Atheism vs. Christianity | Christopher Hitchens debates Dinesh D'Souza

thank you, they are the first, thank you very much, King Henry VIII used with one of his wives, he said, I won't keep you for long, um, this is, this is Christopher Hitchens, on my third time, we have debated other topics. Before this is the first time we debate this topic, I really appreciate the opportunity in my opening statement. I am going to make a positive statement about Christianity in my rebuttal. I will correct Christopher Hitchens' mistakes. We are living in a very unusual situation that has arisen. as a kind of militant phenomenon and in the face of that that is a bit strange because if you are an unbeliever, why be a militant?

I don't believe in unicorns, but I haven't read any books written on the subject. I don't spend a lot of time denouncing unicorns. I live my life as if some unicorns don't exist, but what we have on the atheist side is a belligerent attack on theism and specifically Christianity. I want to try to respond to this attack using the same tools. of reason, skepticism, science and evidence, which is the banner under which atheists march. In no way tonight will I rely on Scripture or any type of theology to make my points. I will focus entirely on reason and evidence, let me begin.

If I were to do this by reading the various atheist books by Hitchens Dawkins Harris and the others, if I were to make a list of the values ​​that atheists hold most dear, I would list values ​​like the idea of ​​individual dissent, the notion of personal identity. dignity the idea of ​​equality equality Dignity of men and women an antipathy to oppression inequality and slavery the idea of ​​compassion as a social virtue Now the interesting thing is that if you look closely at this list you realize that these values ​​entered the world because to Christianity, how do we know that, partly by looking outside of Western civilization, where we see that these things that we take for granted, there is a tsunami that devastates a part of a place in Africa, all the Western nations, that is, the nations Christians rush to help? no one else seems to realize that there is something unique going on that is internal to our civilization, now you could say, well, Western civilization is not only based on Christianity, it is based on Athens, so we can say the reason classical, and also in Jerusalem, which is Judaism and Christianity and, however, If you look at the world of Athens, that is to say Greece and then pre-Christian Rome, you discover that they were civilizations based on slavery, there were civilizations where women were treated very badly, there were civilizations where human life did not count.

It is notorious that the Spartans left the weak child on the hillside to see if he was still alive in the morning and the great philosophers of Greece and Rome saw these incidents with equanimity, they did not think it was a big deal, it is only Christianity that these things that hadn't been controversial for a long time become controversial for the first time in Sam Harris' book, he tries to blame slavery on Christianity, but the reality is that if you look at history, slavery was a universal institution practiced in all known cultures. the Greeks and Romans had it the Chinese had it there was slavery in ancient India The American Indians had slavery long before Columbus arrived, so it was Christianity that mobilized the first movement in the world to oppose slavery , first the Quakers and then the evangelical Christians took the initiative. theological idea that we are all equal in the eyes of God an idea that by the way for some centuries was seen as a merely spiritual truth and was given a political application if we are all created equal in the eyes of God no man has the right to govern to another man without his consent this idea became the moral engine of the anti-slavery movement in both Europe and the United States and the concept is not only the moral root of the fight against slavery but also the basis of democracy which is the premise of In representative democracy no man has the right to govern another without consent and I want to turn for a moment to science because one of the cries of modern

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is the supposed incompatibility between Christianity and science and the incompatibility becomes puzzling from the start because if you list the leading scientists of the West in the last 500 years, you will find that the vast majority of them were not only theists but specifically and devoutly Christians.

This was true for Galileo Copernicus, Kepler, Bry Priestly Lavoisier. Through gasandi mersen Mendel, some of these guys were monks like Mendel, gossandi and mursan were priests, so immediately you have a conundrum: we have literary theorist Christopher Hitchens and biology student Sam Harris raising a supposed conflict that wasn't evident to the great scientists of the West, stretching from Kepler to Newton. Perhaps I want to point out something else about this, although these scientists were not only Christians, not only did they see their work as a revelation of divine work in the universe, but I want to argue that modern science itself is based on three Christian assumptions that are in the root metaphysical assumption number one the universe as a whole is rational the universe embodies rationality now if you think about it that's strange it's pretty easy to say that my friend bill is rational or Christopher Hitchens is partially rational it's another thing to say that matter and objects and planets embody a certain type of ration now they follow rational principle number two the universe obeys laws that are understandable in the language of mathematics again if you think about it that is very strange if I am driving my car I can follow laws I see a stop sign I stop oh it matters obey laws how does the electron know what to do if we look at matter it behaves incredibly well follows the laws of Newton's inverse square law obeys Einstein's laws The point I'm trying to get at here is that This is a metaphysical proposition.

A third. Law exists in nature. It is reflected in what happens inside our minds. We can apprehend and understand the laws. It's very strange, why should they? What happens inside our head matches what happens in the universe now, if you are a believer you know why God is believed to be omniscient i.e. super rational, he built the universe to embody rationality. God is a giver of laws and the universe reflects. Its laws we are made in the image of God, we have a spark of the Divine, so it is not surprising for theists to have this Arrangement, but for atheists they cannot take any of it for granted, this is a science based on faith , a final point.

We hear a lot about how Christianity has been terrible for the world, the truth is that if you look at the casualties of Christianity, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Salem Witch Trials, I read a book about the Salem Witch Trials, I had been educated to believe. The Salem Witch Trials had killed thousands or at least hundreds of people. I discovered that in the Salem Witch Trials the number of people executed was actually 18. The Inquisition, if you read Henry Caimán's book, the most authoritative study on the Spanish Inquisition. The Inquisition for more than 300 years killed 2,000 people.

Now try comparing that to the crimes inflicted by godless regimes, not 500 years ago or a thousand years ago, but within our lifetime, if we look just at the big three: Stalin's Russia, Mao's China, the Nazi regime in Germany. In the space of five decades we have had more than one hundred million victims, so

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and not religion is responsible for the mass murders in History. I want to finish by saying that I think Christianity has done a lot for the world; the world would be a lot worse if I didn't have it I think even Christopher Hitchens at the end of today should be singing if only quietly thank God for Christianity well now uh Mr.

Chung ladies and gentlemen Palm read friends brothers sisters I would be self-sacrificing and Christian if I Cut my own time is limited for giving compliments, so I will not agree to say that Dinesh is one of the most formidable debaters I have ever met on any subject and that he has the great added advantage of actually believing in this. Things you wouldn't do, you try, you go all over the country, you ask a Calvinist, does he really believe in Calvin's theory for destiny Oscar? Roman Catholic, do you really believe in the virgin birth? You get all kinds of Life of Brian evasions from them.

It's really metaphorical, no, Dinesh thinks this is very helpful and then I want to thank the alarmingly polite and healthy faculty and staff at Kingston. Now you are asking me to prove that Christianity is the problem and I will try to do so, but for now, all you need to think about, I think I need to say, is that it is a problem or part of the problem, since what we know is vague plagiarism of Judaism and, along with Judaism, one of the other two religions plagiarized in In turn, that has given us all the blessings of Islam, so it is part of a man-made religiosity that is marketed under the name of monotheism and the problem that all three have in common is that of faith, in other words, a man-made faith.

