Turek vs Hitchens Debate: Does God Exist? | Christian Apologetics

On September 9, 2008, Frank Turek debated atheist Christopher Hitchens, author of God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, at Virginia Commonwealth University. The topic was, "Does God Exist?"

Hitchens was his usual charming and witty self (I , Frank, really like him and said as much), but he did not answer any of the eight arguments that were presented for the existence of God. Many in the audience acknowledged that he dodged nearly all of the questions. Watch the video and decide for yourself which arguments were strongest. Then read comments in the CrossExamined blog (http://www.crossexamined.org/blog/?p=84) from a variety of viewers who wanted to weigh in with their opinions and arguments.

well welcome everybody to the night's

event my name is Laurie Roberts I am the

President of the United States here at

VCU the United States is a group of

atheists agnostics secular students

apparently the people in the back cannot

hear me can you hear me now good okay

like I was saying I'm Roy Roberts

president of the United secular Alliance

we are a student group dedicated to

promotion of secular ideals and I

provide and providing a community for

the non-religious students here at VCU I

would like to thank the Honors College

and the College of Humanities and

Sciences for their financial

contributions without which this event

could not have happened and I would like

to thank some certain individuals such

as Shelley Mount Joy which I'm here at

the moment

Anthony Ellis who Larry Mendoza and Dana

marks who I believe is manning a camera

at this moment for their help with

making this a possibility I would also

like to thank Dean

Timothy Halsey of the Honors College who

will be moderating this event and I will

yield the floor to him

Thank You Roy

and thanks to the VCU chapter of the

United secular Alliance for arranging

tonight's event good evening and thanks

to all of you for coming to what I am

absolutely certain will be a very

entertaining and informative evening

this evening as you all already know

we're honored to have Christopher

Hitchens and Frank Turek with us to

debate an ancient and modern question

does God exist there is perhaps no more

contentious issue that we could consider

accordingly this debate will follow

specific guidelines to begin each

speaker will have 20 minutes to make his

opening statement

dr. Turek will speak first since he

argues in the affirmative following the

opening statements each speaker will

have five minutes to rebut his opponent

followed by an opportunity to question

his opponent directly each speaker will

be allowed three questions of the other

with questions limited to one minute and

answers to five after the direct

questioning speakers will respond to

questions from the audience asked by me

from the cards that you were handed when

you entered the room as your questions

occur to you please write them on these

cards and at a point in the debate I'll

ask the ushers come forward and collect

them if you would pass them we will ask

as many of them as we have time to do

given the nature of tonight's debate it

is vitally important that everyone in

attendance act in accordance with the

highest standards of social behavior

anyone acting rudely or behaving disrupt

League disruptively rather will be

thrown out

really and now our speakers Frank Turek

is a speaker author columnist and

founder of cross examine org an

organization dedicated to preserving

rather to presenting evidence for the

Christian worldview at universities high

schools and churches he is a columnist

for Town Hall comm and is the co-author

of two books including I don't have

enough faith to be an atheist he has

appeared on numerous TV and radio

programs including The O'Reilly Factor

Hannity and combs and politically

incorrect with Bill Maher

dr. Turk has a doctorate in apologetics

from southern evangelical seminary in

Charlotte North Carolina at a master's

degree in public administration from

George Washington University where he

also taught courses in leadership and

management Christopher Hitchens is the

author of more than 10 books including

most recently God is not great how

religion poisons everything he is a

contributing editor to the INEC monthly

in Vanity Fair and has written

prolifically for American and English

periodicals including the nation the

London Review of Books

Granta Harper's Slate and The Washington

Post

he's a regular television and a radio

commentator appearing on hardball with

Chris Matthews the Charlie Rose show

Real Time with Bill Maher the Tavis

Smiley show and c-span's Washington

journal among others mr. Hitchens is

also taught as a visiting professor at

the University of California Berkeley

the University of Pittsburgh and the New

School for Social Research in Manhattan

now according to the rules of our debate

dr. Turek will make his opening comments

dr.

good evening ladies and gentlemen my

name is Frank Turk before I get started

let me ask you to ask you this how many

have heard me before or this is your

first time how many of you are here

tonight

how many do not respond to surveys three

out of 10 don't respond to surveys Dean

this is my first formal debate so give

me a little grace if I can't cram

everything I want to say into twenty

minutes I will say however I've had many

informal debates most of them with my

wife and I have not fared very well

there I will say however that she is

probably the perfect sparring partner

for Christopher Hitchens because her

nickname at our house is nails and nails

is the type of woman that if she ain't

happy ain't nobody in the house happy so

hopefully I'm prepared for a very

formidable opponent in Christopher

Hitchens and I do want to say that I

very much like Christopher Hitchens I've

been following him for many years I'm

kind of a political junkie so I've seen

him around quite a bit and I appreciate

his charm and his wit and I agree with

him on a lot of things obviously not the

issue of god that would make a very

boring debate but I will say that I went

up to Christopher just about a half-hour

ago and I shook his hand I said

Christopher I'm actually a fan and he

smiled and he said the night is young

I want to I want to thank the United

secular Alliance I want to thank Daniel

Pendergrass where's Daniel you here

Daniel he was my contact here I also

want to thank Dean Tim Timothy Halsey I

also want to thank of course Christopher

for doing this debate I think it's

impossible not to like Christopher and

as I mentioned I do he's carrying the

cross for atheism and he carries it very

well tonight I'm going to carry the

cross for theism and I want to point out

that I think we're both trying to

explain the world around us we both have

the burden of proof to explain why

reality is the way it is I have to show

how reality is best explained by theism

and Christopher has to explain how

reality is best explained by atheism and

I think we should follow the evidence

where it leads I think that the evidence

we see all around us and within us leads

to a spaceless timeless immaterial

personal powerful intelligent moral

creator ie what we would call a theistic

God and this creator created this

universe and the life within us or the

life within it I should say now I'm

going to try and summarize my 450 page

book at least the first 200 pages of it

in the next 20 minutes or next 18

minutes at this point now and that is an

impossible task that would be about 20

pages a minute actually I probably can

do it because I'm originally from New

Jersey see I speak it 150 words a minute

with Gustav 350 so if I go a little

quick and you want to see more of the

evidence please get the book I don't

have enough faith to be atheist and I

want to point out that all the proceeds

from the sale of the book will go to

feed needy children mine okay see I've

got three sons the oldest two are in

college right now so I need a little

help and one of them is sitting right

over here all right Christopher on page

282 of God is not great available at

fine bookstores everywhere says this

thanks to the telescope and the

microscope religion no longer offers an

explanation for anything important I

think that is exactly

wrong I think due to the telescope in

the microscope we are seeing evidence

that leads directly to God I'm going to

give you three major arguments for this

and then I'm going to give you four more

that are a result I think of a theistic

worldview and spend most of my time on

the three and then I'll just mention the

last four the three are the cosmological

argument from the beginning of the

universe the next one is the

teleological argument from the design of

the universe and the design of life and

the third is the moral argument let's

start with the cosmological argument and

this is basically the argument from the

Big Bang that the universe had a

beginning if it had a beginning it must

have had a beginner now for some reason

Christians are afraid of the Big Bang

I'm not afraid of the Big Bang I believe

in the Big Bang I just think I know who

banged it now

the evidence for the Big Bang is good

I'm going to give you evidence in an

acronym Serge su are GE I'm not going to

spend a lot of time on it because I

think even Christopher in his book on

page 65 says the Big Bang is the

accepted origin of e of the universe

S stands for the second law of

thermodynamics that the universe is

running down as that Sun is up there it

is burning out ultimately we will go to

heat death as Christopher has said in

his book well if the universe is eternal

that Sun would have burned out a long

time ago but since the Sun is still up

there and we still have energy here the

universe must have had a beginning the

second law of thermodynamics also says

that ordered things go toward dis order

it affects the this school we have to

paint the walls we have to put gas in

our car the second law of thermodynamics

also affects us as human beings when you

get older the second law of

thermodynamics is is seen by the fact

that we all get dressed or diseased

that's when our chest falls into our

drawers see that's the second law of

thermodynamics the UN surge is the fact

that the universe is expanding

discovered by Edwin Hubble in 1929

Hubble deduced that if the universe is

expanding if you watched everything in

Reverse you would see it collapse back

to a point mathematically and logically

to nothing so the universe exploded into

being out of nothing the G stands for

the great galaxies R stands for the

radiation echo discovered by accident by

Penzias and Wilson two scientists

working at Bell Labs in Holmdel New

Jersey they

discovered basically the radiation

afterglow or the remnant heat from the

initial Big Bang explosion the heat is

still out there it's just a couple of

degrees above absolute zero now good

theories predict predict future

discoveries and they said if the

radiation afterglow is out there and the

Big Bang really did occur we ought to

find very fine temperature variations

among the radiation afterglow so they

set up a satellite in 1989 to circle the

earth it's called a Kobe space satellite

to measure this radiation afterglow and

for three years they found nothing until

they tuned their instruments just a

little bit more precisely and found that

there were temperature variations in the

radiation afterglow and they were down

to one part in 100,000 George Smoot the

leader of the expedition said if you're

religious it's like looking at God

Stephen Hawking said this is the

greatest discovery of cosmology perhaps

the greatest discovery of all time those

temperature variations allowed galaxies

to ultimately form so we could

ultimately be here the Ian surd stands

for Einstein's theory of general

relativity which says time space and

matter are Co relative you can't have

space without time you can't have time

without space and matter

and in effect it says that the universe

came into existence with space and time

together in other words once there was

no time once there was no space once

there was no matter and then bang out of

nothing the universe exploded into being

what is nothing Aristotle had a good

definition of nothing he said nothing is

what rocks dream about nothing there was

no thing there was not positive and

negative energy as Isaac Asimov has said

there is not a vacuum there was not

swirling mathematical points as dr.

