What Best Explains Reality: Theism or Atheism? (Frank Turek vs. Christopher Hitchens)

what is reality what best explains reality my name's James Taylor and I'm delighted to be here I'm especially delighted to see such a large crowd for what's going to be a highly invigorating debate my role of the moderator is simple it's to make sure that four debater runs smoothly and keeps the time and also to break up any fights that might occur over between the speakers or within the audience or possibly to instigate them the debate is going to proceed as follows both speakers will have an opening statement of 20 minutes each beginning with dr. Tourette each speaker will then have ten minutes to rebut their opponent the speakers will then have within themselves a question-and-answer session which will last for 10 minutes each speaker will give the other two questions and they will answer directly and without deviating from the questions the floor will then be open to be audience for 40 minutes and for closing will we occur when the speaker's give closing statements of five minutes each address to the audience and I would like to introduce our first speaker tonight dr. Tourette thank [Applause] Thank You Christopher and I debated number of months ago at Virginia Commonwealth University how many attended that debate over somewhere else at the time just want to see if you're all listening you're going to have to listen a lot over the next couple hours because I am going to try and summarize the first 200 pages of this book in the next 20 minutes and that will require me to speak at about 20 pages a minute but I can probably do it because I'm originally from New Jersey I grew up in Neptune anyone here from the shore hey forget about it unbelievable anyway it's I'm gonna go as fast as I possibly can I speak at 150 words a minute with gusts to 350 so I'm going to move really quickly if you can't keep up no problem the book is available and I want to point out that all the proceeds from the sale the book will go to feed needy children mine all right just so you know I got three kids two of them are in college so I need some help now I'd like to thank of course Kendall Ackerman of the Protestant Bible fellowship and canvass around areas right down here I'd also like to thank Michael Tracy of the secular Student Association where are you Michael right down here and of course the college of new jersey and especially Christopher Christopher is on the road a lot so I appreciate the opportunity to get together again and discuss this this incredibly important issue now the the debate tonight is is this what best explains reality atheism or theism now we're both trying to explain the world around us so we both have the burden of proof to try and say why our worldview is the correct worldview I have to show why reality is best explained by theism and Christopher has to show why reality is best explained by atheism now I think we ought to follow the evidence where it leads wherever that is and I think the evidence leads us to a spaceless timeless immaterial powerful moral personal intelligent creator but I want to give you some evidence for that and in fact I'm going to rely on the law of causality to do it and the evidence I'm going to go through is basically six arguments and I've come up with an acronym to help us remember this evidence I know it's hokey but it'll keep me on track and keep you on track the acronym is cosmos cosmos cos mos the Greek word for world or universe the C stands for the cosmos itself sometimes known as the cosmological argument that's the argument that the universe had a beginning and therefore it needs a beginner so we'll start there and we'll start with Stephen Hawking who's not a believer but he said this almost everyone now believes that the universe and time itself had a beginning at the Big Bang Alexander Vilenkin who is a Russian cosmologists who work with Alan Guth at MIT on inflationary theory put it this way he called it proof he said with the proof now in place cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past eternal universe there is now no escape they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning why would he say problem because some physicists don't like where the evidence is leading now Christopher even admits that the Big Bang is the accepted theory of the origin of universe on his book or in his book page 65 this is what he says now what is this evidence that the universe had a beginning again I'll give you one more acronym and this is it this is the acronym inside to see it's Serge su are GE and this is all in Chapter three of I don't have enough faith to be an atheist and I'm just going to go over it very quickly and let me stop right here and say one thing Christopher I have debated before and I I read some of the comments that people make about the debate and people will say well Turek didn't answer this objection or Hitchens didn't answer that objection we only have 20 minutes we can't cover the waterfront so I'm not going to be able to get to everything but let me just go through this acronym very quickly search S stands for second law of thermodynamics the universe is running out of energy if it was eternal it would have run out of energy a long time ago the U stands for the fact that the universe is expanding discovered by Edwin Hubble in 1929 working at the Mount Wilson Observatory out in California the deduction of that is is that the universe if we could watch it in Reverse would collapse back to a point of noting the are in surd stands for the radiation afterglow discovered just about 30 miles from here by two scientists by the name of Penzias and Wilson in fact right over here in Holmdel New Jersey where I used to run all my cross-country races Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias in 1965 discovered the remnant heat from the initial Big Bang explosion as was predicted by Hubble and his contemporaries they won a Nobel Prize for Physics in this in 1978 the G in surd stands for the great galaxies seeds discovered by the Coby space satellite in 1992 those great galaxy seeds are basically temperature variations in the radiation afterglow that are so precise they're down to one part in 100,000 and the II insert stands for Einstein's theory of general relativity Einstein's theory of general relativity shows that space matter and time came into existence together once there was no space once there was no matter once there was no time and it all lept into existence out of absolutely nothing now Einstein's theory has been proven accurate to five decimal points now what are the implications of this first of all what is nothing I think we ought to define that I think Aristotle had a good definition of nothing nothing is what rocks dream about that's what he said that's nothing there was no space no matter no time nothing spatial nothing temporal nothing physical what are the implications of this agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow who until February of last year sat in the same chair Edwin Hubble sat in in nineteen and our that Hubble sat in back in the 20s until last year that's where Jastrow was he died unfortunately at the age of 82 last February but he sat in that seat that Hubble did here's what Jasper has said in his book God and the astronomers remember he's an agnostic he said the astronomical evidence leads us to a biblical view of the origin of the world the essential element in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis is the same Arno Penzias the guy from Holmdel who discovered the radiation afterglow Co discovered it said this the best data we have concerning the Big Bang are exactly what I would have predicted had I had nothing to go on but the five books of Moses the Psalms and the Bible as a whole Robert Wilson also working at Holmdel with Penzias and discovering the radiation afterglow said this and he was a believer in the steady state theory before this in other words that the universe was eternal he had to give that up after his discovery he said this certainly there was something that set it off I can't think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match Genesis George Smoot the co-discoverer of the great galaxy seeds said this there is no doubt that a parallel exists between the Big Bang is an event in the Christian notion of creation from nothing now we're left with a beginner or a beginning anyway and we've got two choices either no one created something out of nothing or someone created something out of nothing now which view is more reasonable no one created something out of nothing or someone created something out of nothing for me I don't think nothing can come from nothing I mean even Julie Andrews knew that she said nothing comes from nothing right you've got to have a cause to get something you can ask who made to someone and if you want to ask who made god we can do that during the qat but it seems like someone created something out of nothing now by the way this is not a god of the gaps argument why because natural law couldn't have created the universe because natural law was created at the Big Bang there was no nature there was no natural law in effect it must be a supernatural cause because all of the natural realm hadn't yet hadn't yet been created and supernatural simply means beyond the natural this led Robert Jastrow again the agnostic astronomer to say this that there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now I think a scientifically proven fact echoing something that Arthur Eddington said many years ago when he said we run into insuperable difficulties unless frankly we look at the supernatural for the beginning of the universe in fact jestro ended his entire book this way this is worth the price of the book after going through much of the search evidence I just mentioned jestro said this for the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason the story ends like a bad dream he has scaled the mounds of ignorance he's about to conquer the highest peak as he pulls himself over the final rock he's greeted by a band of theologians who've been sitting there for centuries no doubt reading Genesis 1:1 the best explanation for the beginning of the universe is in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth that's the see a lot more in the book on it we got to move on the O and the O in cosmos stands for order this is sometimes called the teleological argument for design not only did the universe explode into being out of nothing it did so with extreme precision in other words the Big Bang was not a chaotic explosion how incredibly precise was it atheist Stephen Weinberg put it this way he said life as we know it would be impossible if any one of several physical quantities had slightly different values there are dozens of these quantities one of them is Stephen Hawking identified was this he said that if the universe or if the expansion rate of the universe changed by one part in a hundred thousand million million a second after the Big Bang we wouldn't be here the universe would not have expanded or it would have collapsed back on itself or it never would have created galaxies that's how precisely designed the Big Bang event was not only was the Big Bang event precisely designed so are many constants about our universe right now if you change the gravitational force by one part in 10 to the 40 we wouldn't be here what's one part in 10 to the 40 illustration take a tape measure stretch it from that back wall to the front wall in inches if you set gravity at a particular inch mark on that tape measure and move the strength of gravity one inch in either direction proportionally we go out of existence but the problem is is the tape measure doesn't go from that wall to this front wall it goes across the entire known universe you change gravity that much in the entire known universe we don't exist for you Navy people out here I went to I was in the Navy for many years think of an aircraft carrier if you take an aircraft carrier like the John Stennis or the Ronald Reagan which displaces 110,000 tons has a runway on it that's about three lengths of a football field has five to six thousand people on it several stories high if you were to change the weight of that aircraft carrier by less than a trillionth the weight of an electron it would be uninhabitable if the aircraft carrier was the universe that's how incredibly designed the universe is Arno Penzias again said astronomy leads us to 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 has an underlying one might say super natural plan Frank Tipler in 1986 wrote a book called the anthropic cosmological print a principle with John Barrow it's the classic work on the fact that the universe is precisely tweaked to support life here's what Tipler has since said when I began my career as a cosmologists some 20 years ago I was a convinced atheist I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of the judeo-christian theology are in fact true that these claims are straightforward deductions from the laws of physics as we now understand them I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics now some people we may even get into Darwinism later like Darwinism saves atheism Darwinism does not save atheism at all because you need a universe before you can ever get to life and it shows here and then you need life the universe needs a designer the universe itself not just life so that's the oh let's move on to the S which is another branch of the cosmological attea logical argument the S stands for specified complexity in everyday English specified complexity is information let me give you an example let's say you're walking along the beach say down here in Belmar where I was today had a nice run on the beach today on a boardwalk in Belmar let's say you're walking along the beach in the summer and you look down as you're walking along the beach and you see in the beach someone has scrawled Bennie's go home now some of you don't know what Benny's are but Benny's are basically tourists are you going to say that the waves came up and put that message in there or that the crabs came up and said I'm tired all these tourists stepping on me I'm gonna put a message there for them to go home no you'd say somebody some intelligent being put that in there or then you put your head back on the pill or back on your towel and you look up and you see in the clouds drink Coke what do you assume unusual cloud formation do you go win coming from the north today you go oh I got its cloud evolution no you say there had to be a skywriter up there why because messages only come from minds we know of