Religion can actually fulfill a promise of salvation not only in this life and the next. The initial notice was careful to say that certain social improvements can be attributed to Christianity. He did not claim that it was a salvation in this life for the next. It's just that if some of your followers have occasionally taken liberal positions, well, I think you'll find that you have a higher standard of proof in front of an audience like this, that's the first belief that faith entails and the second, the belief that Faith is itself a virtue that transcends reason and quite conveniently dispenses with the need for evidence.

Now my proposal is direct and direct: what we consider our morality and our ethics comes from human solidarity and is prior to all forms of monotheism, do not let it be said in you are listening, ladies and gentlemen, any of you who have any self-respect, although we know that the story is fiction of the Exodus and the wandering and the encounter at Sinai, we know that it is actually a metaphor, but taking it as truth. that my mother's ancestors wandered all that time under the belief that perjury, murder and theft were okay only to eventually stumble upon my Mount Sinai and receive the news that it was not kosher, after all, we have We have to have more respect for ourselves than that. the human society that had believed those things would not have gotten this far.

I think it's pretty safe to say that Christianity, in other words, is masochistic and partly sadistic, it attacks us in our deepest integrity, it says that you and I would know nothing. right action would not be able to derive it or a right thought a right thought without the permission of a Heavenly dictatorship that protects us while we sleep that can condemn us for a thought crime that supervises every moment of our wakefulness that is in fact the origin of the totalitarianism in the obeisances that it demands of us and that will continue to judge us, persecute us and supervise us even after we have died, this is my opinion, in addition to being completely false, completely falsified by fearful human beings, it is something that is How lucky we don't have proof of how horrible it would be if we were condemned to live in this posture of permanent gratitude towards an unalterable dictatorship in whose installation we had had no say and let me add that the worst thing would be if that dictatorship were benign, that would be what would make it unbearable.

Some of us reject it and do so for what we confidently say are moral reasons, as well as the rationale that history is a fairy tale invented by fallible and opportunistic human beings. Because? Otherwise, I would say in the time I have left that Christianity is, in addition to being false and immoral, well, it offers something horrible. Indirect redemption, they tell you that by applauding a human sacrifice, a particularly cruel and disgusting one that took place before you were born to fulfill a prophecy in which you had no say uh condemns you to punishment and sin if you do not accept it or if you accept it offers you the opportunity that your own sins can be forgiven well, everything is wrong in this image first, since with the original proposition of the idea of ​​a deity, it requires of you obligatory love and obligatory fear, you have to love simultaneously someone, you are told to love them and be afraid for them at the same time, there is no way to teach them.

Morality secondly, they don't tell you that you could have a second chance, but rather that your debts can be paid. I can pay your debts if I care enough about you. I could serve your sentence in prison if I wanted, but I can't forgive. sin I cannot absolve you of responsibility for what you have already done I cannot wash you white as snow and the desire to be washed that way and be free of responsibility is in itself any morality that must be rejected by anyone who has I will repeat the term with self-respect, so Vicarious Redemption through human sacrifice is an immoral preaching with very immoral implications, as is obligatory love coupled with obligatory fear, the idea that the laws ofnature can be suspended. in your favor if you make the right propitiations it is a lie Dinesh points out what a light is Einstein says how wonderful the wonderful thing about the universe is that its laws are never suspended they are never suspended they operate according to a beauty a logic and a symmetry that we still do not understand At all, we are beginning to understand them better.

Dinesh points this out to you quite intelligently. What does Christianity say? Ah, those laws can be suspended and in your favor too if you do the right prayers and propitiations. and sacrifices there can be a virgin can conceive a corpse can walk again your leprosy can be cured the blind can see nonsense it is not moral to lie to children it is not moral to lie to the ignorant to educated people to tell them that if they only do it they will believe nonsense can be saved it is immoral the totalitarian concept of life after death the idea of ​​the Horrible idea does not even occur in the New Testament, sorry, it does not occur even in the books of the Jewish Bible full of violent rape and genocide, there is no punishment for the dead when God has destroyed your tribe and has murdered your virgins and your children before you and your flocks and herds have been scattered and so on and you too fall before a bronze sword uh, he has finished you, the Earth can close in on you, that's all.

Entangled with the wrong tribe, the one he favored, not until you are told to the gentle Jesus, Meek and Gentle, that if you do not make the right propitiations, you may depart into eternal fire, one of the most evil ideas ever preached and that has ruined the lives and peace of mind of many children, preached by vicious, child-hating old men in the name of this appalling cult that we have gathered here to discuss tonight. I don't need two minutes to end this religion, but thank you um, I have a moral challenge at this point, answer me this if you believe that morality comes from the supernatural and we require permission from the heavenly dictatorship for it, name me a moral action committed by a believer or a moral statement or an ethical statement answered by someone that might not be made or uttered by an unbeliever.

I have asked this in several places and forums. Now I'm going to continue asking. I haven't had a response yet. If you asked anyone in this room, how could they do it? name an evil action performed or a vile statement made by someone attributable only to their religious faith there is not a single person here who would have to hesitate for a second to find out what that was and tell you why it is incompatible with knowledge and science just because of this reason we calculate that the human species Homo sapiens has existed now Carl Sagan thought that perhaps 200,000 years I would say one hundred thousand no more no less to believe the Christian message you have to believe this during those hundred thousand years the people who were born generally died many of In childbirth, either the mother or the child with a life expectancy of perhaps 20 years, 25 died from microorganisms that they did not know existed.

Genesis does not mention them because the people who write Genesis do not know that there are microorganisms. The earthquakes would have been terrifying. Tsunamis. Volcanoes. Mysterious events. War and famine superimposed on this. You can all complete this image by yourself. I am sure that this was how our life was for tens of thousands of years and so it continued perhaps a gradual upward curve of type A, it seems that we have made some progress in a very painful way and with infinite suffering and work and with our solidarities intact now this is what you have to believe, you have to believe that heaven observed that for 98,000 years and after 98,000 Two thousand years ago we decided that maybe it was time to intervene and the best way to do it would be to perform a filthy human sacrifice in a very remote part of Palestine and the news of this has not yet reached the rest of the world and I don't believe that they believe it when they believe it and I don't believe it and a thinking person cannot believe it thank you thank you something like the mosquito and the nudist colony I'm trying to decide where to start um What I want to start with um, I want to start, if I may, by eliminating a kind of pose because usually when you debate The Atheist, the pose is I'm a man of evidence looking for the data.

I'm following the evidence where it lies. The latest takeaway now is that if you listen to Christopher Hitchens, he didn't offer even the slightest proof for anything he said, he assumed, he assumed, he summarized that God doesn't exist, he assumed that Christians made it all up, he assumed let's take one of its apparently firmest presumptions scientific laws are inviolable I said before that this was an article of faith and there is no scientific law of which we can say that there are no exceptions let's take one of the most fundamental principles of science, the voyages of the light. in a vacuum at a speed of 300,000 kilometers per second, how do we know that we have measured it once twice ten times a million times?

