Harvard Book Store; WGBH Forum Network; Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi David Wolpe: The Great God Debate

Good evening I'm Francine Ackbar I'm the director of the new Center for Arts and Culture. It is our pleasure to welcome you here tonight. It is a particular pleasure to welcome those of you who are new to our programming as you can see from the video the new Center for Arts and Culture presents arts culture and ideas from a Jewish perspective. We think we're adding something unique to Boston's rich cultural mix and you are responding. This program was originally going to occur at Temple Israel tonight which seats about 400. And as you can see we're close to 1000. So this is totally fabulous. I'd like to thank some people for helping to make this happen tonight. Our series benefactor's Jay Stein and Gretchen Fox Stein who made this program possible. And we're going to hear a little bit more about how that happened. In a minute we also think the colonnade hotel are past board chair Ron Druker for his support.

You can hold your applause till the end goes down in stores and our board member Alan Rodenberg Coldwell Banker real estate with DEBBIE GORDON Jane Bennet Freberg and Ronnie Castries TBWA financial led by Chitra stellite and our wonderful independent bookselling partner Harvard bookstore which will be selling books after tonight's program. Well you're probably somewhat familiar with tonight's speakers or you wouldn't be here but I will offer a few words of introduction. Christopher Hitchens is one of the best known and best read public commentators in the English language The Economist magazine called him one of the greatest living conversationalists. With great brilliance fantastic powers of recall and quick wit. What a build up as foreign correspondent he has written for more than 60 countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Born in England he was educated at Oxford and holds an honors degree in

philosophy politics and economics. He's been in the US since 1981. He's known as one of the four horsemen of atheism and he's probably best known for his best selling book God Is Not Great How Religion Poisons Everything. Our other speaker is Rabbi David Wolpe named number one rabbi in America puppet. Rabbi in America by Newsweek magazine Rabbi Wolpe is Rabbi of Temple Sinai in Los Angeles. He has taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York the American Jewish University in Los Angeles. Hunter College and currently at UCLA. Rabbi Wolpe writes for many publications including New York Jewish Week The Washington Post as well as the Jerusalem Post and The L.A. Times. He's author of seven books and most recently his book is Why Faith Matters. Our moderator tonight is W. Buras Tom Ashbrook host of on point as anyone who listens to Tom at 10:00 in the morning or 7:00 at night knows he is one of the

most engaging intellectually nimble people on the air today and will be eager to observe that intellectual nimbleness tonight. The new center as its name suggests is quite a new organization our Fourche first program was in 2003 and this new center Live series is just one year old this month. Our success depends heavily on the support of donors throughout the community and the outstanding leadership of our board led by Paula Seidemann one of our original board members is Barry Schrag president of combined Jewish Philanthropies who will say a few words to us now. Wow this is great. This is a fabulous audience I'm so glad to be here. I'm Barry Schrade president of CJP and a board member of the new Center for Arts and Culture. And it's really a thrill to see you all here tonight. Thanks to Francine and her team

and Paula for creating a truly memorable event. But thanks especially to Jay Stein and Gretchen Fox whose deep interest and passion for this issue and generous contribution started us thinking about this program and ultimately made it happen. Jay a successful scientist and engineer and entrepreneur I must say is obsessed by God or His non-existence I on the other hand sometimes feel completely surrounded by God in my work and in my life which makes for some extremely interesting conversations. There are others in this audience with whom I've had similar or even more intense conversations. In all cases these are conversations and not debates the question of God is too intense too serious for debate among friends for whom God's presence or absence is too important or too painful. Does God exist. Is religion a force for good or evil. As you probably can imagine I have a few thoughts on these

