Poison or Cure? Religious Belief in the Modern World (with Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath)

good afternoon welcome to this anticipated event a debate and discussion with Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath on the topic poison or cure religious belief in the modern world my name is Tom ban Shaw I'm director of the Berkeley Center for religion peace and world affairs here at Georgetown and the co convener of this event along with the ethics and Public Policy Center the Berkeley Center is part of a university-wide effort to make Georgetown a global leader in the interdisciplinary study of religion and in the promotion of inter-religious understanding this effort builds off our academic strengths our location here in Washington DC our international networks and Georgetown's Catholic and Jesuit identity an identity that embraces dialog with other faith traditions and with a wider secular world what brings us together today is of course religious secular debate or dialogue from one perspective a kind of intellectual combat from another perspective a shared quest for truth marked by a willingness on both sides to ask and to attempt to answer very big questions and I can think of no question bigger than the one on your program today I anticipate an engaging conversation and I have a sneaking suspicion it will be entertaining as well we have a lot to look forward to and with that I would like to turn it over to Michael Cromartie vice president of the ethics and Public Policy Center and the real driver behind tonight's event Michael thank you for bringing us together I look forward I know we all look forward to a stimulating conversation thank you Tom I'd like to begin by saying thank you to president and Joya of this wonderful University for allowing us to have this event in this beautiful setting in Gaston Hall I'm also grateful to Tom and his staff for all their help and work and making this event possible and co-hosted with the ethics and Public Policy Center now on the back page of your program you'll see the names of some individuals and some foundations who helped make this event possible we of course are very grateful for their generous support I'd like to say a few words also about our format mr. hitchens will go first for 15 or 20 minutes and then be followed by Professor McGrath who would then have the same amount of time then mr. Hitchens will then have 8 to 10 minutes for rebuttal and then he'll be followed by Professor McGrath for 8 or 10 minutes the rebuttals will occur their presentations will occur from here their bottles will occur from the seats that way I can moderate will then open it up to questions from the audience and the way we're gonna do that is the following I believe all of you have been given I hope three by five cards to write your questions on they'll be collected by the ushers and then I will read the questions now they're almost 800 people here I don't think we'll get to all 800 but we will get to I hope a significant amount of them now I would I will not take time just now to give an extensive introduction of our speakers because you have in your brochure elaborate biographies of each these gentlemen and of course I know you're here because you know their reputations and that's why you've come so I would like to begin my introduction but Christopher Hitchens this way by calling your attention to this cartoon in an issue this past June the New Yorker magazine ran the following cartoon I'll describe it to you a woman the wife is sitting on the couch reading and husband is walking in the door and just as he's coming in the front door a bolt of lightning is striking him right in the back and the wife says I'd begged you not to buy that book by Christopher Hitchens ladies and gentlemen he bought the book and so have many others Christopher's book God is not great has been on the New York Times bestseller list now for I think over 20 weeks and introducing Christopher Hitchens I should at least mention what some others have said about him and his gifts here's the London observer who has said he is one of the most prolific as well as brilliant journalists of our time where the Los Angeles Times has said this he is a political and literary journalist extraordinaire and the New York magazine The New Yorker magazine has said he is an intellectual willing to show his teeth in the cause of righteousness and finally Christopher you would be nurse to know that our mutual friend the political philosopher Peter Berkowitz who's here tonight risa said this about you whether you agree or disagree with what he says or writes Christopher is utterly incapable of ever being boring Christopher thank you for coming we trust you would not be boring well Thank You Georgetown thank you ladies and gentlemen for coming thank you Michael for that suspiciously terse introduction which of all the introductions I've heard to myself is certainly the most recent thank you seriously to the ethics and Public Policy Center for your work for conceiving this idea for encouraging me to do it for bringing us dr. McGrath all the way from our common alma mater of Oxford and for the regular seminars that you may not know that Michael does all the time on these matters of faith versus reason which is after all the ground on which we're met this evening I always come before events like this with antagonists like dr. McGrath with a slight sense a very slight sense hope it doesn't sound self-pitying of inequality my views are if I say for myself tolerably well advertised and if they're not it's partly your fault because what I say is fairly intelligible very plainly stated if I you know what I think if you care to find out when I debate with Jews and Muslims and Christians I very often find I say well do you really believe there was a virgin birth do you really believe in a Genesis creation do you really believe in bodily erect the resurrection and I get a sort of Monty Python reply there's a little bit of metaphorical really I'm not sure and I'm gonna find out I'm determined to find out this evening which line on this my antagonist does take and I want you to notice and I want you to test him on it because I think it's fair and I'm going to talk to him and to you as if he did represent the Christian faith I can't do all three monotheism's tonight I may get a whack at the other two in the course of the discussion I can only really do here so I'm going to assume that it means something to him and that it's not just a humanist metaphysics and I think I'm entitled to that assumption the the main thing I want to dispute this evening cuz I I'm either drowning in time or 20 minutes it's neither too much or too little is this you hear it very often said by people who have a vague faith that well it may not be the case that religion is metaphysically true it's figures and it's stories may be legendary or dwell on the edge of myth pretty prehistoric it's truth claims may be laughable we have better claims excuse me better explanations for the origins both of our cosmos and our species now so much better so in fact that had there been available to begin with religion would never have taken root no one would now go back to the stage when we didn't have any real philosophy we only had mythology when we thought we lived on a flat planet or when we thought that our planet was circulated by the Sun and so the other way around when we didn't know there were microorganisms as part of creation and that they were more powerful than us and had dominion over us rather than we then when we were fearful the infancy of our species we wouldn't have taken up theism if we'd know now what we did then but allow for all that allow for all that you still have the credit religion with being the source of ethics and morals where would we get these prom if it weren't for faith I think in the time I've got I think that's the position I most want to undermine I don't believe that it's true the religion is moral or ethical I certainly don't believe of course that any of its explanations about the origin of our species or the cosmos or its ultimate destiny are true either in fact I think most of these have been conclusively utterly discredited but I'll deal with the remaining claim is it moral okay I can only do Christianity this evening is it moral to believe that your sins yours and mine ladies and gentlemen brothers and sisters can be forgiven by the punishment of another person is it ethical to believe that I would submit that the doctrine of vicarious redemption by human sacrifice is utterly in I might if I wished if I knew any of you you were my friends or even if I didn't know you but I just loved the idea of you compulsory love is another sickly element of Christianity by the way but suppose I could say look you're in debt I've just made a lot of money out of a God bashing book I'll pay your debts for you maybe you'll pay me back someday but for now and get you out of trouble I could say if I really loved someone who'd been sentenced to prison if I could find a way of saying I'd serve your sentence I try and do it I could do what Sydney Carton does in The Tale of Two Cities if you like I'm very unlikely to do this unless you've been incredibly sweet to me I take your place on the scaffold but I can't take away your responsibilities I can't forgive what you did I can't say you didn't do it I can't make you washed clean the name for that in primitive middle-eastern society was was scapegoating you pile the sins of the tribe on a goat you drive that goat into the desert to die of thirst and hunger and you think you've taken away the sins of the tribe a positively immoral doctrine that abolish is the concept of personal responsibility on which all ethics in or morality must depend it has a further implication I'm told that I have to have a share in this human sacrifice even though it took place long before I was born I had no say in it happening I wasn't consulted about it had I been present I would have been bound to do my best to stop the public torture and execution of an eccentric preacher I would do the same even now no no I'm implicating it I myself drove in the nails I was present at Calvary it confirms the original filthy sin in which I was conceived and born the sin of Adam and Genesis again this may sound a mad belief but it is the Christian belief well it's here that we find something very sinister about monotheism and about religious practice in general it is incipient Lee at least and I think often explicitly totalitarian I have no say in this I am born under a celestial dictatorship which I could not have had any hand in choosing I don't put myself under it's government I am told that it can watch me while I'm told that it can convict me of here's the definition of totalitarianism thoughtcrime for what I think I may be convicted and condemned and that if I commit a right action it's only to evade this punishment and if I commit a wrong action I'm going to be caught up not just with punishment in life for have done which often follows axiomatically