Philosopher David Hume says that even if you measure it 50 million times you can't draw a general without restrictions. conclusion of any amount of empirical evidence and why how do we know that in a distant star 5 million light years away light travels at that speed? Do we know that we don't know? We suppose that we assume that science is based on those kinds of assumptions, so it is the skeptic David Hume, who destroyed this idea that scientific laws do not admit exceptions and if scientific laws do admit the possibility of exceptions, miracles are possible. Now let's look at Christopher's portrayal of Christianity, which is the heart of the case he's not fundamentally about, I think.

The evidence is fundamentally somewhere. I think Christopher called himself, not an atheist, an antitheist and I think what he meant by this is that I don't think I hate God, I hate Christianity and I hate its founder Jesus Christ, why now? If you look at history, even as a believer, here is Christ, one of the kindest men to ever set a face on earth, he has harmed no one, introduced radical new principles that, if followed, would make our world immeasurably better. , do not return an eye for an eye. forgive your enemies turn the other cheek as a counsel of personal decency and holiness the power of forgiveness these are the radical new ideas introduced by Christ Christopher sees them as evil ideas even though they have done much to make our world what it is is a sadomasochist, he says, well, if you look at it purely from human terms, here's a guy who was brutally killed, but if you accept the Christian premise that God said his son should not only be killed but also resurrected, the resurrection is the core of Christianity. not the crucifixion, so it's not something sadomasochistic, it's something triumphant and here I want to get to the core of all this.

I want to read a quote, if I may, from Christopher and it's something he said this afternoon, he says that It would be horrible if it were true that we were designed and then created and then continually monitored throughout our lives, when we are awake and asleep, It would be like living in Heavenly North Korea here. I think we get insight into not just the motive and insight into not just the motive. the reason for atheism but also in the nature of God himself and this is what I mean, the way atheists portrayed God is badly throwing the atheist into hell, we hear Christopher Hitchens who does not want God, he is excluding himself of God, he does not want He does not want heaven, he sees it as a kind of basement, a form of humiliation, a kind of endless parade with flowers in which he will distribute garlands, he does not want it, in short, the gates of hell are closed. inside when the Bible says that salvation is a gift from God many people think that it means that God gives you the gift of Salvation no, that's not what it says it doesn't say that salvation is the gift of God it says that salvation is God's gift God is the gift and there is no obligation, we are free to accept or reject it, if we reject it it is by our own choice and God gives us our desire reluctantly.

There is nothing to say about masochism in the sense that there is only free choice. to reject God thank you thank you well a slight low blow to start with you Nash I must say you didn't use it you're trying to prove the existence of God either um I think and I think you needed more time than I would if that's what we were here for debate, um, I imagine it was a common thing between us and this audience that it is not possible to decide these matters finally, that no one has ever produced a completely satisfactory ontological proof of God nor a refutation that is completely satisfactory however the burden surely it's a little heavier for those who say I know there is a God and I'm not just a deist I'm a theist I know what he wants I actually know who his son is I actually have sort of personal terms with the guy in ways that aren't obvious for you, that requires a slightly higher standard of proof and to say you didn't get to that point, dear, I'm sorry, that's saying the minimum is fine now why be militant.

They asked me why you care after all if this is all nonsense why do I exercise about it. I'll give you an example right away. There is a religion that some of you would have. I have heard that it has 12 imams, 12 holy men who serve God, one God and the only God. One of these imams has disappeared, but is expected to return imminently when he will bring a reign of universal peace and justice. I don't know if any of them. You paid attention to what I said earlier about Islamic plagiarism of Christianity, but Shia Islam is essentially a parody of the Catholic faith.

Now the people who believe in this. You said unicorn. I would say the Tooth Fairy or Sinister Santa Claus. You propose to acquire it. Thermonuclear weapons by illegal means today and deploy them not only against Jews and Christians but also against atheists, secularists, homosexuals, rapists, adulterers. I think I've only been caught three times so far, um, in this, um, and to achieve that happy thing that all religions secretly want and celebrate the aesthetic end of days all religions have this common deformity they want this to end they think that what we are going through is just a prelude our life is a poor and despicable thing brings the moment when we will find the ultimate truth and be able to rest in the arms of the savior or in some promise from Heaven like the thought that was offered to us this afternoon I said that I think it's a despicable offer and it would be despicable if there was any basis to believe it was real.

I'm not going to bow down in case you think I'm the thing about atheists and secular atrocities, but I'll save that for our next segment because it'll take me just a fraction more time and I would like to do it. in such a way that it pins Dinesh down a little further on the mat, um, those who are argued on this moral point that those who repudiate God will have no basis for making their own moral decisions or expressing their own ethical conclusions that without this, without this anchoring and uh belief and general protection, we would just be in a world of nihilistic chaos choosing here this and hearing that option for ourselves without um no Anchoring of decency without balance of Ethics well just consider if you want because all of you will have I've heard that argument many times, as well as tonight, consider if you will what the corollary of this is if you look at it from the other side.

Is there anything that is forbidden for anyone who says they have God on their side who says they have God? With them, is there any evil that they are prohibited from doing? There is some slavery or rape or dispossession that they have not committed. Is it not the case that I will simply take the Other case of the Shia Muslims whose claim to have a God and to be the mouthpiece of morality is as valid as that of any other religion. From what I can see, it is forbidden in her religion to execute a virgin, whatever crimes she commits. that she has committed in Iran she cannot be executed as a virgin, but if she is sentenced to the death penalty instead of a Virgin, she can be raped by the Islamic revolutionary guards and then executed because she is no longer a virgin, a piece of sadistic ingenuity that does not would have disgraced uh chalkamada nor the practitioners of the Inquisition and would only prove it, wouldn't it not only in the name of religion, but rather, I would say more honestly, precisely because of the faith and certainty it gives of a Divine endorsement that things are okay? fact and done all the time and threats that no decent secularist nor any convinced atheist humanist could count on us for even a second and of course atheism is no guarantee that an atheist can be a nihilist can be a sadist can be a fascist can be communist These are the sufficient and non-necessary conditions I am talking about, but I hope that at least to some extent in your minds, ladies and gentlemen, you have broken the connection between religion and ethics as demagogically stated.

Thank you, yes, now we will move forward. to 15 minutes of cross-examination with Dinesh getting the first question and the Debaters coming and going now, if you have a question you would like to ask The Debaters, in about 10 minutes you can start lining up there and the First, the first three questions go to the King students and then we'll let the general background begin. Dinesh, your question for Christopher, could you name anyscientific law of which you have some knowledge that there are no exceptions? No, I couldn't, I mean. thank you. I made a difference in the session.

