Hitchens vs. Hitchens: On God, War, Politics, and Culture
About the Event
Summary of the HITCHENS VS HITCHENS debate, held at Fountain Street Church, 24 Fountain Street, NE, Grand Rapids, Michigan on April 3, 2008. The subtitle of this first ever clash of brothers on stage was: On Faith, War, Politics, and Culture. It was co-sponsored by the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies at GVSU and our own Center for Inquiry- Michigan. This event took the place of our regularly scheduled meeting which would have been on the 9th of April and we are considering it as our 250th meeting of CFI-Michigan.
The Hitchens brothers, throughout a long estrangement and recent reconciliation, have clashed in print on many issues. In this debate, however, the two were brought together on a stage for the first time to debate numerous issues, from the Bible to the bomb.
Christopher Hitchens is one of the most controversial and compelling voices in Anglo- American journalism. He has written twenty books, including biographies on Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and George Orwell, as well as scathing critiques of Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton and Mother Teresa . Most recently, he wrote the book on atheism: God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and edited The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for Non-Believers. A contributing editor to Vanity Fair and a frequent commentator on C-SPAN, he also writes regularly for The Atlantic, The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, Harper’s Magazine, Slate, and other notable journals.
Peter Hitchens is one of Britain’s most controversial journalists. He blogs and writes a regular column for the Mail on Sunday. Formerly a long- time writer for The Daily Express, Peter was once asked by former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to: sit down and stop being bad. This, after an aggressive press conference confrontation. He is the author of The Abolition of Britain: From Winston Churchill to Princess Diana; and The Abolition of Liberty: The Decline of Order and Justice in England. He has written for the Spectator, The Guardian, and New Statesman.
The moderator for this debate was Gleaves Whitney, Director of the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies. In addition to the biographical sketches just given above, Whitney noted that the brothers are both eminent writers with a profound respect for the English language and are fierce debaters and independent thinkers. They diverge dramatically on many issues, however. Especially on the ones addressed in this evening’s format. He also mentioned that Christopher, the elder of the two, had a birthday coming up in 10 days time and that this debate was unique not only for bringing him face to face, on the same stage, with his once estranged sibling, but that it found him in a church! Peter, who still lives in England, had spent two years in the US, in Bethesda, Maryland. The outcome of a coin toss was that Peter would speak first.
The first topic for this evening had for its title: The Invasion of Iraq Was Wrong.
Peter began by commenting on how much more adversarial many of the institutions in Britain are than in the US; including the Press, Parliament, courtrooms and even- with a look to his brother- families. As to the last- mentioned dynamic, Peter spoke of the ups and downs of family life in the Hitchens household and how his father had to resort to having the lads sign a sort of peace treaty in order to restore calm between them. However, those who were expecting to see something akin to a verbal version of mud wrestling, would be disappointed. He added that he never wanted to do this again, so their first time battling it out on stage together would be their last. Peter indicated that the lack of adversarial friction is what allowed the invasion and occupation of Iraq to take place so readily. The American Press parroted the Administration’s pronouncements uncritically and political opposition was almost nonexistent.
Peter said that to show the truth of the topic premise was fantastically easy to do. However, while now a staunch opponent to the war, he conceded that his mind was not initially made up on the matter. It took the rank stupidity of how the war was conducted and how the war proponents, quoting Chamberlain, treated even their own arguments with contempt, to cause him to come down on the anti-war side of the debate. His background prepared him well to be a supporter of the invasion and that was why he wavered at first. He noted that Christianity in England is weakly adhered to, being a pallid and anemic thing there. The religion he grew up with that was enthusiastically endorsed went by the name: We Won the War! This is what he grew up believing in, with those all around him endorsing and reinforcing this belief which, he said, suffused everything. This was not an academic issue for him, since they lived nearby to areas of cities devastated by the bombings and his father, a naval officer, gave convincing arguments about how noble, right and necessary the war had been. By launching a war, he was brought up to believe, one could do good things.
But as he lived longer, experiencing more, and traveling farther- including to some of the nastier places- where warfare was not so easily dichotomized into clear- cut white hats and black hats, he began to change his mind. We all saw the pictures- the missile launches, the remote explosions and fireworks skies of Shock and Awe, but those images were carefully sanitized for the viewers, with no depictions of what happens at the other end of the missile strikes, which killed innocents and civilians in their wake. Somalia, where intervention from the West could have made a difference, ended up being a horribly failed rescue attempt. When the Iraq War was just getting underway, a rear admiral in the US Navy, in addressing the ship’s company, said that it’s hammer time, while the song We Will Rock You blared. Sadly, this set the tone for the invasion. This was not a war to liberate concentration camps or to halt the Nazis in their quest for global domination.