but no but even after I'm dead in the old testament gruesome as it is recommending as it is of genocide racism tribalism slavery genital mutilation in the displacement and destruction of others terrible as the Old Testament gods are they don't promise to punish the dead there's no talk of torturing you after the earth has closed over the Amalekites only told when gentle Jesus meek and mild makes his appearance are those who won't accept the message told they must depart into everlasting fire is this morality is this ethics I submit not only is it not not only does it come with the false promise of vicarious Redemption but it is the origin of the totalitarian principle which has been such a burden and shame to our species for so long I further think that it undermines us in our most essential integrity it dissolves our obligation to live and witness in truth which of us would say that we will believe something because it might cheer us up or tell our children that something was true because it might dry their eyes which of us in georgia's in wishful thinking who really cares about the pursuit of truth at all costs and at all hazards can it not be said do you not in fact hear it said repeatedly about religion and by the religious themselves that well it may not be really true the stories may be fairytales the history may be dubious but it provides consolation can anyone hear themselves say saying this or have it said of them with out some kind of embarrassment without the concession but thinking here is directly wishful that yes it would be nice if you could throw your sins and your responsibilities on someone else and have them dissolve but it's not true and it's not morally sound and that's the second ground of my indictment Michael you will tell me when I'm trespassing on the time of george megrath weren't you on our integrity our basic integrity knowing right from wrong and being able to choose the right action over a wrong one I think one must repudiate that claim that one doesn't have this moral discrimination innately that no it must come only from the agency of a celestial dictatorship which one must love and simultaneously fear what is it like I've never tried it I've never been a cleric what is it like to lie to children for a living and tell them that they have an authority that they must love compulsory love what a greater Scalia and be terrified of at the same time what's that like I want to know and that we don't have an innate sense of right and wrong the children don't have an innate sense of fairness and decency which of course they do what is it like I can personalize it to this extent my mother's Jewish ancestors are told that until they got to Sinai they've been dragging themselves around the desert under the impression that adultery murder theft and perjury were all fine they get to Mount Sinai only to be told it's not kosher after all I'm sorry excuse me we must have more self-respect than that for us for ourselves and for others of course the stories are fiction it's a fabrication exposed conclusively by Israeli archaeology never nothing of the sort ever took place but suppose we take the metaphor it's an insult it's an insult to us it's an insult to our deepest integrity no if we believe the perjury murder and theft all right we wouldn't have got as far as the foot of Mount Sinai or anywhere else now we're told what we have to believe and this is a coming now to the question of whether or not science reason and religion are compatible or I would rather say reconcilable the great Stephen Jay Gould the late great Stephen Jay Gould said that he believed they were non-overlapping magisteria you can be both a believer and a person of faith the sitting in front of me is a very distinguished extremely distinguished scholar Francis Collins helped us to unlock the Human Genome Project who is himself a believer I love to hear from him I hope we will hear from him I don't believe he says that his discoveries in the genome are convinced him of the truth of religion he holds it as it were independently I hope I do no wrong sir in fresney it like that here's why I a non-scientist a non-scientist will say that I think it's radically he reconcilable I'd rather say than incompatible I've taken the best advice I can on how long Homo sapiens has been on the planet Carl Sagan Richard Dawkins many others and many discrepancies in theirs reckon it's not more than 250,000 years quarter million years it's not less either I think it's roughly accepted I think so you wouldn't disagree hundred thousand is the lowest I've heard and actually I was about to say again not to sound too Jewish I'll take 100,000 I only need a hundred thousand call it a hundred for a hundred thousand years Homo sapiens was born usually not usually very often dying in the process or killing its mother in the process life expectancy probably not much more than 20 25 years dying probably of the teeth after that very organizing near to the brain as they are or of hunger or of microorganisms that they didn't know existed or of events such as volcanic or tsunami or earthquake tribes that would have been wholly terrifying and mysterious as well as from turf wars over women land property food other matters you can fill in imagine it for yourself what the first a few tens of thousands of years were like and we'd like to think a little bit in the process and certainly having gods all the way worshiping bears fairly early on I can sort of see why some has worship worshiping other human beings big mistake I'm coming back to that if I have time this and that and the other thing but exponentially perhaps improving though in some areas of the world very nearly completely dying out and a bitter struggle all along call it a hundred thousand years according to the Christian faith heaven watches this with folded arms for 98 thousand years and then decides it was time to intervene and the best way of doing that would be a human sacrifice in primitive Palestine where the news would take so long to spread that it still hasn't penetrated very large parts of the world and that would be our redemption of the human species now I submit to you ladies and gentlemen that is what I've just said which you must believe to believe the Christian revelation is not possible to believe as well as not decent to believe why is it not possible because a virgin birth is more likely than that a resurrection is more likely that and because if it was true it would have to further implications it would have to mean that the designer of this plan was unbelievably lazy and inept or unbelievably callous and cruel and indifferent and capricious and that is the case with every argument for design and every argument for revelation and intervention that has ever been made but it's now conclusively so because of the superior knowledge that we've won for ourselves by an endless struggle to assert our reason our science on humanity our extension of knowledge against the priests against the rabbis against the mothers who've always wanted us to consider ourselves as made from dust or from a clot of blood according to the Koran or as the Jews are supposed to pray every morning at least not female or Gentile and here's my final point was I think it's coming to it the final insult that religion delivers to us the final poison it's their jets into our system it appeals both to our meanness our self-centeredness in our solipsism and to masochism in other words just sadomasochistic I'll put it like this you're a clot of blood your piece of mud you're lucky to be alive God fashioned you for his convenience even though you're born in filth and sin and even though every religion that's ever been is distinguished principally by the idea that we should be disgusted by our own sexuality name me a religion that does not play upon that fact so you're lucky to be here originally sinful and covered in shame and filth as you are you're a wretched creature but take heart the universe is designed with you in mind and heaven has a plan for you ladies and gentlemen I close by saying I can't believe there is a thinking person here who does not realize that our species would begin to grow to something like its full height if it left this childishness behind if it emancipated yourself from this sinister childish nonsense and I now commit you to the good dr. McGrath thank Thank You Christopher well besides what you can read and his bio in your program I should let you know that professor McGrath holds Oxford to Oxford doctorates won a Doctor of Divinity for his work on historical theology and systematic theology and another doctorate of philosophy for his work on molecular biophysics here's what Publishers Weekly said recently about his work dr. McGrath has distinguished himself as a historical theologian and as a generous and witty writer who brings to life topics that would turn to dust and others hands we're especially grateful that Professor McGrath has traveled all the way from Oxford last night to join us for this evening thank you dr. McGrath well thank you very much indeed it's a huge pleasure to be here at Georgetown this afternoon now if someone had told me when I was growing up that I'd be here at such a distinguished place as Georgetown talking about atheist and I've been extremely surprised I think for two reasons one was I grew up in Northern Ireland now some of you may come from this place but it's a kind of rather backward place and the greatest annual event of my youth was the donkey donkey Derby so you can see you know coming to somewhere like Washington is just amazing so you know I'm just great to be here but I think what was surprised me more would have been if someone to say well you're taking part in the debate by atheism is I would have assumed that I would have been on the Atheist side because certainly as a young man that was what I believed I grew up in Northern Ireland studying the sciences wanting to go to Oxford to take this further and it was very very clear to me that the sciences disproved God they completely eroded the ground on which faith stood and of course there was violence between Protestants and Catholic in Northern Ireland therefore my logic was infallible no Catholics no Protestants no violence between Catholics and Protestants so it seemed to me to be very very straightforward and certainly when I went up to Oxford to begin to study the science is in much more detail it seemed to me really I had sorted things out and could relax for a while but I found myself being challenged by a number of things one was being challenged by beginning to read the history and philosophy of science and reading that the kind of scientific positivism I'd imbibe wasn't quite as straightforward as I've suggested and also beginning to realise actually that the evidential basis for atheism was much weaker than and I had realised and I began to find myself being excited intellectually and stimulated far more than I dared to think by the Christian faith at in the end ah I came to faith swapping my old faith of atheism for my new