What Best Explains Reality: Theism or Atheism? (Frank Turek vs. Christopher Hitchens)

Filmed at The College of New Jersey, Frank Turek and Christopher Hitchens meet again in their second debate to give their arguments for what best explains reality. The title is “What Best Explains Reality: Atheism or Theism?” Recorded at the College of New Jersey! Read comments in the CrossExamined blog here http://www.crossexamined.org/blog/?p=117. If you’d like to order a DVD of this debate, click http://bit.ly/ihYBZa).

what is reality what best explains

reality my name’s James Taylor and I’m

delighted to be here I’m especially

delighted to see such a large crowd for

what’s going to be a highly invigorating

debate my role of the moderator is

simple it’s to make sure that four

debater runs smoothly and keeps the time

and also to break up any fights that

might occur over between the speakers or

within the audience or possibly to

instigate them the debate is going to

proceed as follows both speakers will

have an opening statement of 20 minutes

each beginning with dr. Tourette each

speaker will then have ten minutes to

rebut their opponent the speakers will

then have within themselves a

question-and-answer session which will

last for 10 minutes each speaker will

give the other two questions and they

will answer directly and without

deviating from the questions the floor

will then be open to be audience for 40

minutes and for closing will we occur

when the speaker’s give closing

statements of five minutes each address

to the audience and I would like to

introduce our first speaker tonight

dr. Tourette thank

[Applause]

