An Atheist Responds : Christopher Hitchens Throws Down the Gauntlet to those who believe in God

Washington Post ^ | 04/20/2010 | Christopher Hitchens

[SeekAndFind]

It's uncommonly generous of Michael Gerson[" What Atheists Can't Answer," op-ed, July 13] to refer to me as "intellectually courageous and unfailingly kind," since (a) this might be taken as proof that he hardly knows me and (b) it was he who was so kind when I once rang him to check a scurrilous peacenik rumor that he was a secret convert from Judaism to Christian fundamentalism.

However, it is his own supposedly kindly religion that prevents him from seeing how insulting is the latent suggestion of his position: the appalling insinuation that I would not know right from wrong if I was not supernaturally guided by a celestial dictatorship, which could read and condemn my thoughts and which could also consign me to eternal worshipful bliss (a somewhat hellish idea) or to an actual hell.

Implicit in this ancient chestnut of an argument is the further -- and equally disagreeable -- self-satisfaction that simply assumes, whether or not religion is metaphysically "true," that at least it stands for morality. Those of us who disbelieve in the heavenly dictatorship also reject many of its immoral teachings, which have at different times included the slaughter of other "tribes," the enslavement of the survivors, the mutilation of the genitalia of children, the burning of witches, the condemnation of sexual "deviants" and the eating of certain foods, the opposition to innovations in science and medicine, the mad doctrine of predestination, the deranged accusation against all Jews of the crime of "deicide," the absurdity of "Limbo," the horror of suicide-bombing and jihad, and the ethically dubious notion of vicarious redemption by human sacrifice.

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOL! Thank you for your encouragement, dear brother in Christ!

[peter the great]

The first part of the challenge is very easy to respond to and that answer could be found in the lives of the Saints. For me, of the Orthodox Christian variety and I am sure Catholics and Protestants can find many examples within their Church as well. My examples would be St. Elizabeth of Moscow, a member of the Nobility giving away everything she owned and then entering Monasticism and filling her days with good works. Also, the lives of St. Mary of Egypt, Father Arseny who was sentenced to life in one of Stalin's gulags, St.Seraphim of Sarov , St. Valentine, St. Nicholas and there are countless others. Unfortunately I must go so my fellow freepers carry on.

[Hank Kerchief]

“Perhaps, you could specify exactly which premise(s) you refuse to accept…”

I do not “refuse” to accept them, I understand them to be wrong and therefore cannot accept them. Only the first two are premises and both are incorrect.

“1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause for its coming into being.
2. The universe began to exist.”

The first is only true of living beings. The Humean view of “cause and effect” is very wrong. It is sometimes referred to as “event” based cause, that is one event causes another “event.” The correct view of cause is “entity” based, meaning only entities (and substances) exist, and all attributes, relationships, and actions are the attributes of existents, relationships between existents, and all actions are the behavior of existents, and it is the existent’s own nature that determines how they will behave. That means, for any given context an entity will always behave in the same way in the same context. This is true of all things except living entities.

Therefore, nothing “causes” something to exist, it is the behavior of existents themselves, determined by their nature, that are events. Therefore, existence cannot have a cause (because there would be no existents or events) and therefore cannot have a beginning.

There is another reason. There cannot be “nothing.” Nothingness, as an absolute, has no meaning.

Ethics comprises a major branch of philosophy which is hardly going to comprehended by a dictionary definition. Since it is one entire field of philosophy which has been, for the most part, a total failure (actually most of philosophy, with the exception of a handful of philosophers, is a failure—witness its results in 20th century history, the bloodiest yet known) almost everything written about ethics by the philosophers is wrong.

If you do not want to bother reading the articles at the links I gave earlier, fine, but there is no point in discussing the ethical question any longer, since most of it is answered there.

“Please, allow me to point out that the study of chemistry, or the “views” thereof, has existed as a discipline for only a few hundred years. On the other hand, the study of human right conduct, or morality, has existed for millennia. Therefore, I submit that this discipline is far more mature as a field of systematic study than is chemistry. A great many learned philosophers studying this field through the millennia have all come to the same conclusion: absent an appeal to Divine revelation, any set of moral principles is relative… that is, there are no moral absolutes without God.”

Truth is not established on the basis of how many people believe something, or how long a particular view has been held or studied, it is not established by consensus.

If moral principles, or any others, required a being to exist, even a God, they would not be absolute, but arbitrary, merely the dictates of some being, resting entirely on that dictator’s whims. True principles are not determined, or decided, or dictated by anyone; they must be discovered.

Hank

[betty boop]

Oooooooh! Los Lonely Boys — soooo nice!

