0:08 good evening thanks for being here on such a wretched night and what a big turnout we've uh busted right out of the temple tonight I'm a little intimidated with America's Rabbi and the godslayer Chris Hitchens right here maybe you should be a little intimidated in this community for all you know I'm the son of snake handlers and primitive Baptists in fact I am so we'll see what happens here I hope that doesn't mean a Prejudice in this debate I made a mistake in uh with my third child I waited until she could speak to have her baptized and when the baptism you know water on head and when the preacher you know got the water with the droplets and uh began to put on her head and he said
0:55 in the name of God and she said what is God let's just do it let's start with the Simplicity of a child what is God Rabbi well it depends who you're answering if you're answering a 2-year-old you answer one way but if you're a answer discussing it with an adult you begin with a recognition which actually the entire debate should be framed with of human limitation in the following sense when you were 2 years old could you imagine what it's like to be an adult of course not a 2-year-old has no idea what an adult is like and yet we make definitive statements about God all the time when in every religion that I know of the distance between God
1:41 and human beings is infinitely greater than the distance between an adult and a 2-year-old so when I say as I'm going to in a second I'm not going to avoid your question but understand that I say it against the background of a religious recognition of our own inability to understand that which is infinitely G than ourselves I my thumbnail definition of what God is is that God is the source of everything that exists and God is someone something with whom a human being can have a relationship and that you can leave your life in alignment with a Godly purpose but any definition that is greater than that is in some ways to troduce God which is why by the way the title of Christopher's book is
2:27 exactly right God Is Not Great because to say God is great or God is something is to put a definition on God which we know from classical Jewish philosophy you ought not to do so in fact Christopher is exactly right we can wrap it up right now thank you very much for coming it's been a wonderful evening um apologies perhaps to Muslims in the audience who say God is great all the time we'll we'll Circle back okay Chris hedg is to you if answer my daughter's question maybe you'll warn her off if you don't mind it would be Christopher and hitchon yes sir Chris Hedges is a horrible Hedges did I say you did forgive me Chris Hedges is a horrible apologist for Liberation Christopher PCH that's better too many guests too little sorry but um
3:13 I exist too if you see what I mean yes yes may as well start by establishing that ontological F Well um Fredick ner famously said that God was dead and Sigman Freud can be rendered as having said that God was Dad um and I think both of them are probably right the the concept of God is is like everything else in our vocabulary man-made it's an invention of human beings unless you take the view that God made us um in which case it' be a lot to explain how many why did we in that case make so many gods it does seem to be much very much more probable that men and women made many gods that any one God made all men and women and the rest of creation and as well as being man-made
4:00 it's fear made it is the unexpressed or partially expressed wish for a protector a parent someone who will never desert you someone who will do in a way your thinking for you especially on questions of moral philosophy at its best it's that it's a it's a wish to be loved more than you probably deserve and at its worst it's it's the underdeveloped part of the human psyche that leads to totalitarianism that that wants to work worship and that wants a boss that wants a Celestial dictatorship and that's the bit that's now threatening to destroy our secular civilization and so you're quite right to start where you do um it used to be believed I mean the number of gods now
4:47 is is infinite and a new God is created almost every day by some cult or other but it used to be that there was a belief that gods were in the trees in the in the woods in the Springs in the sea in the clouds and so forth polytheism of a kind then something a bit more polytheistic like Olympus where there was at least a location for the Divine but it was multifaceted and then monotheism getting it down to one so I regard this as progress of a sort because they're getting nearer the true figure all the time I I actually Rabbi yes yes progress um maybe which is why which by the way is why the Vatican in its old old days
5:33 was very upset by the concept of zero didn't like zero at all the most important number of all the number without which you can't do anything um which wasn't there in Roman numerals no it was invented in Islamic civilization also struck them as a Sinister import from from in part of us infidelium from from Pagan lands but also the trouble the concept of zero was very troubling for theism and must be and and does indeed remain so it's one of the many many ways in which theism is not compatible with scientific worldview R may ask you I I I just want I just want to point out without even taking issue with the the incorrect statements that he made um but I want you I want you to understand I want you to understand wait wait wait I want you to understand the the progress of the argument that you just heard because it's important that
6:19 people do this all the time and at least you should be aware of it whether you accept it or not very often when people argue with you especially when they argue about religion they attribute their own beliefs to logic and your belief to psychology so religious people believe in something because they need to be loved or they need a crutch or they're weak but I believe what I believe because it's true and scientific and I just want you to be aware that you cannot actually disprove someone's belief by imputing an unworthy motive to it you actually have to disprove the belief so don't let Christopher pull the psychological wool over your eyes you can actually just as worthy or Unworthy of love just as tough-minded just as thoughtful just
7:05 as deep and still believe in God as most human beings have throughout all of human history as if you are Christopher hitch Christopher are you a trickster well I don't think that you couldn't accuse that of being an incorrect statement you could accuse it of being an incomplete one I didn't give all the reasons why people believe in God after all you did write a whole book that argues that the belief in God can be very useful to people in times of crisis did you not I mean that's uh and that's yes but I never said that that was why you should believe in God and and I don't think it is the reason why many people do but remember that there's there are two questions I better now say lest I be accused of not having exhausted the entire subject in my first response I better say there are at least two questions one is this is there a god a a
7:54 Creator a prime mover an uncaused cause whatever you like to call it and this was the question answered at a certain point not very long ago in our history by the deists people like Thomas Jefferson Thomas Payne and many others who said that the order of the universe seemed to suggest that the it couldn't just have been random um that the there may have been a designer but the the designer didn't take any part in human Affairs and that in the in the late 17th early 18th centuries was probably sorry late 18th early 19th centuries was probably a very intelligent position to hold it was as far pre Einstein pre Darwin was probably as far as you were likely to get with philosophical speculation but so believing that there might be a cause or a mover or a Creator is one thing but