When Peter began writing and speaking out against the war, he received- at first- mostly angry responses and was labeled unpatriotic and was told that he was just plain wrong. Still, he persisted in opposing the war, pointing out the self- righteousness and arrogance he saw in how it was conducted, and noting that it was bound to end in disaster. The imperialistic approach of England was a lesson learned for all who would consult fairly recent history, to see how misguided it is and how it ends in disgrace. Peter had been to Iraq twice since the war commenced and saw firsthand how we are now heading down that same route with the same fate to befall us. He ended by saying that there was nothing more terrifying in this world than someone who thinks he is right.
Christopher spoke next. Peter had mangled a quote from Kipling during his closing thoughts and Christopher rendered the quote accurately from memory, with a slightly barbed aside to his brother. He started off indicating that he knew his support for the war was not a popular one now and that the debate would not be a banal one, stating facetiously, that he wore a garlic necklace beneath his shirt. He noted that he would be heading off next to the funeral service for William F. Buckley, Jr. He also expressed his mock- confusion over certain aspects of the church before giving his own recollections on his upbringing. He talked of how the people in Europe lived between two wars and how the second one was a resumption of hostilities. He said it was rather reassuring to make note of the fact that his parents had gotten married on this day in 1945, even while having witnessed so much turmoil and uncertainty.
As to the Mesopotamian War (as he called it, for humorous effect): All are quite sure why they oppose it; they are all clear on the reasons why they cannot support the war, including that they were lied to, cheated, told wrong things… they were given inaccurate information by dubious government sources and the worrisome WMD was overstated, as was the terrorist threat posed by Saddam Hussein. It is believed to be wrong, he continued, to even mention the deposed and executed Iraqi dictator in the same breath as weapons of mass destruction (WMD). But Saddam Hussein was not just a bad guy. Christopher asked us to imagine what it was like to see one’s family members tortured and then executed in the public square while other family members are forced at gunpoint to applaud. He asked us to consider the 180,000- plus Kurds killed by poison gas and at least that many Shia Arabs killed in southern Iraq. The Brits and Americans put up no- fly zones over the regions so that this genocidal horror would not be replicated. Christopher (who humorously vacillated between insisting on being referred to as Dr. Hitchens or Professor Hitchens—always the opposite of how he had just been addressed; always correcting the one making use of the designation) talked about Saddam’s invading armies attacking US civilians in the region and in one case abolishing the whole existence of the UN and Arab conference. In one speech, Hussein stated that his only mistake was in not having nuclear weapons first before invading Kuwait.
We lived by his will. Only his stupidity allowed our complacency, C. Hitchens asserted. In the meantime, Southern and Northern fighters were doing the work that we should have been doing then. He boldly stated that he is convinced that the liberation of Iraq will stand up as one of the greatest examples of American statecraft and that soldiers, politicians and whomever else defended this action will be proudest of this decision among those we had ever made.
So what had we accomplished? He reviewed with us his list of what was attained in our war effort: We removed a keystone state in the Middle East from the control and ownership of a crime family; a fascistic mafia-like family that viewed the citizenry as completely disposable, living in an arterial point in the world economy and which exists between the theocratic Saudi Arabia and a Shia theocracy in Iran- one that is no less exorbitant, he declared. We have the right to do this and we may insist on oil and talk about this in the same breath as democracy. We can rehabilitate the oil industry there while helping Iraqis emerge from under the brutal yolk of the psychopathic crime family of Hussein that existed before our invasion. We brought one of the greatest war criminals to justice where he received a legitimate trial in a place where it was, until recently, the cause of a very slow death to merely possess a cell phone! We have undone a great deal of environmental damage and helped establish the autonomy of the Kurdish people. Business and the press and a civil society that has been federalized and democratized flourishes where none of this had before. The sooner and earlier the intervention by the US and Britain- the sooner and better and deeper and more enduring the positive outcome would have been.
Peter Hitchens next took the podium in rebuttal. He asked us to consider the consequences of the Iraq war: Six trillion dollars spent that the US does not have to dispose of in this way; the US resorting to torture; an untold number of innocent people killed; the demonstration to the world that the US is no longer able to mount a justified military operation abroad; attaining the dubious distinction of having the lowest level of moral authority in the Western world for the foreseeable future; the deliberate willful ignorance of the past seen in Britain’s complicity in this invasion and occupation- a past where the attempt to seize control of Iraq, create false elections, etc. did not work. We pay and arm, he went onto say, one faction to fight against another instead of killing our own soldiers- without any guarantees that they won’t turn the AK-47s against us the next day.