one of Christianity I don't think I did so is any kind of wish fulfillment of any kind of psychological need it was much more just a profound intellectual conviction that this was right that this made sense in itself and a dismay sense of things as well it was like someone I suppose who had who knew water discovering champagne so for me this was really a a very significant event and indeed to this day I still look back in my atheist days with great nostalgia even though I no longer actually hold to those positions and so it's a very great pleasure to be able to interact this afternoon with Christopher Hitchens and I want you to make it very very clear that what he is saying today needs to be respect and I hope I will behave respectfully towards him I want to offer some points of disagreement some points of challenge some points of agreement and also some genuine points of curiosity to try and get our conversation underway and so I want to really focus on his main argument I think you've heard very very clearly that religion is immoral and leads to immorality that in some way it is toxic and they seem to me to be very significant arguments very significant claims and therefore I want to try and engage with them I apologize to him and indeed I also apologize to you in it in the time available I will not be able to interact with him properly but this I hope I can begin to to get this conversation moving forward so an obvious question I found myself asking as I both read mr. Chan's book and also listen to him speak is that I think there are there are aspects of this that I have loved to have heard more about for example in recent years especially last 15 years there's been a very substantial body of scientific research into the empirical effect that religious commitment actually has on people and as someone who was a scientist and still remains wedded to evidence-based thinking I wondered if this might actually come in to mr. Hitchens presentation to give an example if we look at Koenig and Cohen's very famous book published in 2001 the link between religion and health we find that the the overwhelming body of empirical studies to look at this find a positive correlation between religious commitment and well-being now that does not prove there is a God and certainly it does not prove that all forms of religion are good for you I will gladly concede because I think you Satan's is right on this that there are some forms of religion that are pathological that damage people but there's a need I think for a real discussion about what is pathological and what is normal about what is the center and what are the fringes and that I think also extends to about mr. Hitchens analysis of the impact of religion in general he makes the point and I think I want to say he is right to make this point that religion has done much damage in history I regard that point as being beyond contradiction and seems to me that every one of us here this afternoon needs to say that is right but I think we need also to go further and begin to explore and the kind of questions I would like to open up for discussion would include these yes religion has done damage but is this typical or is this a fringe element who are the normal people who are the fanatics and it seems to me there's a real need to try and make this kind of adjudication I grant the history is there that there have been some awful things done but as Michael Shermer who's president of skeptic Society wrote in a book how we believe some years ago for every one of these atrocities which must cause all of us deep concern there are 10,000 unreported acts of kindness generosity and so forth arising from religious commitment and trying to get this balance right seems to me to have enormous importance what is the fringe what is the center so that's one point I think I'd like to open up for further discussion but I also like to try and just make a more general point and that is that I think worldviews in general whether they are religious irreligious whatever they are have the capacity to animate people to the extent that they feel they must go and do things which many of us would regard as morally reprehensible we see this in the Soviet Union a rather grim period in modern history we were fine for example then on having said basically that there is no higher authority by which he may be judged feeling able to I quote authorized the protracted use of brutality against religious believers and seems to me that we have here an ideology a worldview which basically is sanctioning violence in this case anti religious violence now I would not argue from that that this shows that atheism in general or atheists in particular are violent people it's much more about what movements do to people about the damage that worldviews can cause when they begin to take over and begin to really animate people to want to do things again look at the period under Stalin there are many other examples we could give of worldviews that may well have begun with great excitement great enthusiasm a commitment to ideals that we can all identify with but something happens and they go wrong the French Revolution I believe began with an outburst of energy for liberty but by 1793 it degenerated into the reign of terror in which an appeal to Liberty sanctioned the most-read 'fl acts of violence and many of you will know the tragic story of Madame Roland who was brought to the guillotine on trumped-up charges in 1793 and as she was led to the guillotine she pointed to a statue of liberty in a plasterer revolution and said Liberty what crimes are committed in your name history I think discloses a complex judgment here I do not believe that it simply points to religion as being the cause of evil I think it points to the capaz of all worldviews to begin to do this it's not so much religion or indeed anti religion it seems to be something actually about human nature itself which means that acts of kindness can be accompanied by acts of violence there's something about us I think that really needs to be addressed there so I don't think it's a threat for does this religion poisons everything I'm not sure it can do but so can other things as well the real problem I think is extremism the kinds of ideologies that force violence upon us and those it seems to me do need to be challenged and on that I'm at one with mr. Hitchens but is it God that's doing this let's move on and talk about this clearly a very important question here is how we know what God is like can you imagine God saying go and do violence to someone well I think some could quite easily but I speak from a specific perspective namely that of a Christian theologian and for Christianity the identity the nature of God is disclosed in Jesus of Nazareth he is the image of the invisible God he is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets and when we look at Jesus of Nazareth we see something I think that is very very challenging we have one who refuses to do violence evening Gethsemane when some want to raise swords to defend him as he's about to be betrayed he bids them put their swords down Jesus does not do violence but he has violence done to him and the point I want to make is that your vision of what God is like has a profound impact on what you think God is urging you to do and seems to me that if one is a good Christian then one is going to take the vision of what God is like and what God wants us to do that we find disclosed Jesus with the utmost seriousness now let me make it absolutely clear I concede and I melt may well be one of these that there are many bad Christians around who fail to live up to this vision but I want to draw the clear distinction between some Christians are bad and Christianity is bad there is an aspiration and inspiration and norm and that means one can challenge those who want in some way to use violence in the name of God and of course you can see this impacting on the way in which people behave in an episode that happened a year ago here in the United States you've had unfortunately in recent days some shooting incidents and of course what I'm talking about is the Amish schoolhouse killings of October 2006 and many of you will know these some of you may have been affected by them a crazed gunman broke into an Amish schoolhouse and shot I think it was 10 Amish school girls of whom five died the Amish as I'm sure you all know are a very conservative Protestant sect who wear 17th century clothing who won't drive cars they use horse buggies and they also regard the ethical example of Jesus as absolutely normative for them there will be no retribution of any kind the cycle of violence was broken instantly because for them Christ ordered them commanded them to show forgiveness that's a very important point religion or this in this case Christianity contains within itself the capacity for self criticism this is not the way God is this is not the way we should be behaving and I fully concede there are those who fail to live up to that but there is a challenge that can be issued to them why behave like this when there is the norm before you authorised as what God would like us to do so it seems to me there is a very important point to make there now mr. Hitchens make some variance ting points about the relationship of science and faith and of course for me who were studying science dr. surd doing research in molecular biophysics these were live questions and I certainly welcome his challenge to discuss these things further but for me there has never been this opposition between science and faith certainly some say there is but I would want to make this point building on what Stephen Jay Gould says Gould in his book rocks of Ages makes the point I think fairly that although in his case he's an atheist he was not an atheist on account of his science that in many ways his atheism was already there he brought it to his science and he makes this point that science by its legitimate methods cannot adjudicate the god question certainly we can read make sure in an atheist way we can read nature an agnostic way we can read nature in a Christian way but nature in itself and of itself does not force us to any of those positions and I will simply say that I find my Christian faith gave me new intellectual energy both to engage the natural order to engage nature is to learn more about God and also to energize my understanding of what I was observing and I find this summed up in a quote from CS Lewis which I am in habit of coating I'm afraid I believe he writes in Christianity as I believe the Sun has risen not simply because I see it but because by it I see everything else in other words it gives you an intellectual lens or framework through which you can look at the world ourselves culture and see it in a new light so for me science of religion there may be tensions but there's also a very powerful sinner which I believe to be both welcome and also something that can be developed further but let me move on if I may and make a further point mr. Hitchens makes some very significant