topics and I'm pleased to have been asked to introduce the debate as president of the Jewish Federation. These questions are especially important because the question of belief is complicated for us as Jews as it is for most Americans. In truth we can be secular one day and deeply religious or spiritual on the day our child is born on the day our parent dies on the day we face a serious illness. This is not atheism or religion in any classical sense. American Jews are not particularly religious and not particularly secular and they are also very religious and very secular. They are seeking and searching for meaning and community. Most may not consider themselves religious but they love their synagogues. Many are seeking in the words of Peter Berger a roomful of angels. The possibility of the transcendent and the idea of the spiritual as a person of faith. I'm particularly interested in the problem of religious conflict and violence. I view these as a desecration of God's name and I know that this debate will shed light on the causes of

religious violence and the possibility of transcending religious differences. One thing is certain the questions that will be raised tonight are important. In fact they are a matter of life and death in the 20th century. Scores of millions of people died at the hands of ideologies that placed man at the center of the universe and we came very close to destroying all humanity in their name in the 21st century very various religious fundamentalists and fanaticism is threatened the same or worse in the name of those who purport to speak in the name of God as a person who believes deeply and in humanity and deeply in God. These truths are almost unbearable. This audience is filled with people of every religion non religion and background but it is appropriate that a struggle about God takes place under the NCAA see an organization with a deep connection to a thirty five hundred year old chain of Jewish culture and learning. You see it's about our name

Israel because our name means he who has struggled with God and with men and has overcome through Holocaust and pogrom and rebirth. We have had a lot to struggle with God about and from Spinoza to great rabbi philosophers like Abraham Joshua Heschel and our own Joseph B Solavei chick. It's been an amazing conversation. Not easy not simple not conclusive today. Tonight we may not achieve a spiritual Grandier of Spinoza and Heschel but we will make a start. I beg you to consider this the beginning of a complex discussion in each of your hearts. There are more questions than answers more mystery than clarity but there is much good to be found in the process and much depends on our answers to these questions. We are fortunate to be living in America and in Boston at a time when these issues aren't nearly as polarizing and in years past and very fortunate that the new Center for Arts and Culture provides a platform for serious and open discussion of controversial issues.

The debate will I hope help us clarify these issues as we think about our stories and the way we tell those stories to our children and especially important to me as a relatively new grandfather to our grandchildren and to all the generations that will follow them in this important discussion. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Barry always always gets us thinking. So now I invite you to welcome our speakers Christopher Hitchens rather Rabbi David Wolpe and moderator Tom Ashbrook. Good evening thanks for being here on such a wretched night. And what a big turn out we've

busted right out of the temple tonight. I'm a little intimidated with America's Rabbi and the God Slayer. Chris Hitchens or. Maybe you should be a little intimidated in this community for all you know. I'm the son of snake handlers and Primitive Baptist in fact. So we'll see what happens here. I hope it doesn't mean a prejudice in this debate. Made a mistake in with my third child. I waited until she could speak to have her baptized. And when the baptism you know water on him. And when the preacher you know got the water with the droplets and began to put on a head and he said it the name of God and she said What is God. And. My. Education and my child looked a little looked a little lower. He was only two. I didn't have a great conversation tonight we're going to talk for about an hour and then open the floor to you. I wanted to be a very very sophisticated but also straight forward conversation because this is not a new debate. I want to

try and cut through and I thought maybe it's too broad but never mind let's just do it. Let's start with the simplicity of a child. What is God. Rabbi. Well it depends who you are answering if you're answering a two year old answer one way. But if your answer discussing it with an adult you begin with recognition which actually the entire debate should be framed with human limitation in the following sense. When you were two years old. Could you imagine what it's like to be an adult. Of course not to you and has no idea what an adult is like. And yet we make definitive statements about God all the time when in every religion that I know of the distance between God and human beings is infinitely greater than the distance between an adult and a 2 year old. So when I say as I'm going to in a second I'm not going to avoid your question but understand that I say it against the background of a religious recognition of our own inability to understand that which is

infinitely greater than ourselves. I my thumbnail definition of what God is is that God is the source of everything that exists and God is someone it's something with whom a human being can have a relationship and that you can live your life in alignment with a godly purpose by any definition that is greater than that is in some ways to traduce God which is why by the way the title of Christopher's book is exactly right. God is not great because to say God is great or God is something is to put a definition on God which we know from classical Jewish philosophy you ought not to do so in fact Christopher is exactly right. We can wrap it up right now. Thank you very much for coming. It's been a wonderful day. Me. Apologies perhaps to Muslims in the audience who say God is great all the time. We'll circle back. OK. Chris Hedges to you. Actually I know question maybe you will warn her off if you don't mind.