And a very interesting "sermon," indeed.

Thanks so much for the link, dear hosepipe!

[Lucky Dog]

“Perhaps, you could specify exactly which premise(s) you refuse to accept…”

I do not “refuse” to accept them, I understand them to be wrong and therefore cannot accept them. Only the first two are premises and both are incorrect.

“1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause for its coming into being.

2. The universe began to exist.”

You are correct. Only the first two statements were premises (a major and a minor). The third statement was the conclusion of the syllogism.

Let me address you assertions in reverse order: To deny that the universe began to exist puts you in the “anti-realist” situation of having to refute the Big Bang Theory (as was noted in an earlier post). Again, the syllogism as was implied earlier:

1. The universe exhibits cosmic background radiation.
2. The most plausible explanation for cosmic background radiation is the “Big Bang” (a point of universe creation).
3. Therefore, the universe had a point of creation (began to exist).

The first is only true of living beings. The Humean view of “cause and effect” is very wrong. It is sometimes referred to as “event” based cause, that is one event causes another “event.”

Your statement violates the core principle of logic (causation or causality) as first codified by Aristotle (not Hume).

I am enjoying our discussion. Unfortunately, I must abandon it for the moment as outside duties call. I will return to the discussion at my first opportunity.

[YHAOS]

“As for the "establishment" issue: That word had a particular meaning to the Founding Fathers that the modern mind has evidently forgotten.”

Forgive me betty, for telling you something I’m aware you already know, but no one has forgotten the constitutional meaning of “establishment” (maybe a few of the youngest, having never been exposed to the idea).

It’s an old political tactic. When you can’t win in a debate of ideas, eliminate the opposition: seize control of the Ministry of Information (the public schools, in our case, and the news media); infiltrate the entertainment industry; use blackmail or threats of violence; agitate and riot; forum shop in the court system; etc (everyone knows the drill). Our own esteemed president won his state senate seat and his federal senate seat by burying his opponents in scandal (whether or not it was deserved, I cannot say, but it was Chicago). He has shown no particular talent in winning in the arena of ideas.

Most everyone understands the Founding Father’s meaning of Establishment” as a constitutional concept. Our enemies just don’t want to discuss the idea. It’s a loser for them. Lies and scandal work much better.

Alinsky gets a lot of credit for this tactic, but he really isn’t deserving. The idea has been around for as long as politics has been around.

[Alamo-Girl]

It’s an old political tactic. When you can’t win in a debate of ideas, eliminate the opposition: seize control of the Ministry of Information (the public schools, in our case, and the news media); infiltrate the entertainment industry; use blackmail or threats of violence; agitate and riot; forum shop in the court system; etc (everyone knows the drill).

Indeed. Thank you for your outstanding essay-post, dear YHAOS!

[betty boop]

...no one has forgotten the constitutional meaning of “establishment” (maybe a few of the youngest, having never been exposed to the idea).

Well certainly dear YHAOS — no one of a certain age has forgotten the constitutional meaning of "establishment." But I am a member of perhaps the last generation of school kids who actually was taught American history, from well before the Revolutionary War and the Founding Period, right up to the then-present.

Particularly we learned the Constitution and the other founding documents. Which taught us the frame or structure of our government of delegated and separated powers; and of its fundamental principles and values, not least of which is the principle of public sovereignty; i.e., We the People are the Principal; the government is the Agent, and all its few puny powers it receives from its Principal, as specified in the Constitution. It has no other powers: The Agent may not act/exert himself on his own behalf.

I have very strong doubts that kids are getting anything like that nowadays. I digress — sorry.

In in the past, I've had conversations with people, mainly fellow FReepers, intelligent people one presumes, who have taken the position that "establishment" means something quite different from the way you and I understand that term.

According to this view, if, say a local community of whatever kind — say, a college or a sports team; or a social or fraternal club; or a church, etc. —sanctions, say, a non-denominational prayer, or even a moment of silence, in a public school, public building, or public function; or puts up a creche on the public square at Christmas (or even on private property as some recent court cases seem to suggest); or allows displays of the Ten Commandments in court houses (though it's emblazoned on the facade at the Supreme Court itself); that community is "establishing religion" — which these geniuses point out is forbidden under the First Amendment.