Thank You Christopher and I debated

number of months ago at Virginia

Commonwealth University how many

attended that debate over somewhere else

at the time

just want to see if you’re all listening

you’re going to have to listen a lot

over the next couple hours because I am

going to try and summarize the first 200

pages of this book in the next 20

minutes and that will require me to

speak at about 20 pages a minute but I

can probably do it because I’m

originally from New Jersey I grew up in

Neptune anyone here from the shore hey

forget about it unbelievable anyway it’s

I’m gonna go as fast as I possibly can I

speak at 150 words a minute with gusts

to 350 so I’m going to move really

quickly if you can’t keep up no problem

the book is available and I want to

point out that all the proceeds from the

sale the book will go to feed needy

children mine all right just so you know

I got three kids two of them are in

college so I need some help now I’d like

to thank of course

Kendall Ackerman of the Protestant Bible

fellowship and canvass around areas

right down here I’d also like to thank

Michael Tracy of the secular Student

Association where are you Michael

right down here and of course the

college of new jersey and especially

Christopher Christopher is on the road a

lot so I appreciate the opportunity to

get together again and discuss this this

incredibly important issue now the the

debate tonight is is this what best

explains reality atheism or theism now

we’re both trying to explain the world

around us so we both have the burden of

proof to try and say why our worldview

is the correct worldview I have to show

why reality is best explained by theism

and Christopher has to show why reality

is best explained by atheism now I think

we ought to follow the evidence where it

leads wherever that is and I think the

evidence leads us to a spaceless

timeless immaterial powerful moral

personal intelligent creator but I want

to give you some evidence for that and

in fact I’m going to rely on the law of

causality to do it and the evidence I’m

going to go through is basically six

arguments and I’ve come up with an

acronym to help us remember this

evidence I know it’s

hokey but it’ll keep me on track and

keep you on track the acronym is cosmos

cosmos cos mos the Greek word for world

or universe the C stands for the cosmos

itself sometimes known as the

cosmological argument that’s the

argument that the universe had a

beginning and therefore it needs a

beginner so we’ll start there and we’ll

start with Stephen Hawking who’s not a

believer but he said this almost

everyone now believes that the universe

and time itself had a beginning at the

Big Bang Alexander Vilenkin who is a

Russian cosmologists who work with Alan

Guth at MIT on inflationary theory put

it this way he called it proof he said

with the proof now in place cosmologists

can no longer hide behind the

possibility of a past eternal universe

there is now no escape they have to face

the problem of a cosmic beginning why

would he say problem because some

physicists don’t like where the evidence

is leading now Christopher even admits

that the Big Bang is the accepted theory

of the origin of universe on his book or

in his book page 65 this is what he says

now what is this evidence that the

universe had a beginning again I’ll give

you one more acronym and this is it this

is the acronym inside to see it’s Serge

su are GE and this is all in Chapter

three of I don’t have enough faith to be

an atheist and I’m just going to go over

it very quickly and let me stop right

here and say one thing Christopher I

have debated before and I I read some of

the comments that people make about the

debate and people will say well Turek

didn’t answer this objection or Hitchens

didn’t answer that objection we only

have 20 minutes we can’t cover the

waterfront so I’m not going to be able

to get to everything but let me just go

through this acronym very quickly search

S stands for second law of

thermodynamics the universe is running

out of energy if it was eternal it would

have run out of energy a long time ago

the U stands for the fact that the

universe is expanding discovered by

Edwin Hubble in 1929 working at the

Mount Wilson Observatory out in

California the deduction of that is is

that the universe if we could watch it

in Reverse would collapse back to a

point of noting the are in surd stands

for the radiation afterglow discovered

just about 30 miles from here by two

scientists by the name of Penzias and

Wilson in fact right over here in

Holmdel

New Jersey where I used to run all my

cross-country races Robert Wilson and

Arno Penzias in 1965 discovered the

remnant heat from the initial Big Bang

explosion as was predicted by Hubble and

his contemporaries they won a Nobel

Prize for Physics in this in 1978 the G

in surd stands for the great galaxies

seeds discovered by the Coby space

satellite in 1992 those great galaxy

seeds are basically temperature

variations in the radiation afterglow

that are so precise they’re down to one

part in 100,000 and the II insert stands

for Einstein’s theory of general

relativity Einstein’s theory of general

relativity shows that space matter and

time came into existence together once

there was no space once there was no

matter once there was no time and it all

lept into existence out of absolutely

nothing now Einstein’s theory has been

proven accurate to five decimal points

now what are the implications of this

first of all what is nothing I think we

ought to define that I think Aristotle

had a good definition of nothing nothing

is what rocks dream about that’s what he

said that’s nothing there was no space

no matter no time nothing spatial

nothing temporal nothing physical what

are the implications of this agnostic

astronomer Robert Jastrow who until

February of last year sat in the same

chair Edwin Hubble sat in in nineteen

and our that Hubble sat in back in the

20s until last year that’s where Jastrow

was he died unfortunately at the age of

82 last February but he sat in that seat

that Hubble did here’s what Jasper has

said in his book God and the astronomers

remember he’s an agnostic

he said the astronomical evidence leads

us to a biblical view of the origin of

the world the essential element in the

astronomical and biblical accounts of

Genesis is the same Arno Penzias the guy

from Holmdel who discovered the

radiation afterglow Co discovered it

said this the best data we have

concerning the Big Bang are exactly what

I would have predicted had I had nothing

to go on

but the five books of Moses the Psalms

and the Bible as a whole

Robert Wilson also working at Holmdel

with Penzias and discovering the

radiation afterglow said this and he was

a believer in the steady state theory

before this in other words that the

universe was eternal he had to give that

up

after his discovery he

said this certainly there was something

that set it off I can’t think of a

better theory of the origin of the

universe to match Genesis George Smoot

the co-discoverer of the great galaxy

seeds said this there is no doubt that a

parallel exists between the Big Bang is

an event in the Christian notion of

creation from nothing now we’re left

with a beginner or a beginning anyway

and we’ve got two choices either no one

created something out of nothing or

someone created something out of nothing

now which view is more reasonable no one

created something out of nothing or

someone created something out of nothing

for me I don’t think nothing can come

from nothing I mean even Julie Andrews

knew that she said nothing comes from

nothing right you’ve got to have a cause

to get something you can ask who made to

someone and if you want to ask who made

god we can do that during the qat

but it seems like someone created

something out of nothing now by the way

this is not a god of the gaps argument

why because natural law couldn’t have

created the universe because natural law

was created at the Big Bang there was no

nature there was no natural law in

effect it must be a supernatural cause

because all of the natural realm hadn’t

yet hadn’t yet been created and

supernatural simply means beyond the

natural

this led Robert Jastrow again the

agnostic astronomer to say this that

there are what I or anyone would call

supernatural forces at work is now I

think a scientifically proven fact

echoing something that Arthur Eddington

said many years ago when he said we run

into insuperable difficulties unless

frankly we look at the supernatural for

the beginning of the universe in fact

jestro ended his entire book this way

this is worth the price of the book

after going through much of the search

evidence I just mentioned jestro said

this for the scientist who has lived by

his faith in the power of reason the

story ends like a bad dream

he has scaled the mounds of ignorance

he’s about to conquer the highest peak

as he pulls himself over the final rock

he’s greeted by a band of theologians

who’ve been sitting there for centuries

no doubt reading Genesis 1:1 the best

explanation for the beginning of the

universe is in the beginning God created

the heavens and the earth

that’s the see a lot more in the book on

it we got to move on

the O and the O in cosmos stands for

order this is sometimes called the

teleological argument for design not

only did the universe explode into being

out of nothing it did so with extreme

precision in other words the Big Bang

was not a chaotic explosion how

incredibly precise was it atheist

Stephen Weinberg put it this way he said

life as we know it would be impossible

if any one of several physical

quantities had slightly different values

there are dozens of these quantities one

of them is Stephen Hawking identified

was this he said that if the universe or

if the expansion rate of the universe

changed by one part in a hundred

thousand million million a second after

the Big Bang we wouldn’t be here the

universe would not have expanded or it

would have collapsed back on itself or

it never would have created galaxies

that’s how precisely designed the Big

Bang event was not only was the Big Bang

event precisely designed so are many

constants about our universe right now

if you change the gravitational force by

one part in 10 to the 40 we wouldn’t be

here

what’s one part in 10 to the 40

illustration take a tape measure stretch

it from that back wall to the front wall

in inches if you set gravity at a

particular inch mark on that tape

measure and move the strength of gravity

one inch in either direction

proportionally we go out of existence

but the problem is is the tape measure

doesn’t go from that wall to this front

wall it goes across the entire known

universe you change gravity that much in

the entire known universe we don’t exist

for you Navy people out here I went to I

was in the Navy for many years think of

an aircraft carrier if you take an

aircraft carrier like the John Stennis

or the Ronald Reagan which displaces

110,000 tons has a runway on it that’s

about three lengths of a football field

has five to six thousand people on it

several stories high if you were to

change the weight of that aircraft

carrier by less than a trillionth the

weight of an electron it would be

uninhabitable

if the aircraft carrier was the universe

that’s how incredibly designed the

universe is Arno Penzias again said

astronomy leads us to unique event a

universe which was created out of

nothing one with the very delicate

balance needed to provide exactly the

right conditions required to permit life

and one which has an underlying one

might say super natural plan Frank

Tipler in 1986 wrote a book called the

anthropic cosmological print a principle

with John Barrow it’s the classic work

on the fact that the universe is

precisely tweaked to support life here’s

what Tipler has since said when I began

my career as a cosmologists some 20

years ago I was a convinced atheist I

never in my wildest dreams imagined that

one day I would be writing a book

purporting to show that the central

claims of the judeo-christian theology

are in fact true that these claims are

straightforward deductions from the laws

of physics as we now understand them I

have been forced into these conclusions

by the inexorable logic of my own

special branch of physics

now some people we may even get into

Darwinism later like Darwinism saves

atheism Darwinism does not save atheism

at all because you need a universe

before you can ever get to life and it

shows here and then you need life the

universe needs a designer the universe

itself not just life so that’s the oh

let’s move on to the S which is another

branch of the cosmological attea logical

argument the S stands for specified

complexity in everyday English specified

complexity is information let me give

you an example let’s say you’re walking

along the beach say down here in Belmar

where I was today had a nice run on the

beach today on a boardwalk in Belmar

let’s say you’re walking along the beach

in the summer and you look down as

you’re walking along the beach and you

see in the beach someone has scrawled

Bennie’s go home now some of you don’t

know what Benny’s are but Benny’s are

basically tourists are you going to say

that the waves came up and put that

message in there or that the crabs came

up and said I’m tired all these tourists

stepping on me I’m gonna put a message

there for them to go home

no you’d say somebody some intelligent

being put that in there or then you put

your head back on the pill or back on

your towel and you look up and you see

in the clouds drink Coke what do you

assume unusual cloud formation

do you go win coming from the north

today you go oh I got its cloud

evolution no you say there had to be a

skywriter up there why because messages

only come from minds we know of no

natural law that can create a message

messages only come from minds now let’s

move into life a simple so called simple

one-celled creature has a thousand

complete sets of Encyclopedia Brittanica

worth of information in it a thousand

let’s say a thousand volumes of

Encyclopedia Britannica in it in terms

of its DNA DNA that much information in

it now to believe that that resulted by

natural forces without intelligent

intervention is like believing that the

Library of Congress resulted from an

explosion in a printing shop I don’t

have enough faith to believe that you

have to have more faith to believe that

that happened that way than to say that

somebody put intelligence into it

in fact this is not an analogy by the

way the analogy between two one

correspondence the only difference is

DNA is a four-letter genetic alphabet

English as a 26 letter genetic alphabet

but alphabet Bill Gates said DNA is like

a software program only much more

complex than anything we’ve ever devised

and in fact the sequence of letters in

DNA is not determined by chemistry its

information it has nothing to do with

the four natural forces in fact just

like the letters in this book we’re not

put together by the laws of ink ink and

paper the letters in DNA don’t appear to

be the result of anything other than

intelligence intelligence put this

together not natural law Anthony flew

who was an atheist one of the more

famous atheists until he became a deist

or a theist recently because of this

evidence put it this way it is

impossible for evolution to account for

the fact that one single cell can carry

more data than all the volumes of the

Encyclopedia Britannica put together it

now seems to me that the findings of

more than 50 years of DNA research have

provided the material

for a new and enormous flea powerful

argument to design sir fred hoyle also

an atheist said this the likelihood of

the spontaneous formation of life from

inanimate matter is one in a number that

has 40,000 zeroes following it

if the beginnings of life were not

random they must therefore have been the

product of purposeful intelligence he

went on to say this a common sense

interpretation of the facts suggests

that a super intellect is monkeyed with

physics as well as chemistry and biology

and that there are no blind forces worth

speaking about in nature again this is

not a god of the gaps argument why it’s

not just that we lack a natural law for

Bennie’s go home or we lack a natural

law for a book like this it’s that a

book like this is positive empirically

verifiable evidence for an intelligent

being

because messages only come from minds

the EM in cosmos stands for the moral

argument if just one thing is morally

wrong out there like for example it’s

wrong to kill Jews or it’s wrong to

torture babies for fun or it’s wrong to

participate in a religious crusade then

there has to be a God why because if

there is no God it’s just your opinion

against say Hitler’s opinion it’s just

your opinion against bin Laden’s opinion

we until all intuitively understand that

certain things are objectively right and

objectively wrong as Dostoyevsky said he

said if there is no God everything is

permitted in a novel he wrote in fact

even Richard Dawkins admits on page 232

of his book The God Delusion he says

there are no objective morals without

God but we all intuitively know that

certain things really are objectively

wrong it’s not just my opinion that

torturing babies for fun is wrong it

really is wrong now I got to be very

careful here because Christopher may say

that I’m saying he can’t be moral I’m

not saying that I’m not saying atheist

can’t be moral I’m not saying atheists

don’t know morality they know morality

just like anybody else I’m not saying

anything about the behavior of atheists

or religious people

I’m only saying that an atheist can’t

justify why a certain thing is

objectively right or a certain thing is

objectively wrong

a theistic materialism can’t provide a

moral standard molecules have no

authority to tell you what to do they

don’t I mean if we’re just overgrown

germs with no ultimate purpose why not

kill or rape to get what you want why

not it seems to me that atheism has no

way to deal with the subjection CS Lewis

was an atheist at one point and he

thought evil disproved God until he

realized that evil actually pointed to

God because he voted too good and you

wouldn’t know good unless you knew God

in fact here’s what Lewis said as an

atheist my argument against God was that

the universe seemed so cruel and unjust

but how would I got this idea of just

and unjust a man does not call a line

crooked unless he has some idea of a

straight line what was I in comparing

this universe with when I called it on

just bottom line since objective moral

values exist God exists

the own cosmos how am i doing dr. Taylor

cleve minutes all right I’m going up to

500 words a minute now the O in cosmos

cosmos stands for objectivity

objectivity particularly in the laws of

logic mathematics and even science in

fact this debate and any debate

presupposes that there is an objective

standard of truth out there that our

minds can access and understand

Christopher says he’s closer to that

objective standard and I’m saying no I’m

closer to that objective standard if

there’s no objective standard out there

what are we doing up here but a moding

but it doesn’t seem to me like there can

be an objective standard of truth an

immaterial standard in an atheistic

worldview because we’re just molecules

in motion in fact how do the laws of

logic and reason itself exist if we are

just molecules in motion there are

immaterial realities out there that we

all know and we all understand

Christopher tries to make an argument a

logical argument against God well where

does he get logic from if we’re just

molecules in motion if atheism is true

you have no grounds to believe it or

anything else

our thoughts are just chemical reactions

in the brain in fact macro revolution

doesn’t help either because macro

revolution does not yield truth that

yields survivability

a fact Dawkins points this out he says

basically that there’s a gene or there’s

something going on chemically in us that

makes more people believe in God and you

know what when more people believe in

God they tend to survive better of

course

Dawkins thinks that believing in God is

false so here’s evolution trying to show

people that they ought to believe in God

or that somehow gets them to believe in

God but the belief in God according to

him is false

evolution yields survivability not truth

so if evolution is true you ought not

believe it even Darwin recognized this