It would be Christopher Hitchens. It's Chris Hedges is a horrible edge isn't it. Forgive me if perception is a horrible apologist for liberation. Christopher Hitchens that is but. Many guest Ilori would exist to you Susan I mean this is one stop establishing that ontological. Yes I am well. Friedrich Nietzsche famously said that God was dead and Sigmund Freud can be rendered as having so that God was designed. And I think both of them are probably right. The the concept of God is is like every thing else in our vocabulary man made. It's an invention of human beings. But unless you take the view that God made us. In which case would be lots of explain how and why did we in that case make so many gods. It doesn't seem to be much very much more probable that men and women made many gods than any one God made all men and women and the rest of creation and as well as being man made is made is the unexpressed expressed wish

for a protector. Appearance someone who will never choose someone who will do in a way of thinking for you. Especially on questions of moral philosophy at his best it's that it's a it's a wish to be loved more than you probably deserve. And at its worst it's the it's the under developed part of the human psyche that leads to totalitarianism that wants to worship and that wants a boss that wants a celestial dictatorship. And that's the bit that's now threatening to destroy secular civilization. And so you're quite right. Start where you do. It used to be believed to have been the number of gods now is infinite and the new God is created almost every day by some calls rather. But it used to be that there was a belief that gods were in the trees and in the woods in the Springs and the sea and the clouds and so forth. It isn't of a kind. Then.

Something a bit more polytheistic like Olympus where there was at least a location for the divine. But it was mostly faceted. And then monotheism getting it down to one. So I think this is progress of a sort because the getting near the true figure all the time. I actually. Read. Maybe which is well which by the way is where the Vatican in its early days was very upset by the concept of zero didn't like zero which was the most important number of all the number of that which you can't do anything. Which wasn't there in Roman numerals. Now it was invented in Islamic civilization. I also struck them as a sinister import from from in cause it was infidelity from from pagan lands. But also the trouble the concept of zero it was very troubling for theism and must be and does indeed remain so as one of the many many ways in which Deism is not compatible with the scientific world view the Vatican. I just want I just want to point out without even taking issue with the incorrect statements that he made. But I want you I want you to

understand Wait wait wait. I want you to understand the progress of the argument that you just heard. Because it's important that people do this all the time and at least you should be aware of it whether you accept it or not. Very often when people argue with you especially when they argue about religion they attribute their own beliefs to logic and your belief to psychology. So religious people believe in something because they need to be loved. Do they need a crutch for the weak. But I believe what I believe because it's true and scientific and I just want you to be aware that you cannot actually disprove someone's belief by imputing an unworthy motive to it. You actually have to disprove the belief so don't let Christopher pull the psychological wool over your eyes. You can actually be just as worthy or unworthy of love just as tough minded just as thoughtful just as deep and still believe in God as most human beings have throughout all of human history as if you are.

Christopher Christopher are you a trickster. Well I don't think you can do that would be an incorrect statement you would accuse it of being an incomplete when I didn't give all the reasons what you believe in God. What you did write a whole book that argues that the belief in God can be very useful to people in times of crisis does not mean that's it. And that was why you should believe in God. And I don't think it is the reason why many people do but remember that there are two questions were I better not say lest I be accused of not having exhausted somebody. My first response to say there were at least two questions. One is this. Is there a God a creator a prime mover. An uncaused cause. Whatever you like to call it. And this was the question answered at a certain point. Not very long ago. No history by the deists. People like Thomas Jefferson Thomas Paine and many others who said that the world of the universe seemed to suggest that he couldn't just be random. That may