Christians of religion which I need I emphasize need to be taken seriously but what I wonder does he offer in its place in his book he talks a bit stretch at the beginning and the end of the need for a new enlightenment and I found this puzzling though nevertheless extremely interesting I find a puzzling because for me as an intellectual historian the Enlightenment really had been left behind us as being in the view of many postmodern critics a worldview that led to intolerance and a worldview had actually generated the potential for conflict and violence you all know why post modernity moved away from eternity on that point and also again a pointer I would love to discuss further with mr. Hitchens people like Alastair MacIntyre other critics of modernity make the point this foundational judgments about the nature of reason the nature of what is right actually cannot be sustained on the basis of an appeal to history and reason itself for MacIntyre for many others the Enlightenment offers us a vision of a rationality and morality which actually are unattainable in practice now again we might want have a discussion about morality and I fully accept that mr. Hitchens is very committed to the moral vision has a real sense of what is right and what is wrong but I wonder if one can sustain that without some sort of metaphysical basis and the point I would want to raise is this is an evolutionary account of morality actually adequate to do the job Richard Dawkins with whom I disagree on many things in his Selfish Gene makes the point that we alone have the capacity to react against our genes to offer something better than we are genetically landed and seems to me that is a very significant position or again I discover that both miss ladies nyah lapsed Marxists to take Antonia Graham she's point Graham she made the point that in culture moral values are manipulated by interest groups how on earth could we defend ourselves against this my real question of switchings is can one have a viable moral system without some four transcendent basis of morality I make this point not to challenge him as a moral thinker but simply to ask whether one can actually do this so I must end and I do so if I may by telling you a story based on my own Northern Ireland the story is told of them to Catholic nuns who are driving along one night when they ran out of gas they realized they passed the gas station of a hundred yards back so they decided to walk back and fill up with gas they rummaged to vote in the back of the car and they found a glass container which would do the job unfortunately it was a medical specimen jar with the word urine written all over it but was all they had they went back filled up and went to the cars to had to pour this into the gas tank a Protestant farmer drove by on his tractor and he looked at them in utter astonishment and he said ladies I don't think much of your religion but I certainly admire your faith and as I hear mr. Hitchens speak and these are I enjoyed his writing I find myself wondering if he too is a man of faith a man who believes that even though he can't absolutely justify certain beliefs nevertheless we can trust them he says our beliefs are not beliefs but I think they are and the real question for me is in a world where reason and science do not deliver what we once thought they did on what can we base our lives if we are to know that we are truly living the good the beautiful and a true life thank you very much mr. Hitchens will take the podium again Michael wanted to just do this sitting down but I it's the old demagogue in me I need the pulpit I need the podium and if I can't be erect at least I can be upright by the way do you know why the why the Amish girl the Amish girl the Amish girl was excommunicated two Mennonite look I'm going to take the doctors excellent points in order if I may and you're you will I'm sure mines orderly enough to recall the order in which he made them on the empirical evidence so-called adduced that a religious faith can lead to greater health and well-being I in a sense do not doubt it in other words I can easily imagine that those who think they are the special object of a divine design feel better for thinking so I just think it's going to be very important for anyone claiming this to see the dismaying trapdoor that is right on to their feet if you're going to claim this for one how you're not going to claim it for all do we not hear incessantly that the Hamas organization in Gaza is a provider of welfare to the poorest of the poor have we not heard this do we not hear that louis farrakhan's crackpot racist organization the Nation of Islam gets young people off drugs for all I know it's true it not only says nothing about the truth or validity of their theology but it must say a certain amount at least about our willingness to think wishfully or cultish Lee which was if you like part of my point to begin with as to the center versus the fringe I get this all the time don't charge religion by its fundamentalists and it's extremist so why should I I don't have to I judge it by its foundational texts and I judge it by the statements of its authorities I take a case from the Koran just for once does it if she's not the Koran excuse me take a case from the Muslim foundational documents the hadith which have equal canonical Authority they say if someone becomes an apple stage leaves or changes their religion they must be killed the sentence is death don't anyone be telling me that's a metaphor oh it's just intended as a sort of general admonition no it means what it says and it's being applied to a couple of people who now have to live friends of - another fact less political refugees in Washington DC who know how true the impact of that had you there's no wiggle room there so the question for a Muslim must be asked do you think this is the Word of God or don't you because if you don't you're saying that God shouldn't be able to tell you to do an evil thing and whew you're saying he should in either case faith Falls as a reinforcement of ordinary morality recently dr. McGrath is a member of the Church of England the Anglican Communion the Episcopalian remember what George Herbert weren't my favorite religious Peart after John Donne the sweet mediocrity of our native church was how he referred to the sea of Canterbury everyone thinks it's the mildest of all it did not only calls itself a flock it looks very sheep-like however the Bishop of Carlisle recently the chipped I'm told to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury said that the floods in northern New York sure that devastated large part of England in the summer and killed and dispossessed a lot of people were punishment for homosexuality now to connect meteorology to morality it seems to me I have to say flat out idiotic whichever way you do it if there was a connection between meteorology and morality which religion has very often argued that there is I don't see why the floods hit northern Yorkshire I can think of some parts of London where they would have done a lot more good just as the hurricane that devastated New Orleans we found punishment for sin as it must have been left the French Quarter alone you have to make up your mind on this you either think God intervenes or he doesn't I'm clear I say I don't think so will dr. McGrath say that he does intervene and that we can tell when he does or will he not say so you have to ask him you have to hear his answer did he say sometimes intervenes what do you say moves in mysterious ways my position is clear his remains I think distinctly opaque it was the Archbishop of Canterbury Jeffrey Fisher who said the following that a nuclear war thermonuclear war would only hasten transition into a more blessed stage into which we would bound to eventuate anyway if I had told you that remark and asked you to guess you'd have said Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said it or some other fanatical verminous mullah no the Archbishop of Canterbury said it and why shouldn't he because an another immoral and sinister thing about religion is that lurking under under it at all times in every one of its versions is a desire this life to come to an end for this poor world to be over the yearning the secret death wish that's in all of it let this be gone let us move to the next stage is present at all times unless it's repudiated which I invite dr. McGrath to do but if he does so I don't see in what eschatological sense he can claim to remain a Christian and he can't take it a la carte if you claim or accept the one version you have to accept the other if it's true in general that religion does one thing and some people do good from it then you have to accept only wicked acts that are attributable to it as well and I think you'll find that those don't quite equalize at the margin depressing though that conclusion would be I have a challenge which I have now put in print on the Christianity Today website in holy blossoms synagogue in Toronto the night before last in many other places and on the air and on the web and it's this if it's to be argued that our morality our ethics can be derived from the supernatural then name me an action a moral action taken by a believer or a moral statement uttered by one that could not have been made or uttered by an infidel an unbeliever I have tried this everywhere or a large number of people have not yet had even one reply but if I was to ask you can you think of a wicked action that could only be performed by someone who believed they were on an errand from God there isn't one of you who would take ten seconds to think of an example and what does that tell us I was I would say it tells us a lot and here's the bogus answer to it that was only very gently mentioned by dr. McGrath this evening well what about atheist nihilism what about atheist cruelty what about 20th century totalitarianism I take this seriously enough to have put a chapter in my book about it available by the way it fine bookstores everywhere and I can really summarize it now and abuse over as toasty as I can first fascism the original 20th century totalitarian movement is really historically another name for the for the political activity of the Catholic right wing there is no other name for it francoism salazar ism what happened in croatia in austria in bavaria and so on the church keeps on trying to apologize for it can't apologize fair enough it's the Catholic right maleeni you can't quite say that about Hitler National Socialism because that's also based on Nordic and Pagan blood myths leader worship and so on though Hitler never appreciated his membership of the church and prayers were said for him on his birthday every year till the very end on the orders of the Vatican and all of these stats are well known of the church still hasn't found another any way to apologize for that enough and whatever it is you can call that you can't call it secular you may not call it secular by the way Joseph Goebbels was excommunicated from the Catholic Church fifty percent according