Should the US intervene in and invade every sovereign nation where there are despotic leaders and that lack freedom? Where else might we intervene? Peter asked rhetorically. Perhaps the site of the Summer Olympics (Beijing, China)? Is it evident from our actions and policies that we only make associations based on principles of good people over nasty and brutal dictatorships? He answered his own question by citing several examples of instances of duplicity and disingenuous behavior in our support of one brutal dictator—or at least turning a blind eye to the actions of those we tolerate for our own purposes while declaring another, who is inconvenient for our interests (such as Hussein, controlling the spigot for the third largest oil reserve on the planet , as Dick Cheney noted once) to be in dire need of eradication. None of the stated objectives and reasons for our invasion turned out to be true. We were not greeted as liberators, the region- far from being a shining beacon on the hill- is in ruins. We remain an occupying force that the population overwhelmingly wishes to see leave. How can you tout a burgeoning democracy—where the will of the people is supreme—while ignoring what they want? How can you call this a success?
In Christopher’s rejoinder to his brother’s words, he said that it seemed a waste of Hitchenism to resort to actuarial accounting, but if we wanted to do the balance sheet, then let us do it properly. Saddam Hussein used weapons of mass destruction against his own people. We forced the capitulation of Gaddafi after the fall of Baghdad. He didn’t go to Kofi Annan in the UN in order for the stockpiles of weapons to now be stored in the US. Instead he went to Tony Blair and George W. Bush. The stockpile was much larger than we initially thought; coming from Pakistan and North Korea , as we discovered in walking the cat backwards, as Christopher put it. This put the North Koreans in the frame resulting in a non- proliferation coup! This also led to us catching the guy traveling on an Iraqi diplomatic passport, the same as other terrorists that we ended up halting in their tracks. Sneer if you want, he challenged, over Mission Accomplished, but the fact remains that there have been achievements of value made because of this war.
In a retort to the idea of our having invaded a sovereign nation, Christopher gave us four ways in which a state loses its sovereignty. Iraq met all four requirements for such loss of sovereignty, he asserted. These are: Violation of the Genocide Convention, which we signed; the violation of the Non-proliferation Treaty; providing aid and comfort to—and harboring- international terrorists; and occupying the territory of other nations. By rising to the level of all four benchmarks, Saddam distinguished himself among other despotic rulers. He committed flagrant, gross, intentional violations of these rules and treaties, forcing our hand in removing him in order to enter a post- Saddam frame of reality where positive changes could at last come about.
Hitchens said that he knows more about the blunders we committed than we do; he knows things that would, as he put it, curl our hair. We intervened not too soon but much too late. Only therein lies our shame. This is irrefragable; one cannot impeach this idea.
This concluded the first portion of the debate; the end of the first topic to be addressed. The moderator told us that the title of the second topic regarded the God proposition: God does not exist and He is not great. Whitney went on to note that famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow had posited a similar proposition within those same walls (at Fountain Street Church) 80 years ago. Christopher Hitchens was given ten minutes for his opening comments but he said, in droll fashion, that he doubted seriously that it would take that long to disprove the existence of God.
He said that the standard atheist proposition maintained that it may not be said that there is no God, but that there is no reason to think that there is one. There is a mild distinction in this thought. If one wishes to be a deist, as exemplified by his heroes Paine and Jefferson, then one may not wish to remove the notion of a Prime Mover- a first uncaused cause that set in motion the laws of the universe and allowed it all to unfold but made no further appearances; did not intervene in human affairs and had no ear for prayers or interest in acting upon said. But if you move from deist position to the theist one then all your work is still ahead of you, since now one must give credence to the idea that such an entity or force maintains the universe and every action within it. Furthermore, It cares about you and intervenes on your behalf; It listens to and answers your prayers and is deeply concerned about burning issues such as chopping off parts of the male foreskin or female genitalia. It also frowns upon or blesses your choice of bedmates and in what manner you engage another sexually. This Creator and Maintainer of the entire universe inexplicably also takes profound interest in what holy days are observed, what one eats, if fibers or crops are mixed, etc. It finds the smell of burnt flesh pleasing, rewards genocidal armies on Its behalf with virgins to rape, is deeply offended by the worship of other deities, and so on. Lots of luck in transitioning from the first position to the second one smoothly!
The author of God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, said that he could leave it there, but that it was not in his nature to let go a captive audience so easily. He is quite glad that the God proposition is invalid and he simply cannot understand those who miss their old, former faith; who wish to hold onto absurd ideas and beliefs. The main reason, he supposes, that people are drawn to such beliefs has to do with the totalitarian nature of religious belief and the desire to be a slave. This is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority that can convict you while you sleep. It has you under constant surveillance- even from the time before you were born. But here’s the kicker, he noted: afterwards is when the real fun begins! The time after you are deceased is like a celestial North Korea, he said memorably. Who wants this to be true!? Who wants to be a slave?