have been a designer but the designer didn't take any part in human affairs and that into the late 1738 in centuries was probably a sort of late 80s early 90s centuries with probably a very obsession to it was his proprio Einstein pre-Darwin was pulled as far as you likely to get with philosophical speculation. But believing that the might be a cause or a mover or a creator is one thing but believing that there is a supervising intervening entity who cares who wins the war. Who cares who you sleep with and in what way. Who cares what you eat and on what day and in other words who who makes you the center of the whole cosmos is another thing altogether. So people who say I believe in God Medea's have live well in front of them before they can say that they are really religious. Are you prepared to be a deist. Nope. No divine mover even at the. Whatever the origin. There's nothing in the natural in the cosmic order. That's the macro level or the micro level that's to say the constituents of our own DNA and

the things that we have in common with the other animals and indeed other forms of life like plants that isn't susceptible to a much better explanation. Well here I am. It was as the great physicist said when he demonstrated his working model his Orrery as it's called of the solar system to the Emperor. Napoleon said. Well I see there's no God in this system. Plus said William matters to work without that assumption. Rather I don't want to play God to conform to this. Sure is 2010. You said you think of God as the source of all in the year DC 2010 why it should be the source of all to divinity What about science. And you just said soundtracks I was just going to address is the first of all out there there are two separate ways of thinking about this both and I'll I'll offer them both briefly and you can decide if both or neither is congenial to you. One is that

of course you can't equate god and proof for God and discussion of God with a demonstration in a laboratory that's never been the case. The idea is different to shift it differently which is this I would ask you this question is that deep down do you believe that the universe is constituted only by stuff by material or is there a mystery at the heart of things. Do you believe that you are purely Cynapsus or is there something immaterial and eternal about you and those you love. Do you believe that things like love are just an Epi phenomena of the way evolution has put us all together. Or do you think there is something that in the fact that in material things like ideas and love and consciousness have such a profound influence on our lives that leads you to believe that the intangible can be at least as real or more real than the tangible if that way of looking at the world.

It feels to you or speaks to you then you understand that lipgloss in order to explain how the heavens go may not need the hypothesis of God but that in order to explain why there is Something Rather than Nothing Why There is a deeper meaning to life than stuff alone that that's something that speaks to you and let you understand that God is real. That's one way way way too. High too is there are in fact things that are suggestive of something greater in even the scientific world view which is why by the way the American Academy of Science more than half consistently and this has been true for the last hundred years 51 52 percent of scientists say that they believe in God. And that is the fact that everything exists rather than nothing. That consciousness which is still inexplicable to human beings is real. That I make sounds and. Which is immaterial. And it touches you in some way that what makes you want to change things the the way of looking at the world

even from what we can see and touch and feel suggests that there's something greater than what we know and now. Go right ahead. I can't I can't paraphrase him properly but we were you to get hold of. It's easy to find on on Google. A lecture given by Lawrence Krauss I regard as good as living because as I and it's about the quantum and it's about a whole universe of nothing it's exactly how you get from nothing to something if. Quite a lot of things. One means by which this happens is the following. Every second that we're speaking is a star the size of our sun or big that goes up blows up and goes out. That's been the case every single second since the first members of the big bang. It's a lot that will be a lot of suns going out as we speak. And there's a lot of Annihilations lives a lot of destruction. So no it's rather what you might call almost a wasteful scale. It does have the positive outcome there that we're all

constituted of materials. We are made of stardust. Now I find that a rather more majestic and wonderful and even beautiful idea. Than say the idea of the burning bush. More impressive. Gives you more to think about. Truly exclusive also has a mutually exclusive. God make you a star as one has the virtue of being true and provable and study abroad which the other doesn't. And I do think that the verifiability of something is is a virtue. Or we is simply material does. We didn't have bodies we are bodies. So 50000 years ago there were four other kinds of bipedal humanoid not unlike us still living on the planet died leaving no descendants with any survivors of those people that family lost. We didn't know if they had gods or not. So you think something is explicable. No religion ever invented appears to have known that these creatures even existed because the religious are forced