no natural law that can create a message messages only come from minds now let's move into life a simple so called simple one-celled creature has a thousand complete sets of Encyclopedia Brittanica worth of information in it a thousand let's say a thousand volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica in it in terms of its DNA DNA that much information in it now to believe that that resulted by natural forces without intelligent intervention is like believing that the Library of Congress resulted from an explosion in a printing shop I don't have enough faith to believe that you have to have more faith to believe that that happened that way than to say that somebody put intelligence into it in fact this is not an analogy by the way the analogy between two one correspondence the only difference is DNA is a four-letter genetic alphabet English as a 26 letter genetic alphabet but alphabet Bill Gates said DNA is like a software program only much more complex than anything we've ever devised and in fact the sequence of letters in DNA is not determined by chemistry its information it has nothing to do with the four natural forces in fact just like the letters in this book we're not put together by the laws of ink ink and paper the letters in DNA don't appear to be the result of anything other than intelligence intelligence put this together not natural law Anthony flew who was an atheist one of the more famous atheists until he became a deist or a theist recently because of this evidence put it this way 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 the material for a new and enormous flea powerful argument to design sir fred hoyle also an atheist said this the likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one in a number that has 40,000 zeroes following it if the beginnings of life were not random they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence he went on to say this a common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect is monkeyed with physics as well as chemistry and biology and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature again this is not a god of the gaps argument why it's not just that we lack a natural law for Bennie's go home or we lack a natural law for a book like this it's that a book like this is positive empirically verifiable evidence for an intelligent being because messages only come from minds the EM in cosmos stands for the moral argument if just one thing is morally wrong out there like for example it's wrong to kill Jews or it's wrong to torture babies for fun or it's wrong to participate in a religious crusade then there has to be a God why because if there is no God it's just your opinion against say Hitler's opinion it's just your opinion against bin Laden's opinion we until all intuitively understand that certain things are objectively right and objectively wrong as Dostoyevsky said he said if there is no God everything is permitted in a novel he wrote in fact even Richard Dawkins admits on page 232 of his book The God Delusion he says there are no objective morals without God but we all intuitively know that certain things really are objectively wrong it's not just my opinion that torturing babies for fun is wrong it really is wrong now I got to be very careful here because Christopher may say that I'm saying he can't be moral I'm not saying that I'm not saying atheist can't be moral I'm not saying atheists don't know morality they know morality just like anybody else I'm not saying anything about the behavior of atheists or religious people I'm only saying that an atheist can't justify why a certain thing is objectively right or a certain thing is objectively wrong a theistic materialism can't provide a moral standard molecules have no authority to tell you what to do they don't I mean if we're just overgrown germs with no ultimate purpose why not kill or rape to get what you want why not it seems to me that atheism has no way to deal with the subjection CS Lewis was an atheist at one point and he thought evil disproved God until he realized that evil actually pointed to God because he voted too good and you wouldn't know good unless you knew God in fact here's what Lewis said as an atheist my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust but how would I got this idea of just and unjust a man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line what was I in comparing this universe with when I called it on just bottom line since objective moral values exist God exists the own cosmos how am i doing dr. Taylor cleve minutes all right I'm going up to 500 words a minute now the O in cosmos cosmos stands for objectivity objectivity particularly in the laws of logic mathematics and even science in fact this debate and any debate presupposes that there is an objective standard of truth out there that our minds can access and understand Christopher says he's closer to that objective standard and I'm saying no I'm closer to that objective standard if there's no objective standard out there what are we doing up here but a moding but it doesn't seem to me like there can be an objective standard of truth an immaterial standard in an atheistic worldview because we're just molecules in motion in fact how do the laws of logic and reason itself exist if we are just molecules in motion there are immaterial realities out there that we all know and we all understand Christopher tries to make an argument a logical argument against God well where does he get logic from if we're just molecules in motion if atheism is true you have no grounds to believe it or anything else our thoughts are just chemical reactions in the brain in fact macro revolution doesn't help either because macro revolution does not yield truth that yields survivability a fact Dawkins points this out he says basically that there's a gene or there's something going on chemically in us that makes more people believe in God and you know what when more people believe in God they tend to survive better of course Dawkins thinks that believing in God is false so here's evolution trying to show people that they ought to believe in God or that somehow gets them to believe in God but the belief in God according to him is false evolution yields survivability not truth so if evolution is true you ought not believe it even Darwin recognized this it's called Darwin's doubt he said with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind which have been developed from the mind of lower animals or of any value or at all trustworthy why should you believe in Darwinism if Darwinism is true your mind is just the result of lower animals also the laws of mathematics science depends on the notion that the universe is rational and mathematical at all levels that every effect has a cause but how does rationality and mathematics arise from randomness how do they come from matter doesn't seem to me there's an atheistic answer to this rationality mathematics and science itself are better explained by theism than atheism the only reason we can do science is because there's an orderly world out there or who ordered the world finally the s in cosmos stands for a solitary life I don't have time to present the evidence for the historicity the New Testament documents in the resurrection Forex perhaps we can get to that during the QA or Christopher and I can debate that in a future point maybe we can as I say hint on it during the Q&A or get to a little bit of it but I want to leave you to consider something about Jesus called the solitary life I'll just end on this it was written about 90 years ago he was born in obscure village the child of a peasant he grew up in another village where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30 then for three years he was an itinerant preacher he never wrote a book he never held an office he never had a family or owned a home he never let an army he never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born he did none of the things that usually accomplish greatness he had no credentials but himself he was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him his friends ran away one of them denied him he was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial he was nailed to a cross between two thieves while he was dying his executioner's gambled for his garments the only property he had on earth and when he was dead he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend 20 centuries have come and gone and today he is the central figure of the human race all the armies that ever marched all the navies that ever sailed all the parliaments that ever sat all the kings that ever reign put together have not effected Humanity on this earth as much as that one solitary life I need one minute said okay 48 seconds if there was no resurrection how could this life be the most influential life of all time was it just because a bunch of pious Jews in Jerusalem inexplicably decided to chuck judaism and fabricate a resurrection story so they could fulfill their dream of getting beaten tortured and killed I don't see why they would do that I think it takes more faith to believe that then to believe he actually rose from the dead now you see anything is more plausible than a miracle the greatest miracle in the Bible is not the resurrection the greatest miracle in the Bible is the first verse in the beginning God created the heavens in the earth if that verse is true every other verse is at least believable I'm sorry I'm out of time but I did the best I could cosmos thank you very much thank you our second speaker Christopher Hitchens I have no local boy roots I am a Navy brat however commander Hitchens of Portsmouth I I'd like to assure you ladies and gentlemen brothers and sisters comrades and friends that that isn't the best the Frank can do he ended with that pious hope he must indeed hope it isn't I've seen him do better in his 20 minutes he barely got his trousers off as a matter of fact before he had to sit down because he didn't get beyond deism I don't think he even intended much to get beyond deism if there was a word a deist it would describe me probably rather better than the word the vulgar word atheist does um I don't have a special word for saying why I don't believe in Santa Claus for example why don't believe in the tooth fairy or why I don't believe in astrology I don't need a special worth that I assume with with me you assume that these are fairy tales man-made fables either for the frightening or the amusement of depending on need children I don't believe there is a supernatural dimension and I don't believe there have ever been any miracle so I don't believe the prayers are answered every of any of this none of this comes up so far in this argument I'm not arguing with a religious person yet at all I'm all youing with someone who claims to know more than I do about physics and biology it's possible that he does many many people do but bear in mind that we cannot say that we know that there was not a prime mover it cut it's not within our compass pitifully ignorant as we are only scrabbling on the lower slopes of the study of physics as all of us are even the best we may not say that we know there was no prime mover we may not say that we can say that all the laws appear to operate without that assumption it's very very very rare indeed to meet a physicist of any standing for Einstein onwards who is not at the most a spin assist in other words someone who might say there could be a pantheism somewhere there could be a force but there is no no way you can take a step from the laws of physics the observable creation of the cosmos that leads you to the belief that there is an intervening personal God who does answer prayers who does watch over you who does notice what you're up to who does mind what you do who you sleep with and in what position what you eat what you eaten on what days of the week what propitiation Xand sacrifices you will make what commandments do themselves there is no possible way no one's even tried it of getting from the laws of physics or biology into any such idea so from the person who says I'm a deist I don't think all of this can be an accident there must be some cosmic force I say I can't just prove it that I think that cosmos functions without it but you have all your work sir or ma'am still ahead of you before you can say that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person allegedly under he was the son of God later learned that his mother was a virgin let her learn that he was a resurrection know these things by the way would prove he was the son of God if they did happen nor would they prove that his doctrines were not erroneous a resurrected person who was the son of a virgin could still be talking nonsense there's no logic that says he must be right if I'm having an argument with you sir and you say you lose boychik I say how come because my mother never went to bed with another man your logic is faulty I think my my case could remain just as strong as ever it was in default of that I must say rather bizarre intervention now why do we have religion in the first place why are we having this discussion why does Frank feel the need to talk in this way because we are pattern-seeking mammals it's part of our evolution we look for patterns we're designed to look for them and if we can't find a good explanation we'll come up with a bad one rather than none at all most people would rather have a conspiracy theory than no theory it's very observable that there's a lot of junk science around before good science arrives before we have astronomy we have astrology before we have chemistry we have alchemy all of these things are derivatives of religion because in a very sinister verse of the Bible that used to upset me when I was being forced to listen to it as a little boy it says seek and ye shall find yes that's exactly right seek and you will find seek for an explanation of volcanic eruptions when you're living in a primitive society and you will think there probably a visitation from an angry deity and if you're told you can postpone the next eruption by throwing a few live babies into the lava down the crater that's what you'll do religion has just started the religion has just begun why do some people get the plague and others not because they're sinful why where's the plague coming from in the first place it's a punishment from God and all in early Christian society the Jews have poisoned the wells so we're going to get them again because we already hate them because they killed our Redeemer they committed deicide all of them did all of them no one's exempt indeed if you