Atkins has said from Oxford there was

nothing what rocks dream about which

means that the universe exploded into

being all space all matter all time out

of nothing and several scientists have

pointed this out Stephen Hawking said

almost everyone now believes that the

universe and time itself had a beginning

at the Big Bang agnostic astronomer

Robert Jastrow the man who sits in Edwin

Hubble's chair or who did until February

when he died he was an agnostic he sat

at Mount Wilson and looked through

telescope he wrote a book in 1978 called

God and the astronomers and here's what

jestro wrote or here's what he said

actually in an interview he said

astronomers now found they painted

themselves into a corner because they

have proven by their own methods that

the world began abruptly in an act of

creation to which you can trace the

seeds of every star every planet every

living thing on in this cosmos and on

the earth and they have found that all

this has happened as a product of forces

they cannot hope to discover that there

are what I or anyone would call

supernatural forces at work is now I

think a scientifically proven fact why

isn't it agnostic astronomers saying

supernatural forces are at work

why couldn't nature have created the

universe because there was no nature

there was nothing what rocks dream about

and then the entire space-time continuum

left into existence if it's not a

natural cause by definition it must be a

supernatural cause something beyond the

natural in fact Arthur Eddington the

contemporary of Einstein who was an

expert in general relativity said quote

the beginning seems to present

insuperable difficulties unless we

agreed to look on it as frankly

supernatural so the cosmological

argument leaves us with one question

either no one created something out of

nothing or someone created something out

of nothing the atheistic view is no one

created something out of nothing the

theistic view is someone created

something out of nothing which view is

more reasonable I think Julie Andrews

had it right nothing comes from nothing

nothing ever could that's the

cosmological argument the teleological

argument the design argument actually

has two arguments contained within it it

is the argument from design and there

are dozens of factors about the universe

that are precisely died of design for

the existence of the universe and life

so not only did the universe explode

into being out of nothing it did so with

incredible precision Stephen Hawking has

noted that the universe would not exist

if there was a decrease in the expansion

rate one second after the Big Bang by

only one part in 100,000 million million

this led Hawking to conclude it would be

very difficult

to explain why the universe should have

begun in just this way except as an act

of God who intended to create beings

like us not only is it designed in terms

of its expansion but the gravitational

force is so precise if you change the

gravitational force by one part in 10 to

the 40 nothing would exist what's one

part in 10 to the 40 stretch a tape

measure across the entire known universe

set gravity at 1 inch on that anywhere

on that tape measure

if you move gravity the force of gravity

one inch in either direction we don't

exist

there's also factors about our universe

in particular our solar system that

cannot be explained unless there's a

designer behind it for example the earth

rotation 24 hours just right if it was a

little bit more a little bit less we

wouldn't be here the axial tilt 23 and

1/2 degrees just right change that a

little bit we're not here the Jupiter

being in its current orbit if Jupiter

wasn't there we'd bump up be bombarded

with space material why because Jupiter

acts as a cosmic vacuum cleaner it

attracts all the cosmic space junk to it

rather than us there are a number of

other factors I don't have time to get

into but Arno Penzias the man who

co-discovered the are in surge the

radiation afterglow said this astronomy

leads us to a unique event a universe

which was created out of nothing one

with the very delicate balance needed to

provide exactly the right conditions

required to permit life and one which as

an underlined one might say and one

which has an underlying one might say

super natural plan a friend of

Christopher a theist Stephen Weinberg

who is an atheist put it this way life

as we know it would be impossible if any

one of several physical quantities had

slightly different values so not only is

the universe precisely tweaked and by

the way there would be no life unless

the universe was precisely fine-tuned as

I just mentioned but life itself is

designed let me take you to your

breakfast table for just a second

suppose you wanted to have a bowl

alphabet cereal you're a teenager and

you come down

ere's have bowl alphabet cereal and you

see the alphabet cereals knocked over

and the letters from the alphabet cereal

are spelled out on the placemat and it

spells take out the garbage mom what are

you going to assume cat knock the box

over earthquake shook the house or are

you going to say no that's intelligent

design from an intelligent being

or let's say you're laying out on the

beach and you see in the clouds drink

Coke what're you going to assume unusual

cloud formation no you're going to say

there has to be a skywriter up there

even if you didn't see and why because

messages oh we only come from mines well

it turns out there's a message in all

life called DNA we all know about it all

life has a message

I have DNA you have DNA a banana has DNA

in Darwin's day it was not known how

incredibly complex simple so-called

simple life is and they thought that

maybe simple life could come together

without intelligent intervention and

ultimately natural selection could take

over it's the theory of macro evolution

I'm sure you've heard of it from the goo

duv of the zoo from the infantile to the

reptile to the crocodile to the Gentile

that's the theory of macro evolution the

problem is is that now we know that this

intelligent life couldn't have come

together by natural laws because we now

know that the simplest life has the

amount of specified complexity or

information and in terms of DNA about

thousand complete sets of Encyclopedia

Britannica now who is that according to

not a Christian not a theist

that's according to Richard Dawkins from

his book blind watchmaker I think it's

page 116 now to believe that that

resulted by natural laws like believing

that the Library of Congress resulted

from an explosion in a printing shop see

I don't have enough faith to believe

that so life appears to be designed in

fact Antony flew who was a atheist a

very prominent atheist but recently

became a theist or at least a deist as a

result of this evidence said it is

impossible for evolution to account for

the fact that one single cell can carry

more data than all the volumes of the

Encyclopedia Britannica put together it

now seems to me that the findings of

more than 50 years of DNA research have

provided materials for a new and

enormous ly powerful argument from

design how am i doing on time Dean five

minutes okay thank you

it design is so prevalent that even

people like Francis Crick the

co-discoverer of DNA sir Fred Hoyle who

can who coined the term Big Bang in a

derisive way are now or were proponents

of panspermia seeds everywhere in other

words that life got deposited here by

aliens which is just kind of a

backhanded way of saying that there's no

way we know how life came by natural

causes here there must be aliens out

there that brought it here which of

course just puts the question off one

more step where did the aliens come from

right there's a lot more on the design

argument but I'm running out of time

here let me just give you one quote from

Chandra Wickramasinghe who is a student

of Sir Fred Hoyle

he said the emergence of life from a

primordial soup on earth is merely an

article of faith sir Fred Hoyle said a

common sense interpretation of the facts

suggests that a super intellect has

monkeyed with physics as well as

chemistry and biology and that there are

no blind forces worth speaking about in

nature so cosmological argument

teleological argument now let's move on

to the moral argument if there is no God

you can't say that decapitating a man on

a bus is objectively morally wrong

that's just your opinion as Dostoevsky

said if there is no God everything is

permitted now I want to be very clear

here I'm not saying that a theist can't

know morality they do I'm not saying

that a theist can't be moral they can

I'm not saying that believing in God

makes you more moral as Christopher has

pointed out and as they say I agree with

much of what he writes here I'm not

saying that religious people are

necessarily better than atheist that's

not the argument the argument is is that

there's no way to say that a given act

is moral or immoral unless there's a

standard beyond humanity it's not just

my opinion it's not just Christopher's

opinion or Mother Teresa's or Hitler's

there's a standard beyond everybody that

defines what is right that standard is

God's very

nature since objective moral laws exist

there must be an objective moral

lawgiver you say no there doesn't need

to be any moral lawgiver if there's a

prescription there must be a prescriber

if you go to the pharmacist and say here

I'd like you to fill this prescription

and the pharmacist says who prescribed

it you go nobody are you going to get

your prescription no now there's again

there's a lot more on the moral argument

maybe we can talk about a little bit

during the QA but what can we learn from

these three arguments for God we can

learn from the cosmological argument

that this beam must be spaceless

timeless and immaterial why because it

created space-time and material it must

also be powerful why because it created

out of nothing must be personal why

because you can't go from a state of

non-existence to a state of existence

without making a choice and only

personal beans make choices impersonal

forces do not it must be intelligent why

because it created in such a highly

designed razor's edge way it must be

moral why do to the moral argument and

of course it must be a creator these

attributes are the attributes of what

the Bible would call God let me sum up

what agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow

said after going through evidence like

this he said for the scientist who has

lived by his faith in the power of

reason remember he's the agnostic the

story ends like a bad dream he has

scaled the mounts of ignorance he's

about to conquer the highest peak as he

pulls himself up with a final rock he's

greeted by a band of theologians who've

been sitting there for centuries two

more minutes take three thank you sir

those are the three main arguments now

I'd like to say there's four additional

truths about the universe that are

better explained by theism than by

atheism first of all reason in the laws

of logic Christopher is a self-described

materialist but if atheism is true we

have no grounds to know it because

reason and thoughts are just chemical

reactions in the brain how can you have

even Einstein believed this Einstein was

a determinist how can you trust what

Christopher says if it's just chemical

reactions going on in his brain and

chemical reactions in our brain see

chemicals don't reason they react now

I'm not saying there's no connection

between our thinking and chemicals there

is but if it's nothing but chemicals how

can we trust them

even Darwin recognized this it's called

Darwin's doubt he said if we are just

the product materially of primates why

shy to even why should I even trust

anything much less my theory of natural

selection so the next major reason is

the laws of mathematics science depends

on the notion that the universe is

rational and mathematical at all levels

but how does rationality and mathematics

arise from randomness how do they come

from matter rationality and mathematics

are the product of mind not matter so

you got reason in the laws of logic the

laws of mathematics and then number

seven or seven in my list here three in

the edition human freedom and the

ability to make choices Christopher is

somebody who is very concerned about

human free and about freedom as I am but

again if we are just molecules in motion

how do we have human freedom William

provine from Cornell he's the

materialist of Darwinist he points out

that we don't have any human freedom if

all we are is molecules in motion now

Christopher ought not scold anybody for

being a snake handling bible-thumping

fundamentalist Preacher

because according to his own worldview

that person is that way because these

are just chemicals going on in his brain

neither could you say that Hitler had

done anything wrong if it's just

chemicals going on in his brain I mean

what is the murder molecule how much

does justice weigh these are questions

that have no answer in a materialistic

worldview but that is Christopher's

worldview it seems to me that it makes

much more sense to say that reason and

laws of logic mathematics and human

freedom come from a great mind that

granted us these immaterial realities

the final argument is consciousness do

you know that a heap of sand and a human

brain have the same elements why are

some carbon-based molecules conscious

and others are not materialists have no

answer for this Daniel Dennett another

person who would agree with Christopher

on many things he's a materialist says

that consciousness is in a

lucien because he's a materialist you're

not really witnessing right net this

right now you it's just an illusion

now one wonders if he was conscious when

he wrote this but again there is no

explanation for this in an atheistic

worldview now I have a couple other

arguments on the bench but I don't have

time to get to them let me just sum up

in one minute we need to take all this

data in context not just one argument

but all of them what is the best

explanation Christopher has to explain

these eight truths about the universe

from an atheistic perspective he must

explain how the universal rose from

nothing how extreme fine-tuning and

design rose from chaos how life arose

from non-life how morality arose from

materials how reason in the laws of

logic arose from matter how mind arose

from mud how mathematics arose from

molecules how human freedom arose from

blind repetitive forces and how

consciousness arose from chemicals if he

can't give evidence to explain these

truths about reality from an atheistic

perspective if he's just going to state

unsupported speculative possibilities

that rely on faith then I think theism

is a more reasonable worldview thank you

for your attention I appreciate

Thank You dr. Turk will not have 20

minutes from mr. hitches at his opening

State

Thank You mr. chairman thank you ladies

and gentlemen for coming thank you dr.