it’s called Darwin’s doubt he said with

me the horrid doubt always arises

whether the convictions of man’s mind

which have been developed from the mind

of lower animals or of any value or at

all trustworthy why should you believe

in Darwinism if Darwinism is true your

mind is just the result of lower animals

also the laws of mathematics science

depends on the notion that the universe

is rational and mathematical at all

levels that every effect has a cause but

how does rationality and mathematics

arise from randomness how do they come

from matter doesn’t seem to me there’s

an atheistic answer to this rationality

mathematics and science itself are

better explained by theism than atheism

the only reason we can do science is

because there’s an orderly world out

there or who ordered the world finally

the s in cosmos stands for a solitary

life I don’t have time to present the

evidence for the historicity the New

Testament documents in the resurrection

Forex perhaps we can get to that during

the QA or Christopher and I can debate

that in a future point maybe we can as I

say hint on it during the Q&A or get to

a little bit of it but I want to leave

you to consider something about Jesus

called the solitary life I’ll just end

on this it was written about 90 years

ago he was born in obscure village the

child of a peasant he grew up in another

village where he worked in a carpenter

shop until he was 30 then for three

years he was an itinerant preacher he

never wrote a book he never held an

office he never had a family or owned a

home he never let an army he never

traveled 200 miles from the place where

he was born he did none of the things

that usually accomplish greatness he had

no credentials but himself he was only

33

when the tide of public opinion turned

against him his friends ran away one of

them denied him he was turned over to

his enemies and went through the mockery

of a trial he was nailed to a cross

between two thieves while he was dying

his executioner’s gambled for his

garments the only property he had on

earth and when he was dead he was laid

in a borrowed grave through the pity of

a friend 20 centuries have come and gone

and today he is the central figure of

the human race all the armies that ever

marched all the navies that ever sailed

all the parliaments that ever sat all

the kings that ever reign put together

have not effected Humanity on this earth

as much as that one solitary life I need

one minute said okay 48 seconds if there

was no resurrection how could this life

be the most influential life of all time

was it just because a bunch of pious

Jews in Jerusalem inexplicably decided

to chuck judaism and fabricate a

resurrection story so they could fulfill

their dream of getting beaten tortured

and killed I don’t see why they would do

that I think it takes more faith to

believe that then to believe he actually

rose from the dead now you see anything

is more plausible than a miracle the

greatest miracle in the Bible is not the

resurrection the greatest miracle in the

Bible is the first verse in the

beginning God created the heavens in the

earth if that verse is true every other

verse is at least believable I’m sorry

I’m out of time but I did the best I

could

cosmos thank you very much thank you

our second speaker Christopher Hitchens

I have no local boy roots

I am a Navy brat however commander

Hitchens of Portsmouth I I’d like to

assure you ladies and gentlemen brothers

and sisters comrades and friends that

that isn’t the best the Frank can do he

ended with that pious hope he must

indeed hope it isn’t I’ve seen him do

better in his 20 minutes he barely got

his trousers off as a matter of fact

before he had to sit down because he

didn’t get beyond deism I don’t think he

even intended much to get beyond deism

if there was a word a deist it would

describe me probably rather better than

the word the vulgar word atheist does um

I don’t have a special word for saying

why I don’t believe in Santa Claus for

example why don’t believe in the tooth

fairy

or why I don’t believe in astrology I

don’t need a special worth that I assume

with with me you assume that these are

fairy tales man-made fables either for

the frightening or the amusement of

depending on need children I don’t

believe there is a supernatural

dimension and I don’t believe there have

ever been any miracle so I don’t believe

the prayers are answered every of any of

this none of this comes up so far in

this argument I’m not arguing with a

religious person yet at all I’m all

youing with someone who claims to know

more than I do about physics and biology

it’s possible that he does many many

people do but bear in mind that we

cannot say that we know that there was

not a prime mover it cut it’s not within

our compass pitifully ignorant as we are

only scrabbling on the lower slopes of

the study of physics as all of us are

even the best we may not say that we

know there was no prime mover we may not

say that we can say that all the laws

appear to operate without that

assumption it’s very very very rare

indeed to meet a physicist of any

standing for Einstein onwards who is not

at the most a spin assist in other words

someone who might say there could be a

pantheism somewhere there could be a

force but there is no no way you can

take a step from the laws of physics the

observable creation of the cosmos

that leads you to the belief that there

is an intervening personal God who does

answer prayers who does watch over you

who does notice what you’re up to

who does mind what you do who you sleep

with and in what position what you eat

what you eaten on what days of the week

what propitiation Xand sacrifices you

will make what commandments do

themselves there is no possible way no

one’s even tried it of getting from the

laws of physics or biology into any such

idea so from the person who says I’m a

deist I don’t think all of this can be

an accident there must be some cosmic

force I say I can’t just prove it that I

think that cosmos functions without it

but you have all your work sir or ma’am

still ahead of you before you can say

that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person

allegedly under he was the son of God

later learned that his mother was a

virgin let her learn that he was a

resurrection know these things by the

way would prove he was the son of God if

they did happen nor would they prove

that his doctrines were not erroneous a

resurrected person who was the son of a

virgin could still be talking nonsense

there’s no logic that says he must be

right if I’m having an argument with you

sir and you say you lose boychik

I say how come because my mother never

went to bed with another man your logic

is faulty I think my my case could

remain just as strong as ever it was in

default of that I must say rather

bizarre intervention now why do we have

religion in the first place why are we

having this discussion

why does Frank feel the need to talk in

this way because we are pattern-seeking

mammals it’s part of our evolution we

look for patterns

we’re designed to look for them and if

we can’t find a good explanation we’ll

come up with a bad one

rather than none at all most people

would rather have a conspiracy theory

than no theory it’s very observable that

there’s a lot of junk science around

before good science arrives before we

have astronomy we have astrology before

we have chemistry we have alchemy all of

these things are derivatives of religion

because in a very sinister verse of the

Bible that used to upset me when I was

being forced to listen to it as a little

boy it says seek and ye shall find yes

that’s exactly right

seek and you will find

seek for an explanation of volcanic

eruptions when you’re living in a

primitive society and you will think

there probably a visitation from an

angry deity and if you’re told you can

postpone the next eruption by throwing a

few live babies into the lava down the

crater that’s what you’ll do

religion has just started the religion

has just begun why do some people get

the plague and others not because

they’re sinful why where’s the plague

coming from in the first place it’s a

punishment from God and all in early

Christian society the Jews have poisoned

the wells so we’re going to get them

again because we already hate them

because they killed our Redeemer they

committed deicide all of them did all of

them no one’s exempt indeed if you want

to be if you have to be a Christian it’s

an article of their faith that we were

all present at Calvary we all drove in

the nails the Jews particularly said and

we all have to expiate this guilt for a

crime that may or may not have been

committed but if it was was committed

before we were born what is this it’s

not physics okay it’s not biology it’s

not science it’s faith why don’t you fly

under your true flag sir

why don’t you say these things must be

believed as articles of faith don’t try

and derive it from science now I’ve I

can’t improve on the argument that David

Hume comes up with came up with against

the idea of the supernatural against the

idea that that the laws of nature are

occasionally suspended in order to make

people’s faith a little more secure

ambrose bierce in his devil’s dictionary

you may remember says under prayer under

P for prayer prayer a request the laws

of nature be suspended in favor of the

petitioner himself admittedly unworthy

David Hume puts it a little more acidly

than that he says if you see the laws of

nature apparently suspended perhaps of

virgins given birth

perhaps leper has suddenly stopped being

a leper who knows what it might be you

know the sort of thing you have to ask

yourself one of two things well actually

have to ask yourself birth which is the

more probable that the

laws of nature have just been suspended

or that I am under a misapprehension

that’s if you aren’t I witness yourself

to the point if you’re hearing about its

second third fourth and fifth pound you

have to ask this question with redoubled

and trebled and quadrupled force and the

likelihood is which that the laws of

nature were suspended or that somebody

may be garbled maybe a rumor got around

if you make this assumption then nothing

nothing is mysterious about reality

nothing is mysterious at all it would

explain why everyone seems to die and no

one comes back no longer a mystery about

that will explain why some people are

cured of leprosy and other even worse

diseases if they go to the doctor and if

that job has access to certain kinds of

drugs but not if they don’t the great

theologian Lancelot Andrews the Bishop

of firm thoughts which with Canterbury

during the Black Death wondered he said

it seems odd to me there are people who

go to church and pray and they give

their tithes and they do everything that

they’re supposed to do and they lead

godly lives and yet there they seem to

die of the plague just as much as the

sinners do he went to his grave

the archbishop not realizing that he’d

very nearly stumbled on a very good

point after all the discussion before

this evening is what explains reality

better well I think my explanation is

probably so far not the inferior one

I’ve actually watched I’ve seen myself

the fabrication of a religion or of a

religious figure I’ve seen it done

before my very eyes in the case of the

the fraudulent woman that calling

herself Mother Teresa though she

certainly was a virgin and never had any

children and actually named Agnes boo

Joshua

an Albanian crook who worked in Calcutta

who was considered by those who read

only the newspapers as a friend of the

poor that was in fact a friend of an

advocate for poverty she believed

poverty was a gift from God that’s

suffering in noble people she didn’t

believe in this for herself for poverty

because she took several million dollars

from among other people the Duvalier

family in Haiti probably the most cruel

deceivers and oppressors of the poor in

the late 20th century from the Charles

Keating

Savings and Loan

racket in California the circle Savings

& Loan scandal for many many other

depraved rich persons and used the money

to build not a teaching hospital in

Calcutta or a clinic or for the relief

of poverty or hunger or disease or

anything of the sort but to build over

150 convents in her own name to found an

order that would glorify and magnify

herself and that’s where the money went

since then we are asked to believe by

His Holiness the Pope the late Sir the

lately named Ronald formerly named

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger that because

of an intercession by her posthumously

that a woman in Bengal named Monica was

cured of a tumor just by praying and

putting a picture of mother trees around

the swelling in her stomach I can assure

you that’s not how tumors go away ladies

and gentlemen I can also show you the

last thing India needs is to be told

that it’s people when they’re ill should

go to faith healers and shamans and the

enormous number of witch doctors crooks

and charlatans who there are in the

subcontinent many people will die if

they follow this kind of advice and the

doctors in the case have already

testified before anyone else could be

heard from that they understand

perfectly what medicine they gave her

how she responded to treatment how

normal the disorder was how predictable

was the recovery but you’re going to be

told quite soon from Saint Peter’s

Square in Rome that this was a miracle

and it fulfills the conditions for this

terrible woman to be made into a saint I

watched every stage of this I saw it

happen

went Calcutta I’ve tortured interviewed

people who would concerned in the

miracle case I was asked myself by the

Vatican to come and testify against the

ridiculous canonization and

beatification or this woman I know how

religion gets started and it gets

started because we like our illusions

and because the world the realm of

illusion is very very precious to us

but again the matter for this evening is

does deism theism or atheism best

explain reality and once again I don’t

think my explanation fails how am i

doing for time

very good there’s a the this question of

the beginning of things is of course

very important and if you think that it

must have had a beginner as well as a

beginning that it’s not just a design or

apparent design but it must have had a

designer you are only asking for another

question to be asked for ISM this

creator who designed this designer who

fixed up this prime mover who is the

prime mover for that prime mover the

common word for this in logic and some

philosophy courses is it’s an infinite

regression doesn’t really get you

anywhere but as I say it wouldn’t get

you to religion even if you could prove

that there must have been a prime mover

it wouldn’t get you to the worship of

other human beings as if they were

prophets or saviors or Redeemers it

can’t help you get there you have to

believe that as a matter of faith or not

you can’t do it from from physics thus

furthermore I think it almost

insuperable ontological problem involved

here suppose it to be true suppose that

I concede it suppose there must be such

a designer or an individual but

intelligence but something like a person

that does this how could I know it which

person is smarter sufficiently smarter

perhaps I should say smart enough

smarter than me smarter than anyone here

smart when I dare say even the Frank to

know this person and what’s in his mind

I submit that it’s not possible for

another human being to tell you he knows

this to be true anymore that it’s

possible for me to tell you which I

don’t try and do because I’m not

unreasonable in this way that I know it

isn’t true

but don’t you see that there’s all the

difference in the world between my

saying I can’t know it and tranqs saying

well I can’t prove it because he wants

you to believe it’s necessary so that

you will then become Christian and I

said that’s a reap that you simply

cannot make and you said you can’t make

on the basis of evidence I think the

religious would be much better to leave

evidence alone where they judge Excel

and to concentrate on faith where at

least they

claim some kind of monopoly I’m not

terribly impressed either by the

argument that’s advanced so often these

days remember all the Christian

propositions were complete and

absolutely in place the the resurrection

the the healing of excuse me not healing

the the forgiveness of sin all of these

the virgin birth the Fatherhood of God

the Sun hood of Jesus the Adam and Eve

story all of these things were

completely believed and promulgated by

the Christian Church long before there

was any knowledge of the big bang or

revolution so what they’re doing is

essentially a reverse engineering job

okay now we do know these things

most of them established discovered or

published in the teeth of religious

opposition now we know them are that

proves we were right all along

God was even cleverer than we thought

this is just plagiarism it’s just

borrowing from other disciplines to make

it all come right and if we’re going to

talk about beginnings we’d better have a

bit of a word about ends had we not

about the end we know a great deal we

know as Edwin Hubble discovered some

time ago that the universe is expanding

at a very very rapid rate that’s known

as the red light shift effect it was

thought of it was thought by most

physicists that that wouldn’t go on at

the same rate for very long the rate at

which everything was racing away from

itself would diminish the sort of

Newtonian logic would suggest that in

fact it’s been shown very recently by a

brilliant physicist named Lawrence

Krauss that the Hubble rate is actually

increasing things are flying apart much

much faster than we thought very soon in

fact it won’t be possible probably to

see the red light shift or the other

traces of the original Big Bang anymore

the end is really coming on us as an

increasing rate of speed so al-jabbar

something to reverse the question that

keeps being asked with such such a

suggestiveness out of our something a

great deal of nothing is coming so who’s

the creator and designer of that

may I inquire and meantime as any

astronomer can tell you if you look in

the sky at night you can almost with the

without a telescope see the Andromeda

galaxy heading towards us

it’s not very far off in astronomical

time the astronomy the dromeda galaxy is

headed direct collision course with our

own we can we know that’s going to

happen there’s a lot of nothingness

headed our way and that’s if we have

time

that’s if our Sun does not swell up burn

out our oceans boil everything come to

an end in the mean time which is a

certainty to happen at some point

whether the other things happen before

or after or not so whose design exactly

is that how does it come that just in

the tiny suburb of our bit of the cosmos

the little solar system that we inhabit

all of the other planets are either much

too hot or much too cold to support

anything like a life as is true of great

parts of our own planet how is that some

design some designer how is it the 99.9

percent of all the species that have

ever been on earth ever recorded have

gone extinct as we very nearly did

ourselves as a species in the very early

dawning years of our existence in Africa

which is now been mapped very nearly

when our business altogether who

designed that contingency whose plan and

Caprice is this in other words if you’re

if you are to rephrase all these

arguments of science and natural law and

so forth to assume that they work better

with a god you’re just as badly off as

you would be otherwise because the same

laws and the same processes still apply

you just say that they’re set in motion

by a designer in that case he’s

responsible for the extinctions he’s

responsible for the diseases he’s

responsible for the chaos for the dead

planets for the swirling chaos of the of

the other galaxies for the expanding

rate at which nothingness is headed

towards us so this God if he exists must

be one or some or all of the following

tinkering and incompetent very

capricious very wasteful and very cruel

now that is what you get sir if you make

some deity responsible for the natural

order as we observe it which

the topic we were asked to address this

evening and I think I’d be trespassing

on Frank’s time if I watch any further

so I’ll reserve my my remaining points

for rebuttal and I’m very grateful for

your attention thank you

[Music]