But what I still don't get is why the local community would be penalized, when the First Amendment prohibition applies to Congress alone: "Congress shall make no law...." As for the people of the United States, they have a perfectly legitimate right, guaranteed by the free exercise clause, to "exercise" expressions of their religious beliefs, anywhere they want to within reason. Period. [cf. Amendments IX and X too]

So here again we see the case of a word whose historical meaning has been utterly changed, actually inverted, in ways amenable to new ideological presuppositions, favored by our self-selected "public intellectuals" — for example, such as (in the political sphere) Sunstein, E. Immanuel, et al.; on the so-called "science side," we have such as the hateful Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Monod, Lewontin — oh, the list goes on. And then from "belles lettres" we have the utterly degenerate and ignoble Christopher Hitchens....

Our enemies, thus, do not have to discuss the idea of the historical meaning of "the establishment of religion"; they can simply co-opt the word, and turn it into something else — something more "useful" to them, given the "annointed vision" they are in process of implementing — involving their new definition of man as the creature that has been liberated (finally) from God and all moral constraint. Only in this way can we say that man is really "free."

Many evolutionists in the crowd seem quite persuaded by such reasoning I gather. They seem to consider the total debauch of spiritual man as some kind of necessary step up the evolutionary ladder....

This, of course, is deeply subversive of the traditional values and mores of American society. I have to take it as a direct personal threat.

To your last point, dear YHAOS, it seems to me there is something very special, different, about the kind of political ideologies and tactics that are in use today. They seem especially perverse and evil as compared with, say, the sophists and politicos of ancient Athens. It's the difference between human libido dominandi — powerlust, with all its malignancy — and positive evil, evil embraced for its own sake.

Of course that's pretty speculative, my friend. Still, I am reminded that Saul Alinski traces his pedigree back to Antonio Gramsci; and Gramsci was an anarchist, a nihilist. Needless to say an atheist. A collateral line goes to Mikhail Bakunin, who was the same.

Now whose business do you suppose those two antiGod and antihuman monsters were all about? To me, they were working for the "father of lies," who taught them that "the ends justify the means," so lying is okay; and if the desired end is the total annihilation of the world as we know it, "just because we can do it," then we can blow everything God made to smithereens. And then we'd really be free!

I do believe these people were insane. I know Nietzche was insane when he died (complications of syphilis; to me, poor Nietsche was the guy that kicked off all this perversity, at least in its modern, seemingly more virulent iteration). And I do believe that their followers today are also totally insane.

See above for partial list.

Yet they are all respected intellectuals; the present Administration is stuffed with people like this, serving as close advisors; they head departments; they sit on courts. But perhaps more importantly, they sit in academe, in the foundations, and even on corporate boards. And the MSM are their lap dogs and slathering sycophants.

Admittedly, it's a "very fine kettle of fish" we have on our hands. :^)

[fabian]

Yes, his arguement is all based on anger for God which is simply turned into a doubt of Him in Chris’s mind. He is enslaved by a dictatorship of doubt and rage, just as so much of the human race is. If you are too...take a look at fhu.com...great stuff there for real freedom from doubt!

[xzins]

A required class in every HS in the US should be:

Constitutions: US + Respective State

It is no accident that the Texas school book issue centered around excising US history prior to the build-up to the Civil War. That was the beginning of big government and spurious interpretation of a “living constitution.”

The all-important question throughout any constitution class should be: “What does it actually say?” and not “What does it mean?” The former is a grammar, reading comprehension question.

[betty boop]

The all-important question throughout any constitution class should be: “What does it actually say?” and not “What does it mean?” The former is a grammar, reading comprehension question.

Oh, kudos, dear brother in Christ, for this magnificent insight!

Needless to say, I agree with you completely.

The former calls for critical thinking skills, so as to determine meaning. The latter requires only memory, for the meaning comes "prefab." It's been pre-digested for you, by the experts who know better than you, so just trust them.

How to build a robot.... Presumably a programmable one.

Thank you ever so much for your brilliant essay/post!

[xzins]

It's been pre-digested for you, by the experts who know better than you, so just trust them.

A socialist needs people to rely on him. Then he can lead. A wonderful book by a former communist turned Christian is "Dedication and Leadership" by Douglas Hyde. I read it years ago in Dr. Robert Coleman's evangelism class at Asbury Seminary. It's just as relevant today as ever.

Beware of anyone who wants to build followers. Even Christ was in the Disciple building business. "Greater than these shall you do." He said.

We should be doing our own reading, thinking, and leading.

[Hank Kerchief]

“To deny that the universe began to exist puts you in the ‘anti-realist’ situation ...”

I have no idea what this means. I’m not a realist, if that means some kind of Platonic realism, and not a realist, it it means buying every self-styled “scientists” whose guesses are “widely accepted,” as if that had anything to do with truth.

My “realism” is this. Existence exists and is what it is, whether anyone knows what it is or not. It’s nature must be discovered, not guessed at to explain what has been observed. That is not science or knowledge.