want to be if you have to be a Christian it's an article of their faith that we were all present at Calvary we all drove in the nails the Jews particularly said and we all have to expiate this guilt for a crime that may or may not have been committed but if it was was committed before we were born what is this it's not physics okay it's not biology it's not science it's faith why don't you fly under your true flag sir why don't you say these things must be believed as articles of faith don't try and derive it from science now I've I can't improve on the argument that David Hume comes up with came up with against the idea of the supernatural against the idea that that the laws of nature are occasionally suspended in order to make people's faith a little more secure ambrose bierce in his devil's dictionary you may remember says under prayer under P for prayer prayer a request the laws of nature be suspended in favor of the petitioner himself admittedly unworthy David Hume puts it a little more acidly than that he says if you see the laws of nature apparently suspended perhaps of virgins given birth perhaps leper has suddenly stopped being a leper who knows what it might be you know the sort of thing you have to ask yourself one of two things well actually have to ask yourself birth which is the more probable that the laws of nature have just been suspended or that I am under a misapprehension that's if you aren't I witness yourself to the point if you're hearing about its second third fourth and fifth pound you have to ask this question with redoubled and trebled and quadrupled force and the likelihood is which that the laws of nature were suspended or that somebody may be garbled maybe a rumor got around if you make this assumption then nothing nothing is mysterious about reality nothing is mysterious at all it would explain why everyone seems to die and no one comes back no longer a mystery about that will explain why some people are cured of leprosy and other even worse diseases if they go to the doctor and if that job has access to certain kinds of drugs but not if they don't the great theologian Lancelot Andrews the Bishop of firm thoughts which with Canterbury during the Black Death wondered he said it seems odd to me there are people who go to church and pray and they give their tithes and they do everything that they're supposed to do and they lead godly lives and yet there they seem to die of the plague just as much as the sinners do he went to his grave the archbishop not realizing that he'd very nearly stumbled on a very good point after all the discussion before this evening is what explains reality better well I think my explanation is probably so far not the inferior one I've actually watched I've seen myself the fabrication of a religion or of a religious figure I've seen it done before my very eyes in the case of the the fraudulent woman that calling herself Mother Teresa though she certainly was a virgin and never had any children and actually named Agnes boo Joshua an Albanian crook who worked in Calcutta who was considered by those who read only the newspapers as a friend of the poor that was in fact a friend of an advocate for poverty she believed poverty was a gift from God that's suffering in noble people she didn't believe in this for herself for poverty because she took several million dollars from among other people the Duvalier family in Haiti probably the most cruel deceivers and oppressors of the poor in the late 20th century from the Charles Keating Savings and Loan racket in California the circle Savings & Loan scandal for many many other depraved rich persons and used the money to build not a teaching hospital in Calcutta or a clinic or for the relief of poverty or hunger or disease or anything of the sort but to build over 150 convents in her own name to found an order that would glorify and magnify herself and that's where the money went since then we are asked to believe by His Holiness the Pope the late Sir the lately named Ronald formerly named Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger that because of an intercession by her posthumously that a woman in Bengal named Monica was cured of a tumor just by praying and putting a picture of mother trees around the swelling in her stomach I can assure you that's not how tumors go away ladies and gentlemen I can also show you the last thing India needs is to be told that it's people when they're ill should go to faith healers and shamans and the enormous number of witch doctors crooks and charlatans who there are in the subcontinent many people will die if they follow this kind of advice and the doctors in the case have already testified before anyone else could be heard from that they understand perfectly what medicine they gave her how she responded to treatment how normal the disorder was how predictable was the recovery but you're going to be told quite soon from Saint Peter's Square in Rome that this was a miracle and it fulfills the conditions for this terrible woman to be made into a saint I watched every stage of this I saw it happen went Calcutta I've tortured interviewed people who would concerned in the miracle case I was asked myself by the Vatican to come and testify against the ridiculous canonization and beatification or this woman I know how religion gets started and it gets started because we like our illusions and because the world the realm of illusion is very very precious to us but again the matter for this evening is does deism theism or atheism best explain reality and once again I don't think my explanation fails how am i doing for time very good there's a the this question of the beginning of things is of course very important and if you think that it must have had a beginner as well as a beginning that it's not just a design or apparent design but it must have had a designer you are only asking for another question to be asked for ISM this creator who designed this designer who fixed up this prime mover who is the prime mover for that prime mover the common word for this in logic and some philosophy courses is it's an infinite regression doesn't really get you anywhere but as I say it wouldn't get you to religion even if you could prove that there must have been a prime mover it wouldn't get you to the worship of other human beings as if they were prophets or saviors or Redeemers it can't help you get there you have to believe that as a matter of faith or not you can't do it from from physics thus furthermore I think it almost insuperable ontological problem involved here suppose it to be true suppose that I concede it suppose there must be such a designer or an individual but intelligence but something like a person that does this how could I know it which person is smarter sufficiently smarter perhaps I should say smart enough smarter than me smarter than anyone here smart when I dare say even the Frank to know this person and what's in his mind I submit that it's not possible for another human being to tell you he knows this to be true anymore that it's possible for me to tell you which I don't try and do because I'm not unreasonable in this way that I know it isn't true but don't you see that there's all the difference in the world between my saying I can't know it and tranqs saying well I can't prove it because he wants you to believe it's necessary so that you will then become Christian and I said that's a reap that you simply cannot make and you said you can't make on the basis of evidence I think the religious would be much better to leave evidence alone where they judge Excel and to concentrate on faith where at least they claim some kind of monopoly I'm not terribly impressed either by the argument that's advanced so often these days remember all the Christian propositions were complete and absolutely in place the the resurrection the the healing of excuse me not healing the the forgiveness of sin all of these the virgin birth the Fatherhood of God the Sun hood of Jesus the Adam and Eve story all of these things were completely believed and promulgated by the Christian Church long before there was any knowledge of the big bang or revolution so what they're doing is essentially a reverse engineering job okay now we do know these things most of them established discovered or published in the teeth of religious opposition now we know them are that proves we were right all along God was even cleverer than we thought this is just plagiarism it's just borrowing from other disciplines to make it all come right and if we're going to talk about beginnings we'd better have a bit of a word about ends had we not about the end we know a great deal we know as Edwin Hubble discovered some time ago that the universe is expanding at a very very rapid rate that's known as the red light shift effect it was thought of it was thought by most physicists that that wouldn't go on at the same rate for very long the rate at which everything was racing away from itself would diminish the sort of Newtonian logic would suggest that in fact it's been shown very recently by a brilliant physicist named Lawrence Krauss that the Hubble rate is actually increasing things are flying apart much much faster than we thought very soon in fact it won't be possible probably to see the red light shift or the other traces of the original Big Bang anymore the end is really coming on us as an increasing rate of speed so al-jabbar something to reverse the question that keeps being asked with such such a suggestiveness out of our something a great deal of nothing is coming so who's the creator and designer of that may I inquire and meantime as any astronomer can tell you if you look in the sky at night you can almost with the without a telescope see the Andromeda galaxy heading towards us it's not very far off in astronomical time the astronomy the dromeda galaxy is headed direct collision course with our own we can we know that's going to happen there's a lot of nothingness headed our way and that's if we have time that's if our Sun does not swell up burn out our oceans boil everything come to an end in the mean time which is a certainty to happen at some point whether the other things happen before or after or not so whose design exactly is that how does it come that just in the tiny suburb of our bit of the cosmos the little solar system that we inhabit all of the other planets are either much too hot or much too cold to support anything like a life as is true of great parts of our own planet how is that some design some designer how is it the 99.9 percent of all the species that have ever been on earth ever recorded have gone extinct as we very nearly did ourselves as a species in the very early dawning years of our existence in Africa which is now been mapped very nearly when our business altogether who designed that contingency whose plan and Caprice is this in other words if you're if you are to rephrase all these arguments of science and natural law and so forth to assume that they work better with a god you're just as badly off as you would be otherwise because the same laws and the same processes still apply you just say that they're set in motion by a designer in that case he's responsible for the extinctions he's responsible for the diseases he's responsible for the chaos for the dead planets for the swirling chaos of the of the other galaxies for the expanding rate at which nothingness is headed towards us so this God if he exists must be one or some or all of the following tinkering and incompetent very capricious very wasteful and very cruel now that is what you get sir if you make some deity responsible for the natural order as we observe it which the topic we were asked to address this evening and I think I'd be trespassing on Frank's time if I watch any further so I'll reserve my my remaining points for rebuttal and I'm very grateful for your attention thank you [Music] now dr. tariq has 10 minutes for rebuttal thank you I wish I had an English accent let me try and go down many things Christopher said he said I just proved deism not theism notice the creation of life is not a deistic concept neither as a resurrection of Christ a deistic concept but I might ask Christopher later if he's a deus now that would be good he said he doesn't believe in miracles primarily because of David Hume but I think ument is discredited you that the evidence for the regular is always greater than that for the rare so you ought to always believe in the regular the problem with the argument is with that premise of the argument is that the evidence for the regular isn't always greater than that for the rare in fact if you were here today he would believe in the Big Bang and that's a singular event it hasn't happened over and over and over again it's not the big bang bang bang bang bang bang bang theory happened only once he would also believe in the spontaneous generation of life if it happened at all it happened only once it's not happening over and over again he would also believe in macro evolution if that happened it happened only once in fact the entire history the earth has only happened once so to say that the evidence for the regular is always greater than that for the rare is not so in fact if you were consistent he wouldn't believe in his own birth because it only happened once physically there's two realms of Sciences empirical science where you can do something over and over again and there's forensic science where you got evidence and it's a situation where you can just look at the evidence and try and figure out what happened in the past based upon the resulting evidence it's like a criminal investigation singularities happen all the time and it's kind of odd for you to say they ought not believe in a rare event if it really happened suppose it did happen like the Big Bang if it did happen Hume says you ought not believe in it there's something some problem with that argument also for miracles to get our attention they by definition have to be rare they can't be regular events if they were regular events we think they're a part of the natural phenomenon so they have to be rare to get our attention so use argument is about believability it's not about actuality miracles can actually occur and you miss saying if they actually occur you and I believe in him that's a bad argument also he said you can't say there was no prime new prime mover that's what Christopher said and that's what I'm saying you can't say there was no prime over in fact I think there was a prime mover in fact later on he said who made god that's the big problem for theists it's not a problem at all why because since something exists we obviously