8:41 believing that there is a supervising intervening entity who cares who wins the war who cares who you sleep with and in what way who cares what you eat and on what day and in other words who makes you the center of the whole Cosmos um is another thing altogether so people who say I believe in God I'm a deist have all their work in front of them before they can say that they are really religious are you prepared to be a deist no no Divine mover even at the whatever the origin there's nothing in the natural in the cosmic order or that's the macro level or the micro level that's to say the constituent of our own DNA and the things that we have in common with the other animals and indeed other uh other forms of life like plants
9:28 that isn't susceptible to a much better explanation well here's I'm in know words as as the great physicist llas said when um when he demonstrated his working model his oror as it's called of the solar system to the emperor and Napoleon said well I see there's no God in this system and llas said well your majesty it works without that assumption rather I I I don't want to play God but to give form to this sure um it's 2010 you said you you think of God as the source of all in the year uh CE 2010 why attribute the source of all to Divinity what about science and you just said that's exactly what I was just going to address is the first of all um there there are two separate
10:13 ways of thinking about this both and and I'll I'll offer them both briefly and you can decide uh if both or neither is congenial to you one is that of course you can't equate God and proof for God and discussion of God with a demonstration in a laboratory that's never been the case the idea is different to shift it differently which is this I would ask you this question instead deep down do you believe that the universe is constituted only by stuff by material or is there a mystery at the heart of things do you believe that you are purely synapses or is there
10:58 something immaterial and eternal about you and those you love Do you believe that things like love are just an epip phenomena of the way Evolution has put us all together or do you think there is something the in the fact that immaterial things like ideas and love and Consciousness have such a profound influence on our lives that lead you to believe that the intangible can be at least as real or more real than the tangible if that way of looking at the world appeals to to you or speaks to you then you understand that llas in order to explain how the heavens go may not need the hypothesis of God but that in order to explain why there is something rather than nothing why there is a
11:45 deeper meaning to life than stuff alone that that's something that speaks to you and lets you understand that God is real that's part one wait wait wait part two part two is there are in fact things that are suggestive of something greater in even the scientific worldview which is why by the way in the American Academy of Science more than half consistently and this has been true for the last 100 years 51 52% of scientists say that they believe in God and that is the fact that everything exists rather than nothing that Consciousness which is still inexplicable to human beings is real that I make sounds and which is immaterial and it touches you in some way that makes you want change things
12:30 the the way of looking at the world even from what we can see and touch and feel suggests that there's something greater than what we know and now go right ahead um I can't I can't paraphrase improperly but you really want to get hold of it's easy to find on on Google a lecture given by Lawrence Krauss I regard as the greatest living physicist and it's it's about the quantum um and it's about a whole universe of nothing it's exactly how you get from nothing to Something in fact quite a lot of things um one means by which this happens is the following uh every second that we're speaking a a star the size of our son or bigger goes out blows up or goes out that's been the case every single second
13:15 since the first moment of the Big Bang it's a lot that'll be a lot of suns going out um as we speak and there's a lot of annihilation isn't it it's a lot of Destruction it's on a it's a what you might call almost a wasteful scale it does have the positive outcome though that we are all constituted of those materials we are made of Stardust now I find that a rather more Majestic and wonderful and even beautiful idea than say the idea of the burning bush a bit more impressive uh gives you more to think about are they mutually exclusive are they mutually exclusive God make you a St one has the virtue of being true and provable and studi which
14:01 the other doesn't and I I do think that the verifiability of something is is a virtue of Are We simply material then yes we we don't have bodies we are bodies until 50,000 years ago there were four other kinds of of biped humanoid not unlike us still living on the planet died leaving no descendants we're the only survivors of of those people um that family were the last they we don't know if they had gods or not so you think no religion ever invented it appears to have known that these creatures even existed because the the the religious are forced to believe that the only really significant event that happened in the human story happened about 3,000 years ago inexplicable are we just waiting it's not true it's fact all of this all
14:48 of this all of this massive big bang Co cosmological churning and destruction and and Annihilation which is paralleled by the way on our own Earth where 99% of all species that have ever been on the planet have already gone extinct leaving no descendant all of this could be part of a plan there is no way an atheist can prove it's not but it's some plan isn't it with mass destruction pitiless extermination uh Annihilation going on all the time and all of this set in motion on a scale that's absolutely beyond our imagination in order that the pope can tell people not to jerk off stupid right no I think I think here we we' reached childish to we've reached an area of
15:35 agreement um I too repudiate that statement by the pope and I'm I'm happy to do it publicly um no no no no no wait just just a second hold on the um first of all it's just not true that religions don't actually acknowledge very important things that happened before their own founding just read the beginning of the Bible uh which goes back far beyond the founding of the Bible but more important than that there are actually things that if you are material you can't give an accounting of for example you might not believe that you have free will you might think that everything you do was predetermined from the beginning of the big bang and just the fact by the way
16:20 that all of the universe physics tells us came from something tinier than the head of a pin is to me there is no word other than miraculous for it but nonetheless you might believe that all the everything you did the words tonight the fact that those flowers would be orange on the table that was all predetermined from the beginning of time but if you believe that you actually make a choice that human beings have free will then I ask you how you account for that you didn't pick your birth your genetics you didn't pick your environment so from the very beginning all of that was predetermined for you and unless there is something immaterial about you that allows you to choose then everything human beings do is already set from the beginning of time I don't