turret for that very spirited opening to

the evening I should say first it's a

great honor to be in the capital of the

great state of Virginia I'm a in a small

way a biographer of Thomas Jefferson and

his memorial as you know omitted

dimension of his presidencies and vice

presidencies and preferred to focus on

his work at the University and his

authorship of the Virginia statute on

religious freedom which is the embryo

and basis of the First Amendment to our

Constitution which makes this the only

country in the world that has ever

decided that God and constitutional

matters should be separated and it's in

defense partly of a civilizational

impulse that I rise this evening to

satirize the idea that we're here by

somebody else's permission and owe that

person an explanation which is what it

is to be atheist if not a dears to say

Lyrae I almost never watch television

and I'm usually glad that I do but now

I'm glad that I sometimes I'm forced by

my daughter to watch Family Guy because

you may possibly have seen the moment

when the chubby father comes down in the

morning and looks at his cereal in the

bowl

accepting your some one of your more

sophisticated challenges and he says it

says woo

and it's always says there's a Cheerios

but I accept the ontological challenge

and I accept it in this way the answer

to the question which with with which we

confront ourselves tonight or are

confronted if you prefer does God exist

is to me yes it does it must do it must

do because it is so real to those who do

believe in it there are people of whom

it may be said that for them God does

exist I've become perfectly persuaded of

this by now there is no form of

persuasion that would make me assent to

this proposition some of us are born we

are born to in answer to Blaise Pascal's

own problem the one that made him write

his plan say and addressed them to those

who are so made that they cannot believe

those of us to whom almost everything

that dr. Troy just said would be the

mere equivalent of white noise I suppose

it's my job deceive you to explain on to

logically how that is the case perhaps

I'll do it by a force of example

recently very recently that as little go

in time as last year the Vatican

announced that limbo the destination of

the unbaptized child soul no longer

exists there is no such place

Saint Augustine was in error it appears

in sending so many children at least the

souls of so many are baptized children

to this destination for so long

among the comments that I heard about

this one the mildest actually was that

of a woman raised in the Catholic faith

whose child had died before baptism

could take place who had for many years

believed that that's where her own

baptized child had gone and she said

they can't tell me that place doesn't

exist it's been as real to me as

anything possibly could be for so long

they have no right to tell me now that

this no longer is it ontologically limbo

exists for those who believe in it just

as God does I'm not here to deny

that it's only a few decades now since

the rival church Church of Rome the

Church of England announced really no

one actually goes to hell it could be

that after you die or forbidden God's

grace but there's no real place of

eternal unending infinite torture and

torment with which those who claim the

grace of God in the redemption of Jesus

made a living for so many years and how

do they make their living by lying to

children think of it hundreds and

hundreds of years of people proudly

earning their keep by lying to children

and terrifying them and saying that

because they could do that they were

morally superior to us reason common

sense decent ordinary decency rebels

against this kind of mind forged manacle

however charmingly or humorously it's

expressed but hell exists in the minds

of several people I've spoken to you

just today on this campus in the in the

intervals of other conversations for

them it's real and I don't say that it's

not what I want to show is that it can

if it does exist nonetheless be

abolished like many other mine forged

manacles and manmade tyrannies that

confront us and in fact that this belief

in a supreme and unalterable tyranny is

the oldest enemy of our species the

oldest enemy of our intellectual freedom

and our moral autonomy and must be met

and must be challenged and must be

overthrown I want to argue for nothing

less than that it's actually rather

wonderful isn't it the religious

authorities used to say they were

infallible say just take the last Pope

just the last I know I'm not talking

with the Catholic apologist this evening

but nonetheless the church when people

say the church they know which one they

mean they mean the one in Rome the one

where when Stephen Hawking was invited

and was asked at the conference on the

church and science is there anything

he'd like to see in Rome while he was

there he said he'd like to see the

records of the trial of Galileo

don't please be invoking mr. Hawking by

the way as if he was a deist

the last pope just in the last decade of

his tenure apologized he said we were

wrong about the Jewish Question we

probably shouldn't have said for so long

the Jews were responsible for the murder

of Christ we were probably wrong in

forced conversion of the peoples of the

Indies as they were thought of the

Isthmus and the Southern Cone of our

hemisphere we were certainly wrong we

owe an apology to the Muslims for the

atrocities of the Crusades we are an

apology to the Eastern Orthodox churches

for the incredible butchery to which

they our fellow Christians were

subjected by us the Roman Catholic and

we probably only polled you to the

Protestants for saying and so many awful

things about them and torturing and

burning and killing them too so having

now said we were completely wrong and

completely cruel and completely sadistic

and completely violent and retarded

human civilization for that many

centuries in that many countries and

continents

we're quit and now we can go back to

being a fallible all over again there

are there are people who on faith will

accept being spoken to in that tone of

voice and in that way but I ladies and

gentlemen and not one of them and I

don't think there's any form of

persuasion that should allow you to be

spoken to as if you were serfs or slaves

either proceeding with the ontology with

which I began the Aquinas point that if

you can conceive of something whether

it's a ghost a phantasm or deity if you

can conceive of something it is in some

sense real if it's real in your mind and

showing with the obvious fallacy that

has always attended that is it

nonetheless possible for an atheist to

say it proclaimed atheists to say as I

do

proclaim myself to be that God

positively can be said not to exist no

it's a very common misunderstanding

about my fraternity sorority I'll just

take a moment to clear it up the atheist

says no persuasive argument for the

existence of God has ever been advanced

or adduced without convincing rebuttal

that no argument in favor stats or has

been found to stand the test of

we cannot say that we know that there

could be no such entity among other

things we are too reverent of the

extraordinary time of discovery

innovation pushing back of the frontiers

of knowledge and and understanding

that's taking place just in our own time

to make any such remark but by saying

this we say I think quite a lot there is

no valid or coherent or consistent

argument that would not work if it comes

to that for the existence of any God now

I noticed it was a by a slight work of

elision a bit of tap dancing there the

doctor turret went from being a deist to

a theist and then from being a theist to

a Christian now I know he does not

believe in the existence of the Sun God

raah I'm practically certain he doesn't

believe in the existence of Zeus if

you'll pick up a copy of my portable

atheist a selection of the finest

writings by non-believers Charlie isn't

just turn to the three pages where

Menken HL Mencken lists the easiest to

name 3000 gods that used to be

worshipped and that no longer a hell to

exist by anybody you'll spare me the

trouble of reading them out no he thinks

he doesn't just know dr. Torah that

there is a God he knows which one is the

right one from a potentially infinite

list actually from the list that's as

long as the number of people there are

or have ever been in the human species

because if you ever argue with a theist

or a deus as I do every day you'll find

they all believe in a God of their very

own do they often say a personal God

indeed they often say a personal Savior

so out of out of what are we really a

concept that applies to all of us out of

nothing but wish thinking and nonsense

and fear and ignorance and above all and

I'm not quitting on this point servility

everyone in this room is an atheist

everyone can name a God in which they do

not believe let them advance the case

that the one in which they believe is

the superior one dr. torrid be the first

person I've ever met to do that

convincingly this evening and I will

show him due respect I don't think the

task can actually be undertaken now the

same trap dancing hopes you will not

notice but deism and theism are two

quite different things the Deus argument

says that there is so much order

apparent in nature and in the cosmos in

the universe that it might be unwise to

assume that such order has no-one

interested in ordering or design that

assumption might be a nun might be not

Safeway the philosopher Paley in his

natural theology said desire implies a

designer he came up with the very famous

image of the watch if you come across

watch if you're a primitive tribes

person in the Sahara you may not know

what it's for but you know there's not a

rock or a vegetable you know it has a

purpose and someone made it that way

until quite recently that was the

default position of most intelligent

people including mr. Jefferson who

despite his intermittent atheism my

judgment was a theist I'm so sorry it

was a deist was a deist he would debate

with among the many skills he had was a

very advanced level of paleontology he

would debate with the greatest

paleontologists of his time the Cantor

before how how comes it how can it be

that we find seashells so high on the

mountains of Virginia how can this be

not even the most intelligent people of

that day and it's very recent it's an

instant in historical time had any idea

how that could be there isn't anyone in

this room who wasn't educated and

brought up knowing exactly how that is

it's just a shame that Jefferson and

many other intelligent and humane and

will education literate people just

couldn't see that far he wasn't to know

though Darwin was born in his day on the

same day actually in 1809 as Abraham

Lincoln the very same day the two great

emancipator's Darwin being in my

judgment the greater of the two now we

know we know this proposition to be true

the proposition that was ridiculed so so

pathetically I have to say I thought by

dr. Tory there is no explanation for the

origins of our species

for the origins of our cosmos for the

origins of our globe itself there is not

one explanation left which requires the

existence of a deus ex machina in every

case we have a better or sufficient

explanation I think that assertion of

mine will stand any challenge this

evening I'm looking forward to hearing

some more of them of course jawan used

creationist images he actually set out

to vindicate Paley's theology thought he

could do it by his study taxonomical

study of nature Einstein we have used

God images when he spoke of the

extraordinary majesty

of the cosmos it's it's it's in us it's

in our vocabulary it's hardwired in us

you might almost say to use images of

all inspiring godly modes Archean you

might you might say or even

Shakespearean images when talking about

these things but when we come down to

the actual analysis of them we find that

we don't need the prime mover at all and

that most of the prime mover

explanations if not all of them have

been positively misleading so that the

deist may propose a designer and I may

not be able to show you convincing you

that there could be no such person

but the theist has all their works still

ahead of them from this designer how do

we get to the designer who answers

prayers

did you hear a thing I mean just as

phrase even an implication even a

suggestion from anything my opponent

said that you could by I know him from

design proven answered prayers or prove

that someone born of a virgin was

therefore the son of a god or could

prove that resurrections occur and that

by people being tortured to death

thousands of years ago we are now

redeemed that we are variously forgiven

our own offenses by human sacrifice how

does deism help you to that it doesn't

it quite simply doesn't and can not

the attempt to build from one to the

other is a conjuring trick of a very

vulgar I think kind we live in the

childhood of our species so when Stephen

Hawking says that if we could understand

the event horizon that surrounds the

black hole we would in some sense know

the mind of God he proves that our

vocabulary is still that of our infancy

he makes no concession to the idea of a

theist or theocratic dispensation I

better ask now harm doing for time good

not sure I'm going to need all that but

I'd like to try and reply and fight on

my feet when I can't and I made some

notes about about what dr. Turek had

said and I feel that they were

challenges to me that I would be ignoble

if I didn't respond to the first and I

thought the most frankly the most

egregious was this I find it

extraordinary that it can be said on a

university campus in this year of grace

but that without God humans are capable

of doing anything that there is no moral

restraint upon us if we don't concur in

the idea that we are the property and

creation of a Supreme Being I am making

the assumption that all of you check in

every now and then with some kind of

news outlet and have a view of what's

going on the rest of the world isn't it

as plain as could be that those who

commit the most callous the most cruel

the most brutal the most indiscriminate

atrocities of all do so precisely

because they believe they have divine

permission shall I answer my own

question should i insult you by adding

more who can't think of an example of

this kind let me put the question in

another form that I've put in now every

forum from YouTube to c-span to the

wireless to the print to the radio to

the television and it numeral forums to

those who say that without God that can

be no morality you are to ask yourself

two questions you were to name a moral

action not to take it

or a moral and ethical statement made by

believer by daresay you can do it you

were then to say that you can not

imagine a non-believer

making this moral statement or

undertaking this moral action can you

think can you now think can any of you

think you have don't have to answer now

you have all night and and you have my

email and I've done this with everyone

from the Archbishop of Canterbury to

even lower people you name me the

ethical and moral actual statement that

a believer can make in an unbeliever

cannot that there's a price and I'll

tell you that about it later now there's

a second question

think of something wicked that only a

believer would be likely to do or

something wicked that only a believer

would be likely to say you've already

thought of it the suicide bombing

community is entirely religious the

genital mutilation community is entirely

religious I wouldn't say that the child

abuse community is entirely religious I

wouldn't but it's bidding to be entirely

religious it operates on the old latin

slogan no childs behind left

how dare anybody how dare anyone who

speaks for religion a say of us the

secular and the non-believers that we

are the immoral ones it is itself a

wicked thing to say itself an absolutely

indefensible thing to say no the

decapitation on the bus is going to be

done by someone who thinks God is

telling him to do it Smerdyakov is

actually the stupidest character in

