Family Feud

I recently watched a very interesting debate between two brothers, Christopher and Peter Hitchens. I knew and had watched some of Christopher's debates and arguments against God before but I didn't know he had a brother. They are so similar in their looks and even some of their mannerisms but far apart on much of their views.

They started debating whether we should have invaded Iraq. Christopher was for it and Peter against. However that was just the warm up and as Christopher said in the press conference before "religion is the debate as it underlay's all things". Christopher talks most of the time in the press conference and seems more confident and at ease but during the main debate Peter does make some very helpful remarks. Peter referrers to his relationship with his brother as akin to Canada's relationship with the USA". Not 100% sure what that means but watching the two of them together I can hazard something of a guess. The USA is defiantly the more prominent on the world stage and while Canadians have many similarities to the states they are very different and, in my experience, rather resent getting mistaken for Americans. There is a certain amount of tension between the two. 

I have made notes on the debate which I include bellow sprinkled with some of my comments. I should say that the quotes I have put in are what I wrote down as they spoke. I may have missed the odd word or sentence out but I tried to capture the words and thoughts as meaningfully as I could in the time I had.

In the main debate Christopher kicks off with some arguments or thoughts against the existence of God. He starts off by saying that a very negative aspect of religion is that  religious people must want somehow to be slaves. He portrays God as a totalitarian ruler who watches you round the clock and convicts you of thought crimes. A celestial North Korea if you will. "Who wants this to be true?" he asks before quipping "at least in Korea you can escape by dyeing". In the bible and Koran you can never escape.

He then attacks the premise that without God we would not know or do the right thing. I don't think many Christians believes that anyway so it's a bit of a straw man. It's more that religions and belief in God provide (or posit or recognise) a basis for right and wrong and ensures that the concepts are meaningful. It seems to me for example that the existential concept of absolute morality require ultimate justice. It also seems reasonable to suppose that morality isn't a physical thing, it's a personal thing, ie its rooted in a person not energy of matter.  

Christopher recons that religion is a first version of truth (in the realms of morality, philosophy, health care etc). "We didn't  know much when we invented it. We had not escaped from the childish origins of our ancestors. We now have better versions. We have cleared up all these mysteries. Where once religion was an aid to survival it is now a peril. How much more lovely and elegant are Darwin and Einstein than the burning bush?"

He finishes with his argument against God's timing. For 100,00 years, he says, humans are born, live around 25 years and endure horrible diseases, tribalism, etc then die. "For 100,000 years heaven watches with indifference. Folded arms. Only 2000 years ago, in a barbaric illiterate part of the middle east, does God do something."

He sums up as follows : "If you believe in this God you are stupid and immoral. The case for divine intervention falls and we should be glad of it."

Up gets his brother to bring the case for the existence of God. One of his opening comments about his brother is "How little he knows of what he attaches. How he mocks and belittles. He seems to think that others have not been troubled by the things he mentions and yet despite them all have come to believe in God in wise, beneficial and good God.". I think that's a fair point in some ways. Christopher is so very cleaver and knows so much but seems at times to be attacking a straw man. His incite is at times so forceful and clear that it blows some cobwebs away from me and helps me in my understanding and shaping of what I believe and yet at other times there seems to be something he is missing. I feel like I'm in a pantomime and want to shout "he behind you!" Maybe it's one of perspective. If you come to the bible hostile there is plenty to knock. If you come loving and knowing God there is so much good, yet I still agonise over some bits. 

And so to Peters first point. It's a familiar one but has some merit. "Why is there something rather than nothing? Since we know so little it would be unwise to form absolute certainties. Again the book is entirely jeering and mocking on this point". Others have made this point much stronger and he doesn't  really press it that much. It seems no more than a plea for caution before writing off God. In any case it doesn't really hit Christopher where it hurts as he, at times, seems open to the possibility of a deist God. A God who started things off. But as he says "Even if you can prove [a deist God], you have all your work ahead of you to get to a God who hears prayers, meddles in history, and cares about who you sleep with..."