to paul johnson the catholic historian of the waffen-ss were confessing catholics none of them was ever threatened with excommunication even threatened for it we with it for taking part in the final solution but Joseph Goebbels was excommunicated for marrying a Protestant you see we do have our standards now okay moving to Marxism moving to Leninism okay in Russia in 1917 for hundreds of years millions of people have been told the head of the state is a supernatural power the Tsar is not just the head of the government not just a king but he stands between heaven and earth and this this has been inculcated in generations of Russians for hundreds of years if you're Joseph Stalin himself a seminarian from Georgia you shouldn't be in the totalitarianism business if you can't exploit a ready-made reservoir of credulity and civility that's as big as that it's just waiting for you to capitalize on so what do you do well have an inquisition for one thing we'll have miracles for another life san'ko's biology will produce four harvests syria will have heresy hunts will tell everyone they must be grateful only to the leader for what they get and they must thank him and praise him all the time and that they must be aware all the time of the existence of the counter-revolutionary devil who waits - you see where I'm going with this that's not secularism Michael oh do I need really - okay I'll tell you my North Korea stories another time here's that it's surrogate it is at the very best and the very worst the examples I've been talking about are a surrogate for messianism for the belief in ultimate history and the end of days and the conclusion of all things which is I've tried to argue I hope with some success the problem to begin with the replacement of reason by faith the discarding of the one thing that makes us important and useful and different from other primates in favor of something that requires no evidence and just requires incantation not good for you if dr. McGrath or anyone else could come up with an example of a society which had fallen into slavery and bankruptcy and beggary and terror and misery because it had adopted the teachings and the precepts of Spinoza and Einstein and Pierre bile and Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine then I'd be impressed and that would be a fair test on a level playing field but you will find no such example indeed the nearest such example we do have is these greater United States the first country in the world to have a constitution that forbids the mention of religion in the public square except by way of limiting it and saying that the state can take no interest in establishment of faith best known in under the rubric of the wall of separation my new slogan is mr. Jefferson build up that wall hope you'll join me in it very quickly in my last minute yes dr. McGrath you are right there is something about us as a species that is problematic and isn't just explained by religion something about us that tempts us to do wrong it's pretty easily explained I think we are we are primates hi primates but primates we're half a chromosome away from chimpanzees and it shows it specially shows in the number of religions we invent to console ourselves or to give us things to quarrel with other primates about if anything demonstrates that God is man-made not man God made surely it is the religions erected by this quasi chimpanzee species and the harm that they're willing to inflict on that basis I think on the point of of Christ ology that you've close to it I ought not to take any more of the audience this time would be prepared to discuss and I hope I've yielded back some of my time to questions and I'm grateful again for your indulgence thank you I think the resurrection is a historical event something that happened in history was seen as intriguing but not obviously interpreted as something of dramatic significance the key question was not simply the history but also its meaning and so in the New Testament for example we see debates taking place around the time of the resurrection which are primarily concerned what does this mean in other words something seems to have happened but it's a historical event what is the overall meaning of this event and so for me that that second question begins to emerge as being of major importance and a new test and we see a number of ideas beginning to emerge the most important of these is that in some Jesus had been demonstrated to have some sort of relationship with God that validated his teaching in other words that authorized him to speak with authority on what God was like it's a bit like you know interpreting something like a Caesar crossing the Rubicon I mean you can think of as having two different elements on the one hand there is the physical event the crossing of a river which of course in this case is not particularly difficult but then there is its historical significance in that the Rubicon marked the boundary between the Roman colonies and Rome itself to cross that with an armory was in effect a declaration of war so for me an historical event with a deeper theological significance and that significance it seems to me is articulated by the New Testament in terms of first of all who Jesus Christ is but secondly also what the implications of this might be for human nature and of course the Christian hope of eternal life the very strong New Testament declaration that we are people who have hope is very much grounded on that particular idea now Emma signals moved on and began to talk I think very interestingly about God as a celestial dictator and again I think there is a very significant idea now certainly I hear what he's saying but for me God is a celestial Liberator and I wonder if we have a very different perspective on this same event is there a real difference here which we can justify in terms of metaphysics or is this simply a different perspective on how we see things mr. Hitchens clearly is emphasizing that religion can do some bad things and I want to say that I believe he is right to alert us to that and to avoid any uncritical evaluation of religion but there is this deeper side which I do want to just emphasize the New Testament talks about the truth setting you free it talks about the glorious liberty of the children of God and men we've lost that maybe somehow we bound this up with all kinds of rituals and so on who have lost sight of it well as you read the New Testament I think there is this outburst of energy of liberation that something has happened which has transformed the human situation brought hope at the same time liberated us from fear of death and also to do some very good things certainly we fail certainly we fall but for me I think the idea of God's nest you'll dictator is one that I don't really recognize myself although I can see where it's coming from and it returns then went on and issued a very powerful challenge against religion as any form of wishful thinking that provides consolation and again he makes a number of points that I think are perfectly fair one of these is that wishful thinking is precisely that it's what we would like to be the case it bears no relation to what actually is the case and also he makes the point that consolation is well well I put like this it's for losers isn't it certainly when I was an atheist myself I very much took the view that religion was for mad bad or sad people and certainly you can see that emphasis and consolation would correspond very well with that third group but I think there are some points need to look at the historical roots of this argument go back to Ludwig Feuerbach in the year 1841 when he wrote his very famous book dealing with the essence of Christianity and in that book he argues very lucidly along the lines mr. Hitchens indicated that people believe in God because in some way this is about their aspirations their hopes their longings being actualized when of course there is no God to believe in it's simply we wish it were like this but we know it's not and we're in denial sir belief in God is seen as the projection of some imaginary finger figure on some transcendent screen now I think fall back does make an important point but I want to make two points in response number one the fact that we might wish something to be true certainly does not make it true but the fact that we wish something to be true does not make it false for that reason I mean for example you can hear my voice is beginning to dry up and I would very much like there to be some water and there is still some left I'm pleased to say and but the point is my desire does not negate the reality thank you very much indeed I'll turn away and count to five but I think more interestingly as this I wonder I wonder if atheism might also be a form of wishful thinking now again those who study cultural history will know that one of the points that's very often made is that the the emergence of atheism as a significant historical phenomenon in the 18th century was this deep desire to change things if there were no God we could do as we please you all know Dostoyevsky's possessed were and Krylov makes this following comment if there is a God I must do what God wants but if there is no God I do what I want and again you can see atheism there is a kind of ethic of liberation I'm able to do what I please there are no limits and again you may have come across a very interesting essay by Czeslaw Milosz in the New York Times Book Review about 10 years ago called the discreet charm of nihilism Reese says look what is captivate us today is not the idea of religion as an escape from reality but the idea there is no God and hence no accountability so we do what we please we are accountable to nobody so I wonder if this argument actually works both ways I think it's certainly a very interesting possibility to explore now mr. Hitchens then moved on to talk about a mont sinaï he made a point which i think is that is a interesting point of one that i need to engage with mont sinaï he said look changed everything are we to understand that people had no moral sense before this that somehow this brought a morality into being and I think well I would say and I think most Christian theologians would say something like this is that both the old and new testaments are very very clear that there was human wisdom around long before Sinai that used Paul's imagery that we are judged on the basis of what we do know where there is no knowledge of the law well I want to say is that the Old Testament indeed a New Testament do not kind of way throw something down and say there that's it you didn't know about this before but to quote from that very interesting document feeders at ratty of faith and reason originating from the late Pope I mean that in some way grace does not abolish nature but rather perfects it in other words it brings to fulfillment these basic human instincts about what is right and what is wrong correcting them were necessary but still fulfilling these longings for righteousness this desire to do what is right which I believe