the provocative subtitle I mean to say it infects us in the you know our most basic integrity it says we can't be moral without Big Brother without a totalitarian permission means we can't be good to one another means we can't leave without this we must be afraid we must also be forced to love someone who we fear the essence of sadomasochism at the essence of abjection the essence of the Masters slave relationship and that knows that death is coming and can't wait to bring it on I say this is evil and though I do some nights stay home I enjoy more the nights when I go out and fight against this ultimate wickedness and ultimate stupidity thank you dr. Tarek your clothes first of all I want to thank everyone I know it's been a long night and I enjoy listening to Christopher even if I don't agree with them and I want to thank Christopher for being here and putting so much effort into this debate let me just clean up a few things that I wasn't able to respond to before and that is this issue of design where Christopher seems to say because things are going to oblivion it wasn't designed well first of all a design in a world constrained by physical constraints can only be optimal if you know the purpose of the designer just even Jay Gould had a book years ago called pandas thumb where he complained that the pandas thumb was not as good as our thumb it only seemed to enable the Panda to strip bamboo well maybe that's all the Panda was supposed to do is strip bamboo you can't say it's suboptimal Design unless you know what the purpose of the designer was my car is not designed perfectly but it's still designed so just because you find faults in design doesn't mean there is no design and you wouldn't be able to find a fault unless you knew what the purpose of the designer was let me now summarize Christopher's book and if as I read Christopher's book it seems to me he's making two statements the first statement is there is no God and I hate him after all Christopher defines himself as an anti-theist not an atheist but an anti theist and that's why he couldn't even respond to the question what might change your mind nothing is going to change Christopher's mind his mind is made up the second is narrow-minded yes the second the second major point he makes is since religious people do evil things God doesn't exist that is a non sequitur in logic we all do evil things that doesn't mean our parents don't exist just because E people do evil things doesn't mean that all religion is false and Christopher bunches all religions together and makes no distinctions that need to be made I am with you Christopher on your opposition of radical Islam I am with you I am with you politically on more things than you will know because I think many religions are false and there are many false beliefs in fact many religious people here's here's the points Christopher makes and he's right about many of these things many religious people have behaved terribly many religious beliefs are false and can't be justified you don't need to believe in God to know right from wrong you don't need the Bible or any other religious book to know basic right and wrong morality predates Scripture I agree with all that and that in fact is the Christian view as well and unless someone outside of the universe intervenes or the laws of nature change this incredibly fine-tuned universe will go to oblivion I agree with all that but none of these things are arguments against the existence of God God could still exist even if all of Christopher's assertions and complaints are true let me also point out that religion does not poison everything everything poisons religion I poison religion regrettably I poison religion because I don't live up to the pure words of Christ and that's why Christ had to come because none of us live up to it but we know what the standards are because there's a standard beyond ourselves Christopher has identified how religious people poison religion how they act immorally you know that's what Jesus and the prophets did and why Jesus came Christopher is so charming and he is so persuasive he is like an Old Testament prophet he is and he is calling the church to morality he can't define what that is but he's calling them to it he's not calling them to the Christian morality necessarily he's calling them to his own morality but what he points out are some of the very things Jesus point out many people in the church are following tradition rather than the words of Christ many people in the church are doing evil things Jesus condemned the people who were the most religious because they were the furthest away from God and Christopher's to be commended for that because many of them are but unlike Jesus who appealed to God's standard of morality Christopher's atheism affords him no objective moral standard by which to judge anything wrong including all the sins of religious people circumcision sexual restrictions suicide bombing etc he has to borrow objective morality from the theistic worldview in order to argue against it he has to soon God in order to deny him he has to sit in God's lap in order to slap his face he also has to borrow aspects of the theistic worldview in order to even get his worldview off the ground he has to borrow the universe which is a pretty big issue he has to borrow fine-tuning life reason math human freedom and consciousness notice he never to dressed any of those things where do those come from in an atheistic worldview Christopher in the last chapter of his book talks about we need to get away from all this religious stuff and we need to go to enlightenment values what are enlightenment values well here are is what Christopher says on the last page of his book quote very importantly the divorce between the sexual life and fear the sexual life and disease and the sexual life and tyranny can now at last be tempted on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse it appears that Christopher is rebelling against the church lady here he doesn't like the restrictions on sexuality is it true that if Jesus said sleep with anybody you want Christopher would be Christian I don't know but that is what he's rebelling against now he talks about the divine dictatorship he says that he rebelled as he just pointed out against the divine dictatorship because he's an anti theist but let me ask this question why must everyone submit to his dictatorship the dictatorship of Christopher Hitchens he's telling everyone to live up or to give up their sacred texts and to live according to renewed enlightenment values values that apparently he gets to choose Christopher in effect wants to replace God he wants his values he wants you he wants you to adopt enlightenment values Christopher never answered the questions and the evidence that I brought up I think this is a theistic universe because all time all space and all matter exploded into being out of nothing number two it did so with incredible precision and extreme fine-tuning we saw that life seems to be the result of intelligence for we saw that their objective immaterial moral values out there and Christopher is big on immorality I'm with them on that number five we saw that in material reality such as reason in the laws of logic exist and have no way to be explained there's no way to explain those by materialism that the laws of mathematics number six exists and they help us investigate and measure this orderly universe number seven that people are not mere chemicals but are free to make choices and number eight and finally that we are conscious beings and we cannot explain ourselves by mere chemicals we're something beyond chemicals but atheism only has a worldview that says all that exists or chemicals because Christopher does a see atheist friends have not been able to explain any of these realities from an atheistic perspective they have instead relied on speculation in faith I don't have enough faith to be an atheist as one more other point Christopher may think that there is no God and he hates him but God thinks there is a Christopher Hitchens and God loves him well then I think let's first certainly thank our debaters for a lively and stimulating evening good evening thank you again for coming

Channel: Cross Examined

Views: 2,300,172

Keywords: debate, frank, turek, cross, examined, christopher, hitchens, god, atheist, atheism, christianity, theism, deism, big, bang, creation, morality, design, darwin, richard, dawkins, intelligent, truth, Christian Apologetics

Id: S7WBEJJlYWU

Length: 131min 51sec (7911 seconds)

Published: Mon May 23 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/Pirispanen]

I always cringe when I see the ignorant man sitting in the front row acting like a douchebag on the Q&A section. Sitting proudly and his whole body language is screaming arrogance. What I mean

[u/petermal67]

"We have tumbled, as though through error, into a universe which by all the evidence was not intended for us. We cling to a fragment of a grain of sand until such time as the chill of death shall return us to primal matter. We strut for a tiny moment upon a tiny stage, well knowing that all our aspirations are doomed to ultimate failure and that everything we have achieved will perish with our race, leaving the Universe as though we had never existed. . . . The Universe is indifferent and even hostile to every kind of life." -- James Jean.