Your Miracles Won't Do It - Cristopher Hitchens

one of the questioners repeats a a point from dr. Turks opening statement to that apparently here she feels you did not address mr. Hitchens about the irreducible complexity of DNA and is it possible for such structures to have formed by chance well though - I have two responses to that one is what would she have said before she knew about DNA what does that have to do with anything we're exists they existed prior to anyone knowing about them yes it's gravity existed before we knew about it that's true you need an explanation that's right and christianity thought it could explain everything and then it fell not only things wait this very simple same as your point about molecules that I said these arguments predate Epicurus Lucretius and the atomic theory christianity used to say can explain everything it is all you need to know is there's no powerful or loving or intervening all-knowing omniscient God okay well then wait wouldn't DNA explain more ah well that only shows that God's even cleverer than we thought so it's an infinitely expanding tautology there are many of the some Christians who accept in fact it was actually a Catholic physicist at the University of Leuven in Belgium who first came up with the idea of what we now call the Big Bang and most Pope's not all most Pope's have accepted it some have thought of it as a challenge to Christianity the Pope Leo who he went to the I can't remember the scientists name for a second maybe someone here can help me he went to the Pope said look that looks like this is how things started the Pope said if you like I'll make it a dogma that every Catholic has to believe it I said that would be slightly missing the point your holiness as for what if they say with the origin to be any well because the it is true to say that religion as Stephen Jay Gould said the religion and science belonged to non-overlapping magisteria I think these Magisterial in many ways incompatible and in many ways irreconcilable but it is no more true to say that the existence of the complexity of DNA shows that God was more ingenious than we thought than it is to say that it necessarily shows by its self revealing ingenuity that we don't need the hypothesis of God both of these positions would be in my opinion somewhat reductionist though I would have to say that I think the second one is more persuasive and more elegant Gould is wrong will that do Christians or religious people religion is trying to find out what how the universe began it's always science they're not no religion says it does no excuse me it's trot it drives can also process of scientific inquiry religion is an affirmation of faith it says the radius person Christopher it says it'll use the evidence to try and point out that the universe exploded into being out of nothing and you have scientific evidence for the view that an intervention will occur to prevent the implosion and don't forget that ah let's start at the beginning I can't forget it let's start at the beginning animating everything you said old evening I'm gonna remember Joe that's for debate - no no I mean don't say you what here do yourself do yourself your faith the honor of saying it's faith definitely no on space the argument you get away with it look the argument would be Christopher is that if the universe exploded into being out of nothing then miracles are possible because the greatest miracle of all has already occurred the question is have miracles occurred in the first century mirror that requires another debate whereby we have to look at the historical evidence and see and if it is true that the that Jesus really did come and say and do the things that the New Testament writers said he did then whatever he teaches is true because if he rose from the dead he was God if he taught that there will be an intervention then there will be that's the argument enough time to support it you'll need it it's fallen off if I a sentence or two from David Hume would correct what you said a miracle is defined not as a part of the natural order but as a suspension of the natural no and you can't say I'll say of a of the Big Bang which is the foundation of a natural order that it's a suspension of what it starts you may not do that however if you meet someone in the street who you yesterday saw executed you can say either that an extraordinary miracle has occurred or that you are under a very grave misapprehension and David Humes logic on this I think is quite irrefutable he says what is more likely that the laws of nature have been suspended in your favor and in a way that you approve all that you've made a mistake and in each case you must and especially if you didn't see it yourself and you're hearing it from someone who says that they did I would go further and say the following I'll grant you that it would be possible to track the pregnancy of the woman Mary has mentioned about three times in the Bible and to show that there was no male intervention in her life at all but yet she delivered herself of a healthy baby boy but I can say I don't say that's impossible parthenogenesis is not completely unthinkable but it does not prove that his paternity is divine and it wouldn't prove that any of his moral teachings were thereby correct nor if I was to see him executed one day and see him walking the streets the next would that show that he's father was God or his mother was a virgin all that his teachings were true especially given the commonplace nature of Resurrection at that time in place after all Lazarus was raised never said a word about it the daughter of jairus was raised didn't say a thing about what she'd been through and the Gospels tell us that at the time of the crucifixion all the graves in Jerusalem opened and their occupants wandered around the streets to greet so the resurrection was something of a banal at the time not all not all of those people clearly were divinely conceived so I'll give you all the miracles and you'll still be left exactly where you are now holding an empty sack no Christopher you have to look at each miracle in light of the evidence and the context um was wrong because his premise that was wrong was the one that said the evidence for the regular is always greater than that for the rare it's not from Yume's on world view if you were you if you were here today he wouldn't even believe in the Big Bang because it only happened once it's not a regular event it happened once he wouldn't believe in the spontaneous generation of life which is what a materialist must believe because it only happened once he wouldn't believe in his own birth because it only happened once in fact he wouldn't be able to believe in the whole history of our solar system because it only happened once you don't need regular events to know whether or not something happened singular events happen all the time this debate will never happen again yet you're here to witness it there's a there's a I mean I'm just going to put my repose my trust in the audience here this it doesn't obvious difference between a singularity and a miracle and I I mean I think it would be embarrassing to try and explain it will be patronizing

Channel: silverstream314

Views: 2,055,079

Rating: 4.8271017 out of 5

Keywords: Christopher, Hitchens, atheism, god, miracles, proof, evidence

Id: vJAnCg945EE

Length: 7min 28sec (448 seconds)

Published: Fri May 01 2009

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

There are also other ways to address the question that DNA has an irreducible complexity and therefore must have been intelligently designed. Chemistry has shown that chemical elements can combine to form simple compounds, and simple compounds can react to form more complicated compounds; the complexity of DNA is hardly irreducible. Biological evolution is preceded by chemical evolution.

[u/oneanddoneforfun]

That guy Hitch is arguing with is intolerably strident and jerky.

[u/HermesTheMessenger]

In the first half, Hitchens rightly slams the attempt by the theist to claim religion is a science and works by the same motivations.