to be so fundamental a part of human nature and therefore for me the Christian faith for example does not kind of a throw down a series of arbitrary dictates but rather it builds on what is already there precisely because for Christianity we are all God's creation and God has planted if you like signals or reminders of what he is like or to use that wonderful phrase from Gerard Manley Hopkins in some way nature and humanity is in stressed with the likeness of God we then move on to talk about something that I think I touched on missed returns talked about the tension between science and faith I think I may have touched on that in my own talk so I won't repeat that now and to say that for me there is a very healthy convergence and mutual enrichment between science and faith but finally also made a point which is basically that it seems very unjust that Christianity is that Redemption depends on explicit response to a gospel that's preached when so many haven't heard it and I would certainly agree that that does seem very unjust but again the Christian tradition down the ages has been that the proclamation of the gospel brings things to fulfillment but were it has not been heard we are judged on the basis of what we do know and how we respond to it again grace does not abolish nature but perfects it thank you well thank you gentlemen this is where we now have a conversation and I have got some questions from the audience and if there are other questions I'm glad to receive them but I have some here now the first question obviously is for you Christopher since mr. McGrath has just finished that would put the question to you which is if God does not exist on what basis can anyone say this action is right or this action is wrong so whoever asked that early just came into the room right you know I can't believe that I didn't say what I thought about it but but I won't repeat it because actually what dr. McGrath just said I thought was unusually good on this point you'll recall what he said on the dossier of skin matter if God exists we have to do what he says if he doesn't we can do what we like now just apply this for a second in practice and in theory is it not said of God's chosen people and is it not said to to them by God in the Pentateuch that they can do exactly as they like to other people they can enslave them they can take their land they can take their women they can destroy all their young men they can help themselves to all their versions they can do what anyone who had no sense of anything but their their own rights would be able to do but this case with divine permission doesn't that make it somewhat more evil in Iran where I've been had been to all three axes of evil the countries by the way and I think I'm very right you can say that you were not allowed to sentence a woman who is a virgin to death even though she may have committed in the eyes of the mullahs a capital crime perhaps by showing her hair too often or her limbs she can't be sentenced to death but religious law means she can be raped by the Revolutionary Guards and she's not a virgin anymore then they can kill her do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law used to be considered the motor of Satanism as I recall divine permission given to people who think they have God on their side enables actions that a normal morally normal unbeliever would not contemplate the mutilation of genitalia of children who would do that if it wasn't decided that God wanted it just as when the poet in England gets the perchloric ship they start to write drivel instead of poetry for some reason it's the kids the king's profiler the other way around morally normal and intelligent people find themselves saying fatuously wicked things when the subject comes up the suicide bombing community is entirely faith-based the genital mutilation community is entirely faith-based slavery is mandated by the Bible people keep you keep hearing how many abolitionists were Christians well it was about time that they took a stand against it having mandated it for so long so it's uh it's it's it's not even a tautology I think to say that there's a that there's a relationship between the human impulse to do evil to be selfish to be self-centered to be greedy and contrast between that and faith because given only faith mountains can be moved and millions of people who would never normally acquiesce and evil are brought to it straight away and with ease and with self-righteousness there that's my answer to that and and the questioner did not answer my challenge name an ethical statement made or action performed by a believer in the name of faith that couldn't have been by infidel and name if you can this is easier a wicked action that could only be mandated by faith and then you'll see how silly your question was wherever you were well let me ask it then Christopher did you you you heard professor McGrath also though condemned any form of religious violence well that's easy to do I mean I could say look an atheist could be a nihilist I think there's a room for agreement here between the two of you I'm not looking for consensus baby I'm just not in the mood I'm not in the vein of King Richard says yeah not in the day no I'm glad you can terms religious vows Jazzy condemned the promise of other people's territory to the chosen people for example does Jesus say or does he not say I come to bring not peace but a sword he does say that should I take it literally or metaphorically his genital mutilation of small boy as mandated by Jews and is it often mandated by Moses or not is there a paradise which people can hope to get by dying for their faith or isn't there has holy war been proclaimed by both the Pope and by the mullahs or not you put these are problems not for me it for me it's simple we're primates this is what we would expect to happen if there was no God let me see what we would expect to see if the faith was pointless but for it it's an endless mystery where none exists if you think there's an intervening finger from on high then it becomes mysterious thank you okay you're welcome for professor McGrath here's a question I would like to hear you expound on mr. Hitchens claim that the idea of a vicarious sacrifice is immoral or unethical what is Christianity explanation of this certainly well the phrase vicarious sacrifice isn't actually a biblical phrase it's a phrase that's used by some writers to refer to a particular interpretation of a biblical teaching and the key idea in the New Testament is that in some way the death of Christ again violence done to Christ not violence done by Christ is seen as having a transformative potential for human beings and this transformative potential is articulated using a range of model some of which shot drawn from the Old Testament for example there's a analogy drawn with animal sacrifice and that is seen as in some way bringing establishing a link between Christ's death and the bringing of the possibility of purity to someone that is one of the images used others include for example the whole idea of healing the idea of being set in a right relationship with God there are a wide range of these now mr. Hitchens particular criticism is yours I'd really like to know and I'll tell you right now please make sure that I do justice to both the question asked and your criticism made for me and I'll speak now very personally because I think I've been invited to and I'm very happy to do that for me the death of Christ on the cross means that something that I could never gain for myself has been done for me and offered to me in other words it is something that by myself as a human being I could never hope to achieve is achieved on my behalf and offered to me and I am asked will you accept what has been done for you in other words is about the possibility of transformation being offered to me but not being imposed upon me and for me that is about a God who offers but does not demand that I respond to him in this way and I find that to be a very good summary what the Christian faith is trying to say about a God who offers but does not impose and again those of you who often leave the New Testament will think of the imagery of Revelation chapter 3 which speaks of Christ knocking on the door and asking us to open but leaving that action open to us okay not imposed did you really say not impose what if you reject this offer what are you told by what have you been told the centuries by Christians if you reject this offer that would took place by means of a torture to death of a human being that you didn't want and should have prevented if you could what if you reject the offers in reviews if you accepted you have eternal life from the office oh great what a horrible way to abolish your own responsibility you can get your own bliss I don't want it oh you don't well then you've gotta help this is not imposed this hasn't been preached to children bye-bye gruesome elderly virgins with back by force for centuries has important this hasn't poisoned whole societies no of course it's if it's not voluntary the the Pope of Rome has like the Bishop of Rome right mr. Rancic erotica has recently said actually it's worse than that only my version of Christianity in get you salvation there is only one way I say it in Georgetown is there a one you presumably don't believe that because you're an Anglican but on what basis just tell the Pope that is a heretic once you grant this stuff once you start with this white noise chat about Redemption whereas it gonna end of course there's nothing voluntary about it and I must say the book of Revelation seems one of them less voluntary texts of them well it does is look forward a flee to apocalypse into the passing away of this veil of tears and to our ultimate destruction this is morality I don't think so well I think about I could just build on that because I think I think is a very interesting line of discussion has opened up here number one I think I I do challenge your reading of the book of Revelation the book of Revelation is very much saying to Christians who are being persecuted for their faith by a secular Authority who are in effect being being victimized that this is not the way it's going to remain that one day there will be an inversion of the world order it's in effect an encouragement to those who are suffering and again I make my point again that Christianity is saying look here is an offer it is yours to accept or not I take it you do not believe in Hell or anything like that and therefore I don't see what the difficulty is for you personally it is not about imposition which you are in the right church but the wrong Pew I mean I think yes I've admitted course I have emancipated myself from all that nonsense I I wish you would do - I'm saying what is the belief and when you say it's voluntary it's up to you it's entirely optional I don't think it's any more optional than Abraham saying to his son do you want to come for a long and gloomy walk because God seems to be telling me to do something that had better be moral otherwise it