Debate: Hitchens vs. Hitchens (12 of 14)

Brothers Christopher and Peter Hitchens debate the Iraq War and religion at an event organized by the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies with the support of the Center for Inquiry and the Interfaith Dialogue Association.

[@writersblock26]

Thank you for posting this, HauensteinCenter.

[@himmura]

C. Hitchens is sooo eloquent in his answers.

[@saelaird]

I agree with you completely. I'm an Atheist and see it that way. I just thought your stamp-collecting analogy was grossly disproportionate to the problem of religion!

[@MrCattlehunter]

For the first time so far Peter manages to make a good point; that people do evil things not because they are atheists/believers, but because they are people. Too bad he didn't realize he was making an argument, at the start of the debate, from exactly the point of view he's denouncing here...

[@saelaird]

Nicely explained. Apologies for any confusion, I agree. We need to make those with religious belief feel as backward as racists and homophobes.

[@ibreakkidslegs]

Christopher is a fucking BEAST

[@BeholdZeus]

Nihilism, atheism and agnosticism are equal to the degree they participate in the formation of skeptical propositions. I too regard life as infinitely significant. It is beautiful. But I do not rule out noumenal experience of beauty, the infinitude of mathematics, the expansive of space and time, the inductive possibilities of metaphysics, the emotive connectedness to life, the "being-in-the-world" that Heidegger often spoke of. This "being-in-the-world" can be sacred all on its own.

[@gamerknown]

I'm sorry, does this follow from part 11? I'm a little confused. >_>

[@chachieb]

I wonder sometimes if Peter is right simply on the reason it's harder to explain to the commoner,, but I guess that's where Occam comes in.

[@elsuperjeffe]

my first gut laugh of the day - good one...

[@tat20001]

I almost feel sorry for Peter, Chrisopher makes a much better arguement on both issues. I strongly disagree with Chrisopher on the Iraq war, but if I went solely by the information provided in this debate I think I would have been for it.

[@Oldzkule]

My point was that past dictators cannot have their acts attributed to non-belief. They did what they did because they replaced one system of worship with another (with themselves at the centre of worship). The problem with Stalin's Russia, for example, was not that there was too much sceptical inquiry going on. The problem was that Stalin's Russia mimicked religion too closely. If atheism is anything, it's just sceptical inquiry.

[@MPaulHolmesMPH]

People can't be secular. When there's no God, something fills the void. Unfortunately for people, when a person fills the void, a howling ruin results.

[@JACKtheRIPP3R189]

That guy in the sweater was about to flip out.

[@jeffbrown8]

atheism is not simply like having a mustache or not, as in its relevance to the amount of murder resulting from these atheist regimes in China etc.. or Trotsky.. I think Hitchens gives great information that's beneficial to our knowledge, but I'm glad that the other side is being discussed

[@Barbershop666]

@AULhall Which one?

[@PlatonsArm]

@zootsoot2006 That is indeed a good point!

[@PPartisan]

He had a valid question, although it's one which has been answered before. Hitchens puts it well though, atheism isn't all there is to being a decent person, but it's as good a place to begin as any.

[@MrDddlll]

The nation he described that follows the various philosophies of the people he mentioned: I would propose the same in the light of true Christianity. There has never been a whole nation to live by the true teachings of Christ. He can argue against religion all he wants, just don't categorize true Christianity within the same boat. By doing so his argument becomes null and void.

[@AsSomedayItMayHappen]

lol @ the guy in the background at 3:18 who rolls his eyes at the questioner

[@BeholdZeus]

If the atheist believes that life is not sacred, special, significant, then, yes there is a possibility that genocide can be committed flippantly. Yet the theist, who is said to believe such things, has committed such genocide in any event. I believe greater damage "can" be committed in the name of atheism "if" and only "if" it believes that life is not sacred. Most would agree with this. The problem is that the postulation of sacredness lies in the domain of the spiritual.

[@beriukay]

I shall take your advice under consideration. However, do not think that I disregard philosophy. I am very much a fan of logic, the philosophy of science and consciousness, to name a few.

[@niginit]

"Virality" Isn't a word. His point is equally nonexistent.