I said that Einstein says that the laws of nature are not suspended. That is very different and you chose to attack a position that I had not adopted and you yourself had said that there is an observable obedience to law. I quote it, but my point is that it was an article of faith, but it was not a proven proposition. Einstein knew this and that is why Einstein was a theist. Einstein believed that God represented a great mind that held these laws in this way. You are completely wrong twice. The northeast of Einstein Einstein was very explicit.

No, in this he was a deist, he said he was a believer in the god of spinners, the god who does not intervene in human affairs, who does not answer prayers, who does not take sides in human choirs, who it makes no judgments about human behavior well, this is possible to achieve and you should have achieved it Christopher you are a bit there is a difference between deism and spinozaism but we will come back to that I want to move on to something else you asked, how can we reasonably think that God exists? Let me ask you this question.

Scientists who begin to observe the universe ask themselves why the universe has the rules that it has, why the universe operates according to the particular dials and parameters that it has, what if those parameters were a little different. and the scientists who observe that said that if you change these parameters even? in a verifiable infinite amount if the gravitational force was slightly different or the strong nuclear force or the weak electro force we wouldn't have this universe we wouldn't have life we ​​wouldn't be here having this debate now what's your explanation for how we live in In such a finely tuned universe, would seem to suggest a fine tuner or designer.

Darwinism is hopeless here because it fails to account for the universe only for transitions between life, so what is your rational theory for why we live in a fine-tuned universe? Well, there is a good reason why no one comes to me to discuss physics, but I have to take it, but I am not talking about the question just for your notebooks, ladies and gentlemen, there is a book by Professor Victor Stenger on this topic, do they have to try? with this also in his book he makes the bold claim that science actually denies the case for the existence of God, well Stenger says that the laws of physics emerge from nothing, you agree with that, beyond than I would have gone.

I'm saying that I simply recommend that you read it, but an abyss of tautology opens at the feet of all those who defend this argument. Richard Dawkins once told me that he thought it was the most interesting argument he had ever heard or encountered so far. of the

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that we have all had with the faithful and it is because there is something extraordinary in it, of course, it also attracts us. Was there anything that told us: you know you may not have been here but you are, that must be something majestic? obviously attractive to us, it is sometimes known as an anthropocentric look at the look at consequences.

I would look at an example in our suburb of this argument where we live in a small solar system at the very edge of the known universe with the Sun which within a time will become a red dwarf will become extinct having boiled us alive on the only planet of its kind. solar system that can support, or I believe has ever supported, something like the life of the other planets more than two or all of them, I should say, are too hot or too cold. This is right in our neighborhood, on our life-sustaining block, and that also applies to a major threat to our beloved planet that we know of.

Whatever argument we take on this, I would say take it into account and I would add quite a bit of design and quite a bit of designer. Well, you asked that question, yeah, well, actually, I'll give up on my question if you do it again. Ask me your question about atheists, uh, tyrannies and massacres, and I won't take long. I would be willing to ask you those questions if you let me, if you let it happen in a cross-examination, otherwise, I ask you a question and you take away all the time, but no, that's why I was asking you, that's what I was asking you, if that condition would seem fair, I mean, I must answer the question, would you have asked me in one of you?

We'll leave it first, let me. Do it this way, how about I put the ball in your court, you ask me the questions about this topic and we can go back and forth there, okay, okay, on this issue then of atheists and secular dictates? Just to mention, has it ever occurred to you that the original totalitarian movement of the 20th century, the one that actually invented the term totalitarianism, popularized the claim to influence the movement of Mussolini, Franco Salazar, the Ustasha in Croatia, Father Tizo in Slovakia, will you see where I am? Going along with this now is basically just another term for the Catholic right.

There is nothing secular about fascism. If it had existed, the Vatican would not have signed treaties and agreements with all the movements and governments that fascism created. I do not think that it's necessary. To waste much more time when there is a large literature on the matter, the church continues to apologize for this and for its engagements with similar political movements and governments in Latin America after the Second World War, after the main battle against nationalism was over. in the German version. from this is not the same it is quite clear that he disliked Christianity although he never repudiated his Catholicism he praised the church in Minecart he asked that his birthday be celebrated, which was every year in all the Catholic churches in Germany by order of the vatic um, it is my turn in light of this and seeing the fact that not a single person knew Coach Paul Johnson, a Catholic historian.

I believe his prayers for his work, up to 50 of both NSS were confessing Catholics, none of whom were threatened with excommunication for their activities, the only Nazi I know who was excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church was Joseph Goebels and you want to know where was that. Do you want to guess that he married a Protestant and Magda Goebels was a Protestant? The church said, excuse me, yes we have. our standards, okay, this is not the generation of secularism, it's quite disingenuous to say that and that's fine, and there's actually an insinuation that I reject and it's quite disingenuous to say that these are the results of secular universities.

Thank you when I first came to the United States. If you say it's supposed to be a question, you realize that in one statement Christopher Hitchens focused on one issue, Hitler and the Nazis, leaving intact, in fact, unmentioned, the scourges of communism, he not only endured, wait , don't jump, it's my This time this is the atheist conception of justice, we fully embrace the Public Square and expel all religions. I need about two minutes to answer you, not only did he not mention Stalin, not only did he not mention Mao, he did mention Paul pot ciao. cesco Fidel Castro Kim Jong-il now Richard Dawkins and The God Delusion says well, there is a big difference: Christians did what they did in the name of religion but atheists are not committing their crimes in the name of atheism now, this is what What happens when you let a biology student out of the lab because there's a guy here who doesn't know anything about history, I wouldn't accuse you of that, Christopher, but all you have to do is read the notes, all you have to do is to become familiar with communism.

It was an explicitly atheistic ideology that sought to create a new man and a new utopia freed from the chains of traditional religion and morality. It was no coincidence that the Marxists said that they always targeted the churches, always killed the clergy and priests, etc. Now, the case of Hitler is very interesting. You should read Richard Evans' multi-volume history of the Third Reich. At first, Hitler thought he could make some friends among the Lutherans and Catholics, so he invented something called positive Christianity, which was basically Nazi Christianity. He praised Christ basically because he said that Christ was the only one who was alert to the dangers posed by the Jews but you only have to read the book to realize that Hitler hated Christianity he hired people around him who were all atheists, his goal explicit at the time he came to power was to destroy the church, which was seen as doing what put a bit of a moral brake on the horrible plans of Nazism, so ultimately it is not Christians, Christians , they are ultimately responsible in some ultimate sense, whether they are atheists or not, and that is why atheists.

The regimes killed more people in one week than the Inquisition could kill in three centuries and why because of the maxim of Dostoevsky and the Karamazov brothers if God is not everything is permitted look at all the things you didn't mention, that I just Now I can, by the way, I can prove it to anyone and I'm a little sorry to have to point out to you, because you have the proof in your hands, that there is a whole chapter of my book on this subject that deals with Stalin and the rest of them and you know that It is true if the audience this is not a question I am going to speak to the country that is why I have insisted on addressing it would not be so?