It [he references Christianity here but not by name] has a dead man as its president. It is a necrocracy, as he put it, using a neologism, as is his next adjective: It is a fanatocracy. It is one short of a Trinity. The Son is the reincarnation of the Father. This scheme represents the absolute and most heartless tyranny that humankind has ever devised. At least with North Korea, one may die and leave the place behind! One’s utter ownership begins at the point of death, with Christianity. This system attacks us in our deepest, most essential integrity. It is an insult, he declared. It says that we cannot decide right from wrong or make proper judgments upon justice and correct behavior without celestial dictators.
Religion, Christopher Hitchens said, was our first attempt or version of the truth; it is what we tried when we didn’t know anything. It emerged from a time when we did not yet grasp that our planet was spherical and that it revolved around the Sun and that this system of suns and orbiting planets and other bodies was replicated throughout the entirety of the universe. Those who fashioned the monotheisms did not know about microorganisms and germ theory; diseases were caused by demonic possession—even God’s own Son, adhered to this misconception when he cast out demons or inserted them into swine. Religion, too, was our first attempt at health care, medicine, philosophy, etc. Because it was our initial stab at these things, generated in ignorance of the workings of the world and its underlying structures, mechanisms, causes, etc., it is our worst attempt.
We have cleared up so many of the mysteries of the past through science and the naturalistic approach- while religious beliefs have not yet given us a single insight into how the world or the universe operates, yet we still cling stubbornly to supernatural notions and ancient tribal myths, and we still willingly dwell under a totalitarian regime of our own construction. Holding to supernatural causation denies all our hard won advances since we have climbed out of unenlightened and uniformed barbarism. While this first attempt at understanding the world and our relationship to it all was initially a fine survival aid- now it represents a great peril for the survival of our species. How is it that we rely upon the ghastly and petty supernatural version of reality instead of the elegant, beautiful and numinous alternative as given to us by Darwin and Einstein? How is it that a burning bush, talking snakes and donkeys; tribal skirmishes or the dread fear of menstrual blood, is more moving than a several billion year old universe and Earth, with life evolving on our changing planet and all of the wonders that science unearths on a daily basis?
Christopher had us examine how for the first 100- 200,000 years of humankind’s existence, we had a life expectancy of only about 25 years; infant mortality was rife; diseases were terrible, without hope of mitigation; suffering was great- without any hope for alleviation; fights were rampant over women, land, tribal disputes and ethnocentrism and so on and on. Throughout all of this, Heaven observes with folded arms- with complete indifference and coldness. Then suddenly a supreme moral authority emerges to instruct Its favored critters on how to live. But It shows up to do this in the most backwards, illiterate and barbaric of places in the Middle East- rather in the more advanced and enlightened societies of the time. And what does It provide to the poor benighted people It comes to? Why- human sacrifice, mass murder and plagues, of course. What better vehicles than these to convey information and moral instruction? Those who believe, even remotely, like that show themselves to be stupid and immoral. The case for divine intervention falls and we should, he said ringingly, be glad that it falls!
Peter’s turn was next. First he said, sarcastically, that he can tell that we are all enjoying the post- Saddam era. Now we shall explore the post- God era. He charged his brother with mocking and belittling people of faith, saying that he and those like him fail to perceive that the religious, too, are troubled by certain issues within their religious beliefs. Nonetheless, they come to believe that God is wise, benevolent and good for themselves and even for the universe. He said that he wished that the flippant tone employed by his sibling would be abandoned and stated that Christopher’s approach seemed to him to be incurious to the point of tedium. How is it, he wondered, that one might examine the universe and not ask powerful questions? Why is there something rather than nothing, for instance. Since we do not know anything about our origins and must work out what we imagine from scanty evidence, it seems unwise to form absolute certainties on this issue.
Summary writer’s note: It is only through methodological naturalism that the powerful and profound questions may be asked- or even permitted. Scientifically informed rationalism is the polar opposite of being incurious, as its whole purpose is to question everything and explore the natural framework of the universe. The religious perspective, on the other hand, is one that shuts down embarrassing questions, sees blind faith and evidence- free belief as a virtue to be cultivated and held to even through the use of cognitive dissonance. It says: God did it. End of discussion.
And, we must remember, religion has so far not provided a single answer that has turned out to have any validity for any questions posed about how the world operates. Furthermore, contrary to what Peter declared, we DO know a great deal about our origins and the deep evolutionary history of our planet; to say otherwise is to display a dramatic and overwhelming willful ignorance of the natural world and what has been discovered about it. Finally, it is ironic in the extreme that Peter spoke of forming absolute certainties as a negative approach when that is the very essence of religious faith and what being a true believer is all about! Again, it is the direct opposite of the approach used by rational and scientifically informed skeptics. Scientific knowledge is always tentative, awaiting further evidence; the data is always falsifiable and able to be corrected, improved upon, built up or dismantled as new information enters and further testing is done. It is religious belief that uses none of these elements and maintains dogmatic, absolute certainty in unfounded doctrines and faith tenets in the face of contrary evidence. What odd and completely baseless comments to make by someone touted as a thinker by the moderator. End of this summary- writers comments.