[@Dougca1985]

@tat20001 dude, you gotta watch ritter vs. hitchens, good debate, equal i say on the war of iraq :D

[@TheSqualors]

The Hitch makes really educated points. However, I think he diverts the issue on many occasions . The prompt is a question of God, but Hitch often makes it a question of religious organizations and churches, and he strikes them hard and with nearly all cases with justice. However, in the Jewish and Christian scriptures you find God being very harsh and blunt with people who claim to follow Him and worship Him and are extremely religious but act completely wrongly and disowns that conduct

[@RHDZ3]

I don't think he actually posed a question before the moderator intervened. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[@beriukay]

And since when has an old idea been a right idea? Reason and empiricism will never remove all doubt because whenever a person's pet theory is disproven, any number of hypotheses can be discarded to protect the pet theory. You can always hug onto what you want, even if it means you pretend the world is flat and that light bends asymptotically. Numinous experiences are nothing to an outside observer. I don't care if you orgasm over feeling special, it doesn't make you or your gods special.

[@angryafghan]

@chaoszieg continually misses the point and continually passes on answering the questions put to both of them, because he couldn't think of anything to say.

[@tat20001]

I am not sure what you are trying to say, but if you seriously think that, then don't worry - He can't have a plan to lead me to a non-existant place.

[@Oldzkule]

I gave a silly analogy to emphasise the point; that atheism is not a philosophy. Sam Harris gives more serious examples. e.g. non-racism and non-sexism are not world views. Negative assertions never qualify as assertions in themselves and sometimes a silly example demonstrates this. I agree that the problems faced by non-believers cannot be compared to the problems faced by non-stamp collectors. But I wasn't making that comparrison. I was trying to demonstrate a common philosophical confusion

[@BeholdZeus]

The "numinous in other ways" is still numinous by definition. This being the case, the numinous requires study and reflection. Music, sex, love point to a numinous realm of experience. But can this experience, this fancy of the divine, be classed as purely religious? Would Mr. Hitchens contend that it is at least spiritual in a Spinozistic sense?

[@BryanAJParry]

Why do people keep making this mistake? Look, I'll say it again: ATHEISM IS ***NOT*** A PHILOSOPHY, IT IS ***NOT*** A SYSTEM OF BELIEF. It's like saying atheistic regimes killed because they were afairyists. This really isn't spurious on my part. Atheism itself commits one to no moral actions at all. IT can be a part of a larger philosophical system, however e.g. Totalitarianism, Secular Humanism, Buddhism. Are these three systems identical because of their atheism? I think not.

[@Oldzkule]

Atheism is just as much a philosophy as NOT collecting stamps is a hobby. As a non-collector of stamps is there a non-stamp collecting club I should join?

[@jeffbrown8]

the grey haird gentleman though has an excellent point about the amount of deaths-- i'm sure God fearing wasn't a motivation for these atrocities.. if these men were God fearing -millions of lives could be saved THIS IS NOT A TRIVIAL MATTER!

[@pervertedmind]

Get it? Where we started. Hahah. d(:

[@zootsoot2006]

What about the French Republic after the Revolution, inspired as it was largely by Rousseau? An anti-clerical, rational, enlightened State, at least in conception, that led to the slaughter of thousands and just ended up in dictatorship. The USA would be the other, which is presumably why Hitch has moved there, and yet the imperialism continues as he himself has expertly detailed.

[@lx7x7xl]

@tat20001 I would like to disagree with CH about his Iraq stance but I lived and worked in Iraq for 5-1/2 years and spent most of that time with the Kurds in Northern Iraq, who were decimated by the Baathists. I can relate to reasons to remove Saddam, but perhaps there could have been diplomatic (or even covert) means to reduce harm, especially factoring-in the terrible price paid by civillians between 1991 through current times by way of Coalition embargoes and outright war.

[@infokemp]

Good point, the Scandinavians are also neutral and have the highest standard of living in the world. The rest of the world should follow their example. Evolution has conclusively been proved read the origin of species by Charles Darwin.

[@saelaird]

Yes but... well... non-stamp collectors arn't pissed with stamp collectors for killing each other... and the rest of us. Don't mean to piss on your fire btw

[@BeholdZeus]

It is of course are only means of attempting to explain "anything." I mean that, within the realm of human experience, between the interstices of reason and intuition, there is a quantum as yet unknown. Some day reason might make this known and therefore render speculation defunct. But the numinous experiences of selfhood, since the beginning of time, have always pointed (however irrationally or rationally) to the postulation of a God-like entity. The conception is an old one.