exist we're here then something must have always existed because you can't create yourself there has to be an eternal uncaused first cause now we have two possibilities either the universe is eternal and doesn't need a cause and atheists have believed that for many years they believe in the steady state theory and thought the universe was eternal they had no problem believing in an eternal universe the second possibility is that there's something outside the universe that is eternal now I've given evidence I know very quickly that the universe has not always been here it's not eternal the Surge evidence 2nd law universe expanding radiation afterglow great galaxies Einstein the universe is not eternal so it must be something outside the universe that is and that cause it seems to me must be spaceless timeless and immaterial why because you can't if all space all matter in all time were created the cause must be outside of space matter in time this cause must also be extremely intelligent why because he created with extreme precision he must also be personal how can he be personal because you can't go from a state of non-existence to a state of existence without making a choice an impersonal force has no ability to make choices there couldn't have been like the star wars used before Luke choice out there the force has no ability to make choices only a person can make choices and once there was nothing physical spatial or temporal and then suddenly an entire space-time continuum was created out of what rocks dream about out of nothing so someone made a choice Christopher also said we look for patterns yes we do look for patterns in the pattern I'm looking for is specified complexity that was in the first life and is in all life since then when you see Benny's go home on the beach you don't assume the crabs did that you don't assume it was made by natural law you assume there was a mind behind it he said religion came from or started with baby sacrifice I know what religions like while many religions are false I don't agree but to conflate all religions and put them all together and say therefore all religious viewpoints are false is not so Christopher and I agree on 99% of religions out there that are false I agree with them I just think there's one that is true I'm not saying that every religion everything they teach is false I'm saying there are certain things they teach that are false so we don't disagree there he said I ought to stop giving evidence and just rely on faith that would make a pretty stupid debate wouldn't it I just have faith it's true and I'd sit down Christianity does not say rely on faith Christianity says always be ready to give an answer for the hope that you have love the Lord your God with all your heart soul strength and mind be ready to demolish arguments that are counter to God it says test all things Christianity Christians don't get brownie points for being stupid despite the fact that the church has not lived up to this we're supposed to give evidence secondly there's a difference between belief at and belief in belief I have to believe that the elevator has a floor in it before I get in it before I put my trust in it to hold me up that's belief in that I trust it's going to hold me up but I have to have evidence that there's a floor there before I'm going to put my foot in there in the same way I have to have evidence that God exists before I'm going to put my trust in him and that's what I'm trying to do here I don't know what the big spiel was about Mother Teresa I don't know what that has to do with Krista with Christopher's worldview or how he's given any arguments for atheism he hasn't given any arguments for his worldview yet he's just complaining about what some religious people have done complaints about what some religious people have done does not do anything to whether or not Christianity is true in fact Christianity predicts we'll be hypocrites that's why we need a Savior I am a hypocrite but that doesn't mean that Christianity's false Christianity is based on a person Jesus who was perfect I'm not that's why he had to come Christie or Christopher also said how much the how am i doing on time sir twelve minutes four minutes okay I was going into a jersey overspeed there Christopher said I know how religion starts maybe he does but I think many times he confuses a person anecdote with data you don't just take a personal anecdote and say this is how all religions start how do you know that he said how could I know if God exists it's called revelation and everybody in here has revelation there's two types of Revelation there's natural revelation and special revelation everybody in here and everybody out there knows there's a creator god from creation because we know God by His effects and also from conscience those two things show that there is a creator and a moral creator the third revelation is through Christ and the Bible in my view as I said I haven't had enough time to go through all the data I've got several chapters and I don't have enough faith to be an atheist trying to show why I think the New Testament documents are true but that would be revelation I don't see why if I write Christopher a letter and I say Christopher this is what I'm thinking like we did email trying to arrange this debate he could he could figure out what my thoughts were I can't see why God couldn't do the same thing if he wants to write a book or a book of letters or whatever to try and tell us what he's about he can do that not a problem he said something about proof I'm dealing with a probability argument here am I absolutely sure Christianity is true no I'm not absolutely sure there's very few things you can be absolutely sure about I'm trying to give a probability argument based on the evidence that there is a spaceless timeless immaterial powerful moral personal intelligent creator who ultimately revealed himself in Jesus Christ about 2,000 years ago now could I be wrong about that yes I could and during the Q&A throw some stuff at us that's fine but Christopher seems to say that I just want you to convert to Christianity well I'd love for you to do that as if he's not trying to get you to convert to atheism what do you think he's doing here at this debate he wants to get you to agree with him and for many good reasons in many cases that maybe you ought to give up false religion but religious beliefs you ought to I agree with Christopher on that if they're false give them up but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater a lot of times there may be things that you think are faults that really aren't Christopher finally talked about the issue of some design this universe is heading toward oblivion look the very fact that something may be degrading doesn't mean it wasn't designed in the first place your car is currently degrading right now but that doesn't mean it wasn't designed there's something in the universe known as the second law of thermodynamics and it basically means we're all going to go to heat death that's true now you can't say that the designer was capricious because you don't know the intentions of the designer the only way you can say that something wasn't designed optimally is if you know what the intentions of the designer were how does he know what the Descent intentions of the designer are maybe he wants the universe to go to oblivion so he can then create a new heavens and a new earth which is exactly what revelation 20:2 says if you notice Christopher has not given any real positive evidence for his worldview he has not dealt with it with the with the fact that the universe exploded into being out of nothing the extreme fine-tuning that arose from chaos how the first life filled with libraries full of a genetic code rose from non-life how morality arose from materials and how materials have any moral authority over us in fact he just called that the the designer cruel how does he know cruel if we're just molecules in motion what does cruel come from there's no cruel there's no truth there's no nothing we're just we're just chemical reactions up here so if I'm doing something wrong if you don't agree with me forgive me but I have the wrong chemicals thank you well first of all there's obviously no equivalents at all Jin what I want to persuade you of and what Frank wants to persuade you of I don't say if you believe with with me in Revelation you can be saved and your sins taken away from you nor do I say as Christians tend to if you if you're quite free to disagree as long as you're willing to go to hell it's just not the same I don't I don't Menace people in that way nor do I give them false promises neither the blackmail nor the bribery exists in my argument I just ask you to think for yourselves and consider the evidence and if you do that I should have done this in my first set of remarks let's just take these graffiti on the beach this is one of the oldest arguments in in the business it originates from a long discredited book by a Cambridge clergyman called Paley who wrote a book called natural theology said if you are an Aborigine walking along a beach and you come across a gold watch ticking you know not anything about what it's for you have no idea what it's for or why it's there but you know it's not a vegetable you know it's not a rock you know it hasn't occurred in nature it must be there for another for another reason someone must have made this perfectly decent point to make but that the organisms such as ourselves are not mechanisms they're not wound up but they're not jammed together in this way and if any of you will cast your eyes over any work about so jar-jar winning alternative explanation for this the best is actually called the blind watchmaker it's by Richard Dawkins you'll see that it's perfectly intelligible and well understood and has been computed modeled now to the satisfaction of 99% of all readers in the matter that we know what the building blocks of existence were and how very very long and haphazard with so much extinction 99% of all species so much adaptation so much hit and miss that it was all put together there's no mystery about it the non-theistic the non deistic view does describe this reality and has more or less mastered the description of it if you know I've got sort of the wrong if you take the opposite view here's what you have to think Francis Collins who did the human genome project reckons that Homo sapiens he's a great believing Christian by the way dr. Collins great man Homo sapiens has been on the earth for at least a hundred thousand years our species not very long some think it may be as many as a quarter of million years Richard Dawkins thinks it could easily be two hundred thousand years I don't particularly mind I'll take the low I'll take the low end let's take the Christian dr. Collins's view that we are our own primate species has been around on earth for a hundred thousand years now if you don't take the view I just offered you the anti Paley view here's what you have to imagine that for ninety-eight thousand of those years humans were born most of them actually not being succeeding in being born because a good percentage maybe more than half would have died in the experience of being born would have dialed died in childbirth many of them taking their mothers with them life expectancy for the first 50 or 60 or 70 thousand years or so actually the first 80 thousand if not much more than 25 to 30 years mysterious terrible plagues and diseases and pains inexplicable on analyzable incurable terrifying events like tidal waves volcanic eruptions purely scary no idea where this is coming from fear and trembling as if that's not bad enough the prefrontal lobe is rather small of the species the adrenaline gland is rather bigger than it needs to be there's a lot of fighting there's a lot of conflict there's a lot of warfare over territory over food over women even more casualties even more suffering torture is enslavement all of this and for the first ninety eight thousand years heaven the designer watches this with perfect indifference as a spectator and then around two to three thousand years ago thinks this won't do we'd better intervene these people need a revelation if I they need a Savior so we'll send them one but we'll send it send him will her or whoever to the most remote and illiterate and superstitious part of the Middle East and they will see if the news can spread from there and if anyone will believe it if it's written down well they got the last bit right people are willing to believe that but I ask you what it is to believe such a thing now a hundred years ago I couldn't have made this point because we wouldn't have had the information on which to base this supposition we wouldn't have known that something like that is what you'd have to believe but remember long before any of this evidence was available the Christian worldview was already well in place and completely and perfectly believed so if you believe that any of these beliefs are derived from or originated in a study of evidence so much the worst fear because you've just been assured by dr. Tory that's not the case it comes from a faith in revelation don't confuse it with evidence now one of the things that atheism is much better describing in the real world than theism is this why is this so much warfare between the faithful Frank has just told us that 99% of all religions he thinks are bogus or phony which must mean also by the way that they're evil which is quite a big admission form to make because if someone goes around preaching a bogus and false religion they're not just giving bad information they're spreading wicked delusions and trying to get people to believe in awful things so those who say that you can't have morality without religion suddenly had to make a rather large concession have they not the 99% of it is just dead wrong now our view of this is that it's not surprising it's just what what you would expect if religion was man-made and if it fluctuated depending on the level of culture and climate and other things around the world religions would keep on being made by men have been literally hundreds of thousands of gods whose name names we know many of them have now been forgotten or no longer worshipped well there are three conceivable explanations for this or accounts of it surely say one is that all of these religions are true one is all of them Falls and one is that only one of them is correct well clearly the first option isn't available to us they can't all be true according to Frank one of them is it's Christianity do you know how many versions of Christianity there are mutually incompatible