Dostoyevsky's novel he's the one who

makes this proposition everyone has to

understand everyone has to understand

that it is those who feel that the

divine is prompting them who feel

they're permitted anything and

everything and it is those who are the

leading most salient most violent most

vicious opponents of the values and

civilization that Thomas Jefferson stood

for and promulgated just on the question

of fine tuning I have a number of

reports we have to postpone some of the

the naturalistic questions for later

what I know they'll come up again

you mentioned Edwin Hubble and the way

that he saw the red light shift and saw

that the universe was not just expanding

but that the but expanding very fast

away from itself that the Big Bang had

not stopped Lawrence Krauss great

physicists probably the next Nobel Prize

winner if it has noticed that most

people's assumption was wrong that

though this expansion was taking place

it was thought the rate of speed of the

expansion must surely be declining

people still think in Newtonian terms in

this way no says Krauss he's pointed it

out and now it's agreed by all no the

Hubble rate of red light shift is

increasing the universe is dissipating

itself at high speed and the speed is

getting greater what does this mean well

it answers the question of why is there

something instead of nothing because now

we have something we're all here because

there's something and nothing is coming

right for us very soon the physicist

wouldn't be able to tell the Big Bang

had ever taken place so far sprung apart

will the whole system be and meanwhile

look in the sky at night and you can see

the Andromeda galaxy headed straight for

on a direct collision course who

designed that who made it certain that

every other planet in our solar system

is either too hot or too cold to support

life as is most of our own planet and

that in just one tiny irrelevant solar

system already condemned to heat death

and implosion some design wouldn't you

say but these are just the poll Turing

minor objections that I have to the

theistic worldview the main one is the

one with which I began religion fears

I'm not dear some fearsome and I

underline theism says that all our

manifold problems what is the good how

shall we live it how shall we know it

how to explain suffering how to how to

confront the possibility of our own

perhaps molecular irrelevance all these

questions that must disturb and detain

us all can be solved by referring them

upward to a totalitarian judgment to an

absolutist monarchy the other thing that

the Virginia statute on religious

freedom was supposed to rebut repudiated

disown it yes I promise you those things

there is no totalitarian solution to

these problems

there is no Big Brother in the sky it is

a horrible idea that there is somebody

who owns us who makes us who supervises

us waking and sleeping who knows our

thoughts who can convict us of thought

crime who can just for what we think who

can judge us while we sleep for things

that might occur to us in our dreams who

can create us sick as apparently we are

and then order us on pain of eternal

torture to be well again to demand this

to wish this to be true is to wish to

live as an abject slave it is a

wonderful thing it is a wonderful thing

in my submission that we now have enough

information enough intelligence and I

hope enough intellectual and moral

courage to say that this ghastly

proposition

is founded on a lie and to celebrate

that fact and I invite you to join me in

doing so thank you

Thank You mr. Hitchens we now have five

minutes of rebuttal from dr. Turek

fairness to Christopher that statement

obviously was his opening statement was

not meant to rebut my statement but now

my statement is to rebut his and I want

to point out that most of what

Christopher just said there is pretty

much complaints about religion and

religious people and has no impact on

whether or not God exists

religious people can be the worst people

that ever lived that says nothing about

whether or not God exists people can do

evil that doesn't mean the parents don't

exist children can do evil doesn't mean

the parents don't exist my kids do evil

but I'm still here

I do evil my dad's still here in fact

he's sitting right there what does that

prove about whether or not God exists

let me try and go down some of the

things Christopher said yes I am an

atheist when it comes to Zeus but Zeus

is not spaceless timeless immaterial

powerful moral personal intelligent

creator that I hopefully at least I

thought I gave evidence for and maybe

Christopher will come back to my

statements on that later I don't believe

in Zeus because I don't think there's

any evidence for Zeus but I think

there's evidence for the theistic God

deism I didn't make the direct shift to

theism I probably should have been more

explicit

I think it's obvious there's a theistic

God because life came several billion

years after the creation that is not a

deistic concept that is a theistic

concept I didn't say anything about

Christianity

even though I am a Christian I don't

have time to defend Christianity here

I'd love to debate Christopher on the

issue of Christianity in the future and

I'll publicly offer that right now if he

wants to debate whether or not the New

Testament documents are reliable and

tell us really what happened about what

Jesus came and said and did I'd be happy

to do it but when I mentioned before I

have a couple arguments in on the bench

I've got almost a full baseball team of

arguments here I've got a couple

arguments on the bench it's the

resurrection is one of them and I don't

have time to get to that here so I'm not

backing up the Christian God here I'm

backing up a theistic God even though

personally I do believe in a Christian

God

he claimed Darwin was the greater man

dissipater and that he went on to talk

about atrocities and i think he again

missed my point as I said before I'm not

saying atheists can't be moral

Christopher what he says in his book

again much of it is true religious

people have done awful things in fact

Christianity predicts we'll be

hypocrites that's what the church is

it's full of hypocrites whenever

somebody says I don't want to go to

church there's too many hypocrites down

there I always say come on down pal we

got room for one more that's what the

church is we're all fallen we're all

sinners that's why we need a Savior

because we can't do it and Christopher

said well how can you command somebody

to be well when they have no capacity to

be well well we were well in the

beginning and I'm going into Christian

theology here I understand I'll just try

and answer the point we were well in the

beginning but then we messed up and so

God the Great Physician came back to

save us that's Christian theology as

again I don't have time to support it

I'm just pointing out that is the

theology now Christopher talked about

atrocities but again on the atheistic

worldview here's the main point how do

you define what an atrocity is who

defines it who has the authority to find

what atrocity is the carbon atom the

benzene molecule I'm not saying you have

to believe in God to be moral I'm not

saying that only religious people are

moral I'm not saying atheist can't be

moral I'm not saying atheists don't know

morality I'm saying there's no way to

justify what is right and what is wrong

unless there's some Authority that

provides it what is the authority in a

materialistic worldview there is no

authority the carbon atom has no moral

authority over you and it seems that

Christopher goes on and on about how he

does not want to be under any some kind

of divine totalitarianism that is a

moral rejection of God where does he

come up with this immoral

totalitarianism his worldview does not

afford immorality because his worldview

does not afford morality he has to

borrow from the Christian worldview in

order to argue against it in fact he has

to sit in God's lap to slap his face

where does he get morality from where

does he get reason from where does he

get mathematics from where does he get

consciousness from where does the

universe he said there are explanations

for where the universe came from

atheistic I'd love to hear them I

haven't heard one yet how does something

come from nothing with extreme

fine-tuning what is the explanation for

that he said there are arguments for the

beginning of life that are naturalistic

not according to the people who are

studying the matter how about Francis

Crick if I can find his quote here

Francis Crick said every time I write a

paper on the origin of life I swear I'll

never write another one because there's

too much speculation running after too

few facts Marc Kirschner of Harvard and

John Seager Hart of Berkeley said

everything about evolution before the

bacteria like life-forms is sheer

conjecture biochemists Klaus dose admits

that after more than 30 years of

research into the origin of life has led

to quote a better perception of the

immensity of the problem of the origin

of life on Earth rather than its

solution at present all discussions on

the principle theories and experiments

in the field either end in stalemate or

in confession of ignorance now I'm not

saying that this is a default position

that must be God I'm not saying that I

just lack a natural explanation for the

origin of life I'm saying that specified

complexity information the DNA structure

that we all have is evidence for an

intelligent being because information

only comes from Minds the laws of ink

and paper did not create is a God is not

great

there was a mind behind it that brought

it into existence and there's a mind

behind DNA what is the ACA theistic

explanation for DNA what is the

atheistic explanation for information

what is the ACA theistic information for

all of these nine things I mentioned how

much time glad I have not

survey says sit down yes sir

well I think I'll just invite dr. Tori

to do the following and make available

to us in on a sheet of paper which

actually has the thesaurus of quotations

that he's found from this and that

scientists and physicists and Natural

Sciences and so forth and you will find

when you read them when you look at them

I was writing them down as you went

through them all of these are statements

of uncertainty all of them they're

statements of all we know is how little

we know that's been for many years my

definition of an educated person someone

who knows enough to know how ignorant

they are it's actually is the only it's

not my own original definition it comes

from the Greek but it's the only

definition that works and no one working

at toiling in the field of science could

it possibly say anything less or more of

themselves especially at a time like

this but there you have it right away

the theistic and the deistic explanation

has to be based on a certainty that

there is a supervising and if you want

to be a theist a caring and intervening

creator who manages these matters and

there hasn't been a single sentence so

far from doctorate in a support of that

proposition let me give you an example

if you do the event horizon of Stephen

Hawking that I just mentioned God take a

cosmological one to begin with the event

horizon is the lip of the black hole

it's it's the suppose you could travel

towards a black hole and see it and see

the lip of it and notice it before you

went in and over and down that's what's

known as the event horizon the

physicists Hawking had a gravely ill

colleague in Cambridge who said if he

knew he was definitely going to die

that's the way he'd like to go befallen

into the event horizon lip of the black

hole because in theory you'd be able to

see the past and the future and time

except you wouldn't have quite enough

time to do so but there would be a grand

way to check out if you were physicist

turn away from this says the turn away

from that these incredible majestic or

inspiring thoughts say the theists think

about the burning bush instead think

about the trivial miracles witnessed by

sheep herding peasants in Bronze Age

Palestine and think about the jet that

they they feel that we should incur for

their sins it was stated by dr. Jory

that the sins of these people the

transgressions of these people and the

debt they owe their Creator bind all of

us as sinners what a shame we're not

perfect what a shame there's nothing we

can do about it what a shame we are

created already in prison and have to

earn our emancipation I tell you again

this is civility to the ultimate power

now there are people in this audience

much better equipped than I to say that

there is so far nothing in our natural

world to move away from the cosmological

there is nothing in our natural world

globe we live on that cannot be

explained by random mutation combined

with evolution by natural selection

nothing works without that assumption

everything works with it there are lots

of things that remain to be decided but

it's not a theory or not just one it

does work it is operational it doesn't

require a prime mover Occam's razor says

we should dispose of unnecessary

needless assumptions that's what I

propose we do in this case I'll put it

another way how long would you say Homo

sapiens has been on the planet from

Francis not Crick excuse me the author

of human the supervisors of Human Genome

Project Collins Franklin my new best

friend and occasional debating enemy

thinks well not more than half a million

years Richard Dawkins thinks it could be

not just 3/4 million I can sync the

number actually if you like we know that

the we left the species left Africa

about 75,000 years

having probably shrunk down to about two

or three thousand people as a result of

a terrible climatic disturbance probably

from Indonesia probably from a

predecessor of Krakatoa which meant that

we were this close to joining the ninety

nine point eight percent of all species

ever living on the surface of this plant

who became extinct some design by the

way profuse creation of millions and

millions and millions of life forms all

to be wiped out with not even anyone

left to testify to their previous

existence we really joined that long

match get out of it just in time let's

call it I don't want Francis's million

Orem half a million all Richard Dawkins

is seventy five thousand whichever way

right just give me that the just give me

that amount of time suppose we've only

been around for 75,000 years

monotheism Christianity Judaism Islam

shows up what four or five thousand

years ago the most so if you give me my

most microscopically small assumption of

human existence for at least seventy

thousand years heaven watches as the

human species is born dies usually of

its teeth usually at about twenty

usually which infants having about a

nine ten to two percent chance of living

build you can I don't have enjoy your

picture watch is this within difference

thousands and thousands of generations

were miserable illiterate starving

hungry to say nothing of the wars

they'll fight with each other to say

nothing of the cruel tease they will

inflict as well as the ones they will

suffer just from existence and only

three or four perhaps five thousand

years ago heaven decides us enough of

that it's time for an intervention and

the best way to do it would be in the

most primitive part of the Middle East

not in China where people can read and

said have looked at telescopes you know

in the most primitive part of the Middle

East

basically by offering human sacrifice to

them

this is a doctrine that cannot be

believed by anyone who studied anything

scientific anything historical anything

archaeological anything highly illogical

and think biologic not company believe

item can be only believed by someone who

wants to be a plaything and a slave of a

pitiless totalitarian how how glad we

should be that the evidence for this

ghastly entity is nil good Thanks

I'm gonna style away and let them ask

questions of each other and the way that

we've scheduled is a minute to ask and

five to answer and we'll try to stay to

that so that's very generous if you dr.