I appeal to the fairness of the audience is that I don't What I've been doing for the last 15 minutes, so don't accuse me of running for an issue I'm trying to deal with now: take Russia in 1917. What I think you want me to do Isn't it the case that for centuries, hundreds and hundreds of years, millions and millions of Russians have been told that the head of state is something more than human, that he is not entirely Divine, but a little more that human, the head of the Church, the Tsar, the middle father of his people, and that from him come all blessings um and under this benign Christian government certain publication and circulation of the protocols of the Elders of Zion the original fabrication from antisemitism many other similar delights are born um William Joseph began you inherit this situation you are not you should not be in the business of dictatorship.

I present it, wouldn't you agree? If you can't tap into a huge reservoir of credulity and civility like that, it's already done for you, you can say well, let's do a heresy hunt, Andy, there it will be. They are heretics, it's okay, they have a show trial, an acquisition, they can say that we have miracles, we will affirm that we are responsible. The biology of miracles produces 10 reports that produce new miracle harvests. We will say that all blessings must be attributed to my benign government. Everyone should thank me all the time and fear the permanent working of the evil one against the happy state we are trying to agree on.

This is a very recognizable similar background of the relationship between Christian orthodoxy, certain feudalism and anti-Semitism. Now I will accept your challenge. To NASA you point out to me a society that has degenerated into famine disease paranoia torture Nas murder because it has followed the precepts of Lucretius and Epicurus and Democritus and the spirit and Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein if you can do that if you can point me to how Associated heard and you fail to do so, then we will have a loving level playing field, then you will know damn well that we don't have one and you are trying to make it less personal, let me, if I can.

At the same time, to answer here, we see the way that there is a kind of measurement inequality. Among atheist writers we find an attempt to blame religion not only for its own crimes but also for the crimes of atheism. Sam Harris in his book The End of Faith says the following: he is trying to show that suicide bombing is entirely religious, but he knows that the inventors of suicide bombing in the modern form of the Tamil Tigers, who fight for land and for self-determination, says This, while the Tamil Tigers' motivations are not explicitly religious, they are Hindus who undoubtedly believe in many improbable things about the nature of life and death.

The cult of martyr worship that they have cultivated for decades has many of the characteristics of religiosity that one would expect. in people who give their lives for a cause, so the Tamil Tigers see themselves as a secular competition and a political struggle, but Sam Harris detects a religious motive because these guys are Hindus and surely there is some underlying religious madness that explains what they are doing now. Turn to Christopher Hitchens. I want to read if I can align myself with Daniel Dennett in his book Breaking the Spell. He says this. He says it is true that religious fanatics are rarely, if ever, guided by the best and deepest principles of those religions.

The terrorism of Al Qaeda and Hamas remains the responsibility of Islam and the bombing of an abortion clinic remains the responsibility of Christianity. This is what he is saying. If bad guys do bad things in the name of an ideology, the ideology can't shake them off and say those guys were just perversions. We have to take responsibility and what I want to say here is that Christopher Hitchens will not take responsibility as an atheist for crimes committed in the name of atheism; he is doing backflips to blame Christians for them, so theChristianity has a lot to answer for.

We would not need repentance if that were not the case, but Christians should not have to answer for Mao, Stalin and Hitler, for explicitly dedicated people who, if they could, would destroy Christianity and wipe it off the face of the Earth, as they apparently do. Cristobal would do. Hedges Mr. Hitchens, you mentioned that having simultaneous love and fear for someone is no place to teach morals now. I don't know about your upbringing, but how do you propose we teach any self-respecting child, say, two-year-old morals? -old people or we should wait until they have developed a good sense of self-respect to learn morals for themselves.

I've actually seen materials that go through some of these dilemmas, in fact, it's an incredibly vivid memory, um, it's not pleasant. Think that your children must be evil or innately evil, but there is a point where reason comes in. It's just a little less, a little later than two. You can't terrorize them into doing it. Sometimes you can bribe them to do it by calling them Santa. Claus knows what they are doing, it has an almost magical effect, but even when you do something like that you feel a little cheap; In other words, this is going to be a problem for us, whether we are people of faith or not.

It is true that in childhood all learning is based on piety and by that I mean that even if you taught someone the law of gravity as a child, you would teach it to them so that they would receive it by faith, then they would subject it to scrutiny. critical. I'm not going to disagree with you that the observable laws of gravity, so why do you say they are not repudiated by any responsible parent? But maybe I don't know if any of you have realized this, but you seem to consider it a Reveal um reveal the role of religion to treat us like we're babies, that was my objection at the first place boom I didn't say yes we were babies I said when we are babies look I think there is a deeper point here atheists have hoped that as countries become more modern and the more technological religion disappears, they realized that it is not going to happen and that is why they have decided focus on schools and that is why common themes are found in Dawkins' book, Harris' book, Hitchens' book, why do parents have the right to instill religious values ​​in young people? schools and that's it, you can say it in an atheistic way or at least it is considered that schools deprogram the religious beliefs that parents instill in children.

I think there is little concern in a free society about the desire to separate children from the moral training of their parents and turn it into Let's turn to experts like Dawkins and Hitchens, who I think can see that they are not simply following the evidence as far as it goes. ends, but they have a certain visceral aversion. They have an agenda no less fierce than that of any Christian parent. This is a question for Mr. D'Souza. is a statement you made earlier that the laws of nature reflect what happens in our heads. I'd love to hear you explain it a little more.

The point I was making is this when I said earlier that the laws of nature The universe is legal, we just have to go to other cultures to see how strange it is. Muslim writer Al-Ghazali says: How can the universe be available? How can matter obey laws? He says that the universe is a reflection in the mind of Allah. Everything happens because Allah. He intervenes every nanosecond to make it happen and that is not the belief of Christianity now. If you imagine that in our heads there are atoms, molecules and neurons firing, I ask you what logical necessity exists for the functioning of these neurons here. coincides with the laws of the universe why should there be a correspondence between the two again as a theist I have an answer as an atheist he has an assumption and in fact he has been hanging on that assumption a lot tonight uh the reason why Mir I'm not defending this or that Miracle, but I am simply saying that we have a very limited understanding of how we defended any Miracle.

In fact, I'm sorry you haven't defended any Miracles. Well, in my opinion. book, as you know, I defend one, the resurrection, I lay out the evidence for it and you know a lot, a lot, historically, but that was my point that there is a strange correspondence here that is ultimately based on faith and The only difference ultimately with the atheist is that it is based on evidence while denying the metaphysical ground on which it is based. It is not that true metaphysical drama is a bit strong. It is a pure invention. It is not science. If you see something, it is apparently an evolutionary suspension. of the laws of nature, okay?

Let's say the sun stands still so Joshua can win his battle, well, the resurrection of Jairus's daughter or even my favorite miracle, the turning of water into wine at Cana, a tribute, a tribute to the Hellenistic influences that still lingered. in Palestine at that time, um. you still have to ask yourself which is more likely that the laws of physics or nature have been suspended by the way in my favor or that I am under a misunderstanding, everyone has to ask themselves that question, that is, if they saw it themselves, if Take it as a report issued and filtered through dozens of other non-eyewitnesses and corrupt texts over the years, then you would think that anyone who says they think of the Resurrection as a historical fact is announcing a willingness to believe in absolutely anything. stuff.