17:06 understand how you get free will if you don't have God choper it's pathetic I'm I'm sorry to say it's to to say of the the cosmological and the genetic that these are deterministic processes they're not at all they're full of extraordinary Randomness and in the genetic case of mutation Steven J goul the great paleontologist wrote a book which I recommend to you called the Burgess Shale which is it's the side of a mountain in Canada Canadian Rockies that sheared off so you can read you can see the inside of a mountain you can see it as if you're looking at a Blackboard and you can see the growth and development of species and you realize that it's not a tree it's more like a bush that we the reverse branches that go off and go nowhere and the others that succeed um and and different kinds of
17:54 failure and different kinds of mutation his most exciting thought most revolutionary thought what is this if you could so to speak put all that onto a tape and Rewind it and then press play again there's no certainty would come out the same way in fact there's every reason to believe that it would not so there's nothing predetermined there's nothing deterministic about this at all but thanks to your understanding of our genetics which are also not predetermined because they're result of random mutation and natural selection as everyone now knows and that's why we can have sad to say for the kosher but we can have skin transplants and organ transplants from pigs who are much closer to us than we used to think um we can also sequence the DNA of viruses and learn how to immunize ourselves from it works in other words but yes it can be
18:39 tampered with it can be engineered for good as well as for ill there's nothing deterministic about it at all it's much more exciting it's much more interesting it's much more rewarding it's verifiable and yes there are elements of I was trying to say the miraculous the a inspiring the tragic the Majestic in this that there simply are not in incantations of Genesis where the the supposed authors claim to know the Divinity the Creator on personal terms this is nonsense it's for children Rabbi there first of all it is interest I mean Steven G who was by the way very sympathetic to religion and wrote a book called rocks of Ages which I also recommend to you where he said that uh religion and science don't overlap um they sure but he one
19:25 second if you read his book on the burg sale he does say if you re mind then you assume if you push play again you would get a different result and that's certainly true unless the result was intended but more important than that yes there's Randomness in the system nobody would argue that there isn't Randomness in the system but Randomness isn't free will Randomness is getting a result you don't expect the question is how do you get a directed Choice which isn't random I choose right now to pick this glass up now how did I make that choice if I'm pure a product of my DNA and my environment then it's not a choice then it was programmed in then it's Instinct and the whole point that religion's always made about Instinct was that human beings can Rise Above It
20:11 unlike animals which are the same at age2 as they are at age 10 as they are at age 15 a human being grows and changes and chooses That's the basis of religious I have to say to me it doesn't seem a matter of religion that I can choose to pick up this class that seems to me to be well within what could develop purely scientific basis I'm not a scientist but it doesn't seem like a mystery of God to me personally sure it is well no but seriously where where does the element of free choice come from I could be purely instinctual and put my head in a in a stream and drink and choose to do that when you say choose wait wait when you say choose where does the where does the choice come from any more than my than the choice of this glass to fall down where do you get a choice as opposed to a complex interaction of DNA and envir
20:59 neither of which you chose again piling on completely unnecessary assumptions and also inviting a inviting a question that will make you uncomfortable go ahead if you say that no it's because God has given you free will I have to ask you how do you know that well are you assuming that we have free will one one are are you assuming that we have free will if you if you ask you then give me another give me another source if you answer my question with another question I'll still answer it okay I will still answer it even though your question isn't answer to mine rather not an answer a response to M um The View I take about free will is that of course we have free will because we have no choice but to have it I I'm a I'm a I was I was to some extent I was and I still to some extent
21:44 am a dialectal materialist and I also think there are some there are some ironies in the universe's wor in history but to say of course we have free will the boss says we've got it is to make a mockery of the whole concept and it's also to invite the question what kind what kind of tyranny is this that you want you want an all supervising all deciding person I ask you first what sources of information do you have about this person's existence that I don't have that are denied to me I'd like to know and second why do you want it why do you want to arrive at a Terminus of unfreedom where there is a Celestial Authority upon whom all things depend and from which all things flow why do you want that and how on Earth do you know that there's any case to be made for its existence yes please that's a I don't think that's a Terminus of
22:30 unfreedom I I think you're only free when you've declared against it frankly that's the beginning of freedom is the Emancipation from the tyranny of U of theocracy yes I actually think that the whole point that I was making was that a belief in a God who create you is what gives you free will and that without it you have to fall into a determinism and by the way you may not you may think that science gives it to you but every scientists I've asked on this question including David barash who's an evolutionary biologist says that and step Pinker had the same reaction is that it is more or less a commonplace of modern science that determinism is the only worldview that's consistent with an understanding of the way science works so you may be able to find it in science but I haven't met a scientist yet who's been able to account for it not every
23:16 sever putting that aside no of course not I'm saying that those who don't use determinism as their philosophical assumption but let me answer his question too which is therefore I assume that as a religious person you're granted freedom that's the whole point is you do make choices once you said gr better choices granted you've made my point and's English he knows about you're granted gred thank you for making me free you're granted no you're granted freedom so you're granted freedom by The evolutionary process I'm granted freedom by a Creator either way what you either way I'm not granted all sorts of freedom I mean the of course scientists are right to that this extent there are Einstein says the miraculous thing about the laws of nature is they're never suspended that's what's so amazing about