would have to be said that God had taken a perfectly normal person and asked him to commit an atrocity now where else could that have come from millions of people every year celebrate this act of sadomasochism as if it proved that God loved us so much that he'd make us kill our own children and then he decides to love us so much he'll kill one of his own you said in a debate with the Richard Dawkins I have it down you said the great thing about God is he knows what it's like to lose a son no it's what the new ladies and gentlemen to ponder that expression from us first it's self evidently if the story is the true which I don't think it is it's self-evident be not the case even in the narrative doesn't lose a son in lens one he doesn't offer one because no one's demanded it there's no problem that has so far been identified in the human species that demands a human sacrifice for what problem for what ill is this a cure there's no argument there's no evidence there no it's imposed but I'm doing this because the prophets said I would and I'm gonna have the boy tortured to death in public to fulfill ancients Creed's of Bronze Age Judaism but wait I don't want it I don't need it I don't feel better for it I feel very uneasy about it well that's a pity because then you're gonna be cast into eternal fire this is no way to talk I don't like to be addressed in that tone of voice so I have to do all this I have to return a slight non Servier if i may be so bold and take my chances morally that that's the more ethical thing to do i don't want torture don't want human sacrifice don't want authoritarian bloodlettings smoking temples and altars incantations of priests and around all they don't want it can't think of a single thing it will make better about our let me see a professor of a veil of Tears oh yes of Iommi yes thanks sorry if I bang on a bit about that one don't worry our interrupts I don't want those things either and I think that nobody here really would I think that one can interpret these things in these ways you do and I appreciate that but I want to make the point there are many other ways of looking at these within the Christian tradition and that it's very important to say that you know there are other ways of making sense of this and I think need to get some of them on the table for me and again I'd want to emphasize this point the Christian vision of God is not a God who leaves us on our own but a God who chooses to enter into time and history were we are in order to make possible for us if we wanted a transformation of our situation after 98 thousand years I don't see any extension I don't see any need to say this leads to torture anything like that if it does that needs to be challenged but the point for me is this is about something being offered to us with enormous potential for change let me ask the question of mr. Hitchens as someone who considers himself a high primate it seems strange that you would consider loving and witnessing the truth and obligation would you explain how a soulless primate can have any obligations well it's a it's a question one often asks oneself for example why do I care why do I mind about other primates I think I know that because I hope that they will at the very lowest I said because I hope they'll mind about me in return I'll give you an example why should they what why indeed why does one do the right thing or one hopes it's the right thing when no one's looking why does the Muslim cabdriver go to all the trouble to come back to my apartment building when I didn't have his number to return the large sum of money I left on his back seat said it was his religious duty but if I allow him to say that's his religious duty what am I going to say when he says it's his religious duty to veil his wife or to blow himself up or to impose Sharia law if you grant it once you have to grant the whole thing you can't do it a la carte now I'll give you an example from my old socialist jesters and bring the moisture to the eyes of george megrath as well it was our favorite example of professor peter Townsend's book on the gift relationship you remember why does the British National Health Service never run out of blood though you're not allowed to charge for it you have to give it free never runs out of blood because people like to give blood they want to feel useful I like to do it I like it very much and I'm not a masochist and I don't particularly like being stuck but I'd lose I like the way that I lose someone gains a pint and I don't lose one because I replenish it quite quickly someone's instantly better off I haven't had to AB negate myself by giving anything away I like the fact that I'm helping someone who I don't know and as it happens I have a very rare blood group indeed and one day I'm going to have to count on other people feeling the same way so human solidarity will get you quite a long way ethically and there's every reason why that should be in our genes you know you know so to speak inscribed we wouldn't have got this far if we didn't have these qualities to say we couldn't have them without celestial permission it seems to me to be simply Sleater and if we're all made in God's image then how come there are so many sociopaths who don't notice the existence of other people or so many Psychopaths for whom it's a positive pleasure to inflict pain none of these all of these are easily easily solve questions if you make the assumption of evolution by natural selection and consider us as an animal species if you detect the finger of God in all this you invent myriad problems that do not exist and cannot be solved and that are actually a waste of our mentality welcomes RAZR disposes of all the supernatural assumptions that have ever been made we have better and more elegant explanations for everything that happens in our cosmos and in our biology now and if we'd had these to begin with there would never have been a foothold for the death cult of Christianity or Islam or Judaism well I could just take us on the stage further I mean I think what you seem to be saying is that we were able to offer a complete scientific account of things which eliminates any place for the transcendent and I want to find my sorry if I may not that I wanted to speak to this and I will later about transcendence and the numinous are very important they're not to be confused with the supernatural I I would want to say that the word transcendent means a number of different things and certainly the supernatural can be one of those but it can also mean some sort of sense that there is something beyond us and I don't think need to use the word supernatural I'm thinking for Aris Murdock's idea were in for example the sovereignty of good which he tries to posit something which which though beyond us nevertheless elicits a response to us for example in trying to articulate what in the notion of good actually is and it seems to me that that science actually is extremely good at clarifying the relationship between the different levels of a material order when it comes to questions of meaning or value which might will include transcendent meanings it actually doesn't really help us very much and so I'd want to suggest that actually science offers us one level of explanation of the way things are but it does not prevent us from adding extra levels of meaning on top of that and it seems to me that that is one of the reasons why one can talk the dynamic interactions in science and religion because they are certainly engaging the same reality but they're offering different perspectives or different levels of engagement with that same thing okay this should stand alone no next time yes okay professor McGrath has the next question you said that acts of violence and the name of God come from the fringes of religion but God has ordered many acts of violence for instance in the Old Testament that killed thousands it's God on the fringe of his own religion welcome that question is phrased actually in effect answers itself I would not wish to set out quite like that and therefore I'd like to try and offer an answer which goes like this I'm a Christian and obviously I read the Old Testament and one of the questions is how on earth do I make sense of those passages which seem to least on the face of it authorize acts of killing and so on which I personally find very very disagreeable and for me as a Christian as I was saying a fundamental theme here is that Christ is the fulfillment of a law on the prophets in other words not simply that he brings to fulfillment their intentions but that in some way he is authorized to show us what these are really meant to be like in other words that there are other interpretations but these are relative eyes or placed to one side because of who Jesus is and what he did and therefore I would want to look at the Old Testament through this lens and say that I believed allows us to to look at these passages and challenge the most natural interpretations for me one of the great themes of Christian history is the idea that or what you might call progressive revelation that we gain a firmer understanding of what God is like as time goes on and above all for example through the revelation of Christ and again whether you're a Protestant or a Catholic you might talk about the continued guidance of our spirit or indeed continued reflection the part of the church but the engagement of Scripture is dynamic and on going it's not really something that that's been ended in the past okay for mr. Hitchens why would Ari I can't comment on that Springfield yeah you sure because I not invite you to do sir please don't let me well I mean some of the early Christian Church Fathers I think you're correct me if I'm wrong I think Marcin was was among them did contemplate starting a movement that was just basically Christian but based on what was understood or believed about the apparent very opaque brief life of Jesus of Nazareth and not inherit not force upon themselves as st. Paul had suggested the ghastly gruesome Jewish books of the Old Testament to start again I think they might have done better to do that because having decided that they inherit all that they do inherit in particular them but the most wicked and immoral doctrine of the of the Lord which is original sin in Adam and the expiation by the sacrifice of children human so phony than which I don't think any morally normal person can think of anything more repulsive so that it is I'm afraid in age that there is to be cruelty and violence and fanaticism in in the religion and the the responsibility is not X people bizarrely and we may people think well the Old Testament is true is full of bloodletting it recommends genocide extermination slavery or dispossession all of these things the New Testament is more meek and mild I've given you my comment on that it's the first time the hell is mentioned but it is in the Christian version that another whole different kind of immorality is proposed to the worst kind of immorality yet which is the the wicked idea of non-resistance to evil