excommunicating each other describing each other as antichrist would you like me to list them I bet you if I asked him he wouldn't say Mormons were Christians and the Mormon wouldn't think that he can be saved either because he doesn't believe in Joseph Smith's revelation and the Pope of Rome the Bishop of Rome that says that the Roman Catholic Church is the only way to salvation it's the only true church the others aren't really Christian at all so all you're doing is multiplying that difference again whereas the obvious that clear the Lucid answer is staring you in the face it's available to all there's no mystery to it this stuff is man-made no shame in that I would say no shame I mean after all so in my submission are our morals and ethics man-made it's common to us as a matter of human solidarity to know without being told by revelation from Mount Sinai the location that's never been discovered by the way that a group of primates that thought that murder theft and perjury were okay would not evolved very far or live or survive very long just wouldn't happen we have a duty to each other and we better understand it or die that's there is no society that hasn't made or drawn this conclusion societies that fail to the practice things like cannibalism and incest literally do die out they don't survive they don't adapt they don't evolve they don't make it again no mystery but to say that without God we wouldn't know and without God any evil we did would be thinkable is the precise reverse of the case I put it to you ladies and gentlemen for others sisters is it not rather the case that with God everything is permissible that once a primate believes he has God on his side that primate is capable of anything the suicide-bombing community more or less 100% religious the genital mutilation community practically 100% religious the injunctions and warrants in in the Bible in the text itself for slavery for genocide inescapably right there Andy and acted upon and in the name of God by primates who thought they had got on their side it is when people think they are God's appointed or anointed that any kind of wickedness is possible let me then let me ask you rephrase it and ask you the question in Reverse can you sir what can anyone here named a moral ethical action or statement that could be made by a believer moral or ethical statement or action made or taken that's it that couldn't be a made or after all taken by me as a non-believer you have to think quickly no you don't you've got all night there's a I'll give you an email there's a prize for anyone who can name me the moral action I can't commit that a believer can now I've never had not see it I don't expect you but if I asked you think of a wicked action you've heard of that could only have been committed by someone who believed they had God on their side you've already thought of it you know you don't have to hesitate you just have to think of the last suicide bomber the last genital mutilation the last jihad the last crusade the last alliance between the Vatican and fascism anything you like and it's done so it's an insult to be told that without superstition and without the supernatural we wouldn't know how to treat one another well we wouldn't know that if it's been right and wrong we couldn't perform a right action or our ethical remarks it's an it's a degrading insult it makes us serfs it makes us slaves makes us people dependent upon a celestial dictatorship that cannot be altered that watches us while we sleep that vertebras verdicts cannot be challenged you can convict us of thought crime in my judgment the emancipation of humanity which has taken a very great deal of time just as the expansion of our life expectancy though had to be worked on very hard if once when it was left just a god to decide these things we didn't live very long couldn't cure any diseases and didn't know that our planet wasn't the center of the of the universe but once this emancipation has begun I think it's unstoppable and the emancipation of humanity begins when you throw off the idea that you live in a celestial North Korea and that only a dictator can give you permission to think or behave well or act morally thank you [Music] we will now turn to be question-and-answer session for four speakers between themselves each speaker starting with dr. direct will have the opportunity of asking two questions two brief questions of their opponent who will then give brief replies thank you Kristen oh I suppose if I can't be a rekt I can at least be upright yeah I wasn't ready another Christopher so I gave evidence the universe had a beginning and it did so with great precision I'd like to ask you a question I think Leibniz brought up many years ago if there is no God why does anything exist we both have this Navy background yes sir in Portsmouth where I'm from there's an old story about a young man taking his captain's examination before a board of Admirals and they say to him write your ship is on a leash or it's been driven by whatever wind towards the rocks well what you're going to do to get out of this terrible decision he says I would I would pile on an extra sail and pull a stern hard to starboard and hope by this means to escape the to save the ship they said well very well but there's some the wind is still blowing the gale is coming out you're stealing the rocks are getting nearer now what you're going to do so I put on more sail and keep the helm hard down to starve it and maintain its position yes but the wind is still blowing you and it's the gale force is increased and the rocks again here and now as you get at you and he says well I'd cram on extra sail and keep the helm hard down stop one of the Emeril's would rather red-faced exasperation at this point says where are you getting all this extra sail from and the young captain says well the same place you're getting all that extra wind from now either a priori you believe in a creation story or you do not I am I'll just have to say it I'm one of those people who's meant by Pascal when he says he's writing his pal say to those who are so made that they cannot believe you have to include me in that I don't believe in a creator I don't believe I'm supervised I don't believe that a being set the University of notion of my know and how is it set in motion and I don't know any physicist who does and I'm not a physicist I called a sergeant you if you have you know I've been having this argument in the 18th century you'd be saying that I should recognize Jesus as my personal Savior and you wouldn't have heard of the Big Bang I would have heard you and you don't convince me on why does that have to do it you're just I'll just have to say this you don't convince me that there's any connection between your faith and any scientific observation there is a difference between but I'm not planning on it a bit I'm not here to debate physics and I'm mad I'm not competent is it okay so you don't have an answer for that how the universe came into existence out of nothing no more than you do now let's move to the second question if all space all matter at all time had a beginning the cause must be outside on either do i okay well now that this is this important dr. Taylor for because in his book the Christopher Hitchens on page 70 says that he knows that this happened without God that's what you said it works without God so how does it work without God no I'm sorry I quote I think you must be closing my quotation from Laplace am I not correct no page 70 blah blah says it works without that assumption yes here's what you say you say however and critically we can now do this while dropping or even if you insist retaining the idea of God but in either case the theory works without that assumption so how does it work without that I'm repeating at first as you'll notice I say you can retain the idea if you like it has no explanatory value it but it works without the assumption as well as it works move it how does it work without an that push I'm referring back to what the great astronomer physicist Laplace said when asked by the Emperor when he was when he'd shown him his working model of the universe and the Emperor said well there doesn't seem to be a God in this the plasterer of yours ago no sir yes danced in physics I said your majesty it works without that assumption I'm simply recoating him it might and I'm saying and you can retain the idea if you like you're not going to convince me and I don't think you've convinced anyone in the audience that you know very much more about the origins of the universe than they did it's an implication and that would be children even if you knew more about it than I do which you may well veterans yes I can ask westfield octatrack um yes I'd like to ask him what kind of Christian he is and who are who are not Christians in his view who claim to be I'm a non-denominational Christian I believe that anyone who believes that Jesus died and rose again for their sins as a Christian simple as that so it doesn't matter to you whether someone's a Catholic or a Mormon that's why I don't Mormons don't believe what what I just said Mormons have a works theology Catholics there's a debate over whether Catholics ever works theology recently Benedict has said no so yeah that's fine can i my alleged will ask without cheating to rephrase the question in a different way very crisply very suppose I was a baby being born in Saudi Arabia now would you wish me to be brought up as a hobby or as an atheist absolutely an atheist I'm with you on that good okay thanks wouldn't you wouldn't die when you were seriously asking me second question please be brief be brief be brief and for response please go up see you mentioned that you have all these moral issues with Christianity where do you get your morality from if we're just molecules in motion what is morality who says well just molecules in this you're a materialist what else could you be we're fairly highly evolved primates who have a need and in H need for and recognition of human solidarity you can call that morals if you wish I think I would it's only good people and a lot of people they say born and made in the image of God are born as Psychopaths and sociopaths they don't feel this need and indeed they enjoy violating it I don't know where where that fits in particularly people will do as much good as they can wicked people will do as much skill as they can if you want to get a good person to do an evil thing you make them religious what do you mean by good where does good come from direct I believe that would be a third question and we have to so it's same places you get in there to my sale my excerpt sir my sale is coming from the same place as your wind my sail is just a bit more solid that's all you don't want any of my wind I just I was from Bologna to climb final but is it not the case that the spread of Christianity about which you spoke so warmly and affectingly in your opening remarks attributing it to its in the NH truth of the Bible story was spread by that means or because the Emperor Constantine decided to make Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire which in your view contributed more to the spread of the faith the Holy Spirit I rest my case thank you for that very very fun trick now we will turn the floor over to the audience and I believe there are ashes in the room with microphones excellent Frank had a quick question just to be clear something you said that only intelligent creatures can create something correct oh you tell it intelligent beings I said that specified complexity requires a mind it requires intelligence you know why why is God a man why don't you see God as a woman why do I see God as a woman oh yeah why don't you see God as a woman woman's women produces do see women as gods I understand that but I'm just taking from the from the Christian theology that he's referred to as a man but since God is spirit he doesn't have a he doesn't have a gender and we don't call him an it because he's not an impersonal force so the only two categories we know are men and women so we attribute man or a male God and he's referred to his father in the Bible but you noticed that Jesus kind of had some qualities of a woman - on one hand he's saying woe to you scribes and Pharisees the other hand he's saying consider the lilies so he kind of had both go in there you'd say consider the lilies when he's telling people they don't need to work they don't need to practise thrift they don't need to care for their families that's not exactly a womanly thing to be saying CS Lewis is quite right on this point unless he was the son of God all his preachings are not just rubbish but evil rubbish and he wasn't the son of God incidentally to enable as many people as possible to speak and there's a lot of people who wish to speak please we will restrict you to no follow up questions so ask your question the speaker will respond and then we will move on thank you let's get some [Music] now the question was he asked did I ask Christopher during the QA where do your morals come if you don't believe in Christianity I don't think you have to believe in Christianity to know right from wrong I think people from the dawn of time have known right from wrong it's called the moral law written on their hearts even from a biblical perspective because before there was any Bible God wipes out the entire generation of Noah they didn't have a Bible so you don't need the Bible to know right from wrong it might help you on certain specific areas but general right and wrong is known because it's written on your heart which is a revelation from God how convenient that's the kind of God we have Christopher yes Frank yes sir first of all how can you this completely discard all the religions have you looked into every single one made sure that none of them make as much sense to you as Christianity and in addition to that dude don't the Muslims also believe Jesus to be maybe not the Savior but a savior in general does that make them kind of an offshoot of Christianity which they technically are no Muslims are not they don't believe Jesus died much less rose from the dead sir for says that he did not die and so if what they try and say as Christopher will tell you and I will tell you to the Quran was standardized in about 650 AD by the third Muslim caliph now that is 600 years after Jesus's documents were written or documents about Jesus so I'm going to believe that the documents that were written in the first century are more accurate about Jesus than the ones that were written 600 years later now I didn't say all religions are totally false I said there sucked most