24:03 them they're immutable religion claims that on occasions the laws of nature are suspended in order to prove in order to prove what they wouldn't otherwise depends who you ask not my monties it depends who you ask in religion is there a fundamental contradiction in your mind Rabbi between Jewish teaching MH and evolution no none at all no none but evolution as we learned doesn't require a deity no it well it depends what you mean by require a deity it's just like saying that building this stage doesn't require a deity the question isn't whether the the discovery of the mechanism by which God made the world requires God it just requires the discovery of the mechanism by which God made the world but it also doesn't
24:49 Outlaw God or make God impossible or make it in fact less PL what's the difference to your mind between mystery and incomprehension incomprehension incomprehension describes my reaction to the question Great America's gra I think my questions Inc comprehens I'm not sure I understand tell me again well uh science words progressively made a lot of things comprehensible yes mystery mystery means those things that by the very nature of the world are unfigured aable no matter how no matter how bright we are no matter how hard we work at how do you know that they're uner that over incomprehensible you're asking no in a way that I'm not willing
25:35 to concede um is the proper way to describe religious conviction um it's like saying to me how do you know that love exists or how do you know that another human being is beautiful or how do you know that uh that I don't know that these uh that these lights are a pageant of gorgeous colors the answer is you don't know it some things you have is the deepest conviction of your soul and there are things that make sense of the world in ways that nothing else makes sense of the world but if you ask me do I know that God exists the way I know that that glass is on the table then I say you're putting it in a in an empirical scientific framework which is
26:20 exactly the framework that religious people want to keep religion out of but I want to put the other way how do you know the mystery won't be solved one day because the because it's not a mystery of a question that's solvable it's like saying do you how do you know that the mystery won't be solved um that that you have a have an ineradicable sense that the world is wondrous I I don't know how you would even think about solving such a mystery I could understand it and still find it wondrous Christopher what about you if it's not God is it all soluble well first one day you're right that science has made many things more comprehensible to us and and it's explained things that religion used to take credit for in other words now we know there's a germ theory of disease diseases are not
27:05 curses or revenges from Heaven same with earthquakes and so on the stuff they used to teach us and many of them still do is nonsense evil nonsense as well as ignorant nonsense but it's also taught us just in my lifetime an enormous amount more about how little we know we're much much more ignorant yes than people who lived before Galileo we just because we have now an increasingly large idea of the Fant expanse of the the unknown um that's precisely the moment at which to say that skepticism is what's necessary inquiry uh debate doubt where's faith in this where's the usefulness of Faith there there's no use to it at all Socrates who as far as I know existed but may well not have done it doesn't matter to me no one will insult me if
27:53 they say Socrates your your great hero didn't exist try on a Muslim tried on a Christian their prophets didn't exist or show people that Moses is a myth they start hurling themselves about making menacing noises very often socres said you're only educated when you've understood how ignorant you are and you're only going to even find that out by doubting everything all the time there's all the difference in the world between that Outlook and that mentality and the mentality of faith and second on on on metaphysics which you I noce take refuge in several times already this evening like what is love um is something poetic or is it prosaic very good questions but metaphysical ones those who say God exists and intervenes
28:39 in the world in other words those who say there is a religious God the god of religion are saying that Redemption is is on offer to human beings that salvation is on offer to them and that if they reject the offer they can be in really big trouble now don't don't start talking on to an audience like this or if you don't mind to to a debator debate partner like me as if religion was a private matter because everybody knows that if it was there wouldn't be anything to argue about it's precisely because it claims to be a total solution a complete solution to all problems available on on on pain of death sometimes in some forms but available to you if you'll only have enough Faith where we just found out that faith is probably the most overrated of the virtues and the one most least useful to
29:26 us in the real dilemmas that we actually have to face there there are so many things to unpack in that statement that I'll just pick on two or three the first being interestingly that Socrates whether he exists or not existed or not according to Plato at least believed in the gods and even in an afterlife so he didn't doubt everything the gods may be but uh no wait wait wait didn't didn't interrupt you um but I want you to know and you should know this in particular uh I didn't interrupt you twice um but I want you to know you want quick enough [Applause] may be it may no it may be true that part of it wasn't was speed but I also think it's because civility is very religious virtue so the
30:12 um the I could have said that the the Jewish tradition actually doesn't tell you that everyone must do this in the world rather it prescribes goodness and that's what it is that religion is supposed to bring into the world now can you point to examples of relic of religious wickedness of course you can but that's clearly what Judaism asks of people the first obligation that you have is goodness and that's why when you talk about religion as though it is inherently totalitarian and tells you you must act this way it makes two mistakes first of all it doesn't see religion as evolving as everything else does when in fact the Judaism of
30:58 thousands of years ago ought to be must be should be is expected to be different from the Judaism of today still has 10 commandments yes none of us none of mention goodness guys you have to let me finish my statement okay it's thank you um you're welcome I feel a little bit between a sandwich here um but the second and the second part of it is that if you say that Faith does nothing for you as Christopher repeats over and over again it's very hard to explain why it is that millions and millions of people all over the world and throughout history have felt that Faith deepens their life gives them meaning increases their goodness and why it is for example in America that people of Faith give more to
31:44 charity um vote more in elections volunteer more help more do you know what the largest Aid organization is Aid and development organization in the United States it's not care it's not save the children it's a one world which is a Christian organization out of Seattle which not only gives millions and millions and millions of dollars across the world but sends people all across the world to the most baguer helpless places and they do it because they believe they're called to do it by God it's just not true that having faith makes no difference in this world it makes a tremendous difference and the vast majority of that difference not all of it but the vast majority of that difference is for goodness let me put a question then if if you'd be so good the rabbi feels the rabbi feels in a sandwich and I don't mean for you to