Peter next talked about his brother’s book: God is not Great. This, he felt, was written in a jeering and mocking style and picked out only what is bad in religion, ignoring the rest. As a mild cutting aside, he said that perhaps if it had been written in a more sober and balanced manner, its sales would not have been as high. He brought up Christopher’s challenge that he often makes—and indeed make again later during this debate- developing it further at that point in the debate- where one is asked what moral action a believer may make that a non-believer is incapable of making. Peter did not take up this question directly but addressed it only by saying that if one believes he or she is the product of blind forces and random accidents, chaos, etc., then on what basis is that person going to behave morally?
He referred to Richard Dawkins and his brother as well as others unnamed (but probably referencing Dennett and Harris- who all came out with strong bestselling books at roughly the same time that were highly critical of religion), as being what he termed luxury atheists. He knows where and how they live and said that they were able to advance atheism as a theory only while being detached, through privilege, from the grittier reality of the world and the honest faith of those who espouse it.
In England, where there is a large population of highly practical atheists, what does one read about in the papers? People being kicked to death and displaying a lack of moral feeling and self- governance. They take advantage of the weak and these acts grow more common, he asserted, in the very places where Christianity has vanished, replaced by the worldview of the practical atheists. Summary- writer’s note: While I cannot address the situation in England, it is known that in this country, the single greatest determiner of incest, child and spouse abuse and criminal behavior in general is one’s level of fundamentalist religious belief. This goes beyond race, socio- economic status, class, gender, education, or any other factor; the more hardcore one is in one’s religious beliefs, the more one is positively correlated to socially inappropriate activities. It is not non-believers who swell our huge prison system and it is not in hotbeds of secularism that the spate of school shootings took place in our recent history. End of this writer’s note.
Peter said that in place of worship of a deity or savior, it is money that is worshiped in largely secular England. Abortion has risen with the decline of religiosity, he asserted. Worship of the stuff of materialism is far out in front of devotion to Jehovah. He stated that it is reasonable to believe, that given that we cannot know for certain if there is or is not a god, why not opt for the belief in God (echoing Pascal)? If there is an intentional law, origin, and order running through the universe, then wouldn’t it be wise to try to understand the nature of it; to find out what it was and to seek to govern ourselves by it?
As for North Korea- they hate and despise the idea of God but make gods of themselves. Like Adam and Eve, they ate of the fruit and became as gods. This is what we do when we believe there is nothing above us, he posited. He added that, in this way, we destroy authority and all the things that turn the hearts of the disobedient into the wisdom of the just. He connected what he sees as the growing trash culture and societal decline with an ever more pervasive godlessness. This is what happens, he said, when we make God absent in our lives. He is still there but existing only in our hearts. He exhorted us to invite Him in and seek guidance from Him. We no longer know how to govern ourselves without Him.
Peter said that there are various forms of morality. He lived in Moscow for a time and saw the utter lacking in manners displayed there and now this is occurring now in Britain as well. He is witnessing a general breakdown of the core assumptions of what is right and wrong. One cannot have a personal, individual morality—there must be a generally accepted one to take over if or when the public one goes by the wayside.
He spoke of the three forms of personal moral orientation: the first being the left- right one which bespeaks of going one’s own way. The second is the shipboard morality, pertaining to the fore and aft of the vessel at sea. This changes as the ship changes course, with nothing fixed or stable. Finally, there is the True North position. This is the form that has an absolute right and wrong to it and has an authoritative basis. There is the State power under the law, there is the authority of parents over children (Peter actually stated it as that they rule over the children) and there is the use of this authority in other places in society where absolute values and rules apply. All right and proper function is derived from this understanding and without it we are lost. Why mock and sneer at it? he asked with some emotion. He closed by saying that he really wished that Christopher would treat this subject seriously for once!
It was Christopher’s turn to speak. He said, in his characteristically droll way: It’s easy to sneer, but someone has to do it. But sure- he would deal with the seriousness of the issue of religious authority, ritual and behavior. Consider the young girl who had just undergone female genital mutilation due to God’s will. Is this a trivial matter? he asked, challenging Peter. Boys die every year from the Mosaic laws governing male circumcision that are celebrated in all three monotheisms. Is this not serious? What about the biblical story of Abraham, following God’s authoritative command to slay his beloved son with a knife at his throat? And this, only to prove his devotion to the cruel dictator. Christopher stated with passion that he wouldn’t stand for his shedding of light upon Bible- based wickedness being deemed a frivolous exercise. These examples he gave, he said, were ones of following the True North that Peter so admires. These and hundreds of other examples of horrific cruelty display the depths that religion wishes to throw you to. Let’s do laugh—inject a little humor as comic relief from the horror show of the Good Book and its dictator’s decrees.