religions have some truth in him but you wouldn't believe in him I'm saying where they deviate from what I think is true which happens to be the Bible and the reason I think the Bible is true is I'd have to go through a whole argument here but that's what we do and I don't have enough faith to be an atheist because I think miracles confirm that Jesus really was the Son of God and if he really was God then whatever he teaches is true and he taught the entire Old Testament was the Word of God he promised the New Testament and in the and the the documents that we have now are what the followers of Jesus wrote down so anywhere they deviate from the Bible I think they're wrong well not the least of the vices of the Quran is that it's largely a plagiarism from Jewish and Christian predecessors and what it says about Jesus is that he may have been a prophet they by the way the Quran says that he was born of a virgin which is only said in one book I think of the New Testament but that he was not crucified the Jews conspired to have someone else crucified in his place so the question of resurrection doesn't come up but if you look in the in the Christian Bible you hit with just as many difficulties and contradictions as that but I say only one mention of the virgin birth only one gospel that says that the Jews asked for the crucifixion to be inflicted on them to the ultimate generation as a crime two different accounts of the genealogy of Jesus only one mention of the flight into Egypt not mentioned in the other Gospels only one mention of the earthquake that accompanied the crucifixion which is contained in no other story or record kept in the Greater Jerusalem area only one that says that the graves all opened in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion and everybody was resurrected and all the graves were emptied and people climbed out of them and greeted their old friends in the street another thing that you think would have attracted the attention of Chronicle as if it had occurred as well as seeming to make resurrection or other trivial and commonplace and everyday occurrence anyone who believes this stuff isn't man-made has a great deal of explaining to do can I follow on today briefly so Christopher you're a journalist and I might add a good journalist I enjoy many of your articles when you write an article about a particular event and and three other writers write about that same event do you expect them to say all the same things no very much I say this in my book that's why I don't believe or why but but I'm not asking people to believe that if they don't follow my account they can't be saved and indeed may be condemned so you you have note you have no knowledge of what ought to be an axiom really ordained you write a very strong injunction extraordinary cleanse should require pretty extraordinary effort and how do you define that at this a days or die's extraord I have no noncontradictory a eyewitness attestation of any kind at all they can quite safely be dismissed as belonging to the parrot or even for details in the book of Acts alone from chapter 13 to the end of the book that had been verified as eyewitness testimony by Roman historian Colin haymer 84 details eyewitness details only could have been owned by an eyewitness the Acts of the Apostles yes there's no independent code there's no none of the Gospels are written by anyone who was an eyewitness or present at the time of the supposedly of Jesus of Nazareth John nope Charlie's a these are these are these are full of later accretions that's why they're so full of contradiction well we could have a whole nother debate but you can get his blow on I once got no one's got no one's got nose meal to date the Gospels to anything anything like closer than about 20 years after the supposed events that's a long long time in which a rumor could get started takes at least two generations for let's now move to the next question from the audience um hi I'm not really sure how to phrase this question so just bear with me either can answer but how do you explain biblical prophecies um how do you expect that the Old Testament thousands and thousands of years before Jesus Christ entered to the world how is it that they prophesied when he was going to come how he was going to enter into the world um where he was going to be born um how he was going to die who was going to kill crucify him who he would be crucified with where he would be crucified um I've got no problem with it and the fact that he rules that he rose from the dead three days later how do you explain that that was prophesized thousands of years before it actually happened I personally just want to know huh well but not all those events are as precisely foretold that's why the Jews whose in whose book these premonitions or foreshadowings occur do not believe the Messiah has yet made his appearance they have been my submission quite right to be doing that though I think they're wasting their time waiting as well for just to give you one example it is said in the King James version of the Bible the one that was hammered together in England in the early 1600s by a committee the best book ever written by a committee certainly the best written but nonetheless the work of many in expert hands translating from earlier Greek and Hebrew work say a virgin will conceive it's in Isaiah in fact the word in Hebrew is alma which simply means young woman doesn't it make any reference to virgin virginity at all the other prophecies that are promised to the relevant King in that section of I say all of them fail to come true even in the action as described in that book of Isaiah however the New Testament you'll have to notice when you read it says when for example Jesus goes to Jerusalem riding on a donkey it says thus it was fulfilled as scripture had foretold that the Son of Man will come on an ass well if you know you're what the prophecy is and if you want people to think you're fulfilling it you could just just say well that's what we'll do we'll produce a donkey but that's not exactly seeing a prophecy come true that's reverse engineering and self-fulfilling prophecy I actually agree with Jesus also have Jews also prophesized that he will come back in the lifetime of those who are his listeners and auditors and that is the prophecy actually Chris that's not true in Matthew 24 he's predicting he would come back in judgment on Jerusalem not that he would come back in that generation secondly I agree with you on you some of these can be contrived like coming in on a donkey I understand that but there are some like he would be both God and man and that he will come the Lord you seek will come to your temple in Malachi 3 also the fact well I guess that could be contrived - oh yes but I correct myself here however please Nicki brief brief Isaiah 53 go read Isaiah 53 for yourself and we have chapter 13 in our book that goes into this read Isaiah 53 which is known to have been written well prior to Jesus in fact it was one of the Dead Sea Scrolls that was discovered probably the most incredible scroll 24 feet long the entire book of Isaiah dated from at least 100 BC when you read Isaiah 53 you will see how that points forward to Jesus one other thing if you want a book on this dr. Michael Brown has written a book he's a Messianic Jew on this it has to do with Old Testament prophecy so there's a lot more to this than we can deal with in a one-minute response yes I want to continue the nautical metaphor I suspect you two are like ships passing in the night because the the topic of debate is which better explains reality theism atheism but neither of you have told us what you take reality consists of so this is a question for both of the speakers what is your conception of reality does it in particular include angels does it include the devil does it include immortal souls does it include demons and spirits or does it not include those things what what for you is the furniture of reality well I would agree with obviously if I believe the Bible I agree with all those things you just mentioned but when when I was thinking about this debate reality the first thing you got to start with is is there's the classic question if there is no God why is there something rather than nothing so we start there and then we move forward from that then we went into the fine-tuning of the universe how the universe is precisely tweaked and then we talked about the specified complexity in life and the moral law and the order and immaterial reality known as the laws of logic and mathematics I think all those things are real I think morality is real I think mathematics are real I think the laws of logic are real I think theism better explains that then does atheism so that's why I keep asking Christopher how did the universe come into existence what should where does morality come from if you're a materialist where the laws of logic come from if materialist I have heard many answers yet see it would you do better if you said said that since there are such things as angels and demons and evil spirits as you believe you'd need a God for them to be true and I think you'd be right you bill much safer ground how could that be happening how could Jesus of Nazareth make a cluster of Devils leave the madman and go into a herd of pigs that would then commit suicide a wondrous miracle of ever I've heard of one if there was no supernatural dimension if there was no God that's the only place by the way in order to believe that you would have to believe in the supernatural but I think I did say perhaps I should have spent more time saying so the time I'm a materialist and I do not believe there is a supernatural paranormal dimension to existence he doesn't believe that but there are immaterial realities he just used one the laws of logic where does that come from let's move to the next question a question for Christopher do you believe in moral absolutism absolute right and wrong well the the the best-known example of this is what's burns the golden rule that seems to be common to all societies it's a long predates Christianity it's certainly said by a version of it by Rabbi Hillel Babylonian rabbi and it's it's findable in the form of don't do to someone else what would be what would be repulsive to you in the Analects of Confucius most people think of that as being so to say intelligible absolute in the basis for morality the difficulty with it is and the reason why I'm in doubt about absolutism is that a law like that is really only as good as the person who's uttering it after all confronted with Charles Manson am I supposed not to do to him anything I wouldn't want done to myself self-evidently absurd so fortunately were given a sense of proportion and of self-preservation a long way though we say there I just said we're given it you know how people talk how sloppily one can suddenly speak we have by trial-and-error learned the value of a sense of proportion along with the need for human solidarity after all the it's only in the English version that the Ten Commandments say thou shalt not kill in Hebrew it says thou shalt do no murder then the question is which killing is murder which is not I'm willing to spend all night talking about whether or not the the fetus is a human thing entity or not and also if even if it is whether whether and in what circumstances it would be lawful to take its life I'd very much doubt that anyone will come up with an absolute on that but I think we would all know what the perils of the relative were as well so negotiating this is why we need things that are actually when put into practice by no means in material things like logic why is the irony why is a human solidarity good you just imported another moral absolute there I think it's good for us what is good mean it's useful means we carry on living rather hard and large question so let's move to hopefully it's only hard for an atheist it's not hard for me I now accept the challenge it's dirty but it's saying saying but I but I've solved your problem for you I know I know where good comes from God gives it to you that's absolutely advanced the argument not by a single step it's like saying do we have free will or not my answer is because I believe in irony as a non-material force as well yes I think we do because we have no choice you however your position is your position is much more contradictory and much less ironic you say of course we have free will the boss says so that won't do in any courtroom or seminar room at all sir did those chemicals just cause you say you have only ones without that assumption oh this is just a small comment for the for both speakers in Ephesians 4:5 it says the that there should be one Lord one faith and one baptism and you guys discuss saying that there's many different Christian religions but I encourage you to explore the Oriental Orthodox Church which is not deviate from the Apostolic roots in the first century when when the disciples and they as we began preaching with when the the center of the Holy Spirit came upon them on the day of Pentecost which is considered the birthday of the church because they couldn't preach without the Holy Spirit when the faith arrived to these churches in different areas of the world and around the 4th century is when the split of the Council of Chalcedon between the Oriental and Greek Orthodox churches question briefly in one sentence okay it's just a comment it's not really a question just to explore the oriental Orthodox churches how they didn't deviate from the upstart me well I can also cause I'm a member of the Greek Orthodox Church I can answer that because I'm one of the few people here is a member of the Greek Orthodox Church which does indeed have a claim to be the oldest and original Christian Church I joined it on the same day as I was married into it which meant I had to pay not one bribe but two to the archbishop in fact the autocephalous head of that church in Cyprus while special Chrysostom oz who got two payments instead of one said without any preparation civil right I make you Orthodox in the morning so you can get married to a Greek Orthodox woman and please her parents in the afternoon he was later conspicuous for being a gunrunner to the Serbian death squads in the Yugoslavs Civil War you're welcome to him and all like him and now the Russian Orthodox Church has become the official state Church of Vladimir Putin's dictatorship in Moscow and has produced icons I can show them to you and you can look them up on the web icons that show Joseph Stalin with a halo around his head fully baptized into the church you're welcome to that lot too did Stalin do