32:29 feel in a sandwich so put this to you oh that's okay Christopher what about uh the Solace of Faith uh some of the most religious people I know ended up there oh this is a softball hard no I mean I know what he's going to say to this well maybe but hard-minded hard-hearted non Neer Sol worse you're a misanthrope because you're not sympathetic to people's need for religion I say in my book available at fine bookstores everywhere that as as long as I don't have to hear about it I don't mind what people believe if they say well thanks to Joseph Smith and his gold plates I
33:14 have real Faith now and I've got a family and I have friends and I have a real system and so I said fine fine just don't come to my front door with it don't ask for tax break for it don't ask my children to be taught it in the school did you sign up I thinking you wouldn't hear about it and I ask I asked them a I asked the question in the book people think they have a personal relationship with Creator and they they're the possessors of a wonderful secret it must feel I've never felt it but I presume it feels great why doesn't it make them happy they're not happy they can't be happy till everyone else believes it too they go out and proze very often and and here's I can't let your F your last answer go very often in the guise of Charity you notice how often that religion rather than answer the questions that I've put like how do
34:00 you know there's a God what evidence do you have for it which you say well lots of good people do good things because they're religious well let's tell the most recent pressing case uh Richard Dawkins in I and a few others in the response to the Haiti earthquake set up a an emergency charity for people of non-belief to give to because so many charitable organizations are in fact proing groups so we raised about 2 million in a weekend and all that money goes straight and by the way thank you if you go to Richard's website you can find out more about how to donate to this because it's it's permanent it's going to stay in being all that money went straight to um Doctors Without Borders of course and the International Red Cross which though it has a cross isn't a religious organization both
34:45 these organizations are already in Haiti they're proven none of the money goes to support any missionary activity none and the scientologists and all the others who turned up in Haiti and the people who turned up in Haiti to kidnap babies to them to their faith and the Catholics who turned up and said standing in the ruins of their own Cathedral with a quarter of a million Haitians buried under the rubble said God spoke here today and you should listen to his message don't tell me that's good don't tell me that's good that's wicked it's prizing it's prizing with the helpless using them as objects of Charity and conversion it's lying to people but there's also a lot of wrong to lie it's wrong to lie to people and it's giving them it's giving them false hopes and false explanations for their plight now
35:32 we're not guilty of any of that and now I ask you another question where in the decalogue does the word goodness appear where that's a good sway of Exodus for you where in Exodus does the word goodness appear where in this commandment Rich territory does the word goodness or the enjoyment to be good occur this should be a softball for you okay um it first of all it tells you it tells you what you ought not to do it says love your neighbor as yourself in in the Book of Leviticus I mean I'm allowed to move to Leviticus from Exodus that's yes that's yes okay um thank you I appreciate that it says you should pursue justice justice justice you shall pursue it says it over and over and over again and also by the way I I you know
36:17 no Tradition at least certainly not the Jewish tradition and and I'm not aware of any other tradition is only the Bible Judaism is a long exegetical tradition and it says several times in the talmud that the one purpose of the mitv is lot which means to refine human character it's clear that judism is directed around goodness it's repeated over and over again the whole system and framework of Mez vote are to get people to treat each other decently and if you say what you do that people use Authority governmental Authority religious Authority um military Authority political authority to do bad things my answer is of course they do anytime you set up a structure of authority people will do bad things churches other things that is what I but but that yes of course so what you say
37:04 is what you heard is when religion does good things it doesn't count because sometimes they want people to believe what they believe when it does bad things it's because of religion when you make everything good that happens that religion does invalid and everything bad that religion does uh representative that's called arguing and bad faith which is ironic for someone who has none it seems a fair question yes but it's not I mean as as I know you know that isn't at all what I say I don't say it's the bad things are done in the name of religion or by authorities I say it's religion itself that is the problem I go out of my way to make clear that I don't take refuge in any other position now in Leviticus and in Exodus if you're a neighbor you better not and you you this person's you're supposed to love him
37:50 this person better not be an amalekite a midianite a moobit better not be a not be a witch yeah who the destruction of whom is enjoined not be a homosexual the stoning of whom is enjoined better not be a slave the terms of SL of enslavement of which are all laid out now these are primitive tribal agricultural most of the Commandments by the all all the decalog by the way is addressed to the property owning classes here's what you can't do with your servants here your servants must also obey this commandment why are the Commandments addressed only people have sta why are the women rather a large objection I thought why are the women counted as part of the animal and chatt that's disposable by these uh holders of
38:37 property um it's couldn't it be any more obvious that this is a man-made phenomenon and at a time when people were not at their best and were full of fear and ignorance and greed and uh covetousness of other people's property can can we be faithful and not be trapped by history not all of its elements are well it's I mean meist Christopher knows very well I assume that the Bible was put together by human beings and that the Jewish tradition is a long evolving tradition as are other traditions in which the dross of history is gradually refined in the same way that you would not expect someone 3,000 years ago to be able to understand the sort of arguments that you're making tonight people change there's an evolutionary process also not only to
39:23 biology but to Sociology to ideology all of those things and that's why the question is very much does religion make people better and can these systems refine themselves and can they get rid of the stuff that's bad in religion and I think that uh to assume that you can cherry-pick the things in the statements in religion that are negative and those things are necessarily enduring contradicts the history of every tradition I know well cherry-picking is an odd word to use for something that's thrust upon you I've no got no choice but to study the decalog no actually I point out it says it's addressed to property owners and enjoins them to keep women as property your cherry Pi are you in favor of theft murder and adultery do you think those