Turk would like to go first

since you had already posed some

questions to mr. how many times do we do

that three times so you get three apiece

wouldn't could I just proposed unless

you really have three that you're dying

to I don't have three I'm trying to duck

but that seems a long time for the

audience stuff to wait it seems to me

could we do it to maybe get to their

questions I have six I'm your I'm your

witness then so three was right dr. Turk

okay Christopher what is your

explanation for the beginning of time

space and matter out of nothing

well we don't know

I remember being asked by one of my

children once that I said well what what

was there at the big bag and I said well

you have to imagine this is this shows

how poverty-stricken our own vocabulary

is and I suspect how poverty-stricken

our own a capacity is in other words I

think there are some things not that we

don't understand or know but that we

cannot so we would use to sort of

primitive images but I said suppose you

could picture all of the matter the

whole of matter condensed into I got

this from Hawking I think one of his

colleagues condensed into something like

a very small dense black suitcase of the

kind you see people carrying money in in

crime for us and it's about to fly up

that's what you have to be able and that

everything that's ever going to be is

inside that that was the best I could do

and I don't think many people could do

if I say it myself and that much better

but I was completely unforced because

the kids said well what was outside the

city and I thought well I can't like

can do that and I don't know anyone who

can and that in a way would be my whole

point I don't have to know you do you're

the one who says you know not me

the theists of the deist say oh come on

we know this is only possible with an

author is very possible with a creator

so the Apostle with a master and

commander it's only possible with a

dictator you're welcome I don't need

five minutes is it is it fair to say

though that if the creation was out of

nothing and that's the common view today

that the beam had brought it into

existence the cause whatever it was it's

a big as what we ground you have a so

being because to go from a state of

non-existence to a state of existence

you need to make a choice you don't you

don't have how does something what are

you getting this choice from the choice

how does a first of all there was no

nature there was nothing so if there was

nothing how do you get something from

nothing without a cause how do you get I

can ask the same question and the way I

did before how do you get so much

nothing from something look into the

night sky if you're in say the Carmel

Peninsula you can't do it from many

parts of Virginia now but if you are

certain parts of California as I was

recently you can look on the night sky

and see universe is blowing up and

bursting into flame every night of the

week several times they had something

and it's all nothing now who's the

author of that who mandated that who's

the creator of that who's the dictator

who demands that sacrifice you're making

a rod for your own back here the fact

that things go out of existence

Christopher doesn't mean that they're

not designed the typewriter is out of

existence right now thankfully but the

typewriters designed so the fact that

the universe is going to heat death

doesn't mean that it didn't have a

designer at the beginning and of course

religious people believe that somebody's

going to intervene to stop it before it

does go anything they do even if it

doesn't

no office or even if nobody intervened

you can go traditionally knows to eat

death excuse me did the religious among

you ladies and gentlemen to understand I

did not that there will be an

intervention to make an exception in our

case that this will not happen to our

cosmos the God will prevent that he does

that's the Christian view and as I had

no idea and don't have seen new earth

would be created Genesis is Paradise

Lost revelation is paradise resort

island away have you it sounds thatcher

us to me yeah how do you get used to do

you I am not the one who has to answer

the question

excuse me you're the one who has to

answer but you you're the one who claims

to know you say there was a creation

moment and a creator I want to know why

you're changing the subject it seems to

me how do i how do I not know this when

you're the one where's all the

information I also want to know I also

want now I also want to know this I want

to know what sources you have that are

not available to me how do you know that

an intervention worker to prevent the

entropy an implosion and destruction of

our services do you want to go to our

second debate I'll I'll provide that but

but what would I say it is let's say

there's no inner inch let's say there's

no intervention we go to heat depth does

that mean in the universe was not

created and not designed it doesn't

entail that belief no but it makes it

actually what makes it seem a very

capricious designer shall we say rather

as I said it's an old verse of full

grevilles created sick commanded to be

well why would why would people be told

okay I can create you but I'm going to

create you with original sin misery

shame death of children disease and so

on just to see if you can pass a test

the mean I might not send you to hell I

don't say that that didn't happen I say

that I'm very glad that the evidence for

it is very scanty and I accuse those of

who believe who do believe it and I

can't have been showing this understood

on this point of having

harboring a very sinister desire to live

in a church a latarian system if I

sister

let's get let's design to be safe

masochism I think I regard masochism

your ego masochism name beyond I'll say

that I think masochism is a sinister and

creepy impulse here mr. Hitchens

question for our doctor jerk alright I

won't take a minute to ask in the eye I

don't just support and try and help out

the those who descent from the

ridiculous

belief Christianity the horrible idea of

vicarious redemption in other words of

the idea that by watching another person

suffer an innocent person suffer that

you could be free not just from your

debts or your sins but your

responsibilities you could cast your

sins on escape

I don't just oppose that disgusting

belief I oppose the Judaism from which

it's plagiarized and the Islam that

plagiarizes from it and I give a

publicity and exposure whenever I can to

those who were brave enough in old times

to oppose this this nightmarish belief

and one of the great opponents of the

Islamic totalitarianism in ancient

Persia was the great Omar Khayyam

perhaps the greatest poet of Persian

whose Rubaiyat I'm sure is known at

least to some of you and my favorite

verse of this comes from the Robert

legaly and translation and it takes the

form of a question

the quatrain is in the form of question

it says and do you think that onto such

as you a maggot minded starved fanatic

crew God gave a secret and denied it me

well well what matters it believe that

to to this magnificent astronomer and

scientists and physician and humanists

of Persia who opposed the cruel sadistic

verminous ignorant mullahs of his day I

borrow the question what is your

authority for saying that you know

something that I don't Chris Wragge

probability are

as you said before you can't disprove

the existence of God and you can't prove

beyond any doubt that there's a God I'm

giving probability I'm giving

cosmological teleological moral

consciousness reason mathematics all of

those things I listed before it's open

the evidence is open to everybody and

this is related to your 70 thousand

years a point that you've just made

there from a Christian perspective God

has always had a revelation even before

Christ it talks about the fact that God

has always had a witness there's three

witnesses there's creation everyone has

creation there's conscience

everyone has conscience and there's

Christ now Christ's true only came 2,000

years ago but his sacrifice how some

published on again excuse me his

sacrifice of atonement is retroactive to

everybody that lived before him so he's

always that awareness it is quite

convenient and that is the very nature

of God you're absolutely correct

well I got him to say it

you see if we were if we were only

discussing ontological questions that

would be all very well and it could be

quite amusing I could say that you

require a higher degree of standard of

proof for your proposition than I

perhaps do for mine and you probably

accept that and so forth and we could go

back and forth we'd be pull Turing the

gain with the essence of the matter

which is this the difference between the

theist and the deist is as follows the

deer says may not make sense without

some kind of designer the theist says

when I tell you what to do Christopher I

have God on my side you're the deer says

he can tell what God wants of me what

lengths I should shave off the end of my

penis if I'm boy I'll have a male child

or off the clitoris if it's a female

child he knows through the exactitude

what the proportions of that should be

what the diet should be what the dietary

laws ought to be who I should sleep with

and in what position and various I think

you can and since God doesn't ever

directly appear and say do it this way

it's done for him this is really

convenient by human representatives who

claim to act in his name so that's why I

think your standard of proof should be a

great deal higher because if you you're

you know the reason this point is

important to you is because it would

mean real power in the only world that

actually exists which is the material

world of you over me and you wonder why

I'm not keen okay the the material world

is all that exists that thought that you

just mentioned Christopher the material

world that all that exists is that

thought material and if it is why is it

true that sounds like has mystery to me

but I mean I think that that everything

that I am a capable of thinking saying

feeling and so forth does depend on my

continued existence as a what should we

say mass of molecules or yeah I should

shoot me in the head and I go I can't go

on like this

and I won't be coming back to bother you

either question sure nor am i going

anywhere after that Sam Chris I don't

wish it otherwise by the way I don't

wish it

God gives you what you desire would that

that were the case I have a bear with me

a relatively long question here after

admitting that an unborn child is a

human being you write on page 221 and I

thankfully you you say in the book that

it's nonsense that an unborn child is

not a human being

you admit that the unborn child is you

say this and I quote there may be

circumstances in which it is not

desirable to carry a fetus to full-term

you then go on to advocate termination

of pregnancy if birth control fails

here's my question why is it that

according to you when God plays God by

taking a life prematurely in the Old

Testament for example it is a moral

outrage but when you play God by taking

a life prematurely through abortion it

is a moral right well it's a false

distinction I mean I don't that's not

what I say I mean I say that the the

great abortifacient is I would say

nature I don't say god of course

God does not decide so many pregnancies

are not character full-term nature knows

in the case of our species as with every

other mammal and primate that some

fetuses are not going to make it and

flushes them out that that's just a

brute fact we wouldn't be here if that

wasn't the case because we're as you

know adapted biologically to a to an

environment we've abandoned the savanna

that's why we have appendices that is

designed for grass eaters and you know

will this see it's all very well

knowable you can't be having a brood of

sickly half-baked children and get away

from the Predators I mean so nature is

the great abortifacient I certainly

don't blame God for it I do as a

humanist believe that the concept unborn

child is a real one and I think the

concept is underlined by all the recent

findings of embryology that

by the early viability of the

