Posted on 06/19/2007 4:21:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
A question I pose to atheists and others who argue that religion is irrelevant to moral behavior has been cited by Christopher Hitchens in his national best seller, "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." And Hitchens's citation has been widely quoted -- from the New Yorker to the website of the Oxford evolutionist and best-selling atheist author Richard Dawkins.
This is how the story appears in Hitchens's book:
"A week before the events of September 11, 2001, I was on a panel with Dennis Prager, who is one of America's better-known religious broadcasters. He challenged me in public to answer what he called a 'straight yes/no question,' and I happily agreed. 'Very well,' he said. I was to imagine myself in a strange city as the evening was coming on. Toward me I was to imagine that I saw a large group of men approaching. Now -- would I feel safer, or less safe, if I was to learn that they were just coming from a prayer meeting? As the reader will see, this is not a question to which a yes/no answer can be given. But I was able to answer as if it were not hypothetical. 'Just to stay within the letter B, I have actually had that experience in Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem, and Baghdad. In each case I can say absolutely, and can give my reasons, why I would feel immediately threatened if I thought that the group of men approaching me in the dusk were coming from a religious observance.'"
As it happens, Hitchens did not relate my question entirely accurately, as hundreds of thousands of my listeners can attest to, and as many written sources can attest to. I have always asked the question about 10 men in a dark alley coming out of a "Bible class." I wrote a piece for National Review in 1999 in which I posed this question and wrote "Bible class," not "prayer meeting." And Father Richard Neuhaus, in his journal, First Things, quoted me asking this question about men leaving a "Bible class" in 1992. (I have always posed this question to Americans and therefore assumed the question related only to America, but I did not specify 'America' in my question to Hitchens as I did "Bible class.")
I have always specified "Bible class" because I assume that in America, anyone with common sense would in fact be very relieved if they knew that the 10 strangers, all men, approaching them in a dark alley were committed to either Judaism or Christianity and studying the Bible. I never stated "prayer class" because, unlike a Bible class, which more or less confines us to normative Judeo-Christian religions, 'prayer meeting' can signify anyone in any religion or even in some dangerous cult.
Even atheists would have to admit that in America today, they would be very grateful to learn that those 10 men had just been studying Genesis or Isaiah. One does not hear of many Bible classes with students mugging passersby.
I therefore pose this question to make the rather obvious point that nearly all of us instinctively assume some positive things about normative Judaism and Christianity in America.
This question evidently annoys many of those who argue that there is no relationship between personal decency and Judeo-Christian religiosity. So they offer a number of responses to a question that most of us find rhetorical.
The most common is that any of us would also be relieved if we learned that the 10 men walking toward us in a dark alley had just come from a secular humanism seminar or one on photosynthesis. I fully acknowledge that I would be relieved in such cases as well. The problem with this response, however, is that in the real world, in bad parts of our cities, 10 men are rather more likely to be studying the Bible than photosynthesis or secular humanism or any other subject that would bring us relief in that dark alley.
Every response I have seen to this question is an attempt to evade the only honest response. We would all be relieved because when push comes to shove -- when we have to make real-life decisions and not theoretical ones -- we know that at least in America, the dominant Judeo-Christian values and the religions that adhere to them have generally made better people. This does not mean that all religious Jews and Christians in America have been, or are today, good people, and it certainly does not mean that all irreligious people are bad. It means simply that if our lives were hanging in the balance, we would be inexpressively happy to know that 10 men we did not know, walking toward us in a bad neighborhood, had just come out of a Bible class.
But that is no small thing. And nothing has ever replaced that book and the American religious expressions based on it to make good people in the same numbers that it has.
So although I admire Christopher Hitchens for his understanding -- unlike so many of his allies in the atheism vs. God and religion debate -- that America is fighting genuinely evil people in Iraq, I was disappointed that he could not acknowledge the obvious when I concluded my radio dialogue/debate with him:
Prager: "I do want to return for a moment, Christopher, to the question that you cite me asking you in your book. If you were in an American city that you were not familiar with, alone, late at night, and you couldn't find your car, in a bad neighborhood, and you saw 10 men walking toward you, would you or would you not be relieved to know that they had just attended a Bible class?"
Hitchens: "Not relieved."
Hitchens may know that the Boble condemns his drunkeness.
Hitchens: “Not relieved.”
Translation: “Nyah, nyah, nyah, Dennis! I’m still not going to give you the answer you want, so there!”
(Blows razzberries)
Oh - I forgot, atheists are smarter than everyone else and can logically deconstruct any argument for the existence of the Divine.
eloquently put.
I see... Post a false question and razz a good answer to it.
I envy people their faith but blind allegiance to it can and does cause trouble.
What is that wierdo group is it Westborough Baptists? I would be petrified if they were coming down the alley.
Any hypothetical question that attempts to limit the response to a simple yes or no answer is asked in bad faith.
By the way do you still beat your wife?
This is beneath Prager’s dignity. He should not be engaging in these sorts of mental gymnastics and trying to come up with “gotcha” questions.
The problem with Prager’s argument here, of course, is that if Christianity were merely a highly effective fiction, the answer to the question would be the same.
I quit beating my wife when I read in the Bible it was wrong to do so. My faith (blind allegiance you call it) has made me more accountable for my actions.
I pray that my better side will prevail, but I still have to confess that deep down inside a part of me gets some satisfaction from knowing that he will pay for his attitude.
He see’s a vast Christian conspiracy in every government action, if it is legislation giving parents of children more money to pay for day care of their choice, (Hitchens choice is nationalized daycare) it is a vast Christian right wing conspiracy to remove their children from mainstream society thereby indoctrinating them with Christian beliefs.
If it’s legislation giving assistance to parents who home school, again it’s a vast right wing Christian conspiracy to again brainwash their children with Christian religious beliefs.
I heard this nut on a talk show yesterday. He’s the typical leftwing Marxist kook who believes in a Marxist totalitarian world governance, where only that one single view is allowed. All others should be suppressed by and an all means. No doubt, Stalin, Mao and Hitler are all hero’s of his.
No shocker...when faced by truth liberals simply twist and lie.
Arguing religion with Hitchens is “casting pearls before swine.” (Matthew 7:6)
Well said.
What is there about the Westborough Baptists that would make you fear them in a a dark alley? They picket and demonstrate at funerals of fallen military men and women. They are in no way to be compared with the 10 people you could encounter in a dark alley in some parts of most any American city.
Bad faith is in the eye of the beholder. If one is a lover of Dodge Ram trucks and asks his friend who drives another brand if he would prefer to push a Ford or a Chevy truck to the nearest garage it’s not a sign of bad faith.
Never said you had blind faith. If a pastor called on you to heckle a funeral would you?
> Any hypothetical question that attempts to limit the response to a simple yes or no answer is asked in bad faith.
Brilliant! Well said!
How did you know I have a 1980 Power Wagon in the Driveway?
Although requiring a Yes or No answer, it is not asked in bad faith, rather, it is the basis of the Christian faith, either way. Just like evo-crea debate, neither position can be verified, we can only make a personal decision based on the evidence available. Either position takes faith
A person who would call for a funeral heckling is not a pastor and that would not be a church. Of course I would not. I am not sure what those people believe but it is not The Bible and not the God of love and forgiveness I know.
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