40:08 are good things well there's now here's the exactly the number of my question if what you say is true yes not that I and I've never said it wouldn't I couldn't be interpreted as having said no religious person can do a good thing if you but if what you say is true this should be true and you should find it easy to point it out okay there must be something not that they can do or do but that I cannot do that's a good thing either a moral statement made or a moral or ethical statement performed that person of Faith could perform that I cannot you you must be able to identify that if your point is to have any how can you how how can one human being do something that another human being can't do physically physically of course you could do anything that I could do but I can say lots of things you don't I can say lots of things you don't do not that you can't do you probably don't do as I
40:54 do bless your child on a Friday night you probably don't create great works of art based on religion you probably don't go halfway across the world feeling that you're motivated and called by a God who tells you to help other human beings I mean all those things are things that religion motivates people to do not that you can't do them but that people generally don't do them if they're not motivated by religion get real I mean pronouncing an incantation yes isn't a moral action not isn't it's only it's only not a moral action if you don't feel sub enous it is something I could do it's not I I know of course you can and I encourage you to do it um it's only not a moral action if you don't feel the unique expression of love when it takes place
41:40 in an atmosphere of sanctity that is not the same as saying to a child I love you I have to tell you I mean some of you knew my father who passed away in May who was a rabbi when I think of the most powerful and intimate moments that I had with my father it was when he put his hands on my head and blessed me on aay Friday night now he would not have done that were he not religious and it wasn't the same as when he kissed me good night and said I love you because there is an element in which religious people dwell it's called a world of sanctity that you can't invoke and can't dwell in if you don't believe that that realm exists chop so do you well wait first I'm sorry for your loss the say sorry for your trouble right uh second that but I'm still going to have to insist I don't think anyone in the audience can can consider that's an answer to my
42:25 challenge say a moral or ethical statement or action that an unbeliever could not perform but could not means that you're physically in capable of it and I'm willing to concede right here you can do everything I can do well that's of course you can let go of course you can all right well then okay I mean say wouldn't do you can't I leave since you won't answer it I'll just leave the question to the audience if anyone can come up to me and say Here's a moral thing you couldn't do not don't do but could not do that orig only a orig person I'd be Ved to hear of it no one's ever come up with any let me ask question there was a brief cwy think of a wicked thing done or evil thing said that is done precisely because of Faith you've already thought of one but any
43:11 that but any that someone who doesn't have faith couldn't do wait tell me one that someone who doesn't have faith could not do I didn't say that okay it's the but that's exactly the point a human being can do certain things whether they're Believers or not they have the physical ability believing something doesn't give you a new it's no problem to you that the suicide murder Community the genital mutilation Community these are all faith-based communities um do you want on the subject of Charity who doesn't hear Hamas saying the reason we're loved by our people is because we provide Social Services we we we help the needy we're the only people who come out and do that which is by the way I'm horrified to have to say is true but do you do you excuse them for that because they're charitable of course not do you not think that they bless their children a whole lot yes and I think a it right you
43:58 try being being a Muslim children and not be child not be blessed the entire time um that's part of the authority that they claim theya I I want to ask who this is all faith-based who steps up to you won't like any of the language but life has a lot of Despair people fall into despair who steps up to save and I don't mean in Christian terms necessarily at all but who steps up to reach out to those people and for society as a whole if you don't have the teaching of religion what will offer a kind of moral construct I don't see it in schools I don't union halls are gone uh who who's going to give people structure of a world it's called Hollywood holwood exactly I mean what it
44:45 may have blemishes it may be deeply flawed it may be fatally flawed you would say but what's the substitute what's the structure for moral teaching and save the despairing I think despair is quite a good starting point myself I mean I think it's very good to know that we're born into a losing struggle I think that the stoicism that comes from that and the reflection that comes is very useful I'm not very impressed by people who say well I wish it wasn't true so I'll try and act as if it isn't it is true everything is govern by entropy and and Decline and Annihilation and disaster and um you're born into a losing struggle and because you're mammal primate primate mammal you know you are and you know you're going to die and that there'll be a lot of struggle and pain on the way I don't want a world without anxiety and grief and pain and
45:32 struggle I want I I I can't get it no one saying but those who offer it to me I spurn the gift I don't want what you want I don't want the feeling of eternal love and peace love and peace very very overrated in my view one reason one reason one one of the many reasons actually I should despise all religions equally but one I and I do in a way but one way which I prefer Judaism to the its Rivals is that the emphasis is is more on Justice the on love I want to go to the r why is that not misanthropic of you that attitude misanthropic doesn't mean I have to hate people well it's it means it means it means I respect it means I respect them enough it means I respect them enough not to offer them false consolation I do think it's important the realm of Illusion will will not help you to cure this condition I do think it's important to say that part of this part of this is based in
46:19 temperament but also part of it is based in life experience I spend a lot of my time at the bedside of people who are dying with parents who lost children with husbands who lost wives and wives who lost husbands the sense of community that is created by religion the sense that life is Meaningful even if it's short all of that it's not trivial it's not cheap consolation it's not illusion it goes to the depths of the questions that human beings ask themselves and I know that you can make uh a clever remark about the cheap selling of religious consolation but you know what the remark gets melted by the heat of human anguish when you're standing beside the grave of a child who died and
47:05 the mother is saying a prayer and that brings her some measure of comfort because she really does believe that this world in some sense is Meaningful and is not nihilistic and is not empty and is not foolish and and although I can't prove to you in an empirical sense that in fact the world is Meaningful at that moment even as I question it it seems to me the deepest Instinct of my soul well if you'll gosh um well if you'll pardon me I won't share any of my griefs with you um uh but I've never had one or had any known anyone who had one who's had the faintest constellation from religion and indeed being told as the Christians tell