Since his book had been attacked for being merely a mocking and jeering effort, Christopher noted that it had been reviewed by very serious people including bishops, rabbis and other serious thinkers regarding theological matters. They were unable to answer the questions posed in his book. It’s simply not in their nature to do so, he said. The dichotomy that Christopher laid out was that either you believe in vicarious redemption or you do not. What does it mean to have a personal morality that says that if you sin, you can simply throw another to suffer the consequences on your behalf? This removes personal responsibility from the wrongdoer. He stated that vicarious redemption is the most immoral idea in circulation. He noted that he could choose to pay your debts for you, or he could volunteer to serve another’s term in prison if this were permitted— but to say that someone else can take away one’s own sins, leaving you washed white as snow as if you had never committed them— and moreover, watching them be tormented and tortured in your stead, and then to call them his flock—label them as sheep—this is a double insult. It is a hideous and humiliating form of scapegoating. He asked if there were any in the audience who willingly consider themselves to be sheep. Three people that this summary- writer observed from where he sat stood up. He said: Fine! Then sheep you are!
What about the problem of there being something rather than nothing? Christopher noted that the expansion of the universe is happening at an increasing rate. Nothingness is coming to us; the something that we experience now is about to meet with a great deal of nothing. Some design! Summary- writer’s aside: Richard Carrier noted that the universe seems built, if built for anything at all, to produce black holes. Black holes are not in the business of enhancing, producing or sustaining life, let alone human life. Just looking at the Earth, however, points to a process where we were never in the mind of, or plans for, any divine guiding intelligence. The overwhelming majority of the planet’s history saw only the simplest, prokaryotic life forms (and it wasn’t until plantlife developed and flourished to a sufficient degree that the atmosphere became one that could support aerobic life- let alone complex air- breathing life forms). Then millions and millions of years later, other simple eukaryotic organisms evolved. The tiny insectivorous mammals that we may be traced back to would be as far as their line ever got, had there not been the demise of the dinosaurs some 65,000,000 years ago- allowing the wee mammals to fill in more niches and usher in our primate ancestors of which one tiny twig— our own- survives. Nearly everything that has ever lived has gone extinct. Extinction- or nothingness- is the rule, and all those beings that have perished, never to arise again, did so before the man-made scheme of salvation and sin. Life arose and has winked out, all without any governing Plan or Design. Even our own vanishingly small branch in the arborescent bush of life came in different forms and it could have, likely as not, been another twig that succeeded rather than the one that produced modern Homo sapiens. So even those other versions of humankind are now lost to nothingness for all eternity, except for their fossilized remains. End of summary- writer’s comments.
Christopher Hitchens declared the scheme that he laid out as one that showed extreme incompetence and cruelty on the part of any putative Designer. It was one that displayed callousness and indifference for those He summoned into existence.
Peter Hitchens had the floor next. Focusing on the Abraham story, he said that the point of it was that the knife was not used! It was actually, he insisted, about getting rid of the practice of human sacrifice. This summary writer truly wonders if even Peter’s fellow Christians believe this to be the case. It seems to me to be a novel interpretation of the tale. I would assume that both Christian and non- Christian alike would regard the story to be one of ultimate obedience to God; the only difference being that the non-believer is shocked and sickened by the cruel sort of test that God devised, while the believer finds great power in the fable; finding it to be an example of stupendous faith. The non-believer might reckon that any Being that tests someone by use of his own beloved son that he is commanded to slay, is not worth being worshiped in the first place. Why would we declare a human who acted in this way a monster, while we label an immortal being that behaves in this fashion as omnibenevolent and worthy of an eternity of praise?
Peter said that to see the story of Abraham and Isaac as merely one of a father sticking a knife to his son’s throat is an unacceptable misunderstanding- a complete falsehood. The slaying of one’s own flesh is not what the tale advocates, he told us. To believe that it is, is to fail to see the purpose of the thing which is actually preached against. This and other failures to see what good outcomes and characteristics are produced by the holy texts is a failure on the part of the one misinterpreting those texts. Christopher, he said, almost never recognizes or credits Christians as doing any good in the world; at those rare time that he does do so, he immediately recruits them to the atheist side of the ledger. One cannot win with him! Anything that is wrong is God’s fault; anything right is deemed to be apart from religious faith. When society does something wrong on a large scale- say the Stalinist state- then Christopher will cast them in with religion.
Peter was appalled to see the methods used by non-believers to attempt to sweep Christianity away and was most upset by the idea presented in his brother’s controversial book that Christianity is a form of child abuse. He found this the most repellent aspect of the book. It was his contention that if Christianity were excised from the world, it would not be replaced by a blank slate; something would fill the void, and that something would be a more odious thing.