something really wrong hmm um the world just doesn't see the Orthodox Church think so oh how I mean you're going after the church why not go after Stalin you see it seems to me I've just demonstrated something to you that you're very reluctant to to notice that proclaiming a belief in God doesn't seem to stop people behaving badly it doesn't mean God does this observation completely escaped you not just doing bad things but saying bad things also saying Christianity predicts will be bad yes that's why we need a Savior well I could have predicted that mystery and my prophecy would have come true my question is for Christopher when we talk about things like love does that exist outside of our minds or is it just an evolutionary adaptation to make life more useful for us okay I think the great cultural and intellectual problem is this is to is not to allow materialism to be purely arid I mean I think in Asian humans also is a need for let's say the transcendent or the numinous which comes to us with the experience say of music poetry landscape and love you wouldn't trust anyone who looked at me blankly at this point and wondered what is this guy talking about there would be people who were Jeff in that way but generally speaking everyone has a rough idea of what I'm talking about it's to do with separating the numinous and the transcendent from the supernatural or the superstitious I'll give you an example dr. Franklin so I was talking to you about earlier the Christian supervisor of the human genome project wonderful guy he says in his book that he's an outdoorsman he went hiking at someone in the Pacific Northwest I think and in the wilderness that won some brilliant crystal-clear day he came across a frozen waterfall which had frozen in three streams three and he said at that point he fell to his knees and accepted Jesus as his personal Savior that would that would be a very good way of separating what I think of as the the numinous and the transcendent from the supernatural or the superstitious wouldn't it be just as much of a statement if he'd said I accepted the revelation of the Prophet Muhammad or did they have to be four streams or would to not have been enough the want one I can understand people be over awed and the other I cannot so that's the that's the that's the way I would to try and resolve this emotional discrepancy well you you know there's a transcendence out there that what you just said Christopher there's only two choices law of non-contradiction or law the excluded middle I should say it's either natural or supernatural there's no in-between and it's either chemicals or it's not chemicals which is it which certainly in my judgment is not supernatural and doesn't require it be people like myself who don't believe in the supernatural are not immune from the lure of the transcendent anyway I am a member of an only partly rational primate species I'm not I'm not hardwired to be smart all the time a lot of the time under all kinds of delusions some of them wishful I would try and guard against them in myself and I try and ridicule them in other people as to is it chemical well it certainly is not not chemical I mean the zero is a lot of things a lot of the chemicals love just chemicals there are a lot of chemical reactions keeping me in place here so the action of it not being chemical does not exist is it only chemical the likelihood that it's chemical is very strong next molecule a lot of the theists argument relied on the Big Bang and the fact that the universe says the singularity has a finite beginning but in physics if the the mass the universe is great enough the force of gravity will eventually contract universe and we could possibly have another Big Bang again if that's the case what's the explanation for the need for a creator and an infinite universe because the universe can't be infinite due to the second law of thermodynamics second law of thermodynamics will not allow the universe to collapse back and go back and forth on ending Li I'll give you an example if I were to take a basketball right now here and drop it how high would it drop or how high would it bounce again what it bounced as high as I dropped it from now it's going to lose energy every time until ultimately it's going to peter out secondly the you know you get older you start to lose your train of train of oh the WMAP satellite which was put up in 2003 as Christopher pointed out rightly discovered that the universe is now accelerating and it will expand forever so it at least through the scientific evidence that this point thirdly time had a beginning according to Einstein and you can't traverse an infinite number of moments if there were an infinite number of moments before today today never would have gotten here so time had a beginning as well so the universe is not eternal therefore it needs a cause outside itself and as I mentioned before that cause must be spaceless timeless and immaterial and also personal to go from a state of non-existence to a state of existence but according to you sir that creator isn't bound by these thermodynamic laws because when I pointed out the demoness of nothingness a while ago you did say maybe God wants that so you can begin whatever again and maybe he does the Creator was not round by the second law is this being exists you're free to attribute any quality to him that you like no what I'm saying is is you claim to know his mind that's the bit why part company with if God wants the universe to ultimately Peter out he can do that but if he wants to intervene and stop it he can also do that as well and that's what revelation 20:2 says yeah but that's not the second law of thermodynamics is it so why do you bother with the Thermidor now it is not the second law permits and log thermodynamics helps establish that there was a creator to get to the Bible you have to go through several steps and see if there were miracles after the first one and if Jesus really did rise from the dead then whatever he teaches since he's God is true then just miss letteth i've given a misleading answer to the gentleman you said no it couldn't happen that what couldn't happen it could be there couldn't be another Big Bang the could it the could if the correct according to the current laws of nature let us move to AA natural law audience manners which mean nothing to you this diss questions for Christopher um you said you're an intelligent primate and I just want to know do intelligent primates have souls and if so what happens when you die um I actually think I hope I said I was a member of an intelligent primate species I wouldn't want to push myself forward one could have a soul and not an afterlife that could be enough - no God there could be a God and no afterlife the very the likeliest thing it seems to me is that death is final no I didn't say that means that doesn't mean there's no soul I seem to operate without that assumption but I would but I would use the word soulless in a way aesthetically as it as a as a pejorative and I find the the use of transcendental and numinous terms to be occasionally gratifying now we have four minutes for questions which allows us three brief questions and three brief responses and then we will terms for closing statements yeah I don't know about you Frank I would yield my closing statement time to have more questions because there are so many hands up have been up for so long I do have a closing statement I need to make all right that's okay well I'll yield 9 we have an additional 5 minutes for questions thank you the title of this is what best explains reality perhaps following the previous questioner the United Nations I believe starting with Pakistan Pakistan tried to have a resolution that made the criticism of religion unacceptable I just would quickly want to get particularly mr. Hitchens is a response to that and also because you did write the introduction - sir Kingsley Amis book on everyday drinking what's your favorite drink in reverse order then Johnny / Johnny Walker Black Label with Perrier as the delivery system but but no ice ice is a is a can be a can be a mistake followed by a couple of bottles of Pinot Noir with lunch and I mean with food very important to keep the food intake art the United Nations is exceeding its authority in trying to limit any any form speech on any subject I think it's particularly absurd for any attempt we made to limit the criticism of religion precisely because religion makes such large claims for itself the Quran for example claims to be the last and final revelation from God no further words are necessary after this immaculate recitation has been completed its therefore it my view implicitly very totalitarian it says you can't need anything more and it can be death not just to challenge it but to say that there have been any subsequent revelations there are ahmadi muslims for example they're a small minority who believe the mayor of in a later revelation and there are in the muslim world of the Baha'i sect which whose whose leader was claimed by himself at least to be a prophet therefore they're punishable by death also people who say that not only are we going to tell you what to do in that sort of voice but you also can't criticize us you can't have another opinion have just revealed what the extraordinary dangers of the of the religious mentality are and have confirmed that it is simply another form of man mad mind forged man-made manacle okay um this is specifically for Christopher but I guess it could go both ways as a materialist who is an admitted evolutionist who believes that all morals are derived from survival of the fittest and passing on your genes and surviving better how do you find purpose in life outside of having sex and making babies I'm glad you left that in I must say well I suppose let me see what makes me happy contemplating the misfortunes of other people vindication makes me happy being proved right irony makes me happy by the way the Quran doesn't forbid whiskey in only forbids wine just meant to go out break bringing that up I think I think it was Tertullian one of the early Christian fathers who said you know how the Christians always have a very hard time picturing what heaven would be like they can do a hell very easily and they do but haven't you know it sounds boring just to be praising the dictator for the rest of well for eternity but Sounion perhaps wanting to spice things up a bit said well you could always have the pleasure of contemplating the tortures of the Damned in hell when the praise is Paul and I must say I do get pleasure from that too well it's a good question I mean what is life all about what is the purpose I mean its life just glorified Monopoly game get a whole bunch of stuff now because when the game is over it's all going to go back in the box I think there's more to it than that um this question is for Frank if Christianity is based in personal faith and on and demonstrates the defying of physical laws and in science why do you use scientific evidence based in the objective physical realm to explain it where's your physical evidence I don't know if I follow the question Christianity isn't necessarily based on faith that's what I said before you have to have belief in before you get to belief that that's that's interesting you I'm sorry I believe that before you get to belief in I said it backwards I don't believe that God exists for you put your trust in him lord I believe help thou my unbelief I've heard it said very often that you have to have faith in order to believe you can't you can't derive faith from evidence it would be too easy it's two different kinds I think I mention called it's called the leap the program is you have to keep on making that me to the next question Thank You mr. Hitchens dance deterrent hi my questions for Christopher um if you believe in no moral absolutes do you believe in consequences for whatever is relatively wrong because if there are no eternal consequences um and like let's say I was to find it like when you're saying human solidarity can you expand on that and kind of explain why something is wrong because if people's wrong right are different then what's why was there a point what consequences are there well I'd like I would like to put myself in the safekeeping of the audience and ask in all fairness have I not answered that question more than once already but if you insist on it again I will simply say this and I'll have to again do it in reverse order belief in the supernatural or in an afterlife or in a God or creator has not had the effect of making those who profess the belief behave more morally or ethically I return you also to the question that I asked which you might want to give an answer to we'll consider an answer to it what moral action or ethical statement and I prefer bidden to make because I'm not a believer that a believer could make you see I mean I think I have been over this ground before there's also the question of it's a word that hasn't come up much this evening but it might as well capitally evidence there doesn't seem to be any evidence at all of an afterlife in which all wrongs are righted and all sins are punished but there is a thing called law and there is a thing called human solidarity with which we attempt to make life a more fair and more just in the only life that we know we've got and we'd have to do that even if and religious societies do do that even if we thought there was the higher justice and life to come we would still have to act as if we had to discipline ourselves and others in the in the here and now so adding the supernatural dimension to it making the God assumption doesn't make any of these urgent questions how shall we live with each other what are our due seasons any easier to solve contrary to I think what Christopher is implying they're chrissy christ's central purpose was not to come to make bad people good he came to make dead people live mr. hitchens i was just wondering do you believe that religion has some origin in the need for political leaders in early human civilization to instill a fear and sense of authority in the ruled classes well that there is a functional and also a functionalist and man-made elements religion isn't doubted by anyone certainly not by Frank so he would say about the Aztec priesthood that's all it was was a means of coercion by the ruling class and it means of terrifying others and a means of making them believe that there was a priesthood that could control things like eclipses or heal things like plagues yes of course when anyone looks at anyone else's religion they see the trick being pulled easily everyone in this room is an atheist