47:50 them that they're off to a better place and so on I think it's positively Wicked thing to do I think lying to the dying for a living what what what what what self-respecting person can do that um and you know it's a lie because just tell me how you know it's a lie since you assert it again and again because the person saying it cannot possibly know it to be true and therefore it's a li they don't have access to information even if they believe it it's a lie yes it's it's a lie but how do we create for those who aren't able or don't desire to walk around in despair or to walk around in irony in in a world that brings can bring plent despair try try it try it fine but I think it's manifestly clear lots of people don't choose that so what does atheism offer well it offers the chance of
48:35 living without illusion which I think and it says that philosophy philosophy and literature will do a great deal more for you they're much more there's a lot more morality in them there's a lot more ethical discussion in Doki say who will present them in our society in a real Society who will present them in a way for now I'm presenting there is for now I'm presenting I can't do you're going to be very busy I can only appear in my own person here I I I can even say that to some extent it works me there Iron I think is tremendously useful uh as as his philosophy especially the philosophy of Spinosa especially in times of Anguish and the the realization that there's no false constellation can actually cheer you up once you face the fact that you're born into a losing struggle things immediately appear a great deal
49:22 more uh manageable in some ways um and really of the remarks against this made not one of these remarks couldn't have been made by a devout member of the Muslim Brotherhood and what what I want to ask him is this if anything of what he says is true is he really saying that he would he would prefer me not to be myself not to be an unbeliever and someone who believes in in irony and uh the UN illusion world but I'd be morally better off if I was a wahhabi Muslim for example or Roman Catholic I mean according to you I would be a better don't answer the question you ask me the question you you're not allowed to answer it for me you imply I imp I want to know if you really mean that uh
50:07 actually I never said that you were automatically better off if you believed than you didn't believe I think Christopher is very useful in the world because he forces religious people I mean he's useful for many many reasons obviously to the world but he also forces religious people to think seriously about their faith and as I understand the God that I believe in and the god that Judaism presents the first and primary demand is not belief the first and primary demand is goodness that's exactly what characterizes Judaism and therefore if you say to me I'm a good person but I don't believe is it better that I would be a miserable person who believed I all I have to do is look at the sources and say obviously not obviously it's better for you to be who you are and to promote goodness in the world that's
50:54 exactly is what the Jewish tradition teaches to make the world better under the sovereignty of God but notice the the first clause in that is to make the world better so if you do that that's the primary demand of any faith that I think is worth its salt may we turn on that point to what Barry shre raised as an acute concern that is violence and the question of whether violence is integral to religion or exceptional and an offense to religion or both or all three violence and religion okay so I'm going to try to abbreviate this there are two things to remember first of all most religious conflicts are not about
51:41 religion what you find is religions will fight when there's land when there's power when there's resources when there's water when there's money it's very rare for a religious group not not inconceivable very rare for a religious group to say hey guess what there's someone halfway across the world who believes differently let's go get them it's the people who live next door to us who are other than us we other than us we should get them and by the way along the way we're going to take their land and we're going to take their riches and we're going to take this and that's because and if you look in the encyclopedia of War which is probably not something that you peruse in your leisure hours but if you do you will see that it identified 1763 Wars since the beginning of time 123 of them are identified as religious wars when you take religion out of a
52:28 society you don't get a more peaceful Society we look at the 20th century it was like a laboratory for that stalinism maoism Nazism Cambodia North Korea versus South Korea on and on and on and on the fact is the record of extracting religion is very poor and the final point is this which is if you ask why religious people fight the answer is clear it's because they're people I have a colleague in not a rabbi but a a psychologist in um Los Angeles who studies bullying do you know at what age bullying is most prominent think to yourself what age and then I'll tell you the answer by far the answer is
53:16 preschool because we're not born all sweetness and light it's why it's so much hard work to get a kid to be good right parents don't have to say to their child why don't you share a little bit less you know because you're really you're too selfless you're too kind instead it's very hard work to get people to do well what religions are known for is their attempt to make something straight of the Crooked nature of human beings and they fail again and again and again exactly as you would expect if you know human nature but that doesn't mean that the attempt to do it makes people worse quite the opposite at Le at least according to the evidence of History well violence there's no mystery about violence I mean violence arises
54:02 because we are primates imperfectly evolved our prefrontal lbs are too small our adrenaline glands are too big um there are various other deformities of this kind sexual organs designed by a committee all the rest of it and we're greed and we're greedy and back to greedy we're greedy and fearful and um but Covetous of other people's Pro and also surprisingly it's our probably our biggest defect given that the reason we're so successful is there's almost no genetic difference between us if we were dogs we'd all be the same breed a fantastically little variation but we're incredibly prone to tribalism and ethnic and racial um what Freud calls the narcissism of small differences so of course if a tribe
54:49 let's say that's calling itself the children of Israel for the sake of argument decides it should kill all the other tribes and that get in its way way take their women as slaves butcher their men um take their land take their cattle and so battle in this way across to Canaan and take everyone else's land and burn down there that's going to happen whether there's a God or not or whether there's religion or not but it'll happen very much more intensely if they believe they have a mandate from Heaven to do so it's a terrific Force multiplier um I think there would have been a quarrel between the Hutu and the tosti of Rwanda say once Belgian colonialism had established that there were these two different character groups types so the tribes but it's a terrific Force multiply that the Catholic church was as strong as it was in Rwanda the most Christian country in