now dr. tariq has 10 minutes for

rebuttal

thank you I wish I had an English accent

let me try and go down many things

Christopher said he said I just proved

deism not theism notice the creation of

life is not a deistic concept neither as

a resurrection of Christ a deistic

concept but I might ask Christopher

later if he’s a deus now that would be

good he said he doesn’t believe in

miracles primarily because of David Hume

but I think ument is discredited you

that the evidence for the regular is

always greater than that for the rare so

you ought to always believe in the

regular the problem with the argument is

with that premise of the argument is

that the evidence for the regular isn’t

always greater than that for the rare in

fact if you were here today he would

believe in the Big Bang and that’s a

singular event it hasn’t happened over

and over and over again it’s not the big

bang bang bang bang bang bang bang

theory happened only once he would also

believe in the spontaneous generation of

life if it happened at all it happened

only once it’s not happening over and

over again he would also believe in

macro evolution if that happened it

happened only once in fact the entire

history the earth has only happened once

so to say that the evidence for the

regular is always greater than that for

the rare is not so in fact if you were

consistent he wouldn’t believe in his

own birth because it only happened once

physically there’s two realms of

Sciences empirical science where you can

do something over and over again and

there’s forensic science where you got

evidence and it’s a situation where you

can just look at the evidence and try

and figure out what happened in the past

based upon the resulting evidence it’s

like a criminal investigation

singularities happen all the time and

it’s kind of odd for you to say they

ought not believe in a rare event if it

really happened suppose it did happen

like the Big Bang if it did happen Hume

says you ought not believe in it there’s

something some problem with that

argument also for miracles to get our

attention they by definition have to be

rare they can’t be regular events if

they were regular events we think

they’re a part of the natural phenomenon

so they have to be rare to get our

attention so use argument is about

believability it’s not about actuality

miracles can actually occur and you miss

saying if they actually occur you and I

believe in him that’s a bad argument

also he said you can’t say there was no

prime new prime mover that’s what

Christopher said and that’s what I’m

saying you can’t say there was no prime

over in fact I think there was a prime

mover in fact later on he said who made

god that’s the big problem for theists

it’s not a problem at all

why because since something exists we

obviously exist we’re here then

something must have always existed

because you can’t create yourself there

has to be an eternal uncaused first

cause now we have two possibilities

either the universe is eternal and

doesn’t need a cause and atheists have

believed that for many years they

believe in the steady state theory and

thought the universe was eternal they

had no problem believing in an eternal

universe the second possibility is that

there’s something outside the universe

that is eternal now I’ve given evidence

I know very quickly that the universe

has not always been here it’s not

eternal the Surge evidence 2nd law

universe expanding radiation afterglow

great galaxies Einstein the universe is

not eternal so it must be something

outside the universe that is and that

cause it seems to me must be spaceless

timeless and immaterial why because you

can’t if all space all matter in all

time were created the cause must be

outside of space matter in time this

cause must also be extremely intelligent

why because he created with extreme

precision he must also be personal how

can he be personal because you can’t go

from a state of non-existence to a state

of existence without making a choice an

impersonal force has no ability to make

choices there couldn’t have been like

the star wars used before Luke choice

out there the force has no ability to

make choices only a person can make

choices and once there was nothing

physical spatial or temporal and then

suddenly an entire space-time continuum

was created out of what rocks dream

about out of nothing so someone made a

choice Christopher also said we look for

patterns yes we do look for patterns in

the pattern I’m looking for is specified

complexity that was in the first life

and is in all life since then when you

see Benny’s go home on the beach you

don’t assume the crabs did that you

don’t assume it was made by natural law

you assume there was a mind behind it he

said religion came from or started with

baby sacrifice I know what religions

like while many religions are false I

don’t

agree but to conflate all religions and

put them all together and say therefore

all religious viewpoints are false is

not so Christopher and I agree on 99% of

religions out there that are false I

agree with them I just think there’s one

that is true I’m not saying that every

religion everything they teach is false

I’m saying there are certain things they

teach that are false so we don’t

disagree there he said I ought to stop

giving evidence and just rely on faith

that would make a pretty stupid debate

wouldn’t it I just have faith it’s true

and I’d sit down Christianity does not

say rely on faith Christianity says

always be ready to give an answer for

the hope that you have love the Lord

your God with all your heart soul

strength and mind be ready to demolish

arguments that are counter to God it

says test all things Christianity

Christians don’t get brownie points for

being stupid despite the fact that the

church has not lived up to this we’re

supposed to give evidence secondly

there’s a difference between belief at

and belief in belief I have to believe

that the elevator has a floor in it

before I get in it before I put my trust

in it to hold me up

that’s belief in that I trust it’s going

to hold me up but I have to have

evidence that there’s a floor there

before I’m going to put my foot in there

in the same way I have to have evidence

that God exists before I’m going to put

my trust in him and that’s what I’m

trying to do here I don’t know what the

big spiel was about Mother Teresa I

don’t know what that has to do with

Krista with Christopher’s worldview or

how he’s given any arguments for atheism

he hasn’t given any arguments for his

worldview yet he’s just complaining

about what some religious people have

done complaints about what some

religious people have done does not do

anything to whether or not Christianity

is true in fact Christianity predicts

we’ll be hypocrites that’s why we need a

Savior I am a hypocrite but that doesn’t

mean that Christianity’s false

Christianity is based on a person Jesus

who was perfect I’m not that’s why he

had to come Christie or Christopher also

said how much the how am i doing on time

sir twelve minutes four minutes okay I

was going into a jersey overspeed there

Christopher said I know how religion

starts maybe he does but I think many

times he confuses a person

anecdote with data you don’t just take a

personal anecdote and say this is how

all religions start how do you know that

he said how could I know if God exists

it’s called revelation and everybody in

here has revelation there’s two types of

Revelation there’s natural revelation

and special revelation everybody in here

and everybody out there knows there’s a

creator god from creation because we

know God by His effects and also from

conscience those two things show that

there is a creator and a moral creator

the third revelation is through Christ

and the Bible in my view as I said I

haven’t had enough time to go through

all the data I’ve got several chapters

and I don’t have enough faith to be an

atheist trying to show why I think the

New Testament documents are true but

that would be revelation I don’t see why

if I write Christopher a letter and I

say Christopher this is what I’m

thinking like we did email trying to

arrange this debate he could he could

figure out what my thoughts were I can’t

see why God couldn’t do the same thing

if he wants to write a book or a book of

letters or whatever to try and tell us

what he’s about he can do that not a

problem

he said something about proof I’m

dealing with a probability argument here

am I absolutely sure Christianity is

true no I’m not absolutely sure there’s

very few things you can be absolutely

sure about I’m trying to give a

probability argument based on the

evidence that there is a spaceless

timeless immaterial powerful moral

personal intelligent creator who

ultimately revealed himself in Jesus

Christ about 2,000 years ago now could I

be wrong about that yes I could and

during the Q&A throw some stuff at us

that’s fine but Christopher seems to say

that I just want you to convert to

Christianity well I’d love for you to do

that as if he’s not trying to get you to

convert to atheism what do you think

he’s doing here at this debate he wants

to get you to agree with him and for

many good reasons in many cases that

maybe you ought to give up false

religion but religious beliefs you ought

to I agree with Christopher on that if

they’re false give them up but don’t

throw the baby out with the bathwater a

lot of times there may be things that

you think are faults that really aren’t

Christopher finally talked about the

issue of some design this universe is

heading toward oblivion

look the very fact that something may be

degrading doesn’t mean it wasn’t

designed in the first place your car is

currently degrading right now but that

doesn’t mean it wasn’t designed there’s

something in the universe known as the

second law of thermodynamics and it

basically means we’re all going to go to

heat death that’s true now you can’t say

that the designer was capricious because

you don’t know the intentions of the

designer the only way you can say that

something wasn’t designed optimally is

if you know what the intentions of the

designer were how does he know what the

Descent intentions of the designer are

maybe he wants the universe to go to

oblivion so he can then create a new

heavens and a new earth which is exactly

what revelation 20:2 says if you notice

Christopher has not given any real

positive evidence for his worldview he

has not dealt with it with the with the

fact that the universe exploded into

being out of nothing the extreme

fine-tuning that arose from chaos how

the first life filled with libraries

full of a genetic code rose from

non-life how morality arose from

materials and how materials have any

moral authority over us in fact he just

called that the the designer cruel how

does he know cruel if we’re just

molecules in motion what does cruel come

from there’s no cruel there’s no truth

there’s no nothing we’re just we’re just

chemical reactions up here so if I’m

doing something wrong if you don’t agree

with me forgive me but I have the wrong

chemicals thank you

well first of all there’s obviously no

equivalents at all Jin what I want to

persuade you of and what Frank wants to

persuade you of I don’t say if you

believe with with me in Revelation you

can be saved and your sins taken away

from you nor do I say as Christians tend

to if you if you’re quite free to

disagree as long as you’re willing to go

to hell it’s just not the same I don’t I

don’t Menace people in that way nor do I

give them false promises neither the

blackmail nor the bribery exists in my

argument I just ask you to think for

yourselves and consider the evidence and

if you do that I should have done this

in my first set of remarks let’s just

take these graffiti on the beach this is

one of the oldest arguments in in the

business it originates from a long

discredited book by a Cambridge

clergyman called Paley who wrote a book

called natural theology said if you are

an Aborigine walking along a beach and

you come across a gold watch ticking you

know not anything about what it’s for

you have no idea what it’s for or why

it’s there but you know it’s not a

vegetable

you know it’s not a rock you know it

hasn’t occurred in nature it must be

there for another for another reason

someone must have made this perfectly

decent point to make but that the

organisms such as ourselves are not

mechanisms they’re not wound up but

they’re not jammed together in this way

and if any of you will cast your eyes

over any work about so jar-jar winning

alternative explanation for this the

best is actually called the blind

watchmaker it’s by Richard Dawkins

you’ll see that it’s perfectly

intelligible and well understood and has

been computed modeled now to the

satisfaction of 99% of all readers in

the matter that we know what the

building blocks of existence were and

how very very long and haphazard with so

much extinction 99% of all species so

much adaptation so much hit and miss

that it was all put together there’s no

mystery about it the non-theistic the

non deistic view does describe this

reality and

has more or less mastered the

description of it if you know I’ve got

sort of the wrong if you take the

opposite view here’s what you have to

think Francis Collins who did the human

genome project reckons that Homo sapiens

he’s a great believing Christian by the

way dr. Collins great man Homo sapiens

has been on the earth for at least a

hundred thousand years our species not

very long some think it may be as many

as a quarter of million years Richard

Dawkins thinks it could easily be two

hundred thousand years I don’t

particularly mind I’ll take the low I’ll

take the low end let’s take the

Christian dr. Collins’s view that we are

our own primate species has been around

on earth for a hundred thousand years

now if you don’t take the view I just

offered you the anti Paley view here’s

what you have to imagine that for

ninety-eight thousand of those years

humans were born most of them actually

not being succeeding in being born

because a good percentage maybe more

than half would have died in the

experience of being born would have

dialed died in childbirth many of them

taking their mothers with them life

expectancy for the first 50 or 60 or 70

thousand years or so actually the first

80 thousand if not much more than 25 to

30 years mysterious terrible plagues and

diseases and pains inexplicable on

analyzable incurable terrifying events

like tidal waves volcanic eruptions

purely scary no idea where this is

coming from fear and trembling as if

that’s not bad enough the prefrontal

lobe is rather small of the species the

adrenaline gland is rather bigger than

it needs to be there’s a lot of fighting

there’s a lot of conflict there’s a lot

of warfare over territory over food over

women even more casualties even more

suffering torture is enslavement all of

this and for the first ninety eight

thousand years

heaven the designer watches this with

perfect indifference as a spectator and

then around two to three thousand years

ago thinks this won’t do we’d better

intervene these people need a revelation

if I they need a Savior

so we’ll send them one but we’ll send it

send him will her or whoever to the most

remote and illiterate and superstitious

part of the Middle East and they will

see if the news can spread from there

and if anyone will believe it if it’s

written down well they got the last bit

right people are willing to believe that

but I ask you what it is to believe such

a thing now a hundred years ago I

couldn’t have made this point because we

wouldn’t have had the information on

which to base this supposition we

wouldn’t have known that something like

that is what you’d have to believe but

remember long before any of this

evidence was available the Christian

worldview was already well in place and

completely and perfectly believed so if

you believe that any of these beliefs

are derived from or originated in a

study of evidence so much the worst fear

because you’ve just been assured by dr.