The next argument Peter gives has more force. If there is no God you may behave as you wish. Peter makes an observation that I think is very important. He talks about "Luxury atheism". "I've seen where they live" he says. "These atheists live in nice places. They can advance the theory of atheism as a nice theory" while enjoying privileges, protection and a morality largely shaped by Christianity. Meanwhile youths, who don't share their morality, or see any basis for it, kick people to death on our streets. "They are the practical atheists". Christianity didn't just appear in a vacuum, it pushed out other things and as it's taken away these things will come back. The worship of Ba'al Hammon (I think he said mok I don't know which God that is) with the slaughter of children. "180,000 babies a year are now killed in the womb".  We worship Mammon in our preoccupation with money, (he mentioned others but I didn't get them - ahsterth?).

Peter said that he also had been to North Korea. "It is a country run by people who despise the idea of God. - eat of this tree and ye shall be like God".  

Christopher answers with the story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son. "I find a father holding a knife to his sons throat to show his loves to a  totalitarian dictator wicked."

He then goes for the jugular, not with an argument but a massive accusation, attacking the truth at the heart of Christianity:

"You either believe in vicarious redemption or you do not. I can throw my sins on another and he can die and suffer for me and throw my responsibly away. It's the most immoral idea in circulation. I could offer to pay your debt, maybe even serve your time in prison, but not take your sins away. Wash you white as snow."

I agree you either go with the possibility of your sins being placed on another or you don't. There is no good analogy for it. That's why God did the whole sheep and goat sacrifice thing for hundreds of years to get the idea across. If it's true it is a unique concept and possibility. Your sin, the guilt for the things you have done wrong, can be transferred to Jesus Christ, the unique and perfect son of God and son of Man, fully man and fully God. There is no other way of offloading them because doing good things doesn't rub out your culpability for bad things. 

If you don't go for vicarious redemption, you have to live and die with your sins. If you believe this then it is also reassuring to believe that you will not be judged after death for the things you have done wrong (and neither will those who sinned against you). As I touched on earlier, you then have to consider in what sense something is really wrong. If you do go with substitutionary atonement then there is a wonderful possibility that you can be declared not guilty. I didn't go with it until I got a good view of my sin and then I clung to it and put it on like a life jacket in a stormy sea. It was a life or death situation.    

Christopher moves on to refute Peter's next argument:

"As for why there something rather than nothing - Well results of the Hubble telescope tell us that we are in an expanding universe heading for nothingness. Who designed that? We must either convict the designer of extreme incompetence and or extreme cruelty and callousness and  indifference towards those he summoned into existence."

I would respond to that by saying that the current creation is broken but not by God and it's going to be remade. It also does not address the problem of first causes but I don't think that is Christopher's main beef with God.

Peter starts his answer by returning to Abraham and Isaac. He says something very helpful: "The Knife at the throat was not used. That is the point of the story." How true, people did used to do things like that but God does not! He provides a substitute. I have never seen the story in that way. It's a massive revelation and turning point in the unfolding revelation of who God is. Peter makes the point very strongly:

"The point about vicarious sacrifice is what it replaced. It replaced child sacrifice. To speak of the story of Abraham as if this is a recommended action is not merely a misunderstanding it is repulsive and really should not be acceptable in civilised debate. To speak as if something is being advocated when it is actually being spoken against."

The debate breaks into a more free flowing exchange at this point and Christopher replies:

"Is not the point that God wanted to see if he would do it? If his submission reaches such heights? Is this not worse than job where the dictator toys with the emotions of one of his effortlessly made creatures?"   

He goes on:

"On the point of morality my brother has highlighted the awful nihilism that has poisons much of social life. But this is not to be equated with atheism. How do those who say 'god is on my side' act? You don't get rid of [moral] relativity by claiming you have God on your side, rather you make anything right."

He then gives the challenge that he often gives out but of which I can't quite see the relevance:

"Name me a moral action by a believer that could not have been made by an unbeliever?

Name me a wicked statement uttered by someone claiming God's permission to do so."

Peter's answer is short and sweet but not that relevant:

"I left the daily express when it was taken over by a pornographer but you're articles still appear in it."

It's not an answer to Christopher's question as many non-believers find pornography immoral and don't want to be associated with it. It also raises other ethical questions about how much you remove yourself from association with evil. What bank do you use, what companies you buy products from, what TV programs do you appear in, what are the no compromise moral issues for you, etc etc. It's too subjective a point to  be of much use in this debate.  

This blog is already far too long so I will write up my notes from the Q&A another time.