[@Gazdo01]

@Adavidson100 Don't worry, I'm not a creationist. But your point is more or less valid... Churches teach what they believe in. It's their right to believe in whatever they want. Schools on the other hand ought to teach every possible theory out there. That's the difference I wanted to point out. That being said, I'm Catholic, and we don't believe in creationism in the litteral sence of the term :) I think creationists are stupids, but that's another topic

[@BeholdZeus]

In effect, to what extent does humanism even apply to atheism? Why should morality matter in the atheistic paradigm? I can understand that it can exist agnostically - even theistically - but if we predicate a humanism solely within the domain of atheism, an atheism which rejects the primacy and ethical relevance of human life, then surely we are not left with much of humanism at all? I myself am Spinozistic in my belief in Godliness, in my conviction that reason cannot explain everything.

[@BeholdZeus]

Did I say the conception verified itself? No, I did not. When did I say I believed in God? You are very misguided here. The nouminous, as Spinoza points out, does not have to lead to the supposition of a deity. Rather, it might lead one to a conception of individual rootedness in Nature, in the material matrix of existence; it might well lead to an understanding of being. Ontology is not a "pet idea": it is the attempt to answer the question of the causality of existence.

[@BeholdZeus]

By the way, classical theism does not believe in an interventionist God...ergo, the idea that revelation transforms the subject is actually rejected under this tenant. That puts an end to that.

[@beriukay]

You said "But the [blah blah] have always pointed [...] to the postulation of a God-like entity." Which boils down to either a belief in or an explanation for why others believe in gods. I assume you are a philosopher of one stripe or another, but some old philosopher's feelings and writings about feeling special can easily be explained with Natural Selection. Brains are hard-wired to see things that aren't there. It has saved many lives over the last few hundred million years.

[@David20092203]

. As for sexual assault of minors, that is not a sin of the Church, that is a sin within the Church and to lesser and variant degrees outside the Church. We are even now however unraveling sexual mores we claimed to cherish only fifteen years ago, it's a turbulent sea, better the Holy See.

[@tg343441]

old dude got smacked intellectually

[@adknerr]

Ivan the Terrible. That questioner needs to look that up.

[@David20092203]

@rationalsalvation I always sympathize with the British on that. For one, the Church of England is really a heretical concoction which no one can take seriously so I can understand why people there choose atheism. Second, the split with the Church by King Henry VIII was not based on theological grounds, he wanted male heirs and didn't have the science to see that depended exclusively on him, the man. Besides, England has had a great procession of Queens who ruled splendidly even to this day.

[@a1----533]

@Adavidson100 Free exercise of religion, bro. The church is not a branch of the state and rightly so. So public policy only applies to public establishments. You should also be aware that if churches come out and openly support a political candidate, they lose their tax exemption.

[@georgewbush84]

Why is that old guy crying? Ridiculous...

[@24arimar]

@GenghisKhan44 I can't imagine how one could possibly discern whether or not an action was divinely inspired, as such actions are subjective and we really must just take a man's word for it. I would also point out that the credentials of the bible are easily just as shady as those of the book of Mormon, and anyone who says otherwise knows very little about the formulation and construction of the bible. Just as with Joseph Smith, we are asked to take it on faith that THIS book is the word of god.

[@rftluong]

I like Sam Harris's definition. All atheism is is the rejection of those ideas. Atheism is nothing but critical thinking. How can that possibly be considered a philosophy? It makes no sense.

[@hugoegbert79]

@HelloWorld1947 You're the one who claims the Nazis were atheists. Sorry to correct you, but I think it's important to enter some facts into this debate.

[@1DeathWalkingTerror1]

As in Peter...nah only joking Chris nailed him...poor bugger looked lost at points. Peter seems to have more respect for Chris these days.

[@iekenta03]

That's NOT the point PETER!!! damn... =D

[@Pyllyri]

Maybe Peter started out sounding intelligent, but all hope was lost when he began to spout about the IDiot movement.

[@kick08ful]

To the free intelligent open mind, Peter obviously doesn't have a leg to stand on and makes his self look like a dork in his feeble attempts to match witts with is genuis bro.