“The most plausible explanation ...”

Plauibility is not science, it is guesswork. It might be right, but it might not. No one is obliged to explain anything in terms of someone else’s guesswork.

Aristotle’s views of causation were wrong (though infinitely superior to that of hume), nevertheless it is Hume’s view of causation that has informed all philosophy since he wrote his vile skeptic philosophy.

You rest all your arguments on lots of authority. For the sake of making future discussion easier, understand, I accept no authorities in any field, and learn from others only what I can fully understand using my best reason and discover to be true.

Hank

[Outlaw Woman]

Sounds to me like a nerve was struck...

[Lucky Dog]

It appears that you have not straightforwardly addressed a single argument I put forward. There were two simple syllogisms in the last post.

You denied the premises in the first without any countering facts other than your own unsupported assertion. It other words, from your perspective, your assertion is so only because you say it is so.

You completely ignore the second syllogism.

You were originally challenged to explain cosmic background radiation. Such an explanation objectively leads to the Big Bang Theory. You have ignored these implications with an epistemological "hand wave."

Aristotelean logic may be subject to some valid criticisms. Nonetheless, it is completely valid and the arguments are sound as presented unless you can factually refute the premises... something you have not done with anything other than a "gratuitous denial"... a logical fallacy.

Sorry, I reject your (individual) authority until and/or unless you can perform the feat I suggested earlier ordering the tide to run against its schedule and having it obey you. If you cannot, then your unsupported opinion is worth no more than any potential entertainment value it may have.

If you can directly disprove the premises previously presented, then you have grounds for continued argument. Otherwise, your argument is not a logical argument based upon fact, but merely a "quarrel" to avoid an ego bruise.

Have you a factually based, logically valid counter argument?

[Hank Kerchief]

My goodness, “to avoid an ego bruise.” Is that what you think I’ve been doing. I’ve only been trying to be polite, and answering your questions as honestly as I could. I’m not trying to win an argument. I could care less what you choose to believe (except my world will be less one more objectively rational person), which are already damn sparse.

I did not ignore your second syllogism, I pointed out that plausibility is not science, and therefor not a “fact” that needs to be addressed.

You said you find the conversation interesting, so I have attempted to make it interesting. I’ve had thousands of such discussions, and quite frankly, they are boring to me. No one is interested in basic principles and objective truth, and I have no interest in the multitude of authorities the second-hand minds are willing to accept.

There is only one authority for me, and the ultimate arbiter of all truth, reality, and the only means I have of apprehending it is my own mind. I’ll agree to discuss, objectively, any idea, but I will never surrender the independence of my own mind and life.

That apparently offends you, which tells me a great deal about your real motives. You may need other people’s agreement, I do not, and never have. I know what the truth is, and I live by that and nothing else. What others live by, if not the truth, they have to deal with, and will suffer for it.

I wish you the best, my friend. I do not believe you would wish the less for me. Let that be enough!

Hank

[Quix]

A socialist needs people to rely on him. Then he can lead. A wonderful book by a former communist turned Christian is “Dedication and Leadership” by Douglas Hyde. I read it years ago in Dr. Robert Coleman’s evangelism class at Asbury Seminary. It’s just as relevant today as ever.

Beware of anyone who wants to build followers. Even Christ was in the Disciple building business. “Greater than these shall you do.” He said.

We should be doing our own reading, thinking, and leading.

###

WELL SAID.

AMEN! AMEN!

THX.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you oh so very much for your splendid essay-post, dearest sister in Christ!

But what I still don't get is why the local community would be penalized, when the First Amendment prohibition applies to Congress alone: "Congress shall make no law...." As for the people of the United States, they have a perfectly legitimate right, guaranteed by the free exercise clause, to "exercise" expressions of their religious beliefs, anywhere they want to within reason. Period. [cf. Amendments IX and X too]

So very true. Sadly though the Supreme Court has tortured the First Amendment to mean something it clearly does not say.

As a result, nowadays, most any thing or place funded by the public dare not mention God. No wonder our country is deeply troubled.

And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place. Ye shall not do so unto the LORD your God. – Deut 12:3-4

As I recall, Justice Thomas said (paraphrased) that the First Amendment speaks to freedom "of" religion not "from" religion.

[Alamo-Girl]

The all-important question throughout any constitution class should be: “What does it actually say?” and not “What does it mean?” The former is a grammar, reading comprehension question.

Very well said, dear brother in Christ! Thank you!

[Lucky Dog]

My goodness, “to avoid an ego bruise.” Is that what you think I’ve been doing. I’ve only been trying to be polite, and answering your questions as honestly as I could. I’m not trying to win an argument. I could care less what you choose to believe (except my world will be less one more objectively rational person), which are already damn sparse.