Tory that’s not the case it comes from a

faith in revelation don’t confuse it

with evidence now one of the things that

atheism is much better describing in the

real world than theism is this why is

this so much warfare between the

faithful Frank has just told us that 99%

of all religions he thinks are bogus or

phony which must mean also by the way

that they’re evil which is quite a big

admission form to make because if

someone goes around preaching a bogus

and false religion they’re not just

giving bad information they’re spreading

wicked delusions and trying to get

people to believe in awful things so

those who say that you can’t have

morality without religion suddenly had

to make a rather large concession have

they not the 99% of it is just dead

wrong

now our view of this is that it’s not

surprising it’s just what what you would

expect if religion was man-made and if

it fluctuated depending on the level of

culture and climate and other things

around the world religions would keep on

being made by men have been literally

hundreds of thousands of gods whose name

names we know many of them have now been

forgotten or no longer worshipped well

there are three conceivable explanations

for this or accounts of it surely say

one is that all of these religions are

true one is all of them

Falls and one is that only one of them

is correct well clearly the first option

isn’t available to us they can’t all be

true

according to Frank one of them is it’s

Christianity do you know how many

versions of Christianity there are

mutually incompatible excommunicating

each other describing each other as

antichrist would you like me to list

them I bet you if I asked him he

wouldn’t say Mormons were Christians and

the Mormon wouldn’t think that he can be

saved either because he doesn’t believe

in Joseph Smith’s revelation and the

Pope of Rome the Bishop of Rome that

says that the Roman Catholic Church is

the only way to salvation it’s the only

true church the others aren’t really

Christian at all so all you’re doing is

multiplying that difference again

whereas the obvious that clear the Lucid

answer is staring you in the face it’s

available to all there’s no mystery to

it this stuff is man-made no shame in

that I would say no shame I mean after

all so in my submission are our morals

and ethics man-made it’s common to us as

a matter of human solidarity to know

without being told by revelation from

Mount Sinai the location that’s never

been discovered by the way that a group

of primates that thought that murder

theft and perjury were okay would not

evolved very far or live or survive very

long just wouldn’t happen we have a duty

to each other and we better understand

it or die that’s there is no society

that hasn’t made or drawn this

conclusion societies that fail to the

practice things like cannibalism and

incest literally do die out they don’t

survive they don’t adapt they don’t

evolve they don’t make it again no

mystery but to say that without God we

wouldn’t know and without God any evil

we did would be thinkable is the precise

reverse of the case I put it to you

ladies and gentlemen for others sisters

is it not rather the case that with God

everything is permissible that once a

primate believes he has God on his side

that primate is capable of anything

the suicide-bombing community more or

less 100% religious the genital

mutilation community practically 100%

religious the injunctions and warrants

in in the Bible in the text itself for

slavery for genocide inescapably right

there Andy and acted upon and in the

name of God by primates who thought they

had got on their side it is when people

think they are God’s appointed or

anointed that any kind of wickedness is

possible let me then let me ask you

rephrase it and ask you the question in

Reverse can you sir what can anyone here

named a moral ethical action or

statement that could be made by a

believer moral or ethical statement or

action made or taken that’s it that

couldn’t be a made or after all taken by

me as a non-believer you have to think

quickly no you don’t you’ve got all

night

there’s a I’ll give you an email there’s

a prize for anyone who can name me the

moral action I can’t commit that a

believer can now I’ve never had not see

it I don’t expect you but if I asked you

think of a wicked action you’ve heard of

that could only have been committed by

someone who believed they had God on

their side you’ve already thought of it

you know you don’t have to hesitate you

just have to think of the last suicide

bomber the last genital mutilation the

last jihad the last crusade the last

alliance between the Vatican and fascism

anything you like and it’s done so it’s

an insult to be told that without

superstition and without the

supernatural we wouldn’t know how to

treat one another well we wouldn’t know

that if it’s been right and wrong we

couldn’t perform a right action or our

ethical remarks it’s an it’s a degrading

insult it makes us serfs it makes us

slaves makes us people dependent upon a

celestial dictatorship that cannot be

altered that watches us while we sleep

that vertebras verdicts cannot be

challenged you can convict us of thought

crime in my judgment the emancipation of

humanity which has taken a very great

deal of time just as the expansion of

our life expectancy though had to be

worked on very hard if once when it was

left just a god to decide these things

we didn’t live very long couldn’t cure

any diseases and didn’t know

that our planet wasn’t the center of the

of the universe but once this

emancipation has begun

I think it’s unstoppable and the

emancipation of humanity begins when you

throw off the idea that you live in a

celestial North Korea and that only a

dictator can give you permission to

think or behave well or act morally

thank you

[Music]

we will now turn to be

question-and-answer session for four

speakers between themselves

each speaker starting with dr. direct

will have the opportunity of asking two

questions two brief questions of their

opponent who will then give brief

replies thank you

Kristen

oh I suppose if I can’t be a rekt I can

at least be upright yeah

I wasn’t ready another

Christopher so I gave evidence the

universe had a beginning and it did so

with great precision I’d like to ask you

a question

I think Leibniz brought up many years

ago if there is no God why does anything

exist

we both have this Navy background yes

sir in Portsmouth where I’m from there’s

an old story about a young man taking

his captain’s examination before a board

of Admirals and they say to him write

your ship is on a leash or it’s been

driven by whatever wind towards the

rocks well what you’re going to do to

get out of this terrible decision he

says I would I would pile on an extra

sail and pull a stern hard to starboard

and hope by this means to escape the to

save the ship they said well very well

but there’s some the wind is still

blowing the gale is coming out you’re

stealing the rocks are getting nearer

now what you’re going to do so I put on

more sail and keep the helm hard down to

starve it and maintain its position yes

but the wind is still blowing you and

it’s the gale force is increased and the

rocks again here and now as you get at

you and he says well I’d cram on extra

sail and keep the helm hard down stop

one of the Emeril’s would rather

red-faced exasperation at this point

says where are you getting all this

extra sail from and the young captain

says well the same place you’re getting

all that extra wind from now either a

priori you believe in a creation story

or you do not I am I’ll just have to say

it I’m one of those people who’s meant

by Pascal when he says he’s writing his

pal say to those who are so made that

they cannot believe you have to include

me in that I don’t believe in a creator

I don’t believe I’m supervised I don’t

believe that a being set the University

of notion of my know and how is it set

in motion and I don’t know any physicist

who does and I’m not a physicist I

called a sergeant you if you have you

know I’ve been having this argument in

the 18th century

you’d be saying that I should recognize

Jesus as my personal Savior and you

wouldn’t have heard of the Big Bang I

would have heard you and you don’t

convince me on why does that have to do

it you’re just I’ll just have to say

this you don’t convince me that there’s

any connection between your faith and

any scientific observation there is a

difference between but I’m not planning

on it a bit I’m not here to debate

physics and I’m mad I’m not competent is

it okay so you don’t have an answer for

that how the universe came into

existence out of nothing no more than

you do now

let’s move to the second question if all

space all matter at all time had a

beginning the cause must be outside on

either do i okay well now that this is

this important dr. Taylor for because in

his book the Christopher Hitchens on

page 70 says that he knows that this

happened without God that’s what you

said it works without God so how does it

work without God no I’m sorry I quote I

think you must be closing my quotation

from Laplace am I not correct

no page 70 blah blah says it works

without that assumption yes here’s what

you say you say however and critically

we can now do this while dropping or

even if you insist retaining the idea of

God but in either case the theory works

without that assumption so how does it

work without that I’m repeating at first

as you’ll notice I say you can retain

the idea if you like it has no

explanatory value it but it works

without the assumption as well as it

works move it how does it work without

an that push I’m referring back to what

the great astronomer physicist Laplace

said when asked by the Emperor when he

was when he’d shown him his working

model of the universe and the Emperor

said well there doesn’t seem to be a God

in this the plasterer of yours ago no

sir yes danced in physics I said your

majesty it works without that assumption

I’m simply recoating him it might and

I’m saying and you can retain the idea

if you like you’re not going to convince

me and I don’t think you’ve convinced

anyone in the audience that you know

very much more about the origins of the

universe than they did it’s an

implication and that would be children

even if you knew more about it than I do

which you may well

veterans yes I can ask westfield

octatrack um

yes I’d like to ask him what kind of

Christian he is and who are who are not

Christians in his view who claim to be

I’m a non-denominational Christian I

believe that anyone who believes that

Jesus died and rose again for their sins

as a Christian simple as that so it

doesn’t matter to you whether someone’s

a Catholic or a Mormon that’s why I

don’t Mormons don’t believe what what I

just said Mormons have a works theology

Catholics there’s a debate over whether

Catholics ever works theology recently

Benedict has said no so yeah that’s fine

can i my alleged will ask without

cheating to rephrase the question in a

different way

very crisply very suppose I was a baby

being born in Saudi Arabia now would you

wish me to be brought up as a hobby or

as an atheist absolutely an atheist I’m

with you on that

good okay thanks

wouldn’t you wouldn’t die when you were

seriously asking me second question

please be brief be brief be brief and

for response please go up see you

mentioned that you have all these moral

issues with Christianity where do you

get your morality from if we’re just

molecules in motion what is morality who

says well just molecules in this you’re

a materialist what else could you be

we’re fairly highly evolved primates who

have a need and in H need for and

recognition of human solidarity you can

call that morals if you wish I think I

would it’s only good people and a lot of

people they say born and made in the

image of God are born as Psychopaths and

sociopaths they don’t feel this need and

indeed they enjoy violating it I don’t

know where where that fits in

particularly people will do as much good

as they can wicked people will do as

much skill as they can if you want to

get a good person to do an evil thing

you make them religious what do you mean

by good where does good come from direct

I believe that would be a third question

and we have to so it’s same places you

get in there to my sale my excerpt sir

my sale is coming from the same place as

your wind my sail is just a bit more

solid that’s all you don’t want any of

my wind I just I was from Bologna to

climb final but is it not the case that

the spread of Christianity about which

you spoke so warmly and affectingly in

your opening remarks attributing it to

its in the NH truth of the Bible story

was spread by that means or because the

Emperor Constantine decided to make

Christianity the official religion of

the Roman Empire which in your view

contributed more to the spread of the

faith the Holy Spirit I rest my case

thank you for that very very fun trick

now we will turn the floor over to the

audience and I believe there are ashes

in the room with microphones excellent

Frank had a quick question just to be

clear something you said that only

intelligent creatures can create

something correct oh you tell it

intelligent beings I said that specified

complexity requires a mind it requires

intelligence you know why why is God a

man why don’t you see God as a woman why

do I see God as a woman oh yeah why

don’t you see God as a woman woman’s

women produces do see women as gods I

understand that but I’m just taking from

the from the Christian theology that

he’s referred to as a man but since God

is spirit he doesn’t have a he doesn’t

have a gender and we don’t call him an

it because he’s not an impersonal force

so the only two categories we know are

men and women so we attribute man or a

male God and he’s referred to his father

in the Bible but you noticed that Jesus

kind of had some qualities of a woman –

on one hand he’s saying woe to you

scribes and Pharisees the other hand

he’s saying consider the lilies so he

kind of had both go in there you’d say

consider the lilies when he’s telling

people they don’t need to work they

don’t need to practise thrift they don’t

need to care for their families that’s

not exactly a womanly thing to be saying

CS Lewis is quite right on this point

unless he was the son of God all his

preachings are not just rubbish but evil

rubbish

and he wasn’t the son of God

incidentally to enable as many people as

possible to speak and there’s a lot of

people who wish to speak please we will

restrict you to no follow up questions

so ask your question the speaker will

respond and then we will move on thank

you

let’s get some

[Music]