It was Christopher’s turn at bat. After briefly mentioning other religious sacrifices, he said that the first test is one of submission; this is what is key. It is a sado-masochistic system that encourages the love of Big Brother. The story of Abraham and his son was worse than Job, he contended. To love this, he added, is to love to be a slave.
He gave his brother Peter credit for writing well about the nihilism that has poisoned societal and collective life. He agreed with this assessment. But to say this is to be equated with atheism is to misunderstand what nihilism and relativism really mean. Christopher demonstrated quite neatly how there is little distinction between one who believes that he is acting of his own free will, by his own dictates, and one who is acting out of a belief that his actions are ordered, encouraged or justified by a god. Do they not behave in Beirut, Belfast, Iraq, Bombay and Iran as if they may do anything they wish to, since their actions are endorsed by a Supreme Being? God has given them permission to act in the most heinous of ways. God is on their side as they perform any and all atrocities. You don’t get rid of nihilism and relativism by claiming that God is in your corner, Christopher said. Rather, you make it possible to justify any cruelty, nightmare, child abuse, torture, violence and shame—and to be proud of it too!
If you think that morality must be supernaturally referred, and that without a heavenly dictatorship we would not have a moral guide then (and this is where Christopher stated his proposition that Peter alluded to earlier) name me a moral action, statement, etc. performed by a believer that could not be performed by a non-believer. I’m not asking for an answer immediately, he said with a smile. Take your time… Now, he went on, name me an evil or stupid or wicked action that performed or made by someone claiming God’s permission to do so. You’ve already thought of one! And you will keep thinking of more before the night is over. He continued: The connection between religion and morality posed by believers in a supernatural dictatorship is utterly, thoroughly, null and void. Worse than that- it is an excuse for worse evil than any secularist could ever have permitted himself to engage in.
Peter returned to the podium briefly and conceded that he could not think of an instance that would answer Christopher’s challenge. The closest he could come up with for it was from a personal story. He had resigned from a paper- the Daily Express- after it had been taken over by a known pornographer. In a lame attempt to score a point, Peter said that he was surprised to find a column by Christopher appearing in that same paper. Christopher shot back that this does not answer his question/challenge. Christopher had, however, garnered two responses that he deemed worthwhile. The first one involved an exorcism that had been performed to cast the Devil out of a victim. This, to be sure, is something that a non-believer could not accomplish (though, of course, there is no reason to think that it had even been accomplished by anyone- but at least the believer will make the attempt in ridding someone of demonic possession and feel that he has been successful). The other example that Christopher gave was one where the questioner posed to him: Could John Donne (1572- 1631) have written any of the songs or sermons he had without a sincere religious belief? Therefore could a non-believer have done the same thing? Christopher allowed that he honestly did not know. But he offered that Verde, as an atheist, wrote the Requiem; so while the Donne example may not be answered with certainty- other examples of non-believers producing great works within a religious context are not hard to find.
As to his column appearing in the Daily Express that his brother was too saintly to associate himself with—all this shows, Christopher noted slyly, is that his own column is more widely—and promiscuously- syndicated than Peter’s. The best that Peter could offer as a volley back was that he wouldn’t WANT his column to appear in that paper now!
This concluded the debate portion of the evening’s event. Now it was time to go on to the Question and Answer period. I will provide here an abbreviated rendition of what followed, as this portion of the evening was fairly extended and would push this write- up to nearly twice its length so far, if covered more fully.
Christopher received the first question, dealing with the issue of enlightened self- interest and morality. He said that it was an insult to think that for all the tenure of humankind on Earth, none had been able to come up with the idea, on their own, of not killing each other off or stealing and so on until tablets were supernaturally produced to tell them these things. He talked of the story of the Good Samaritan in which the priests didn’t help the victim but a pre- Christian did. His personal version of enlightened self interest is not the Ayn Randian one per se. He said that it was in his self interest to support a reduction in AIDS in society because he doesn’t want people with AIDS on his doorstep. He referenced a true historical story about a man who wanted to ensure that the poor had bath houses. It wasn’t altruistic; he just didn’t want smelly people around him. Telling children that they will be tortured forever if they do not follow certain rituals is wicked. Not only do the priests lie and terrify- but they rape the young as well.
Peter’s only rejoinder to this was to ask how we know right from wrong? Those who abandon the idea of Hell find that Hell comes to them.
As to the nature of truth, Christopher touted the scientific method where new facts usurp errant beliefs. The task of seeking the truth, he noted, may be ultimately unattainable, but that doesn’t mean one should give it up. Peter had no response, so Christopher went on. He said that the Golden Rule ensures that people always fall short. We are born as wretches in sin in need of salvation and can never meet the standards set by religion, so we must always be in need of the priest class to save us. He noted too that the version of the Golden Rule that has come down to us is restated from more ancient versions. Confucius, for in the negative form: that one should NOT do to others what one does NOT want others to do to one’s self.