well-conceived a human baby the one that

isn't going to be critically deformed or

even some that are will be able to

survive outside the womb earlier and

earlier and earlier and I see that date

only being pushed pushed back and I feel

a responsibility to consider the

occupant of the of the womb as a

candidate member of society in the

future and thus to say that it cannot be

only the responsibility of the woman to

decide upon it that it's a social

question and an ethical and moral one

and I say this as someone who has no

supernatural belief so your question

ought to have been this how do I have

any ethical opinions since I don't

believe that I'm created and I don't

believe I'm going to heaven I prefer to

first question if you don't right but

okay but I mean it just isn't this

entailed but I've have i well I appeal

to the audience have I not answered the

question about the termination of

pregnancy which bit of I had not

answered you better prompt me that I'll

read it again why is it that according

to you when God plays God by taking a

life prima luckily it isn't according to

me God I don't say God does that you

measured in your book which is right

over here you have an entire chapter

about the atrocities in the Old

Testament yes and the atrocities have to

do with God commanding genocide and

those things and and and you obviously

have a problem with that as many people

should so my question again is why

according to you when God plays God by

taking a life prematurely in the Old

Testament is it a moral outrage but when

you play God by taking a life

prematurely through an abortion it is a

moral right once again I'm sorry if my

work is so obscure but I don't say that

I have a moral right to terminate

pregnancy I have given all the reasons

that I think hedged that question

ethically and morally very sternly there

stringently and in any case it's not

like saying that every living child of

the Amalekites should be destroyed and

an injunction by God to Moses to say

he's been too merciful he spared too

many children and enslaved to a few

women

didn't make the genocide complete I I'm

sorry I've never been accused of and I

expect not to be if I'm lucky in a my

life of any such thing and the the idea

there's a moral equivalence between the

two or handling the really difficult

question of a a non-viable fetus in what

should be done about it isn't a moral

equivalence at all so do you want to say

that all unborn life is like you say in

the book is a human being and therefore

you should not kill it is that what you

want to say to get out of this dilemma

or what you want to know but I think no

but I think the presumption that I've

long said that the presumption is that

the unborn entity has a right on its

side and that every effort should be

made to see if it can be preserved and I

think that's I think that's an ethical

imperative is what I do say in the books

I think the Roman Catholic Church makes

this argument immoral when it could be a

moral one by saying that contraception

is not to be allowed by saying the

contraception is the moral equivalent of

abortion in other words to say the

contraception is also murder which is a

nonsensical and disproportionate

position I quote some serious Catholics

in my book William F Buckley the late is

one Clare Boothe Luce is another by

saying if the church says the

contraception abortion are morally the

same it degrades the opposition to

abortion why and by making absurd

arguments as it has in the past Aquinas

believed that every single sperm

contained a micro embryo inside it and

thus that if you like I hope hope don't

offend anyone handjobs our genocide as

for blowjobs don't start that electric

pregnancy Adele was a direct threat to

the life of the mother fallopian tube

pregnancy is instead of a direct threat

to the life of the mother and an obvious

no starter for a human embryo because

that's going anyway is someone who

should be allowed to vote this is

nonsense

it's casuistry it's immoral it's

superstition it prevents people from

thinking seriously about

matters that humanism can decide for

itself for heaven's sake without any

supernatural intervention your question

sir oh well since I probably answered

the your last question with a question

of my own I'll make it my question to

you I'm very keen to know how it is that

you in a sense that you dare to say that

without a belief in religion I would

have no source for ethical or moral now

what I'm saying

you seem to hint at it now did he not oh

I'm not saying you don't know morality

Christopher I'm saying you can't justify

morality without a being beyond yourself

so that just if I okay good so that if I

say that for me it's enough to be

willing to love my fellow man and

perhaps hope that my fellow man and

woman will give me some of the same

consideration in return and that after

all the the Samaritan of whom we've all

heard was the only one to help after the

priests and the Levites had passed by

Anderson Arjun also though he's talked

off by Jesus can't have been a Christian

because he appears in a story told by

Jesus so there can't be any Christianity

before that somehow he knew the moral

thing to do is to help his fellow person

without your religious instruction yes

that's actually the whole point of the

parable though it's not the way it's

usually told and that's what

Christianity teaches you know morality

it's written on your heart you don't

need the scripture to know right from

wrong and this was only available to us

2,000 years good no no you've known it

from the beginning of time conscience

has been on humanity from F forever

you'll have to let me press you a little

bit on that I mean William Gladstone

spent a huge amount of his life and he

was great scorer of Latin and Greek

showing that every one of the Greek

Socratic and other moral precepts all

they were were just pre figurations of

Christianity these are the best the

Greeks could do before Jesus arrived

we didn't face the idea that these

solidarities and moralities and

understandings are in asian people and

don't require divine permission I just

have to ask you if you could do it

plainly which side do you come down on

do you think we need divine permission

to act humanely to each other no it has

nothing to do with permission it has to

do with the ontological category known

as morality where does morality come

from does it come from the benzene

molecule the carbon molecule the oxygen

molecule in your world here where does

it come from suppose that we were having

this discussion before the existence of

molecules was understood it's a relevant

name it's not because the the discussion

about where does the good come from was

being conducted before Lucretius

developed the atomic theory before um

Democritus and Epicurus I should better

say understood that the whole world was

made up of atoms and molecules before

that was known people were arguing why

do we behave one way to our fellows and

we call it good and another way and we

call it work it because it's written

like that you can't I don't think you

can build in a molecular distraction

that's it I don't have the molecular

problem you do it's your materialist I'm

trying to ask you where does morality

come from in a materialistic worldview

well did I not just acquit myself of

that charge and say that the argument

precedes the knowledge of the atomic and

molecular structure no it doesn't no not

that I think by the way that the atomic

and molecular structure is irrelevant

and it could be that we might find out

that there are who knows pheromones or

this other phenomena that do have an

influence on our moral conditioning this

still wouldn't to a morally normal

person relieve them of the

responsibility leg that I I feel I know

what's right I feel that some things my

children don't need to be told they

already know let me let me let me

interject here and just ask a question

another way you are asked to tell a

child you you go to this church which

means you'll go to heaven but your

little playmates don't go to that church

and therefore will go to hell

seems to me to be an unpleasant thing to

be saying but bless that is maybe I

in a minority that that could be an

unpleasant thing but how do you

dimension evil the--what's calling me

risks aren't only a religious person

would dream of saying let's call it evil

where does evil come from religion

and Maru our actual CEO next question

morality comes from humanism and is

stolen by religion for its own purpose

humanism cording to who Hitler Mussolini

Stalin who you saying that Hitler was

the humanist just Hitchens

I've lived to hear it said Hitchens had

been in Virginia Hitler was a Catholic

you men are you know as a Catholic so

Hitler was a Catholic says muscle in it

give me a how how does morality exists

my opinion you know official border with

the Protestant Catholic churches both of

them wanted the worship of themselves as

well as of God so I suppose no evil

coming later and their third main ally

Hirohito the Emperor of Japan not

content just to be theocratic was

himself a god so anyone who says the

fascism and Nazism was secular

he's an ignoramus why is it not gigantic

scale I'm asking it ontological question

I know as being older Hitler right

because I'm a humanist I'm not asking a

sociological arrestin all right let me

ask a question another way this is my

last question if God does not exist why

do all people have a fixed moral

obligation to love and not murder

how do molecules in motion have any

authority to tell you how to behave

when you do something wrong whose

standard are you breaking who are you

displeasing the carbon atom the benzene

benzene molecule who this question has

been asked at the Socrates answered it

like this when he was on trial for his

life accused of blasphemy by the way he

said that he had an inner game on the

way he put it not demon the demon a

spirit a an inner critic a conscience

would be one way for him and that he he

knew enough to know even when he was

making the best speech of his life that

if he was making a point that was

somehow dishonest or incomplete or shady

the Damon whatever yeah that was clever

but you shouldn't have tried it he knew

any any person of average moral

equipment has the same knowledge I hope

you'll if you don't I'm very sorry for

you Adam Smith are called it the

internal witness who we all have to have

a conversation with all the time it's

been CS Lewis decided to call it

conscience and to attribute it to the to

the divine but he didn't improve on what

Adam Smith said in Theory of Moral

Sentiments or what Socrates said went on

when standing trial for his own for his

own life it's something sometimes

colloquially defined as why do people

behave well when nobody is looking I

don't believe there's anyone in this

Hall who doesn't know what I mean by

that why when it won't do you any good

will you decide I could have kept that

wallet I found on the back of the cab

see but I'm not going to I'm going to

turn it in I'm going to see if find find

its real possessive there are people to

whom that those thoughts do not occur

who are deaf to that idea who only think

of themselves who wouldn't worry about

the internal game on or censor or Oh

companion and there are of course people

who only get pleasure from being

unpleasant to other people in inflicting

cruelty on them the first group we call

the sociopathic in the second group we

call the psychopathic my only plan they

occur in nature and in society my only

problem is with those who think that

they're all made in the image of God the

one explanation that absolutely doesn't

work at all that gets you nowhere

that explains nothing Christopher it's

your turn to ask oh really yes sir

well my question is this would anyone in

the audience like to join this

conversation we actually have we have

questions if you're ready to move along

yeah I am there are a couple of

questions a lot with several similar

questions the board onto a couple of

questions for each of you and then one

that I'll end with that I think is an

important one to address to both of you

since you gave your turn away mr.