and and the deranged idea that we should love our enemies nothing nothing could be more suicidal than immoral than that we have to defend ourselves and our children are a civilization from our enemies we have to learn to to educate ourselves you know in a cold steady dislike of them and a determination to encompass their destruction who-who here heard anyone after September 11th in the orders actually say oh well we must surely learn to love these people did they dare say that then of course not they saw the emptiness and the futility and the immorality of what they would have been caught saying if they even tried it we have to bear all this stuff in mind this is not moral teaching at all we have to survive our enemies you have to learn to destroy them especially because they too are motivated by the hectic maniacal ideas of monotheism which really seeks and yearns for the destruction of our planet and the end of days that's why it's not moral that's why we have to outgrow it and defeat it I have a feeling you want to comment well I'd like to comment to em first of all I do not think that the principal trying to love your enemies leads to these things at all I think if anything leads to the obvious of us it does not mean we have to ignore moral issues it means that we see these people as human beings as someone who in effect bears in flesh and blood as us and it may mean that we want to try and resolve the issue saying we believe you are wrong but it's also trying to avoid dehumanization and it seems to me this is this really is a very significant question I'd like to pursue that I mean I may have misunderstood you but what you seem to be proposing is to see your enemies in dehumanized form and for me as a Christian I I could not do that because I have to see even my enemies as those who God has made and loved and therefore even though I I may dislike them intensely I have to show that love and compassion towards them and see them as human beings not as the other the enemy I think really there's more to this is no need to dehumanize people who had set on dehumanizing themselves and on the murder of others and on a cult of death there's no need to deep they've done all that for themselves but would you like someone once accused me of trying to assassinate his character and I said no your character committed suicide a long time ago they've done the dehumanizing work for us thanks and they are fellow primates of course there's no question of redefining them as another species but there is a very important question of whether we intend to assert our own values as superior to theirs and is worth defending against them in Christianity with this sickly relativism that you've stressed so often this evening disarms us for this very important struggle that's why the Archbishop of Canterbury is this week groveling at the feet of fur of the mullahs in Iran and saying we should leave them alone and not try not to hurt their feelings as he grovel to the feet of saddam hussein as actually every christian church has been doing in the recent past saying well you know good faith faith is better than no faith any faith is better than none they all agreed to condemn salman rushdie for blasphemy rather than the people who tried to kill him for money for writing a novel for example they will condemn the Danish cartoons because blasphemy against any faith is a defense oh okay well this is very serious ladies and gentlemen this stuff could kill you okay I've heard you it yourself one of my own conferences expound a great length on the Christian browser worden at the Christian Just War tradition you seem to have left that whole rich tradition of what you describe as Christmas I think it's Christian Just War tradition is a nonsensical tautology it says you can only go to war when you're when you're sure you're in the right when you're sure you can win when you're sure that the violence is going to be proportional so and you can't know any of this Aquinas couldn't have known it nor could the later thinkers about it like Brosius they couldn't have known they said wouldn't it be nice it's just wishful thinking again I know just war and I see one and we're engaged in one now and our faith-based forces are of no or buzzy as much used as the Pope's Bulls in this struggle well we're getting a little off course here but I know I had a feeling it might come up I wanted this to come up you know we've we've actually gone over time and I feel like we could stay till about ten o'clock but I'm not in a hurry my mission statement is I won't go until they if anyone can claim that I didn't answer a question so well a lot of people here well we are beyond the steps outside having a smoke into a miniature eye we've we've gone we were going to go 15-minute level well it was for you but no I thought to you what I'll let you comment on this and then it will let professor Graf make some final comments and then I think we can be an agreement we should do this again I think we just got started would you both be agreeable to doing that sure you all would come back when you mr. Hitchens I want my daughter saying that why would mr. Hitchens why would scientific discoveries about the origin of the universe obviate the existence of God well they judge in and of themselves but it I just would submit I really will be quick this time and I know I've been a little verbose till now um the likelihood that what Edwin Hubble saw through that telescope the red light escaping at speeds that you none of us here are capable of really imagining the truth towards the ultimate expansion and collapse of the universe and the heat death that all that happens so we could be sitting here is to me in the very very highest degree improbable that a process of evolution by natural selection just on our own tiny little planet which in its own tight little solar system is the only one on which life could be supported everywhere else just in our little system all the other rocks are either much too hot or much too cold to support life as is much of our planet which we nervous for a long time being not recently either on a climatic knife edge and which is still cooling only one and on this planet ninety-nine point eight percent of every species that ever evolved died out this is an extraordinary way I think to make sure that Homo sapiens comes to Georgetown it is the moat only the most extraordinarily self-centered species could imagine that all this was going on for our sake that's why I don't like people saying that their religious faith is modest or humble it's the reverse it's unbelievably solipsistic and that's why you get people apparently abject much too abject for my tastes like Mother Teresa oh I'm so humbled I can hardly bother to feed myself you know but out of my wegs I'm on a mission for God no this is arrogance as a matter of fact and he claims to know what it cannot know I could say that Einstein was right when he said the miracle is of the natural order miracle is there are no miracles understand this paragraphs the natural order doesn't interrupt itself the Sun doesn't stand still at midday God doesn't catch a childís the kid falls out of a window or do any look healed lepers randomly and none of that ever happens the miracle is there's a force that holds it all together that's consistent in on varying that's wonderful okay he may show there's a mind somewhere in the universe but to say we know what that mind is to move from the Diaz position to the theist one we know what God wants us to eat or not eat we know in what positions he wants us to make love or with whom we know his instructions on it is an unbelievable piece of conceit and in my opinion it's the reason why I may be very poor spokesman for my side of this argument but I think anyone who thinks about it has to vote that given the amount of uncertainty that we have and given how much we now know how much more we know about how little we know the definition of education in our civilization the only people who have to lose in this argument are those who say they do know and who claim yes I do know what God wants I do think he sent a son I do think there was a resurrection I do think the so vish claiming to know things they cannot know I put it there in a mild way if dr. McGrath has such an extraordinary sources of information as that once he's claimed to have available - I can't understand why he's only occupying a chair Doc's with universe well I should be with the knowledge you've got you should be a wheel net and I'm afraid you don't know any more than I do about whether there was ever a Jesus of Nazareth a resurrection a miracle of virgin birth or you couldn't know any more than I do you can't you just claim that you do I'm afraid that that that means I think that you you lose this round well if I could and to deal with the first point before you we came onto that second one I don't think it's told salts is good to say let's reflect on why we are here let's reflect on why there is something rather nothing it's to ask a very important question about how the universe came into being why is there something rather than nothing for victim Stein that was a hugely important question and it seems to me to the entirely right to answer that question only to try and answer it on my own status seminar I appreciate very much the the compliment you pay but I'm simply making the point that all of us are interpreters of what we observe I made it very very clear I was not making any claims to special knowledge I was looking at what I saw what others say I interpret it in this way I claim no privilege I say it is my judgment that this is the best explanation and it means this and I'm open to challenge on this as you have challenged me but I am NOT claiming anything special I'm saying there are public events there they are open to interpretation as they were at the time and the issue really is what is the best explanation of those and I think that is a legitimate debate I've made it very clear what my conclusion is I made a clear it is a matter of faith in that I can approve this but I've also jested of whatever judgment we make on this is actually a matter of faith and therefore why I'm very happy to be challenged on this I think I'm still entitled to say that this seems to meet with the best way of making sense of it and live my life out on its basis don't you go Thank You Chuck thank you quickly mark holy goalie ladies and gentlemen this has been taped it's been videotaped there'll be a DVD there will be there will be it'll be up on the internet site of the ethics and Public Policy Center we think by sometime next week so we encourage you to go to that site and if you want to watch it again or tell your friends about it feel free again I want to underline I think we got to do this again sure thing

Channel: Berkley Center

Views: 272,881

Rating: 4.7346864 out of 5

Keywords: Christopher Hitchens (Author), Alister McGrath (Author), Religion, Belief, Modern

Id: Xc0kbM4tBYE

Length: 99min 58sec (5998 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 22 2013