now the question was he asked did I ask

Christopher during the QA where do your

morals come if you don’t believe in

Christianity I don’t think you have to

believe in Christianity to know right

from wrong I think people from the dawn

of time have known right from wrong it’s

called the moral law written on their

hearts even from a biblical perspective

because before there was any Bible God

wipes out the entire generation of Noah

they didn’t have a Bible so you don’t

need the Bible to know right from wrong

it might help you on certain specific

areas but general right and wrong is

known because it’s written on your heart

which is a revelation from God how

convenient that’s the kind of God we

have Christopher yes Frank yes sir

first of all how can you this completely

discard all the religions have you

looked into every single one made sure

that none of them make as much sense to

you as Christianity and in addition to

that dude don’t the Muslims also believe

Jesus to be maybe not the Savior but a

savior in general does that make them

kind of an offshoot of Christianity

which they technically are no Muslims

are not they don’t believe Jesus died

much less rose from the dead sir for

says that he did not die and so if what

they try and say as Christopher will

tell you and I will tell you to the

Quran was standardized in about 650 AD

by the third Muslim caliph now that is

600 years after Jesus’s documents were

written or documents about Jesus so I’m

going to believe that the documents that

were written in the first century are

more accurate about Jesus than the ones

that were written 600 years later now I

didn’t say all religions are totally

false I said there sucked most religions

have some truth in him but you wouldn’t

believe in him I’m saying where they

deviate from what I think is true which

happens to be the Bible and the reason I

think the Bible is true is I’d have to

go through a whole argument here but

that’s what we do and I don’t have

enough faith to be an atheist because I

think miracles confirm that Jesus really

was the Son of God and if he really was

God then whatever he teaches is true and

he taught the entire Old Testament was

the Word of God he promised the New

Testament and in the

and the the documents that we have now

are what the followers of Jesus wrote

down so anywhere they deviate from the

Bible I think they’re wrong

well not the least of the vices of the

Quran is that it’s largely a plagiarism

from Jewish and Christian predecessors

and what it says about Jesus is that he

may have been a prophet they by the way

the Quran says that he was born of a

virgin which is only said in one book I

think of the New Testament but that he

was not crucified the Jews conspired to

have someone else crucified in his place

so the question of resurrection doesn’t

come up but if you look in the in the

Christian Bible you hit with just as

many difficulties and contradictions as

that but I say only one mention of the

virgin birth only one gospel that says

that the Jews asked for the crucifixion

to be inflicted on them to the ultimate

generation as a crime two different

accounts of the genealogy of Jesus only

one mention of the flight into Egypt not

mentioned in the other Gospels only one

mention of the earthquake that

accompanied the crucifixion which is

contained in no other story or record

kept in the Greater Jerusalem area only

one that says that the graves all opened

in Jerusalem at the time of the

crucifixion and everybody was

resurrected and all the graves were

emptied and people climbed out of them

and greeted their old friends in the

street another thing that you think

would have attracted the attention of

Chronicle as if it had occurred as well

as seeming to make resurrection or other

trivial and commonplace and everyday

occurrence anyone who believes this

stuff isn’t man-made has a great deal of

explaining to do can I follow on today

briefly so Christopher you’re a

journalist and I might add a good

journalist I enjoy many of your articles

when you write an article about a

particular event and and three other

writers write about that same event do

you expect them to say all the same

things no very much I say this in my

book that’s why I don’t believe or why

but but I’m not asking people to believe

that if they don’t follow my account

they can’t be saved and indeed may be

condemned so you you have note you have

no knowledge of what ought to be an

axiom really ordained you write a very

strong injunction extraordinary cleanse

should require pretty extraordinary

effort and how do you define that at

this a days or die’s extraord

I have no noncontradictory a eyewitness

attestation of any kind at all they can

quite safely be dismissed as belonging

to the parrot or even for details in the

book of Acts alone from chapter 13 to

the end of the book that had been

verified as eyewitness testimony by

Roman historian Colin haymer 84 details

eyewitness details only could have been

owned by an eyewitness the Acts of the

Apostles yes there’s no independent code

there’s no none of the Gospels are

written by anyone who was an eyewitness

or present at the time of the supposedly

of Jesus of Nazareth

John nope Charlie’s a these are these

are these are full of later accretions

that’s why they’re so full of

contradiction well we could have a whole

nother debate but you can get his blow

on I once got no one’s got no one’s got

nose meal to date the Gospels to

anything anything like closer than about

20 years after the supposed events

that’s a long long time in which a rumor

could get started

takes at least two generations for let’s

now move to the next question from the

audience um hi I’m not really sure how

to phrase this question so just bear

with me either can answer but how do you

explain biblical prophecies um how do

you expect that the Old Testament

thousands and thousands of years before

Jesus Christ entered to the world how is

it that they prophesied when he was

going to come how he was going to enter

into the world um where he was going to

be born

um how he was going to die who was going

to kill crucify him who he would be

crucified with where he would be

crucified

um I’ve got no problem with it and the

fact that he rules that he rose from the

dead three days later how do you explain

that that was prophesized thousands of

years before it actually happened I

personally just want to know huh well

but not all those events are as

precisely foretold that’s why the Jews

whose in whose book these premonitions

or foreshadowings occur do not believe

the Messiah has yet made his appearance

they have been my submission quite right

to be doing that though I think they’re

wasting their time

waiting as well for just to give you one

example it is said in the King James

version of the Bible the one that was

hammered together in England in the

early 1600s by a committee the best book

ever written by a committee certainly

the best written but nonetheless the

work of many in expert hands translating

from earlier Greek and Hebrew work say a

virgin will conceive it’s in Isaiah in

fact the word in Hebrew is alma which

simply means young woman doesn’t it make

any reference to virgin virginity at all

the other prophecies that are promised

to the relevant King in that section of

I say all of them fail to come true even

in the action as described in that book

of Isaiah however the New Testament

you’ll have to notice when you read it

says when for example Jesus goes to

Jerusalem riding on a donkey it says

thus it was fulfilled as scripture had

foretold that the Son of Man will come

on an ass well if you know you’re what

the prophecy is and if you want people

to think you’re fulfilling it you could

just just say well that’s what we’ll do

we’ll produce a donkey but that’s not

exactly seeing a prophecy come true

that’s reverse engineering and

self-fulfilling prophecy I actually

agree with Jesus also have Jews also

prophesized that he will come back in

the lifetime of those who are his

listeners and auditors and that is the

prophecy actually Chris that’s not true

in Matthew 24 he’s predicting he would

come back in judgment on Jerusalem not

that he would come back in that

generation secondly I agree with you on

you some of these can be contrived like

coming in on a donkey I understand that

but there are some like he would be both

God and man and that he will come the

Lord you seek will come to your temple

in Malachi 3 also the fact well I guess

that could be contrived – oh yes but

I correct myself here however please

Nicki brief brief Isaiah 53 go read

Isaiah 53 for yourself and we have

chapter 13 in our book that goes into

this read Isaiah 53 which is known to

have been written well prior to Jesus in

fact it was one of the Dead Sea Scrolls

that was discovered probably the most

incredible scroll 24 feet long the

entire book of Isaiah dated from at

least 100 BC when you read Isaiah 53 you

will see how that points forward to

Jesus one other thing if you want a book

on this dr. Michael Brown has written a

book he’s a Messianic Jew on this it has

to do with Old Testament prophecy so

there’s a lot more to this than we can

deal with in a one-minute response yes I

want to continue the nautical metaphor I

suspect you two are like ships passing

in the night

because the the topic of debate is which

better explains reality theism atheism

but neither of you have told us what you

take reality consists of so this is a

question for both of the speakers

what is your conception of reality does

it in particular include angels does it

include the devil does it include

immortal souls does it include demons

and spirits or does it not include those

things what what for you is the

furniture of reality well I would agree

with obviously if I believe the Bible I

agree with all those things you just

mentioned but when when I was thinking

about this debate reality the first

thing you got to start with is is

there’s the classic question if there is

no God why is there something rather

than nothing so we start there and then

we move forward from that then we went

into the fine-tuning of the universe how

the universe is precisely tweaked and

then we talked about the specified

complexity in life and the moral law and

the order and immaterial reality known

as the laws of logic and mathematics I

think all those things are real I think

morality is real I think mathematics are

real I think the laws of logic are real

I think theism better explains that then

does atheism so that’s why I keep asking

Christopher how did the universe come

into existence what should where does

morality come from if you’re a

materialist where the laws of logic come

from if

materialist I have heard many answers

yet see it would you do better if you

said said that since there are such

things as angels and demons and evil

spirits as you believe you’d need a God

for them to be true and I think you’d be

right you bill much safer ground how

could that be happening how could Jesus

of Nazareth make a cluster of Devils

leave the madman and go into a herd of

pigs that would then commit suicide a

wondrous miracle of ever I’ve heard of

one if there was no supernatural

dimension if there was no God that’s the

only place by the way in order to

believe that you would have to believe

in the supernatural but I think I did

say perhaps I should have spent more

time saying so the time I’m a

materialist and I do not believe there

is a supernatural paranormal dimension

to existence he doesn’t believe that but

there are immaterial realities he just

used one the laws of logic where does

that come from

let’s move to the next question a

question for Christopher do you believe

in moral absolutism absolute right and

wrong well the the the best-known

example of this is what’s burns the

golden rule that seems to be common to

all societies it’s a long predates

Christianity it’s certainly said by a

version of it by Rabbi Hillel Babylonian

rabbi and it’s it’s findable in the form

of don’t do to someone else what would

be what would be repulsive to you in the

Analects of Confucius most people think

of that as being so to say intelligible

absolute in the basis for morality the

difficulty with it is and the reason why

I’m in doubt about absolutism is that a

law like that is really only as good as

the person who’s uttering it after all

confronted with Charles Manson am I

supposed not to do to him anything I

wouldn’t want done to myself

self-evidently absurd so fortunately

were given a sense of proportion and of

self-preservation a long way though we

say there I just said we’re given it you

know how people talk how sloppily one

can suddenly speak we have by

trial-and-error learned the value of a

sense of proportion

along with the need for human solidarity

after all the

it’s only in the English version that

the Ten Commandments say thou shalt not

kill in Hebrew it says thou shalt do no

murder then the question is which

killing is murder which is not I’m

willing to spend all night talking about

whether or not the the fetus is a human

thing entity or not and also if even if

it is whether whether and in what

circumstances it would be lawful to take

its life I’d very much doubt that anyone

will come up with an absolute on that

but I think we would all know what the

perils of the relative were as well so

negotiating this is why we need things

that are actually when put into practice

by no means in material things like

logic why is the irony why is a human

solidarity good you just imported

another moral absolute there I think

it’s good for us what is good mean it’s

useful means we carry on living rather

hard and large question so let’s move to

hopefully it’s only hard for an atheist

it’s not hard for me I now accept the

challenge it’s dirty but it’s saying

saying but I but I’ve solved your

problem for you I know I know where good

comes from God gives it to you that’s

absolutely advanced the argument not by

a single step it’s like saying do we

have free will or not my answer is

because I believe in irony as a

non-material force as well yes I think

we do because we have no choice

you however your position is your

position is much more contradictory and

much less ironic you say of course we

have free will the boss says so that

won’t do in any courtroom or seminar

room at all sir did those chemicals just

cause you say you have only ones without

that assumption oh this is just a small

comment for the for both speakers in

Ephesians 4:5 it says the that

there should be one Lord one faith and

one baptism and you guys discuss saying

that there’s many different Christian

religions but I encourage you to explore

the Oriental Orthodox Church which is

not deviate from the Apostolic roots in

the first century when when the

disciples and they

as we began preaching with when the the

center of the Holy Spirit came upon them

on the day of Pentecost which is

considered the birthday of the church

because they couldn’t preach without the

Holy Spirit when the faith arrived to

these churches in different areas of the

world and around the 4th century is when

the split of the Council of Chalcedon

between the Oriental and Greek Orthodox

churches question briefly in one

sentence okay it’s just a comment it’s

not really a question just to explore