I have another question, this question is for Mr. Christopher Christopher Hitchens, you have said in past

debates

and I am referring to the debate between you and Doug Wilson, that morality has simply evolved and I say simply because I think we would all agree with Christian and Atheists alike, so morality has evolved anthropologically speaking, um, but I want to know if it's just evolved, why can't I transcend the current state of evolved morality? What standard, what standard can you appeal to? Well, look, evolved morality is because we are evolved species. Because of our Evolution, the humble hallmark of which, as Darwin so beautifully puts it, we have the fact that we are primates, the indisputable fact that our prefrontal nerves are a little too small, our adrenal gland, there is evidence that they are still evolving, which is what I'm saying.

Think, honey, you may have to be patient. It won't make it in time for Tomtank Crater, but it's coming and our adrenaline glands are too big, they produce more drones than we need and there are other kinds of problems with our whole size and nature some people like to call This original sin, it is true that we have some design defects built in Asia, there will be no supernatural solution for this and neither can it be supernaturally ordered to disappear, as Phil Greville says. You can't make people sick and then order them to get well and that's what religion does and because it makes impossible demands on people and insists that they believe in possible things and obey laws that can't actually be followed. which I accused of totalitarianism whose essence is the combination of authority with capris the evolution of support although a powerful theory in many aspects does not explain three things does not explain the origin of life that is presumed does not explain For the origin of Consciousness, for which Stephen Pinker says there is no explanation, he does not take into account Morality.

Now evolutionists have gone to great lengths to do so and see morality as a form of selfishness extended if a mother gets into a car. to save a child is because they share the same genes that account for about one percent of morality, but what about morality that has no genetic benefit? I get up to offer a seed to an old woman on a bus. I don't do it because tomorrow I hope to get her seat or she will do the same for me. I give blood, even Richard Dawkins says there is no evolutionary explanation for that.

Give me freedom or give me death. The man who helped the good Samaritan when we do altruism or what. Christianity calls agape charity without hope of return. There is no evolutionary explanation now. I want to suggest that this points us to a much deeper truth and that is that it is true that we are animals in the sense that we also like animals. and just like non-living beings obey the laws of nature, but I want to suggest that the very fact that we have a morality that depends on free will means that there is a dimension of us that exists, one can say that transcends the laws of nature. nature.

Here's why. a stone has no option to roll down the hill it cannot say stop it just follows the law on the other hand in small and big decisions I have a choice here is a pen I have the freedom to choose to drop it or No, if I drop it it will follow the laws exactly of gravity, but my decision to let it fall is purely a free choice not determined by the laws of physics. I can go in any direction and all moral choice is outside that nature. All our vocabulary of Thou shalt not. and don't do this and you shouldn't have done that would have to be eliminated if it was just an extension where you wouldn't have to teach anyone right and wrong, it would be genetically programmed into them, so the idea that we are already morality by evolution, it's nonsense, morality ultimately has to be instilled, next question, please, yes, well, I guess I'm sorry for your permission, which demands a small correction first, just take the Good Samaritan, since Jesus of Nazareth already knew him.

Assuming he ever existed, uh, the Samara man, his good behavior cannot be attributed to Christian teaching, can it be by definition? And if you remember, all the people who behaved worst in that story were priests, Levites, and other devotees, so it seems. He seems to have acquired his idea of ​​solid human energy without divine or religious permission. Anyone here who isn't a surfer can say it for themselves, but were you taught? Were you taught that it could be good to donate blood? Did they instill this in you? I can say with certainty that it was not in me when he was a socialist.

He was one of the things he was most proud of. I was going to donate blood because we were proud of the fact that the British National Health Service never had to buy any there was always enough there was always enough people who would give a pint because why don't I tell you why but they wouldn't give one I give a point I don't lose it, I regenerate it quite quickly, but someone understands something in that gesture that attracts me. I've done something good for someone and it hasn't cost me any sacrifice and I don't have to act like I've just done something incredibly virtuous and self-sufficient. sacrificial and papyrus and then yes, in fact, I have a very rare blood group and one day I will need some blood and I have enough, other people are also thinking about me in their own way, what is supernatural or heavenly permission. necessary for this I ask and I will answer creates a mystery where it does not exist.

I will answer in many cultures people don't donate blood in many cultures this idea that you should give a part of yourself for a guy you don't even know is a totally Indian proverb that says that the tears of strangers are just water. The point I'm trying to get at is that it seems to me that on a personal level you're right, maybe no one had to tell you: you donate blood, you donate blood. donate blood what you are missing is the fact that here you are the atheist Christopher Hitchens educated and raised in a Christian culture the culture of Christian Europe where this idea of ​​compassion that did not exist in the world before Aristotle was despised Aristotle praised the magnanimity The superior man wins the inferior man but not compassion in the sense of feeling for the other, it was Christ who invented that and brought it to the world.

Now you are a parasite because you are acting out those virtues but you refuse to pay. debt or even acknowledge the Christian source of them, that seems a little historically ungrateful to me, let's move on, yeah, um, Dr. Hudson, I come from no trouble, um, before Christianity came, Tonga, Fiji, um, They have men for dinner and in Tonga, it was a disaster. The question is, let's say they didn't come to the Pacific, which one is yours? What do you have to offer us as atheists? What do you have to offer us? Well, that's how it was, I should ventralize the question.

I'm not sure everyone has heard it, the gentleman is. The island of Tonga, which is in the Pacific, used to be a possession of the British crown. I don't know if he still is. I'm sure that's how the Christians got there, anyway, thanks to British imperialism and he says before the Christians got there. um, people dined freely with each other with this thing in Fiji, yeah, um, I've heard, I've heard the stories, um, it's common, you know, it's often seemed like a tremendous problem to me, why was Redemption never sent to this island, why did he do it?

Go on, reminds me of the question I just closed in my original statement 98,000 years of human existence in heaven watches with indifference what we hope to believe 2,000 years ago intervened through a human sacrifice in which we also participated and that everyone must believe and that is salvation and no, no, this is not offered to the Chinese, who at that stage can read and write, can build ships, can haveLibraries and gunpowder can spread an idea, no, no, it is needed. Many thousands of years before, in a very strange way, it arrived in China. There are parts of Borneo where people still practice cannibalism where this message has not yet spread.

Now this is not a problem for me because I consider it as a human thing. fact is not a problem for me this is my answer because I consider it man made the answer for you should be at least accuse humanism or secularism of defending cannibalism, which is not the case, how come this design is Revelation? This Redemption is based on faith and I must remind you before that my identification of the problem was precisely the preference for faith over every reason and evidence of why it does not seem to work why every time you ask why there is so much suffering misery ignorance backwardness and barbarism Why doesn't this question have an answer in the terms in which it is formulated?