to believe that the only really significant event that happened in the human story happened about 3000 years or so it is inexplicable. Are we just waiting. It's not true all. It's the fact that it's factually is this this or this massive big bang because cosmological churning and destruction and annihilation which is pelo by the way on on earth would 99 percent of all species that have been on the planet have already gone extinct leaving their descendants. All of this could be part of a plan. There was no way an atheist can prove it's not. But it's some plan isn't it. With mass destruction visionless extermination annihilation going on all the time and all this motion on a scale it's absolutely beyond our imagination. In order that the pope can tell people not to jerk off. Right. Now. It. Is childish to be an area of agreement.

Try to repudiate that statement by the pope but I'm not I'm happy to do it publicly. I'd like to have just a second. Hold on. First of all it's just not true that religions don't actually acknowledge very important things that happened before their own founding. Just read the beginning of the Bible which goes back far beyond the founding of the Bible. But more important than that there are actually things that if you want material you can't give an accounting of. For example you might not believe that you have free will. You might think that everything you do was pre-determined from the beginning of the Big Bang and just the fact by the way that all of the universe physics tells us came from something tinier than the head of a pin is to me there is no word other than miraculous for it but nonetheless you might believe that everything you did that the words tonight the fact that those flowers will be orange on the

table that was predetermined from the beginning of time. But if you believe that you actually make a choice that human beings have free will. Then I ask you how you account for that. You didn't pick your birth your genetics you didn't pick your environment. So from the very beginning all of that was pre-determined for you. And unless there is something immaterial about you that allows you to choose then everything human beings do is already set from the beginning of time. I don't understand how you get free will if you don't have got to. It's pathetic. So it have to say over the cosmological and the genetic that these are deterministic processes that not it's all the full of extraordinary randomness. And in the genetic case of mutation. Stephen Jay Gould a great paleontologist wrote a book which I recommend to the Burgess Shale which is that it's the side of a mountain in Canada. Canadian Rockies that sheared off. So you can read you can see the inside of the mountain you can see it as if you

look at a blackboard and you can see the growth in divid of the species and you realize that it's not a tree. It's more like a bush that would go the reverse branches that go off and go nowhere and the others succeed. And the different kinds of failure and different kinds of mutation. His most exciting thought. Most revolutionary thought is this if you could so to speak Poulette onto a tape and rewind it and then pressed play again. And he would come up the same way. There's every reason to believe that it would not. So there's nothing predetermines only deterministic about this it's all thanks to our understanding of genetics which are also not pre-determined because the result of random mutation and natural selection as everyone now knows. And that's why we can have sad to say for the kosha of we can have skin transplants. And transplants from pigs who are much closer to us than we used to think. We can also sequence the DNA of viruses and learn how women are so so strong. It works in other words. But yes it can be tampered with it can be engineered for good as well as is nothing

deterministic about it. It's always much more exciting. It's much more interesting much more rewarding. It's verifiable. And yes the elements of those trying to save the miraculous the inspiring the tragic and majestic in this that simply are not in the incantations of Genesis where the supposed to with is claim to know the divinity the creator on personal terms. This is nonsense. It's for children. Rabbi first of all it isn't true. I mean Stephen Gould who was by the way very sympathetic to religion and wrote a book called Rock of Ages which I also recommend to you where he said that religion and science don't overlap. Sure but he went second. If you read his book on the virtue scale he does say if you rewind then you assume if you push play again you would get a different result. And that's certainly true unless the result was intended. But more important than that yes there's randomness in the system. Nobody would argue that there isn't randomness in the system but randomness isn't free will.