Hitchens I'll ask you first if the

questioner asks if God does not exist

what then is the purpose of life well

I can only answer for myself what cheers

me up

I suppose mainly gloating over the

misfortunes of other people I guess then

and you say evil come from religion

master I guess that has to be I think

you're mainly crowing over the miseries

of others it doesn't always work but it

never completely fails and then and then

there's irony there's irony and which is

the gin in the Campari the cream in the

coffee sex can have diminishing returns

but it's amazing ah no that's pretty

much it there is a clear run to the

grave

dr. Turek yes do i you want me to answer

that or not somebody else if

Christianity is true then why aren't the

differences that Jesus makes in the

lives of Christians more powerful or

evident than the impact other religions

make on their adherents I don't know if

I accept the premise of the question

well the the questioner adds Gandhi was

every bit as influential as any

Christian yeah that's true and that's

one of the problems with Christianity

the biggest problem with Christianity's

Christians I admit it but the question

tonight but the question is asking a

more central question which is if this

is the truth yes why then doesn't that

truth by the weight of its infinite

being cause its adherence to behave in a

way that we can all notice well I think

you can notice it several Christians I

think Christians for years have been the

ones that have built hospitals and cared

for the poor and cared for the weak and

the sick so I think it does make a

difference my problem which is part of

the problem that the questioner is

asking is why doesn't it have this

effect on everyone

and I'll throw a little Christian

theology in here the problem is isn't

that we don't have all the whole court

if we don't have all the Holy Spirit we

do we just don't allow all the Holy

Spirit to do what it should do it's our

problem we are fallen human beings and

that's why Christ had to come because we

are fallen human beings and has to come

again because he didn't get it right the

first time I agree I agree with you that

the grammar the question is wrong but

for different reason I don't see what's

moral about Christian preaching for

example apart from the horrible idea of

vicarious Redemption

I'll say again in case I missed you the

first time what I mean by that I could

pay your debt even if I didn't know you

if I was a friend you're in debt I'll

pay in extreme cases people to be known

to sale serve your sentence in prison I

could do that for you what I cannot do

is relieve you of your responsibility I

can't say throw your sins on me they'll

melt away immoral people not allowed to

be you know entitled to be relieved with

their responsibilities and the vicarious

Redemption by human sacrifice is a very

primitive and horrible scape

urging idea that belongs to the barbaric

period of human history

so all pardons are immoral so no knodel

pardons I didn't say that I said

vicarious Redemption is an immoral

doctor it's also immoral of the Nazarene

to say take no thought for the morrow

not to clothe not to eat not to invest

leave your family leave your children

leave everything give up the world no

investment no thrift no thought for the

future

just follow me I think that's only moral

if if you are sure believer in the idea

the world is about to come to an end

which was the case with this apocalyptic

I guess you never read the power of the

talents he said the the prophecy is that

the world is coming to an end real soon

there's no point in caring about

anything else that's not a moral

preaching to me at all there are many

other ways in which I fail to see how

any bad behavior can ever be described

as unchristian and of course it's

completely laughable to say Christians

build hospitals they've just many

Christians have bombed hospitals have

built them and as many Muslims have

built hospitals as Christians have and

as many Babylonians have built great

buildings as Christians have if that's

the best you can do that's the best you

can do one of the questioners repeats a

a point from dr. Turks opening statement

to that apparently here she feels you

did not address mr. Hitchens about the

irreducible complexity of DNA and is it

possible for such structures to have

formed by chance well though - I have

two responses to that one is what would

she have said before she knew about DNA

what does that have to do with anything

we're just existed prior to anyone

knowing about them yes

it's gravity existed before we knew

about it that's true you need an

explanation right and Christianity

thought it could explain everything and

then it fell not everything's wait this

very simple same as your point about

molecules that I said these arguments

predate Epicurus Lucretius and the

atomic theory christianity used to say

can explain everything it is all you

need to know is there's no powerful or

loving or intervening all-knowing

omniscient God

okay well then wait wouldn't DNA explain

more ah well that only shows that God's

even cleverer than we thought so it's an

infinitely expanding tautology

there are many of the some Christians

who accept in fact it was actually a

catholic physicist at the University of

Leuven in Belgium who first came up with

the idea of what we now call the Big

Bang and most Pope's not all most Pope's

have accepted it someone thought of it

as a challenge to Christianity the Pope

Leo who he went to the I can't remember

the scientists name for a second maybe

someone here can help me he went to the

Pope said look that looks like this is

how things started the Pope said if you

like I'll make it a dogma that every

Catholic has to believe it said that

would be slightly missing the point your

holiness as for what it is they do with

the origin to be ended well because the

it is true to say that religion as

Stephen Jay Gould said the religion and

science belonged to non-overlapping

magisteria I think these magisteria are

in many ways incompatible and in many

ways irreconcilable but it is no more

true to say that the existence of the

complexity of DNA shows that God was

more ingenious than we thought than it

is to say that it necessarily shows by

its self revealing ingenuity that we

don't need the hypothesis of God both of

these positions would be in my opinion

somewhat reductionist though I would

have to say that I think the second one

is more persuasive and more elegant

now Gould is wrong will that do

Christians or religious people religion

is trying to find out what how the

universe began it's always science

they're not no religion says it does no

excuse me it's try it drives can also

process of scientific and

religion is an affirmation of faith it

says a radius person Christopher says it

always be evidence to try and point out

that the universe exploded into being

out of nothing and you have scientific

evidence for the view that an

intervention will occur to prevent the

implosion and don't forget that ah let's

start at the beginning I can't forget it

let's start at the beginning there may

be anything you've said all evening I'm

going to remember Joe that's for debate

- no no I mean don't say you what here

do yourself do yourself your faith the

honor of saying it's faith generally no

Lance Bass the argument you get away

with it

look the argument would be Christopher

is that if the universe exploded into

being out of nothing then miracles are

possible because the greatest miracle of

all has already occurred the question is

have miracles occurred in the first

century mirror that requires another

debate whereby we have to look at the

historical evidence and see and if it is

true that the that Jesus really did come

and say and do the things that the New

Testament writers said he did then

whatever he teaches is true because if

he rose from the dead he was God if he

taught that there will be an

intervention then there will be that's

the argument enough time to support it

you'll need it

it's fallen off if I a sentence or two

from David Hume would correct what you

sow a miracle is defined not as a part

of the natural order but as a suspension

of the natural no an interval you can't

say I'll say of a of the Big Bang which

is the foundation of a natural order

that it's a suspension of what it starts

you may not do that however if you meet

someone in the street who you yesterday

saw executed you can say either that an

extraordinary miracle has occurred or

that you are under a very grave

misapprehension and David Humes logic on

this I think is quite irrefutable he

says what is more likely that the laws

of nature have been suspended in your

favor and in a way that you approve all

that you've made a mistake and in each

case you must especially if you didn't

see it yourself and you're hearing it

from someone who says that they did I

would go further and say the following

I'll grant you that it would be possible

to track the pregnancy of the woman Mary

who's mentioned about three times in the

Bible and - sure there was no male

intervention in her life at all but yet

she delivered herself of a healthy baby

boy

with I can say I don't say that's

impossible

parthenogenesis is not completely

unthinkable but it does not prove that

his paternity is divine and it wouldn't

prove that any of his moral teachings

were thereby correct nor if I was to see

him executed one day and see him walking

the streets the next would that show

that he's father was God or his mother

was a virgin all that his teachings were

true especially given the commonplace

nature of Resurrection at that time in

place after all Lazarus was raised never

said a word about it the Daughter of

Jairus was raised didn't say a thing

about what she'd been through and the

Gospels tell us that at the time of the

crucifixion all the graves in Jerusalem

opened and their occupants wandered

around the streets to greet so the

resurrection was a something of a banal

at the time not all not all of those

people clearly were divinely conceived

so I'll give you all the miracles and

you'll still be left exactly where you

are now holding an empty sack no

Christopher you have to look at each

miracle in light of the evidence and the

context um was wrong because his premise

that was wrong was the one that said the

evidence for the regular is always

greater than that for the rare it's not

from Yume's own worldview if you were

you if you were here today he wouldn't

even believe in the Big Bang because it

only happened once it's not a regular

event it happened once he wouldn't

believe in the spontaneous generation of

life which is what a materialist must

believe because it only happened once he

wouldn't believe in his own birth

because it only happened once in fact he

wouldn't be able to believe in the whole

history of our solar system because it

only happened once you don't need

regular events to know whether or not

something happened singular events

happen all the time this debate will

never happen again

yet you're here to witness it there's a

there's a I mean I'm just going to put

my repose my trust in the audience here

there's a there's an obvious difference

between a singularity and a miracle and

I I mean I think it would be

embarrassing to try and explain it will

be patronizing to dr. Turek why a member

of the audience takes issue with your

claim that objective morality

necessarily relies in an absolute deity

asking instead what about empathy for

which there are significant apparent

biological basis right in here that

empathy for which there are fairly

well-established apologies he's a very

human emotion cannot empathy lead to

morality is it right to be empathetic

that's the question I'm not saying

there's no chemical connection between

morality and or for morality I should

say I'm there certainly when we think

they're chemicals going on the question

is what is the standard that makes

empathy or love right what is the

chemical composition of love what is the

what how much does justice way well

these are all things that make no sense

in a materialistic world

but that's not entirely true let's say

for example that neurocognitive

neuroscientists are able to determine

with scientific levels of precision that

in fact certain neuro chemical and

cognitive events always essentially

always co-occur with the experience of

empathy but that wouldn't mean that

empathy is right see there may be

chemical compositions that cause that

guy to chop that guy's head off on the

Canadian bus that wouldn't make it right

the question is what makes something

right in a materialist

worldview there's nothing that can make

something right or wrong as David Hume

has said you cannot get an author from

it is well happy to agree with that I

mean I think I think that's true but um

but I have to add only that there are

we've all song has to be lucky enough to

see it or meet people who've done it and

all of us it's read about there are

people who will when they when a grenade

is lobbed through the window throw

themselves on it before it can blow up

it does happen there are people who who

died under torture without giving away

the whereabouts of their comrades there

are people who go do bomb disposal

working defusing huge device they know a

minute

it does happen it's always happened it's

common to every known human society it's

a part of every heroic narrative of

every known Society there's ever been

those who do it are honored

they are sung as we say and the times

when there was no literate no literal

record and it doesn't require divine

sanction or permission it is we're proud

to say if not innate in us we would be

too humble to say that it's in Asian our

species is something we can all aspire

here yes you know we do not we do not

get it from Big Brother if we did that

would degrade it it would mean it wasn't

heroic

it wasn't brave it wasn't individual it

wasn't exemplar why are these things

of anything what I would because it

would be in the hope either of a reward

from Big Brother or for fear of

punishment from it it would have

robotics morality weiss Troy's ethics it

means it means the end it means the it

means the individual example is dust

Christopher you've already abolished

validated by your materialistic

worldview there's no such thing as

morality if you're just a bunch of

chemicals weight Sigma it's okay I

already know some people will clap

anything I do you need to say do you

mean to say that the human that the body

of a mammal the primate is not the

chemical composition no it is oh good

I'm questioning why do you why do you

why do you act as if this has only just

been discovered and as if it's a

theological point because you apparently

have I say that although I I would

rather say in spite of the fact that I

am a primate or not

notwithstanding perhaps I'd better say

that I am Brahman nonetheless I'm

capable of thinking about heroism

self-sacrifice example and so forth why

are all those things turn to me and say

how did you say that and be a primate

why I go I'm eight

I can't also the fact that I'm a primate

I can concede it better than some people

that's the best I can do why your ear I

made as well you'll have to agree with

both of us that it shows okay let me

let's finish with this which is the

fundamental question and I think

deserves serious answer the writer says

gentlemen I'd venture to say that no one

no one is two words by the way

no one came into this room without

already deciding who he or she agrees

with and no one will leave with a

different mindset what would it take for

each of you what evidence would you need

about what basis would you make a

decision to change your mind

fundamentally about the question that we

gathered here to discuss this evening

great question

well Christianity would be refuted by

somehow discovering the body of Christ

theism might be I don't know how you

could refute these and if all the

scientific evidence somehow changed if I

don't know how you deal with the

morality issue if the fine-tuning didn't

occur if we could find the universe is

eternal it would need a cause but all

the scientific evidence seems to suggest

universe is eternal so it needs a cause

and the cause must be immaterial

spaceless timeless but if all that