there's not one of you who isn't you don't believe in the Temple of Diana at Ephesus you don't believe in the Egyptian for you know you don't believe in Odin you don't believe in what's a capital nor the other aspect does none of you do you're all a theist as far as that's concerned some of you believe that one of these is okay and my aunt is true I just say that I'll go you one better and say I'll be an atheist and I'll be a consistent one I'm not an atheist I mean I don't believe in Zeus or any of those other gods because all those other gods were inside the world we have evidence that suggests that there's a being outside the world that created the universe that's why I believe in them we have time for one final question before dr. Tourette's closing statement uh sure choose wisely this is to Frank but like Christopher's opinion on this as well with regards to your mention of Paley's argument and your analogies how do you grade complexity is there a cut-off point and does it ever seem like you're taking credit away from the chaotic nature of chance and giving it to God okay chance is not a cause chance is a word we use to describe a word we use to describe mathematical possibilities if I were to take out a coin right now and flip it what are the chances it would come up heads you say 50% but what causes it to come up heads is a chance no chance doesn't do anything what causes it to come up heads is the amount of force I put in it the the wind in the room how high it is if we could calculate all of those forces with precision we could predict a hundred percent every time whether it's going to come up heads or tails so chance doesn't do anybody any good we got time for watching for me can I suggest one thing this isn't fair for me to do a closing statement and not him I don't mind staying longer to have him do a closing statement and I preferred for him to get more and secondly if I'll stay for a few more questions if you want if Christopher will as well [Applause] okay okay I got them I got them to beg first loyal showbusiness keep them wanting more I do I don't want to stay any any later because I'm extremely tired have a very early start in the morning but I do want to also the moment is coming when I won't be nice to anyone who hasn't got a receipt because this is America and I have product to move okay look so I think if you want a clothing stable for me I'll keep it very brief I haven't had this will be I can't remember now how many how many public events this would count as no one has even attempted to answer my central question which is this why why is there any reason to believe that I must be a ascetic or personal health less morality available to me because I do not believe in a super natural dictatorship why am I not just in a deist in other words I don't believe there was a prime mover already need or you need to to believe in it in other words there is nothing left unexplained if that assumption is not made that's why I'm an atheist why my why I'm an atheist because I don't believe there has been a revelation of God I don't believe he's ever shown himself to us I think that the books in which this is claimed to have occurred are self evidently man-made and show many many signs of contradiction of fabrication of myth and legend and of having been as HL Mencken bluntly puts it a tampered with and also because they cannot all be true and they set people at odds with each other I was once told by a I was asked a question in turn by a famous religious broadcaster on the air he said you have to imagine the following you are in a strange city and it's late in the evening and you don't know anyone and you don't know your way around and the night is coming on and you see coming towards you a group of men now he says you must answer this question said do you feel better or worse happier or less happy safer or less safe once you know these men are coming from a prayer meeting in my book I try and answer the question I say well just without leaving the letter B I have been in those circumstances in the following cities Belfast Beirut Bombay Baghdad and one other let's just do the first four if anyone's ever spent any time in Belfast they'd know right away to try and find a place of hiding and safety if they were caught on the streets when the churches were letting people out at dusk or there isn't there's hardly been a non-religious murder in Belfast in the last thirty years it's it's a very dangerous place to be once the religious are abroad especially if it's gangs of men as specified in the question everything about everything about Beirut could be absolutely wonderful it's a it's a jewel of a city on the eastern end of Mediterranean it's the capital of a wonderful country that has all kinds of resources and all kinds of attractions and it's it's been for decades a hellhole because of the confessional system that insists that political power is allocated only two people who can show that they're members of a faith it doesn't particularly matter in the Lebanese Constitution which faith there's a pecking order but it has to be confessional and as a result Lebanon is its development unsafe at almost any time of day most especially when the churches and the mosques are letting people out onto the street that's when to be most careful to say that this was true in Belgrade and to say what the what effect religion had in the breakup of Yugoslavia there is no ethnic difference between being a Serb and a croat for example none whatever it's the difference between only between being Eastern Orthodox in the case of the Serb and Roman Catholic in the case of the crime that's a killing matter all across Western Herzegovina and Bosnia and larger attracts the rest of the country as soon as the church is stylish and let people out having preached their doctrine about the heretical nature of the other Christians the other believers every kind of mayhem was let loose again I say this is not done in the name of God as people say it's not done in the name of religion that's not it that's not an out that I think can be offered it's done because of religion it Rises because of the very preachments that are in the checks and it but and it relies ultimately and derives ultimately from the servile belief that our problems can be solved if we will only refer an upward to a supernatural despotism to a dictator whose verdicts cannot be challenged to a dictator who's so far from giving us free will says we can be convicted of thought crime of sentenced to an eternity of punishment for things we may have thought in in our sleep or thought and not yet done as I say that I'll close them on this the emancipation of humanity demands first and foremost the emancipation of the idea of a supernatural dictator thank you [Applause] thanks for hanging out folks I know it's late I'll try and be brief I'll go into Jersey mode first of all thank you very much and I just want to point out one thing I agree with a lot of Christopher's book but if you look at the tone of his book if you had to sum it up in one phrase it would be this there is no God and I hate him Christopher calls himself an anti theist he's not an atheist he's an anti theist the second major way of summarizing the book I think is this way since religious people have done evil things God doesn't exist in logic that's called a non sequitur it doesn't follow of course we all do evil things I do evil things that doesn't mean God doesn't exist in fact I agree with Christopher on many things I think many religious people have behaved terribly I think many religious beliefs are false and can't be justified I don't think you need to believe in God to know basic right and wrong or to be moral I'm just saying that atheists can't justify morality you don't need the Bible or any other religious book to know basic right and wrong so I agree with Christopher on many of these things but none of these things so none of the things he's brought up today no arguments are really arguments against the existence of God God could still exist even if all of Christopher's complaints and assertions are true in fact I've given evidence that God does exist I think now some of you may not be persuaded by that that's okay there's a difference between proof and persuasion it's up to you whether you think it's persuasive also the title of this book God is not great how religion poisons everything actually religion doesn't poison everything everything poisons religion I poison religion because I don't live up to the pure words of Christ I admit it and what Christopher does is he conflates all religions and say because the Muslims are committing jihad and the folks in Belfast are doing evil and the folks in Baghdad are doing evil and even crystals are doing evil that means there's no truth in religion bad theology doesn't mean there isn't good theology you can't conflate all religions and say that none of them are true just because people do evil things I am a hypocrite and when people say to me I can't go to church because all those hypocrites down there I always say come on down pal we got room for one more that's what the church is it's a hospital for sinners it's not a Country Club for Saints I'll never be perfect that's why Christ had to come now as Christopher admits his disbelief is really not in his head but in his heart it's not that there's no evidence for God so that he can't believe it's that despite the evidence he won't believe he says that he rebelled against the divine dictatorship he just mentioned that he keeps calling God immoral and tyrannical the problem for Christopher is that there's no immorality or tyranny of atheism is true atheism affords Christopher no objective moral standard by which to judge anything immoral or tyrannical including all the sins of religious people uncircumcision sexual restrictions the Crusades suicide bombings all you can say is these people had bad molecules he has to borrow objective morality from the theistic worldview and are in order to argue against it he has to assume God in order to deny him he has to sit in God's lap to slap his face Christopher is like the man in a restaurant who was eating a meal and because he doesn't like the food claims that the chef doesn't exist this is a non sequitur now I've tried to give evidence as to why I think it fee is and better describes reality than atheism because of the acronym I use cosmos because all time all matter and all space exploded into being out of nothing because it exploded into existence with incredible order and extreme fine-tuning because life in the genetic code are the result of intelligence because there are objective immaterial moral values because objective immaterial immaterial reality such as reason the laws of logic and mathematics exist which enable us to investigate the world through science in this orderly universe and because a crucified man from an obscure village became the most influential person in human history through his resurrection from the dead you know Christopher hasn't given us any real reason to believe atheism is true or to describe reality he's given no atheistic explanation for how things that we know exist where they came from no explanation for the universe fine-tuning of life the genetic code morality reason math science and we can add you man freedom to that if we want instead of evidence Christopher's provided speculation faith and ignored the issues completely that's why I don't have enough faith to be an atheist and why theism I think better explains reality than atheism I want to point out one other thing we got a question a minute ago about the meaning of life Christopher says in his book that the sacrifice that sacrifice sacrifice of Christ is immoral again using the language of morality but it's sacrificed really immoral on September 29 2006 petty officer Michael Monsoor was a u.s. Navy SEAL he was serving in Ramadi in Iraq petty officer monster had two teammates and had taken a position on the outcropping of a roof when an insurgent grenade bounced off his chest and landed on the roof Mansoor had a clear chance to escape but he realized that the other two SEALs did not in that terrible moment he had two options he could save himself or save his friends for petty officer Mansoor this was no choice at all he threw himself on the grenade and absorbed the blast with his body he died 30 minutes later one of the survivors put it this way Mikey looked death in the face and that day that day and said you cannot take my brother's I will go in their stead when President Bush gave gave Petty Officer monsters Medal of Honor to his parents at a White House ceremony he rightly said this perhaps the greatest tribute to Mike's life is the way different service members all across the world responded to his death army soldiers in Ramadi hosted a memorial service for the valiant man who had fought beside them Iraqi army scouts who Mike helped train lowered their flag and sent it to his parents then nearly every seal on the west coast turned out from Mike's funeral in California I don't know if you know but a seal has a trident it's a pen it's probably the most difficult pen in any military to earn I have a pen Navy wings these were difficult to earn but they were nothing like the seal or the Trident that its seal needs to earn when every seal on the west coast turned out for Mike's funeral they all filed past the casket they removed their golden tridents from the uniforms press them into the walls of the coffin the procession went on for nearly half an hour and when it was all over the simple wooden coffin had become a gold-plated memorial to a hero who will never be forgotten now I ask you is sacrifice immoral jesus said this the greatest love a person can show is to die for his friends so while Christopher's attitude maybe there is no God and I hate him God's attitude is there is a Christopher Hitchens and I love him in fact I died for him [Music] and now let us thank both of our speakers [Applause] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Cross Examined

Views: 696,580

Rating: 4.7758698 out of 5

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

Id: uDCDTaKfzXU

Length: 126min 19sec (7579 seconds)

Published: Mon May 23 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/ianyboo]

Ahhh Frank Turek, the only apologist I've ever seen who can out-smarm and out-condescend and out-strawman William Lane Craig. Listening to Turek for any length of time makes my blood boil, every other sentence is a deliberate misrepresentation of something delivered dripping with Dunning Kruger effect.

Matt Slick is the only apologist I can think of that I loathe more.