Christopher fielded nearly all of the questions, either because nearly all were given to him or because of Peter’s non-responsiveness, or incomprehension over those that he was given. The next question posed to the elder Hitchens brother dealt with church taxation- or the lack thereof. Besides addressing this, he spoke against the Faith Based Initiative and mentioned that the First Amendment was devised by those who did not want churches corrupted by the state. It actually helps churches and religious freedom; enhances the free exercise of religious practice, to leave government out of it.
One questioner noted Christopher’s criticism regarding empire in earlier writings and wondered how this squared with his approval over doing just that (according to the questioner) regarding Iraq. He responded, in part, by saying that everything that the US did in Iraq has been related to empire since 1968. He elaborated beyond this, but I will turn to the next question, also posed to Peter (who may as well have left the room by this time.) The audience member asserted that how one acts when he believes God is on his side is the manner in which G.W. Bush behaves. Christopher did not counter this assertion but said that there were many examples of such behavior by other US presidents and other world leaders too; however, this is the first time such leanings have pushed an administration to be on the right side of an issue (referencing the Iraq war).
Peter was asked about his beliefs regarding a sentient influence upon how life unfolds. He didn’t understand the question. It was repeated. He still failed to comprehend what was asked of him. Christopher helpfully offered that the questioner was inquiring about his contentions over Intelligent Design. Peter said that in England the bookshelves are groaning under the weight of books by Dawkins and others who bash ID but that those who posit an alternative view are not allowed to (paraphrasing here) compete in the marketplace of ideas. He sees an effort of suppression against the idea that a divine, superintending force may play a hand in life’s origin and what has happened since then. There is an intolerance regarding any materials that go against Darwinism or are skeptical of evolution.
Christopher chimed in saying that the fact THAT evolution occurred and is occurring is not in question. It’s pace and other details are still not fully agreed upon, however. Creationism in all its forms gives no alternative explanation worthy of that word and offers nothing to science or for the advancement of thought regarding the natural world. Do those who wish to insinuate creationist ideas into the schools want to have the teachers say, in order to give equal time to pseudoscience: Class, chemistry period is over, now we will be turning to alchemy? Should they say: The study of astronomy is done for now—so we shall now go to astrology? Christopher said that if Bush wants it both ways then every church will have to teach Darwinism! Equal time, after all!
Peter was presented with the next query: If someone has a religious experience and then goes on to do good works, should the credit, then, go to God? Again, Peter had trouble addressing the question. Christopher again obliged him by rephrasing the question for him. However, Peter still had nothing to offer in response. Christopher took over for his brother. He said that the religious often charge that unbelievers do not really understand the notions of revelation, spirituality, etc. He does not disagree with this. But they, in turn, confuse the natural joys and beauty and grandeur of the world with supernatural experiences. These natural sensations and responses to them are deeply felt by those who do not espouse a belief in a celestial Creator. Also—again to be fair- if one credits God for all the good works done supposedly under His influence, then one must also blame Him when a man reports having a divine revelation where God told him to kill a group of unveiled women and then acted upon it.
Now Peter briefly came to life. He said that human beings are always susceptible to wickedness—not all wickedness is perpetrated by atheists or the religious. But overall, more good has been done through religious belief and, conversely, more harm has been done via the abandonment of religious faith.
An audience member asserted that atheists have killed people by the thousands and millions across the globe. Christopher responded by noting that the mere fact that one does not believe in deities does not preclude one from acting in a sadistic manner or from becoming a Marxist, a Stalinist, etc. Atheism is a necessary condition for enlightenment but not a sufficient one, in and of itself, for achieving that state.
Christopher plunged into a lengthy and well articulated historical overview over the underpinnings of different movements and States and how religion or the use of religious ideology as a tool played into them. Religion and other dictatorial schemes both require blind obedience, the suppression of freedom and independence of thinking in the masses, a binding ideology and so on. I will skip over much of this, fascinating and elucidating as it was, to move onto the point he ended his response on. Find me one example, he challenged, of ANY society that threw off religion and theocracy and in its place adopted the ideas of Lucretius, Galileo, Russell, Paine, Jefferson, Darwin, Spinoza… that have, in short, based themselves on rational humanism- that have, as a result, fallen into slavery and servility; torture, and tyranny. None can be found. All of these negative features are to be found in theocratically- ruled places, however.
The idea of worship and credulity is linked to servility and slavery, and it impedes progress and enlightened ideas and practices. Even in places where theocracy was not officially part of the movement, totalitarian, fascist and other suppressive and wicked powers made use of the mechanisms of religion to enslave and subdue the masses. Religious power and State power are usually wed when the business of demolishing personal liberties, rights and choices, and independence of mind is being done.
Summarized by Charles LaRue.