changed that might be at least get me to

doubt theism sir you know most of the

debate I wish I'd thought of this this

evening

sorry much too laid-back in most of the

debates I've taken apart and I wish I

thought of doing it this evening too we

took a vote before the debate including

registering the undecided and then at

1:00 at the end to basically see where

the undersides had gone so and I was

always surprised by how many people had

come or at least willing to consider

themselves as having come with an open

mind I my view is this very few people

have that much difficulty thinking of

themselves as objects of a divine plan

the great advantage religion has is our

own solipsism it's the same as people

who don't really believe in astrology

but they'll take a quick peek to see

what's happening to Taurus today and if

it says well might be a good time for a

flutter on the stock exchange not to

think hang on the planets don't really

move to determine my investments but

maybe you know it's not it's not

impossible it could all be about me I

think about it quite a lot actually

because I have the same birthday as

Thomas Jefferson in April the 13th

except that I don't because he was born

under the old calendar and I think his

though it says on his tomb he was born

on 13th table he was actually born on

something like the 25th of April under

the Ocala I've often wondered how the

horoscope people managed the transition

the time when everyone had to change

which star sign they were I just say it

got done easily enough religion works

for most people because if to have

people in a sense horribly do want it to

be true that they are supervised that

God looks out for them that they might

be rewarded or they might be punished it

has this terrible surveill advantage

that's why I consider it to be morally

superior to be an atheist to say I would

rather live without that ghastly

master/slave and their mentality and no

evidence or no event that could change

your commitment to that belief I can

only say that if there was I'm very

relieved to find having studied what I

think of as the

best evidence in arguments physicists

biologists paleontologists students of

mythology history archaeologists are

very relieved to find there's no

evidence for it at all if if I thought

it was true I would consider myself

condemned to live under attorney and

I've spent my entire life repudiating

that idea and helping I hope others to

think the same but there is not a chance

of course it's not it isn't a single

chance that anyone will find that hey

after all we can definitely know that a

virgin conceived or that a condemned

felon walked gain and it's quite absurd

for anyone to argue in scientific terms

as if any of that is even thinkable what

I don't understand I suppose I should

close both is why anybody should be so

contemptuous I suppose is the word also

insecure about their own faith as not to

call it that did you hear him say at any

point the city this is my faith I

believe it in spite of the evidence to

the contrary I lay my life on it

I believe I'm redeemed by it I think I

will live eternally because no he has no

confidence to say anything like that

instead he tries to mix it up in an area

scientific inquiry where he is no more

competent than hey even I am and that

was where he made his big mistake thanks

gentlemen

what are we sighs five minutes to a

close uh since dr. Turk went first in

the opening would you mind going first

now I thought I'd just wrap oh you can

call it a wrap unless you'd like five

more minutes

when asked when I think of the most

erotic words in the language I sometimes

think German relayed back now when asked

what I think of the most erotic words in

the language I sometimes think slowly

captive audience um no you know what

if I haven't made my case by now

brothers and sisters I don't think I

will make it in the next five I ask you

to excuse me if anyone thinks that

there's a question having who's heard me

who thinks is a question I answered

poorly or inadequately or badly or

failed to answer at all I would like to

challenge me I'd happily give them five

minutes but I've I have to say shot my

belt otherwise it is there anyone who

would like to charge me yes please if

there is no God why don't you spend your

whole life try to convince people that

there isn't why don't you just stay off

was the repeat that was the cost yeah

the question is if there if there is no

god why spend your life and career

trying to refute that why not just leave

it alone and stay home fair enough well

it's it's not my it isn't my whole

career for one thing it's become a major

preoccupation of my life though in the

last eight or nine years especially

since September 11th 2001 to try and

help generate an opposition to theocracy

and its depredations internationally

that that that is now probably my main

political preoccupation to help people

in Afghanistan in Somalia in Iraq in

Lebanon in Israel to resist those who

sincerely want to encompass the

destruction of civilization and

sincerely believe they have God on their

side in wanting to do so the thing maybe

I will take a few minutes just to say

something that I find repulsive about

especially monotheistic messianic

religion in it with a large

part of itself it quite clearly wants us

all to die it wants this world to come

to an end you can tell the yearning for

things to be over whenever you read any

of its real texts or listen to any of

its real authentic spokesmen not the

sort of the pathetic apologist who

sometimes masquerade for it those who

talk there was a famous spokesman for

this in Virginia until recently about

the rapture say that those of us who

have chosen rightly will be gathered to

the arms of Jesus leaving all the rest

of you behind if we're in a car

it's your lookout that car won't have a

driver anymore if we're if we're a pilot

that's your lookout that plane will

crash we will be with Jesus and the rest

of you can go straight to hell the the

eschatological element that is

inseparable from Christianity if you

don't believe that there is to be an

apocalypse there is going to be an end a

separation of the sheep and the goats a

condemnation a final one then you're not

really I believe it and the contempt for

the things of this world shows through

all of them it's well put in an old

rhyme from a an English exclusive

brethren sect

says that we are the pure and chosen few

and all the rest are damned

there's ruin up in hell for you we don't

want heaven crammed you can tell it when

you see the extreme Muslims talk they

cannot wait they cannot wait for death

and destruction to overtake and

overwhelm the world they can't wait for

for a what I would call without

ambiguity a final solution when you look

at the Israeli settlers paid for often

by American tax dollars to sign if they

can steal enough land from other people

and get all the Jews into the Promised

Land and all the non-jews out of it then

finally the Jewish people will be worthy

of the return of the Messiah and there

are Christians in this country you

consider it their job to help this

happen so that Armageddon can occur so

the painful business of living as humans

and studying civilization and trying to

acquire learning and

knowledge and health and medicine and to

push that can all be scrapped and and

the cult of death can take over that to

me is a hideous thing in eschatological

terms in end times terms on its own

hateful idea hateful practice and a

hateful theory but very much to be

opposed in our daily lives where there

are people who sincerely mean it who

want who want to ruin the good relations

that could exist between different

peoples nations racist countries tribes

ethnicities who say who openly say they

love death more than we love life and

who are betting that with God on their

side they're right about that so when I

say is the subtitle of my book that I

think religion poisons everything I'm

not just doing what publishers like and

coming up with the provocative subtitle

I mean to say it infects us in the you

know our most basic integrity it says we

can't be moral without Big Brother

without a totalitarian permission means

we can't be good to one another means we

can't leave without this we must be

afraid we must also be forced to love

someone who we fear the essence of

sadomasochism at the essence of

abjection the essence of the Masters

slave relationship and that knows that

death is coming and can't wait to bring

it on I say this is evil and though I do

some nights stay home I enjoy more the

nights when I go out and fight against

this ultimate wickedness and ultimate

stupidity thank you

dr. Tarek your clothes first of all I

want to thank everyone I know it's been

a long night and I enjoy listening to

Christopher even if I don't agree with

them and I want to thank Christopher for

being here and putting so much effort

into this debate let me just clean up a

few things that I wasn't able to respond

to before and that is this issue of

design where Christopher seems to say

because things are going to oblivion it

wasn't designed well first of all a

design in a world constrained by

physical constraints can only be optimal

if you know the purpose of the designer

just even Jay Gould had a book years ago

called pandas thumb where he complained

that the pandas thumb was not as good as

our thumb it only seemed to enable the

Panda to strip bamboo well maybe that's

all the Panda was supposed to do is

strip bamboo you can't say it's

suboptimal Design unless you know what

the purpose of the designer was my car

is not designed perfectly but it's still

designed so just because you find faults

in design doesn't mean there is no

design and you wouldn't be able to find

a fault unless you knew what the purpose

of the designer was let me now summarize

Christopher's book and if as I read

Christopher's book it seems to me he's

making two statements the first

statement is there is no God and I hate

him

after all Christopher defines himself as

an anti-theist not an atheist but an

anti theist and that's why he couldn't

even respond to the question what might

change your mind nothing is going to

change Christopher's mind his mind is

made up

the second is narrow-minded yes the

second the second major point he makes

is since religious people do evil things

God doesn't exist that is a non sequitur

in logic we all do evil things that

doesn't mean our parents don't exist

just because E people do evil things

doesn't mean that all religion is false

and Christopher bunches all religions

together and makes no distinctions that

need to be made I am with you

Christopher on your opposition of

radical Islam I am with you I am with

you politically on more things than you

will know because I think many religions

are false and there are many false

beliefs in fact many religious people

here's here's the points Christopher

makes and he's right about many of these

things many religious people have

behaved terribly many religious beliefs

are false and can't be justified you

don't need to believe in God to know

right from wrong you don't need the

Bible or any other religious book to

know basic right and wrong morality

predates Scripture I agree with all that

and that in fact is the Christian view

as well and unless someone outside of

the universe intervenes or the laws of

nature change this incredibly fine-tuned

universe will go to oblivion I agree

with all that but none of these things

are arguments against the existence of

God God could still exist even if all of

Christopher's assertions and complaints

are true

let me also point out that religion does

not poison everything everything poisons

religion I poison religion regrettably I

poison religion because I don't live up

to the pure words of Christ and that's

why Christ had to come because none of

us live up to it but we know what the

standards are because there's a standard

beyond ourselves Christopher has

identified how religious people poison

religion how they act immorally

you know that's what Jesus and the

prophets did and why Jesus came

Christopher is so charming and he is so

persuasive he is like an Old Testament

prophet he is and he is calling the

church to morality he can't define what

that is but he's calling them to it he's

not calling them to the Christian

morality necessarily he's calling them

to his own morality but what he points

out are some of the very things Jesus

point out many people in the church are

following tradition rather than the

words of Christ many people in the

church are doing evil things Jesus

condemned the people who were the most

religious because they were the furthest

away from God and Christopher's to be

commended for that because many of them

are

but unlike Jesus who appealed to God's

standard of morality Christopher's

atheism affords him no objective moral

standard by which to judge anything

wrong including all the sins of

religious people circumcision sexual

restrictions suicide bombing etc he has

to borrow objective morality from the

theistic worldview in order to argue

against it he has to soon God in order

to deny him he has to sit in God's lap

in order to slap his face he also has to

borrow aspects of the theistic worldview

in order to even get his worldview off

the ground he has to borrow the universe

which is a pretty big issue he has to

borrow fine-tuning life reason math

human freedom and consciousness notice

he never to dressed any of those things

where do those come from in an atheistic

worldview Christopher in the last

chapter of his book talks about we need

to get away from all this religious

stuff and we need to go to enlightenment

values what are enlightenment values

well here are is what Christopher says

on the last page of his book quote very

importantly the divorce between the

sexual life and fear the sexual life and

disease and the sexual life and tyranny

can now at last be tempted on the sole

condition that we banish all religions

from the discourse it appears that

Christopher is rebelling against the

church lady here he doesn't like the

restrictions on sexuality is it true

that if Jesus said sleep with anybody

you want Christopher would be Christian

I don't know but that is what he's

rebelling against now he talks about the

divine dictatorship he says that he

rebelled as he just pointed out against

the divine dictatorship because he's an

anti theist but let me ask this question

why must everyone submit to his

dictatorship the dictatorship of

Christopher Hitchens he's telling

everyone to live up or to give up their

sacred texts and to live according to

renewed enlightenment values values that

apparently he gets to choose Christopher

in effect wants to replace God he wants

his values he wants you he wants you to

adopt enlightenment values

Christopher never answered the questions

and the evidence that I brought up I

think this is a theistic universe

because all time all space and all

matter exploded into being out of

nothing

number two it did so with incredible

precision and extreme fine-tuning we saw

that life seems to be the result of

intelligence for we saw that their

objective immaterial moral values out

there and Christopher is big on

immorality I'm with them on that number

five we saw that in material reality

such as reason in the laws of logic

exist and have no way to be explained

there's no way to explain those by

materialism that the laws of mathematics

number six exists and they help us

investigate and measure this orderly

universe number seven that people are

not mere chemicals but are free to make

choices and number eight and finally

that we are conscious beings and we

cannot explain ourselves by mere

chemicals we're something beyond

chemicals but atheism only has a

worldview that says all that exists or

chemicals because Christopher does a see

atheist friends have not been able to

explain any of these realities from an

atheistic perspective they have instead

relied on speculation in faith I don't

have enough faith to be an atheist as

one more other point Christopher may

think that there is no God and he hates

him but God thinks there is a

Christopher Hitchens and God loves him

well then I think let's first certainly

thank our debaters for a lively and

stimulating evening

good evening thank you again for coming