55:35 Africa made it infinitely worse what makes the Israel Palestine two-state solution ungettable because there there's a chunk of people on both sides who say they have God in their corner and God gave only their group the land and they can negate the votes of everybody else including the whole of the International Community by the way just because of their faith Northern Ireland is the same there would have been a republican nationalist dispute it's infinitely worse because of religion so I think the the the possible the cery I'd like to hold would be that the less religion there was the less violence there would be but I can't I can't in good I can't in good darwinian conscience say that
56:21 but I think the more that the more that people refused orders that were divine as for example to take the Preposterous allegation that the rabbi makes that the wars of the 20th century were secular Wars the belt buckle warned by every soldier in the Nazi army that says got midun God on our side I don't think that was a help do you things were bad enough as they were on page 70 I think it is of mine Camp Hitler says that in taking on the the filthy virus of Judaism I know I'm doing the work of the Lord and I'm called I'm summoned by the Lord to do this work work a book one of the very few books the Vatican didn't ban in that period by the way um I don't think that was a help either so I'd say on the whole we'd be better off without the
57:07 belief either in a supreme dictator because that leads to violence or the idea that God takes sides in our pathetic malan disputes I want to just as a coda to this when you say that we shouldn't take orders I just want to remind you of of a long history for example the abolition of slavery was almost entirely the work of people who belied they were taking orders from something higher than societal orders Wilberforce in England um here you know beer and John Brown and so on they believed they were doing God's work by abolishing slavery and it's interesting that the abolition slavery it's interesting the abolition of slavery was a Christian Movement but the the idea is it's not an issue of who you take orders from it's an issue of the orders you take that's the issue and it comes down
57:52 in part to what kind of religion you practice not whether you practice religion comrades I just I'm sorry comrades what kind of orders you take brothers and sisters that's better comrades friends it I suppose it is somewhat to the credit of some Christians that in the waning Decades of thousands of years of slavery that were biblically mandated some of them belatedly joined things like the American anti-slavery Society stars of which were Thomas Payne um Benjamin Franklin nonbelievers right whereas to the last day of the Confederacy the flag of the Confederacy said Deo vinde God on our side and every justification for that slavery came from the Bible where indeed it's not hard to find it we're going to take questions from the audience about one minute there
58:39 are microphones if you have questions make your way uh and we will take them very shortly as we begin to do that may I ask Christopher Hitchens you've debated Rabbi David WPI on this subject you've debated the Reverend Al Sharpton yes what's the difference between these debates well the Reverend Al Sharpton is another case of of the Damage Done by soci to society by religion because once it was agreed by the rest of America that black people are best led by preachers and once it was agreed to write out of the Civil Rights record the heroic black secularists like Bay Rus and and the great black Union uh leader Philip Randolph who actually organized with the help of the United workers the
59:26 March on Washington once all that had been forgotten and we decide yeah black people they really love their preachers then once Dr King has gone it's one sucession of junk demagogues after another all of them given the mantle because they're in holy orders there's no fraudulence you can't get away with in this country if you can get the word reverend put in front of your name questions for sh is a very conspicuous example of that we'll begin right here Madam your question sir sir I can't see I'm sorry Hedges Hitchens sir to come there and beat you up later okay uh it seems uh to me that uh you know most religions deal with operational aspects of life such as human capital development that is the um
1:00:14 uh accumulation of literacy and Technology Economic Development mental and physical well-being and public service which deals with charity and those kinds of things these the these are the work of religion you're say yes they profess this yes and that all Fates um profess these things and since they do uh it seems to me that it's not so much their profession that causes the negative externalities between people who profess these things but it's the labels that they that they take hold such as uh I think um Mr Hitchens alluded to the fact that people say things uh about their faith that they actually don't practice or believe and so I'm saying that should we just abandon uh these labels and stop calling
1:01:01 ourselves Jews Christians or Muslims or whatever and deal with the operational uh uh Facts of Life which deal with again human capital you know literacy uh e Economic Development uh mental and physical well-being and public service and charity helping others without the labels Rabbi um if I understand your question correctly I would say this the largest organized groups of charities in the world over and over and over again all around the world organizing themselves around religious groups I don't think that that's a mistake and I don't think that that's a coincidence so that in fact if you disband the idea that we're doing this as a religious group you will in one stroke undo a great deal of the good that happens in
1:01:47 the world so no I think that communities which by the way without religions I don't know where you get communities where Young and old sit together in common purpose it's very rare especially in our atomized society if you disband that I think you get trouble Christopher without Community without the labels implied implied in what David says is um that a person exists who would say now that I don't believe in God I'll stop giving money to charity I don't care anymore I don't know I don't think there is such a person and if that were so it would be a very strange religion that they'd been professing who will organize good work only why is it that in survey after survey religious people do give more and religious people watch less television
1:02:33 and have use drugs less alcohol this is what religion is down to it has social utility it's very impressive to me often it's very often the first thing when we debate with Catholics they always change the subject of Charity right away with Jews it's usually a little later you just said that they and with Muslims and with Muslims and with Muslims it's all the time because what what else can they they don't want to defend their faith you just said the opposite you just said they don't want to defend their faith they don't want to say they don't they feel une easy talking about Redemption salvation all this kind but but look at the good work we if you talk to the Mormons they'll say you should you may not think much of Joseph Smith and I say you got that right but boy you you should see our missionaries in Peru
1:03:18 the government will do the work if excuse me what has this got to do with the existence of God or the validity of religious claims it has nothing to do with it is why it's always introduced as a time wasting TCH wait wait wait wait wait wait don't applaud that nothing to do with it he just all right all of you who applauded I just want to ask you this if Christopher says to me God doesn't exist and I say but we do good things he's got
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