[@ballantrae101]

sweater guy is creeping me out. I wish he would have just made his point and moved on.

[@MPaulHolmesMPH]

@chaoszieg lol.

[@shotgunwound]

lol Hitchens totally destroyed him

[@Afterthoughtbtw]

AHH! - so your argument from 'prove it' is to do with the deist god, who started the universe, and then did nothing. I completely agree with you there - 'prove it' is useless with such a god. Thinking about it, I suppose what I was trying to say could be better said as: If something being 'beyond comprehension' is all that is required to prevent someone dismissing something, then we can come up with an infinite amount of things that can't be dismissed. That's for anyone else, not you!

[@David20092203]

@rationalsalvation Unfortunately you are wrong on all counts. Let's be clear, Catholicism and religion in general is not something that can be approached with a priori reasoning alone. The religious believe that God is objectively true and religion itself is knowledge based.

[@beriukay]

You don't mean atheists or atheism here. You are talking about nihilism. There is only a one-way connection between the word sacred and the words special or significant. Look at the vast, empty, cold, dark universe and tell me that I think life is not special or significant. There is nothing MORE significant than life. Especially sentient life. But that does not imply that we are magically endowed with sentience by a monkey god (which I assume you mean when you say sacred).

[@RHDZ3]

Are you serious?

[@JACKtheRIPP3R189]

Yeah you always get some nuts.

[@trailofdeadpeople]

@HelloWorld1947 DOesn't sound like a gift to me. Sounds like celestial blackmail.

[@BeholdZeus]

You evidently have no idea what classical theism is. A reading of Aquinas might help. Classical theists, in the same manner as Aristotle, concede that there is a first cause responsible for created being: we call this the big bang, though the multiverese theorem contends that they may be several singularities (not just one). Ergo, classical theism, in the sense of which I speak, concerns causalities and effects. It replaces theology with metaphysical supposition and logical inference.

[@beriukay]

Oh does it? Which classical theism? The one that says that god turned into a perpetually burning shrub to convince some stuttering moron to throw a stick that turns into a snake at a Pharaoh? The one that turns women into pillars of salt for having regret? The one that makes a dude survive in a fish for a week? That's pretty classical theism for the Judeo-Christian world. If you want t talk about Greek Mythology, there's even better examples if interventionist gods.

[@David20092203]

According to Christopher Hitchens, North Korea is a heaven on earth, he should go there. Not that he's been to the Soviet Union either for that matter as his brother has but good ol' 'no experience Chris' babbles on.

[@daveculhane]

I dont think that peter is the type of christion that chris is attacking......there is organised religion an simple faith.....and there is a world of difference......for what its worth i am an atheist...

[@relarerfhjk]

good point derner. A question Hitchens cant answer. Can anyone here think of a single example of a successful atheist society? Well, communists tried to wipe out religion, and communist societies were pure hell. Socialism was a smiliar success!

[@Afterthoughtbtw]

Sorry to interupt the rather impressively verbose argument the two of you are having, but I'd like to understand why you both seem to think 'prove it' is a pointless argument. After all, if I told you that there is an invisible unicorn standing beside me right now, whose very substance and self is beyond man's comprehension, you wouldn't believe me, either of you, I'm sure. I'm not trying to be smart, I just can't understand your position here.

[@icedbannanas]

That's harsh and bad taste

[@hemlock91]

worst debate ever> Oh, hang on>>>>WHAT DEBATE!!!!????

[@cinaedmacseamas2978]

Hitchens' straw man of an ethical atheistic state, based on the teachings of Jefferson, Paine, Galileo, Spinoza, et al, has never existed. Even then, his answer begs the question of enforcement. An atheistic ethic must be enforced by an iron willed police state, lacking an integral motive for personal internalization other than personal survival in the face of this police state, to comply. The citizen in this state must comply out of a basic desire to survive, because otherwise there is no way this state, conceived as Mr. Hitchens has very brefly constructed it, can otherwise enforce this ethic. There is no personal motivation for the citizen to comply. Mr. Hitchens thinks he can have good without God. There is no good without God. The good Mr. Hitchens knows is because he has the luxury of having been socialized in Christian countries with known standards of good and evil.