It has just been formulated for Tonga and Fiji. I think Crystal was missing the force of the argument here, that it is not simply that Christians have been negligent in asking this question. Universal message but when Christianity reached the rest of the world it brought new values ​​to those cultures. Once I told my grandfather how it is that we are part of a small Christian minority in India and he said two words: the Portuguese Inquisition means that some Very zealous missionaries possibly accompanied with some bayonets came to India and Christianized the Indians. I want to say two things about this, however, although that may have happened at the beginning, in a very short time he found a large number of Indians running to Christianity and why.

As I look into this issue as I grew up, I discovered that in the Indian caste system you have predictions with The Untouchables at the bottom and if you are born and you are Untouchable, you are done for, there is nowhere to go, you can't. To get out of this, many of the people of the Untouchable class were very attracted to Christianity because they saw it as an affirmation of the idea of ​​spiritual equality between people, which did not translate immediately or after a long time into complete political or social equality, but it meant something to say to someone you're nothing you're not a dog you're a human being and that alone counts for a lot of what I'm trying to say and I think what the gentleman here was trying to say is that most of the world didn't have it in Western civilization or Christianity brought it now it imported some of Judaism, but Judaism was for the tribe that God instructs his chosen people.

Christianity takes the idea and universalizes it. If you look at the rights set out in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, you notice something very interesting. These rights are universal rights. Not practically all of these rights are the specific Legacy of Christianity. It is good that they are universalized because Christianity wanted to universalize them from the beginning, but they are not shared rights recognized in all cultures and practices, whether religious or non-religious in others. cultures, so I think we're seeing people here who have experienced it. I don't care about those inquisitors who came a long time ago.

I'm kind of grateful to them, although my ancestors probably wouldn't. I have shared my enthusiasm, but I was brought into the orbit of Christianity and Western civilization and the fact that I have the values ​​that I have, the beliefs that I have, the respect for the dignity, the equality of women, etc., is entirely the legacy of Christianity as it emerged. as it was exported, I am sorry to say that Christopher was not by the British but by the Portuguese, the British could have done a better job, the next question please, the thing is just a small thing, if you claim it, if you claim it for one, you have to Claim it for everything, it seems to me, that means that you accept that yes, Hamas does a lot of good with Social Services, yes, Louis Farrakhan gets black kids off drugs, yes, the Mormons must have been right when they said they were black. people didn't have souls like they did until the 1970s, that everything attributable to religion must be attributable to it, you can't just pick the parts you like, the abolition of cannibalism is one thing Muslims say I'm optimistic about child sacrifice, but think about the things they also brought and tell me if this doesn't show what I've been arguing all along: that it is a man-made institution, not divinely appointed, and that you get exactly the kind of coincidences that you would expect from them the world looks like it would if God didn't exist next question please um my question is for Mr Hitchings um I'm sorry you still understand them but movement Evolution and change are hallmarks of human history if the religion poisons everything As you say, why haven't we gotten rid of it and moved on?

Consider that there are two reasons why I will be quick: Religion caters to our egocentrism, our sense of self-importance, as well as our masochistic tendencies. I'll say what I mean by your religion teaches us that we are originally sinners that we are sinners in the hands of an angry God the Koran says we are made of a clot of blood the Bible says that from dust we were born evil we are evil huh we should scatter , we should humble ourselves, we should be glad that someone cares to take care of us, be grateful, I think this is a disgusting attitude, but you won't do it.

I think you don't recognize that it is a very accurate image of the priest, but worm. As you are, take heart, the universe is designed with you in mind and God has a plan for you and you will learn, so to this terrible self-abasement is added terrible arrogance and therefore you get the phenomenon of people like Mother Teresa He says running to your side and pushing you off the pavement saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry, get out of my way, don't mind me, I'm only here and for God and they call this modesty, that's why it attracts and the second reason why women appeals is I don't know why this is because I don't see what there is to fear in it you're not going to know when you're dead you're not going to know so there's nothing to fear but people are afraid of death and the central lie of every religion is that there is a cure for this and an exception will be made in your own case, an eternal life if you make the right propitiations and the right objections.

Ok, I'm sorry. I think lying to people is the height of immorality, that's what survives, that's why it survives, let me answer if you'll allow me. Religion poisons everything Christopher is known for. Literary style. I think what we saw here today when he first came to the United States. I lived in Arizona, I went to a rodeo and I remember we have a point here, a point there and a bunch of bulls in between. This is what I mean by that, right? It is a case of rhetorical and argumentative excess. I mean, did religion poison Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Michelangelo, Raphael or Bach?

Were they corrupted by religion? No, his work is in some way an exhibition of a transcendent reflection as we see in art. Even secular people should be able to appreciate that and recognize that that is the special legacy of our civilization built partly in Greece but also equally or largely in Jerusalem. Now look, we're getting closer to the core of what this debate is about. It's about this idea that religion is a form of wish fulfillment. Christopher didn't think about that. Sigmund Freud said it. Mark put it another way. Religion is the opium of the people.

We can't face life. We cannot face death. so we make things up now. I don't want to give a religious rebuttal to that which would look like this. I can totally understand why in a world of wish fulfillment we would invent heaven. Heaven is cool and if I wanted to get away from my diabetes or the fact of death I could say I would like to live in heaven, I don't think I would have made that up. Hell is more severe than diabetes, it is a little more difficult than that, so why does religion arise? With the rules of self-denial and others that make our life more difficult, more sacrificial, we would make it easier.

We would start by taking out that commandment against adultery. If we invented everything, now one for the final point, the idea of ​​religion as the fulfillment of desires does not make any sense. evolutionary at all, a point raised by atheist Stephen Pinker, he says it makes no evolutionary sense to invent things that threaten your own survival imagine this I am a rabbit I am being chased by a lion I have to decide whether to run I decide not to run why there is another life waiting for me even better than this one what would be the fate of such a rabbit would be devoured immediately the rabbits that dedicated themselves to fulfilling wishes would not survive that is the The point is that you need a better theory.

It's nine o'clock and normally we would move on to the final statements of our two debaters, but the two in front told me that they would waive those final statements to allow for one or two more questions, so let's have one more, Mr. Hitchens, um, you began your keynote speech by denouncing the very concept of faith or belief in the absence of solid, solid evidence to support it, um, there was an American psychologist named William James who was a great believer in faith, um, and He insisted that the wonderful contribution of Christianity was to enable us to take acts of faith that the laws of science or even mere common sense would consider completely untenable. um, it's different than a man of faith.

Can a completely rational mind have the courage to, for example, take a leap of faith? with a total stranger who could leave for friendship or maybe even with a terrible enemy, in the hope that it will eventually lead to peace, faith with a uh, leaving faith, which I attribute to God, not to what throughout his religious experience. what is necessary to cross a gap where no evidence exists. I am aware that some of the evidence may be to the contrary. The problem with that, although I can see the will behind it, is that it can't be done.