the oriental Orthodox churches how they

didn’t deviate from the upstart me well

I can also cause I’m a member of the

Greek Orthodox Church I can answer that

because I’m one of the few people here

is a member of the Greek Orthodox Church

which does indeed have a claim to be the

oldest and original Christian Church I

joined it on the same day as I was

married into it which meant I had to pay

not one bribe but two to the archbishop

in fact the autocephalous head of that

church in Cyprus while special

Chrysostom oz who got two payments

instead of one said without any

preparation civil right I make you

Orthodox in the morning so you can get

married to a Greek Orthodox woman and

please her parents in the afternoon he

was later conspicuous for being a

gunrunner to the Serbian death squads in

the Yugoslavs Civil War you’re welcome

to him and all like him and now the

Russian Orthodox Church has become the

official state Church of Vladimir

Putin’s dictatorship in Moscow and has

produced icons I can show them to you

and you can look them up on the web

icons that show Joseph Stalin with a

halo around his head fully baptized into

the church you’re welcome to that lot

too

did Stalin do something really wrong hmm

um the world just doesn’t see the

Orthodox Church think so

oh how I mean you’re going after the

church why not go after Stalin you see

it seems to me I’ve just demonstrated

something to you that you’re very

reluctant to to notice that proclaiming

a belief in God doesn’t seem to stop

people behaving badly

it doesn’t mean God does this

observation completely escaped you not

just doing bad things but saying bad

things also saying Christianity predicts

will be bad yes that’s why we need a

Savior well I could have predicted that

mystery and my prophecy would have come

true

my question is for Christopher when we

talk about things like love does that

exist outside of our minds or is it just

an evolutionary adaptation to make life

more useful for us okay I think the

great cultural and intellectual problem

is this is to is not to allow

materialism to be purely arid I mean I

think in Asian humans also is a need for

let’s say the transcendent or the

numinous which comes to us with the

experience say of music poetry landscape

and love you wouldn’t trust anyone who

looked at me blankly at this point and

wondered what is this guy talking about

there would be people who were Jeff in

that way but generally speaking everyone

has a rough idea of what I’m talking

about it’s to do with separating the

numinous and the transcendent from the

supernatural or the superstitious I’ll

give you an example

dr. Franklin so I was talking to you

about earlier the Christian supervisor

of the human genome project wonderful

guy he says in his book that he’s an

outdoorsman he went hiking at someone in

the Pacific Northwest I think and in the

wilderness that won some brilliant

crystal-clear day he came across a

frozen waterfall which had frozen in

three streams three and he said at that

point he fell to his knees and accepted

Jesus as his personal Savior

that would that would be a very good way

of separating what I think of as the the

numinous and the transcendent from the

supernatural or the superstitious

wouldn’t it be just as much of a

statement if he’d said I accepted the

revelation of the Prophet Muhammad or

did they have to be four streams or

would to not have been enough the want

one I can understand people be over awed

and the other I cannot so that’s the

that’s the that’s the way I would to try

and resolve this emotional discrepancy

well you you know there’s a

transcendence out there that what you

just said Christopher there’s only two

choices law of non-contradiction or law

the excluded middle I should say it’s

either natural or supernatural there’s

no in-between and it’s either chemicals

or it’s not chemicals which is it which

certainly in my judgment is not

supernatural and doesn’t require it be

people like myself who don’t believe in

the supernatural are not immune from the

lure of the transcendent anyway I am a

member of an only partly rational

primate species I’m not I’m not

hardwired to be smart all the time a lot

of the time under all kinds of delusions

some of them wishful I would try and

guard against them in myself and I try

and ridicule them in other people as to

is it chemical well it certainly is not

not chemical I mean the zero is a lot of

things a lot of the chemicals love just

chemicals there are a lot of chemical

reactions keeping me in place here so

the action of it not being chemical does

not exist is it only chemical the

likelihood that it’s chemical is very

strong next molecule a lot of the

theists argument relied on the Big Bang

and the fact that the universe says the

singularity has a finite beginning but

in physics if the the mass the universe

is great enough the force of gravity

will eventually contract universe and we

could possibly have another Big Bang

again if that’s the case what’s the

explanation for the need for a creator

and an infinite universe because the

universe can’t be infinite due to the

second law of thermodynamics second law

of thermodynamics will not allow the

universe to collapse back and go back

and forth on ending Li I’ll give you an

example if I were to take a basketball

right now here and drop it how high

would it drop or how high would it

bounce again what it bounced as high as

I dropped it from now it’s going to lose

energy every time until ultimately it’s

going to peter out

secondly the you know you get older you

start to lose your train of train of oh

the WMAP satellite which was put up in

2003 as Christopher pointed out rightly

discovered that the universe is now

accelerating and it will expand forever

so it at least through the scientific

evidence that this

point thirdly time had a beginning

according to Einstein and you can’t

traverse an infinite number of moments

if there were an infinite number of

moments before today today never would

have gotten here so time had a beginning

as well so the universe is not eternal

therefore it needs a cause outside

itself and as I mentioned before that

cause must be spaceless timeless and

immaterial and also personal to go from

a state of non-existence to a state of

existence but according to you sir that

creator isn’t bound by these

thermodynamic laws because when I

pointed out the demoness of nothingness

a while ago you did say maybe God wants

that so you can begin whatever again and

maybe he does the Creator was not round

by the second law is this being exists

you’re free to attribute any quality to

him that you like no what I’m saying is

is you claim to know his mind that’s the

bit why part company with if God wants

the universe to ultimately Peter out he

can do that but if he wants to intervene

and stop it he can also do that as well

and that’s what revelation 20:2 says

yeah but that’s not the second law of

thermodynamics is it so why do you

bother with the Thermidor now it is not

the second law permits and log

thermodynamics helps establish that

there was a creator to get to the Bible

you have to go through several steps and

see if there were miracles after the

first one and if Jesus really did rise

from the dead then whatever he teaches

since he’s God is true then just miss

letteth i’ve given a misleading answer

to the gentleman you said no it couldn’t

happen that what couldn’t happen it

could be there couldn’t be another Big

Bang the could it the could if the

correct according to the current laws of

nature let us move to AA natural law

audience manners which mean nothing to

you this diss questions for Christopher

um you said you’re an intelligent

primate and I just want to know do

intelligent primates have souls and if

so what happens when you die um I

actually think I hope I said I was a

member of an intelligent primate species

I wouldn’t want to push myself forward

one could have a soul and not an

afterlife that could be enough – no God

there could be a God and no afterlife

the very the likeliest thing it seems to

me is that death is final no I didn’t

say that means that doesn’t mean there’s

no soul

I seem to operate without that

assumption but I would but I would use

the word soulless in a way aesthetically

as it as a as a pejorative and I find

the the use of transcendental and

numinous terms to be occasionally

gratifying now we have four minutes for

questions which allows us three brief

questions and three brief responses and

then we will terms for closing

statements yeah I don’t know about you

Frank I would yield my closing statement

time to have more questions because

there are so many hands up have been up

for so long I do have a closing

statement I need to make all right

that’s okay well I’ll yield 9 we have an

additional 5 minutes for questions thank

you

the title of this is what best explains

reality perhaps following the previous

questioner the United Nations

I believe starting with Pakistan

Pakistan tried to have a resolution that

made the criticism of religion

unacceptable I just would quickly want

to get particularly mr. Hitchens is a

response to that and also because you

did write the introduction – sir

Kingsley Amis book on everyday drinking

what’s your favorite drink

in reverse order then Johnny / Johnny

Walker Black Label with Perrier as the

delivery system but but no ice ice is a

is a can be a can be a mistake followed

by a couple of bottles of Pinot Noir

with lunch and I mean with food very

important to keep the food intake art

the United Nations is exceeding its

authority in trying to limit any any

form speech on any subject I think it’s

particularly absurd for any attempt we

made to limit the criticism of religion

precisely because religion makes such

large claims for itself the Quran for

example claims to be the last and final

revelation from God no further words are

necessary after this immaculate

recitation has been completed its

therefore it my view implicitly very

totalitarian it says you can’t need

anything more and it can be death not

just to challenge it but to say that

there have been any subsequent

revelations there are ahmadi muslims for

example they’re a small minority who

believe the mayor of in a later

revelation and there are in the muslim

world of the Baha’i sect which whose

whose leader was claimed by himself at

least to be a prophet therefore they’re

punishable by death also people who say

that not only are we going to tell you

what to do in that sort of voice but you

also can’t criticize us you can’t have

another opinion have just revealed what

the extraordinary dangers of the of the

religious mentality are and have

confirmed that it is simply another form

of man mad mind forged man-made manacle

okay um this is specifically for

Christopher but I guess it could go both

ways as a materialist who is an admitted

evolutionist who believes that all

morals are derived from survival of the

fittest and passing on your genes and

surviving better how do you find purpose

in life outside of having sex and making

babies I’m glad you left that in I must

say

well I suppose let me see what makes me

happy contemplating the misfortunes of

other people

vindication makes me happy being proved

right

irony makes me happy by the way the

Quran doesn’t forbid whiskey in only

forbids wine just meant to go out break

bringing that up I think I think it was

Tertullian one of the early Christian

fathers who said you know how the

Christians always have a very hard time

picturing what heaven would be like they

can do a hell very easily and they do

but haven’t you know it sounds boring

just to be praising the dictator for the

rest of well for eternity but Sounion

perhaps wanting to spice things up a bit

said well you could always have the

pleasure of contemplating the tortures

of the Damned in hell when the praise is

Paul and I must say I do get pleasure

from that too

well it’s a good question I mean what is

life all about what is the purpose

I mean its life just glorified Monopoly

game get a whole bunch of stuff now

because when the game is over it’s all

going to go back in the box

I think there’s more to it than that

um this question is for Frank if

Christianity is based in personal faith

and on and demonstrates the defying of

physical laws and in science why do you

use scientific evidence based in the

objective physical realm to explain it

where’s your physical evidence I don’t

know if I follow the question

Christianity isn’t necessarily based on

faith that’s what I said before you have

to have belief in before you get to

belief that that’s that’s interesting

you I’m sorry I believe that before you

get to belief in I said it backwards I

don’t believe that God exists for you

put your trust in him lord I believe

help thou my unbelief I’ve heard it said

very often that you have to have faith

in order to believe you can’t you can’t

derive faith from evidence it would be

too easy it’s two different kinds I

think I mention called it’s called the

leap the program is you have to keep on

making that me

to the next question Thank You mr.

Hitchens dance deterrent hi my questions

for Christopher um if you believe in no

moral absolutes do you believe in

consequences for whatever is relatively

wrong because if there are no eternal

consequences um and like let’s say I was

to find it like when you’re saying human

solidarity can you expand on that and

kind of explain why something is wrong

because if people’s wrong right are

different then what’s why was there a

point what consequences are there well

I’d like I would like to put myself in

the safekeeping of the audience and ask

in all fairness have I not answered that

question more than once already but if

you insist on it again I will simply say

this and I’ll have to again do it in

reverse order belief in the supernatural

or in an afterlife or in a God or

creator has not had the effect of making

those who profess the belief behave more

morally or ethically I return you also

to the question that I asked which you

might want to give an answer to we’ll

consider an answer to it what moral

action or ethical statement and I prefer

bidden to make because I’m not a

believer that a believer could make you

see I mean I think I have been over this

ground before there’s also the question

of it’s a word that hasn’t come up much

this evening but it might as well

capitally evidence there doesn’t seem to

be any evidence at all of an afterlife

in which all wrongs are righted and all

sins are punished but there is a thing

called law and there is a thing called

human solidarity with which we attempt

to make life a more fair and more just

in the only life that we know we’ve got

and we’d have to do that

even if and religious societies do do

that even if we thought there was the

higher justice and life to come we would

still have to act as if we had to

discipline ourselves and others in the

in the here and now so adding the

supernatural dimension to it making the

God assumption doesn’t make any of these

urgent questions how shall we live with

each other what are our due seasons any

easier to solve contrary to I think what

Christopher is implying

they’re chrissy christ’s central purpose

was not to come to make bad people good

he came to make dead people live mr.