My dear fellow, I fear you misinterpret my thrust. Your politeness is certainly appreciated, as are my attempts (I hope). An ego bruise refers to the result of having a statement asserted on self-authority [ego] successfully challenged [bruised] by fact and/or logic. As for beliefs, they are, in deed, matters of faith. This has been my point throughout this entire discussion. Recall that, throughout my comments on this thread, I have observed that atheism is a faith based no more in fact and logic than is theism or deism.

You may have faith (or believe, if you prefer that term) that the moon is made of green cheese. However, after having been presented with results of the examination of lunar material retrieved by astronauts who visited the moon, if you persist in that belief, it reveals you as a “non-realist.” As a result, the term becomes an accurate characterization, your protestations to the contrary, notwithstanding.

I did not ignore your second syllogism, I pointed out that plausibility is not science, and therefor not a “fact” that needs to be addressed.

sci·ence   [sahy-uhns]

–noun
1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.
2. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2010.

Let’s try this again: To deny that the universe began to exist puts you in the “anti-realist” situation of having to refute the Big Bang Theory (as was noted in an earlier post). Again, the syllogism, as was implied earlier:

1. The universe exhibits cosmic background radiation.

[This premise statement is a fact, an observation, a matter of science… one which you have pointedly ignored in this post. However, the fact will not go away just because you refuse to address it or say it isn’t so. You were challenged to logically explain this fact, but, to date, you have not.]

2. The most plausible explanation for cosmic background radiation is the “Big Bang” (a point of universe creation).

[the use of the word plausible here is a grammatical nod to the word theory, as a matter of science, any theory, e.g., the Theory of Relativity, can never be more than plausible … in the case at hand, the Big Bang Theory explains, without falsification, to date, the presence of cosmic background radiation… a condition which, if you choose to ignore, again, reinforces that you are a “anti-realist”]

3. Therefore, the universe had a point of creation (began to exist).

This last statement is a logically valid conclusion, the final part of the syllogism. As I noted earlier, Aristotelean logic may be subject to some valid criticisms. [The criticisms of this school of logic are at the more esoteric levels than that employed in this syllogism] Nonetheless, the argument is completely valid [consistent with any form of logic, not just Aristotelean] and the arguments are sound as presented unless you can factually refute the premises... something you have not done with anything other than a "gratuitous denial"... a logical fallacy.

You said you find the conversation interesting, so I have attempted to make it interesting. I’ve had thousands of such discussions, and quite frankly, they are boring to me. No one is interested in basic principles and objective truth, and I have no interest in the multitude of authorities the second-hand minds are willing to accept. [emphasis added]

It appears from your continual use of the logical fallacy, "gratuitous denial," that you are the one that is uninterested in objective truth. Perhaps, if you chose to engage in a logical and factual debate, the discussions would not bore you.

There is only one authority for me, and the ultimate arbiter of all truth, reality, and the only means I have of apprehending it is my own mind. I’ll agree to discuss, objectively, any idea, but I will never surrender the independence of my own mind and life.

No one is asking you to surrender the independence of your own mind and life. In fact, the opposite is the case. You have been challenged to exercise that independence in a logically consistent manner to ascertain the truth. Let me refer you to Descartes’ Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences.

That apparently offends you, which tells me a great deal about your real motives. You may need other people’s agreement, I do not, and never have…

On the contrary, I am not offended. Perhaps, you could say I am frustrated over your failure to present a logically sound and consistent argument to backup your espoused positions. Without such, your presentations are just groundless expositions of opinion and/or belief. As you observed earlier, Truth is not established on the basis of how many people believe something…. I might add it is not established any more by what you, personally, may, or may not, believe, or apprehend in your own mind, either.

I know what the truth is, and I live by that and nothing else. What others live by, if not the truth, they have to deal with, and will suffer for it.

In deed, the search for truth has been a preoccupation of human kind since well before Socrates’ time. As a matter of fact, the definition of truth has been wrapped into this search since before that time, as well. If, in actuality, you know what the truth is without Divine revelation, you have surpassed Socrates, Descartes, Hume and every other, secular philosopher the planet has ever produced. The rest of us mere mortals must stand in complete awe. [Sorry, I couldn’t resist a little cynicism and sarcasm… It is supposed to humorous, not indication of offense.]

I wish you the best, my friend. I do not believe you would wish the less for me. Let that be enough!

This comment implies that you are abandoning the debate… too bad… I really would like to see you logically and factually address the syllogism (cited above) you have ignored to this point.