Do it just once and find yourself on the other side. Faith helped me cross this chasm. Now I'm safe. You have to keep doing it. You have to keep going to church sometimes several times a week to make sure you are right to believe. in the first place and it becomes morbid, ritualistic and irrational and you are where you started on the wrong side of the castle, otherwise we will have this discussion if Christianity had an answer to any of this or any other. religion, whether in Christopher's book, he presents the argument. I think I've seen him quoted as saying this too, that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence, you don't see evidence of something, don't believe it.

I would suggest that in the empirical sense domain in the world of human experience, that is a valid principle, it even applies to miracles, if someone came to me and told me that my leg grew a meter last week, I would say let's bring to the doctor with the measuring stick, let's see if it really happened. They are in the domain of verification however the non-sequencer here is the following there are many questions that are vital to our life because it would affect the way we live that are not in the empirical domain let's say I would ask you if there is life after death Shakespeare says that death is the undiscovered country no one who has gone there has ever returned and it is certainly not naturally, so here is the question: how would you subject that proposition to testing what possible evidence you are looking for when it is not empirical? domain Christopher says to automatically reject it out of hand since there is no evidence, but there is no evidence in a domain where evidence is not available, so I would suggest that here we have dogmatic atheism which, because it doesn't know, refuses to believe now if you ask me if I know, I would say no at this point.

Don't know. Neither does the believer share agnosticism with the atheist, but the difference is that the believer says, although I don't know, I believe, remember that the statement of belief is not a statement of knowledge I know my brother I wouldn't say that I believe in my brother I know the guy the reason I say I believe is because I don't know so what I'm saying is why is it somehow more irrational for me to take a position on one side of an issue and then him to take the other side of the issue on which there is no empirical evidence on either side.

I would say it's a leap of faith for both of us, the only difference is that I am jumping towards God he is jumping against him yes last question please thank you both uh my question is for Christopher um I heard you say in several debates that I have seen online that you do not deny the existence of either the Transcendent or the numinous that is language you use, yes and I was thinking, given your obvious antipathy towards religious beliefs and superstition, I think a lot of people come to religion and come to religious beliefs after having had some kind of peak experience, whether it be a Transcendent experience or a numinous experience, so my question is: how would you advise someone or what kind of recommendation would you make to someone who has that kind of experience but you don't want to interpret that in a, let's say, religious sense because I think that many people will turn to religion because they are deeply disoriented after havinghad some kind of transcendent experience.

Well, what do I say? I am very touched that you noted that the Transcendent and the Numinous would not do it. Trusting that someone didn't have time should be distinguished from the supernatural that, for example, I'm about to forget his last name Francis is his first name, he's the Collins of the Human Genome Project. I know he says that one day he was hiking. I think it was in the Pacific Northwest and there was a frozen waterfall that had three streams for us, it was a frozen Trinity if you will and at that time she says he knelt down and accepted Jesus Christ now I'll just have to say from someone that it worked enormously was that and I think I heard it correctly that to me that is a wild non-sequitur like people who talk like that can be a deformity in me I think it's white noise White noise um and I don't think I'm missing anything because I'm as fond of Verdi's music as I was when I thought he was a Christian, I assumed he was when I found out he wasn't and many other great famous musicians and painters who really turn out in their devotional efforts not to have gone astray and that's why I don't think they going to take a bit of my response to respond to Dinesh right now on this point of whether it is whether these things apply to both of us no it doesn't when I say I think it's a meaningless statement I'm not making a meaningless statement with me same anyone can say they understood what I said about Francis Collins comment uh by Likewise, I had a debate on the Hugh Hewitt show and Christian, very impartial, very intelligent, put me in touch with his favorite Presbyterian, he said that this is the man you have to beat and I said, okay, we did it, one of the questions.

I asked him about the resurrection, do you agree with the verses in Matthew that say that at the time of the crucifixion all the cemeteries in Jerusalem were opened and the dead came out and walked and greeted their old friends, etc.? I was going to ask him. Him because if you do it seems to me that you degrade the idea of ​​the Resurrection if it was so common, that's where I was going with that, but he thought I was asking him if it was literally true or not and he said, well, as a Christian, yes, absolutely I believe it.

Believe it, but I'm not so sure. I believe it as a historian. I'll just have to say that to me that nonsensical comment is a statement of faith and what I just said about the nonsensical nature of him, the nonsensical character of him, is not in itself a nonsensical statement. serap because it is intelligible to everyone present, that should weigh somewhat in this argument. Thank you, I don't know what Francis Collins was referring to, but I can tell you a little bit about what Kepler was referring to, I think when you look at nature. You notice that there is enormous intelligence embodied in nature and I think this is for the person who thinks about it a deep mystery.

Kepler was measuring the movements of the planets and all the theologians told him that the planet should move in circles and Kepler He realized that was not the case, but said, "I bet you, based on faith, that there is a divine plan for the emotions of the planets." the planets that are much more ingenious mathematically symmetrical and beautiful than anything you have thought of so far and when he revealed Kepler's laws he said: I found it. This is, if you like, God's plan for the universe. There is a deeper point we are getting at here. Earlier Christopher said what Christianity does that is different why an atheist can't do the same.

He has written a book denouncing Mother Teresa. um someone irreverently called the missionary position. I want to tell you that I want to tell you that it was very brief. I want to tell you a very brief story about this and then try to say why someone like Mother Teresa might be the subject of so much ridicule. Mother Teresa was in Calcutta apparently hugging a leper, at which point an Indian passing by said to her: I would do it. I won't do that for all the money in the world, she replied that I wouldn't do it either.

I'm doing it for Christ's sake, please, and the point I'm trying to get at here is that yes, I can see him struggling for a moment. and first, before I turn it over to you, I want to give you an explanation of why he is insisting that religion makes moral demands of us and Christianity asks us to step outside of ourselves and consider the other person's well-being first. ultimately a bit annoying, irritating and difficult doctrine, even Augustine's parade, make them persecute me, oh Lord, but not yet, the Christian feels this too. The atheist I want to suggest is irritated by the moral rules of Christianity, that is the concentration camp he is talking about.

Ultimately, he realizes that a life lived in accordance with the Ten Commandments is the life in which we are responsible. We all live in a world where the bad guys sometimes take the money, where the good guys fail. It's not fair what happens. It doesn't happen, but religion says that at the end of the day, what happens, happens, there is a final judgment, there is a final responsibility. I would suggest that, as human beings, it irritates us that we hate the idea that our actions are ultimately responsible. that even the things we do in private and in the dark are under scrutiny and being recorded.

Atheism is a massive rebellion against that, but it is disguised as advancing along the strict paths of reason. It is not an intellectual revolt. It is a moral revolt. We could? We've been at this for over 90 minutes and now, unfortunately, it's time to cut it short. First, the notes before the conclusion. If you have information cards for King's College or love notes for Christopher or Dinesh, please hand them to an usher. Secondly, I'm leaving. Dinesh here will sign copies of his new book. And third, thank you all for coming and please join me in thanking our two debaters.