hitchens i was just wondering do you

believe that religion has some origin in

the need for political leaders in early

human civilization to instill a fear and

sense of authority in the ruled classes

well that there is a functional and also

a functionalist and man-made elements

religion isn’t doubted by anyone

certainly not by Frank so he would say

about the Aztec priesthood that’s all it

was was a means of coercion by the

ruling class and it means of terrifying

others and a means of making them

believe that there was a priesthood that

could control things like eclipses or

heal things like plagues yes of course

when anyone looks at anyone else’s

religion they see the trick being pulled

easily everyone in this room is an

atheist there’s not one of you who isn’t

you don’t believe in the Temple of Diana

at Ephesus you don’t believe in the

Egyptian for you know you don’t believe

in Odin you don’t believe in what’s a

capital nor the other aspect does none

of you do you’re all a theist as far as

that’s concerned

some of you believe that one of these is

okay and my aunt is true I just say that

I’ll go you one better and say I’ll be

an atheist and I’ll be a consistent one

I’m not an atheist

I mean I don’t believe in Zeus or any of

those other gods because all those other

gods were inside the world we have

evidence that suggests that there’s a

being outside the world that created the

universe that’s why I believe in them

we have time for one final question

before dr. Tourette’s closing statement

uh sure

choose wisely

this is to Frank but like Christopher’s

opinion on this as well with regards to

your mention of Paley’s argument and

your analogies how do you grade

complexity is there a cut-off point and

does it ever seem like you’re taking

credit away from the chaotic nature of

chance and giving it to God okay chance

is not a cause chance is a word we use

to describe a word we use to describe

mathematical possibilities if I were to

take out a coin right now and flip it

what are the chances it would come up

heads you say 50% but what causes it to

come up heads is a chance no chance

doesn’t do anything what causes it to

come up heads is the amount of force I

put in it the the wind in the room how

high it is if we could calculate all of

those forces with precision we could

predict a hundred percent every time

whether it’s going to come up heads or

tails so chance doesn’t do anybody any

good

we got time for watching for me can I

suggest one thing this isn’t fair for me

to do a closing statement and not him I

don’t mind staying longer to have him do

a closing statement and I preferred for

him to get more and secondly if I’ll

stay for a few more questions if you

want if Christopher will as well

[Applause]

okay okay I got them I got them to beg

first loyal showbusiness keep them

wanting more I do I don’t want to stay

any any later because I’m extremely

tired have a very early start in the

morning but I do want to also the moment

is coming when I won’t be nice to anyone

who hasn’t got a receipt because this is

America and I have product to move okay

look so I think if you want a clothing

stable for me I’ll keep it very brief I

haven’t had this will be I can’t

remember now how many how many public

events this would count as no one has

even attempted to answer my central

question which is this why why is there

any reason to believe that I must be a

ascetic or personal health less morality

available to me because I do not believe

in a super natural dictatorship why am I

not just in a deist in other words I

don’t believe there was a prime mover

already need or you need to to believe

in it in other words there is nothing

left unexplained if that assumption is

not made that’s why I’m an atheist why

my why I’m an atheist because I don’t

believe there has been a revelation of

God I don’t believe he’s ever shown

himself to us I think that the books in

which this is claimed to have occurred

are self evidently man-made and show

many many signs of contradiction of

fabrication of myth and legend and of

having been as HL Mencken bluntly puts

it a tampered with and also because they

cannot all be true and they set people

at odds with each other I was once told

by a I was asked a question in turn by a

famous religious broadcaster on the air

he said you have to imagine the

following you are in a strange city and

it’s late in the evening and you don’t

know anyone and you don’t know your way

around and the night is coming on and

you see coming towards you a group of

men now he says you must answer this

question said do you feel better or

worse happier or less happy safer or

less safe once you know these men are

coming from a prayer meeting in my book

I try and answer the question I say well

just without leaving the letter B

I have been in those circumstances in

the following cities Belfast Beirut

Bombay Baghdad and one other let’s just

do the first four if anyone’s ever spent

any time in Belfast they’d know right

away to try and find a place of hiding

and safety if they were caught on the

streets when the churches were letting

people out at dusk or there isn’t

there’s hardly been a non-religious

murder in Belfast in the last thirty

years it’s it’s a very dangerous place

to be

once the religious are abroad especially

if it’s gangs of men as specified in the

question everything about everything

about Beirut could be absolutely

wonderful it’s a it’s a jewel of a city

on the eastern end of Mediterranean it’s

the capital of a wonderful country that

has all kinds of resources and all kinds

of attractions and it’s it’s been for

decades a hellhole because of the

confessional system that insists that

political power is allocated only two

people who can show that they’re members

of a faith it doesn’t particularly

matter in the Lebanese Constitution

which faith there’s a pecking order but

it has to be confessional and as a

result Lebanon is

its development unsafe at almost any

time of day most especially when the

churches and the mosques are letting

people out onto the street that’s when

to be most careful to say that this was

true in Belgrade and to say what the

what effect religion had in the breakup

of Yugoslavia there is no ethnic

difference between being a Serb and a

croat for example none whatever it’s the

difference between only between being

Eastern Orthodox in the case of the Serb

and Roman Catholic in the case of the

crime that’s a killing matter all across

Western Herzegovina and Bosnia and

larger attracts the rest of the country

as soon as the church is stylish and let

people out having preached their

doctrine about the heretical nature of

the other Christians the other believers

every kind of mayhem was let loose again

I say this is not done in the name of

God as people say it’s not done in the

name of religion that’s not it that’s

not an out that I think can be offered

it’s done because of religion it

Rises because of the very preachments

that are in the checks and it but and it

relies ultimately and derives ultimately

from the servile belief that our

problems can be solved if we will only

refer an upward to a supernatural

despotism to a dictator whose verdicts

cannot be challenged to a dictator who’s

so far from giving us free will says we

can be convicted of thought crime of

sentenced to an eternity of punishment

for things we may have thought in in our

sleep or thought and not yet done as I

say that I’ll close them on this the

emancipation of humanity demands first

and foremost the emancipation of the

idea of a supernatural dictator thank

you

[Applause]

thanks for hanging out folks I know it’s

late I’ll try and be brief I’ll go into

Jersey mode first of all thank you very

much and I just want to point out one

thing I agree with a lot of

Christopher’s book but if you look at

the tone of his book if you had to sum

it up in one phrase it would be this

there is no God and I hate him

Christopher calls himself an anti theist

he’s not an atheist he’s an anti theist

the second major way of summarizing the

book I think is this way since religious

people have done evil things God doesn’t

exist in logic that’s called a non

sequitur it doesn’t follow of course we

all do evil things I do evil things that

doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist in fact I

agree with Christopher on many things I

think many religious people have behaved

terribly I think many religious beliefs

are false and can’t be justified I don’t

think you need to believe in God to know

basic right and wrong or to be moral I’m

just saying that atheists can’t justify

morality you don’t need the Bible or any

other religious book to know basic right

and wrong so I agree with Christopher on

many of these things but none of these

things so none of the things he’s

brought up today no arguments are really

arguments against the existence of God

God could still exist even if all of

Christopher’s complaints and assertions

are true in fact I’ve given evidence

that God does exist I think now some of

you may not be persuaded by that that’s

okay

there’s a difference between proof and

persuasion it’s up to you whether you

think it’s persuasive also the title of

this book God is not great how religion

poisons everything actually religion

doesn’t poison everything everything

poisons religion I poison religion

because I don’t live up to the pure

words of Christ I admit it and what

Christopher does is he conflates all

religions and say because the Muslims

are committing jihad and the folks in

Belfast are doing evil and the folks in

Baghdad are doing evil and even crystals

are doing evil that means there’s no

truth in religion bad theology doesn’t

mean there isn’t

good theology you can’t conflate all

religions and say that none of them are

true just because people do evil things

I am a hypocrite and when people say to

me I can’t go to church because all

those hypocrites down there I always say

come on down pal we got room for one

more

that’s what the church is it’s a

hospital for sinners it’s not a Country

Club for Saints I’ll never be perfect

that’s why Christ had to come now as

Christopher admits his disbelief is

really not in his head but in his heart

it’s not that there’s no evidence for

God so that he can’t believe it’s that

despite the evidence he won’t believe he

says that he rebelled against the divine

dictatorship he just mentioned that he

keeps calling God immoral and tyrannical

the problem for Christopher is that

there’s no immorality or tyranny of

atheism is true

atheism affords Christopher no objective

moral standard by which to judge

anything immoral or tyrannical including

all the sins of religious people

uncircumcision sexual restrictions the

Crusades suicide bombings all you can

say is these people had bad molecules he

has to borrow objective morality from

the theistic worldview and are in order

to argue against it he has to assume God

in order to deny him he has to sit in

God’s lap to slap his face Christopher

is like the man in a restaurant who was

eating a meal and because he doesn’t

like the food claims that the chef

doesn’t exist this is a non sequitur now

I’ve tried to give evidence as to why I

think it fee is and better describes

reality than atheism because of the

acronym I use cosmos because all time

all matter and all space exploded into

being out of nothing because it exploded

into existence with incredible order and

extreme fine-tuning because life in the

genetic code are the result of

intelligence because there are objective

immaterial moral values because

objective immaterial immaterial reality

such as reason the laws of logic and

mathematics exist which enable us to

investigate the world through science in

this orderly universe and because a

crucified man from an obscure village

became the most influential person in

human history through his resurrection

from the dead you know Christopher

hasn’t given us any real reason to

believe atheism is true or to describe

reality he’s given no atheistic

explanation for how

things that we know exist where they

came from no explanation for the

universe fine-tuning of life the genetic

code morality reason math science and we

can add you man freedom to that if we

want instead of evidence Christopher’s

provided speculation faith and ignored

the issues completely that’s why I don’t

have enough faith to be an atheist and

why theism I think better explains

reality than atheism I want to point out

one other thing we got a question a

minute ago about the meaning of life

Christopher says in his book that the

sacrifice that sacrifice sacrifice of

Christ is immoral again using the

language of morality but it’s sacrificed

really immoral on September 29 2006

petty officer Michael Monsoor was a u.s.

Navy SEAL he was serving in Ramadi in

Iraq

petty officer monster had two teammates

and had taken a position on the

outcropping of a roof when an insurgent

grenade bounced off his chest and landed

on the roof Mansoor had a clear chance

to escape but he realized that the other

two SEALs did not in that terrible

moment he had two options he could save

himself or save his friends for petty

officer Mansoor this was no choice at

all he threw himself on the grenade and

absorbed the blast with his body he died

30 minutes later one of the survivors

put it this way Mikey looked death in

the face and that day that day and said

you cannot take my brother’s I will go

in their stead when President Bush gave

gave Petty Officer monsters

Medal of Honor to his parents at a White

House ceremony he rightly said this

perhaps the greatest tribute to Mike’s

life is the way different service

members all across the world responded

to his death army soldiers in Ramadi

hosted a memorial service for the

valiant man who had fought beside them

Iraqi army scouts who Mike helped train

lowered their flag and sent it to his

parents then nearly every seal on the

west coast turned out from Mike’s

funeral in California I don’t know if

you know but a seal has a trident it’s a

pen it’s probably the most difficult pen

in any military to earn I have a pen

Navy wings these were difficult to earn

but they were nothing like the seal or

the Trident that its seal needs to earn

when every seal on the west coast turned

out for Mike’s funeral they all filed

past the casket they removed their

golden tridents from the uniforms press

them into the walls of the coffin the

procession went on for nearly half an

hour and when it was all over the simple

wooden coffin had become a gold-plated

memorial to a hero who will never be

forgotten now I ask you is sacrifice

immoral jesus said this the greatest

love a person can show is to die for his

friends so while Christopher’s attitude

maybe there is no God and I hate him

God’s attitude is there is a Christopher

Hitchens and I love him in fact I died

for him

[Music]

and now let us thank both of our

speakers

[Applause]

[Music]

[Music]