Randomness is getting a result you don't expect. The question is how do you get a directed choice which isn't random. I choose right now to pick this class up. How did I make that choice. If I'm purely a product of my DNA and my environment then it's not a choice that it was programmed in. Then it's instinct and the whole point that religions always made about instinct with that human beings can rise above it. Unlike animals which are the same at age two as they are at age 10 as they are at age 15 a human being grows and changes and chooses. That's the basis of religious I have to say to me it doesn't seem a matter of religion that I can choose to pick up this glass that seems to me to be well within what could develop how truly scientific basis. I'm not a scientist but it doesn't seem like a mystery of God to me personally. Well no but seriously where. Does the element of God. I could be purely instinctual and put my head in the stream and drink and choose not to do that.

But what we do now you say just wait wait. When you say choose where does that where does that choice come from any more than then the choice of this glass to fall down. Where do you get a choice as opposed to a complex interaction of DNA and environment neither of which you chose. Again piling on completely unnecessary assumptions is also converging on a question that will make you uncomfortable. If you say that no it's because God has given you free will I have to ask you how do you do that. Well why are you assuming that we have one. One might assuming that we have free will. If you were honest with us if you did me a quiz give me another source you answered my question with a no give me an answer. OK. I will still like you. Your question is a nonsense of mine rather not a response to one. The view I take about free will is that of course we have free will because we have no choice but to know that. I am a giant. I was so I wasn't as eloquent. Not at all. I still some extent a dialectical materialism. I think there are some there are some ironies in the US as well as a history.

But to say of course we have free will. The boss says we've got it is to make a mockery of the whole concept of socialism. But the question will come. What kind of tyranny is this that you want. You want supervising deciding person. I asked you first what sources of information do you have about this person's existence. I don't love that are denied to me. I'd like to know and second why did you want it. Why did you want to arrive at the terminus of freedom where there is a celestial authority upon whom all things to happen and from which all things flow. Why do you want that. And how on earth do you know that there's any case to be made for its existence. Yes in any sense. I don't but I don't think that's a terminus of unfreedom I have enjoyed every one you've declared against it. That's the beginning of freedom is the emancipation is not coded It's only the tyranny of theocracy. Yes I actually think that the whole point that I was making was that a belief in a God and Creator is what gives you free will and that without it you have to fall into a determinism. And by the way you may not you may think that science gives it to you but every scientist I've asked

on this question including David potsherds and evolutionary biologist says that Steven Pinker had the same reaction is that either is more or less a commonplace of modern science that determinism is the only worldview that's consistent with an understanding of the way science works. So you may be able to find it in science but I haven't met a scientist yet who has been able to account for it. Not every scientist is a bleeding out of sight. No of course not. I'm saying that most of us don't use determinism as their philosophical assumption but let me answer his question too which is therefore I assume that as a religious person you're granted freedom. That's the whole point is you do make choices. You said choices once you have agreement and you've made my point and well English you know has a very frantic thinking through it. Thank you for making me feel you. Glad to know you're granted freedom. So you're granted freedom by the evolutionary process. I'm granted freedom by a creator. Either way. What did you eat. You have all sorts of freedom I mean the scientists who are to this extent that all

instances of the miraculous thing about the laws of nature is never suspended. That's what's so amazing though their immutable religion claims that on occasions the laws of nature are suspended in order to be wrathful they wouldn't otherwise to ask. Not my money. It depends who you ask and really is is there a fundamental contradiction in your mind I between Jewish teaching and evolution. No none at all no. No but evolution as we learn it doesn't require a deity know it. Well it depends what you mean by require a deity. It's just like saying that building the stage doesn't require a deity. The question isn't whether the discovery of the mechanism by which God made the world requires God. It just requires the discovery of the mechanism by which God made the world. But it also doesn't outlaw God or make God impossible or make it in fact less. What a difference to your mind between mystery and in

comprehension in comprehending other words when we read that describes my reaction to the question of great. America I like questions and comfort. Not that I understand. Tell me again. So in other words passively made a lot of things comprehensible. Yes mystery mystery means those things that by the very nature of the world are unfit you're auditable no matter how no matter how bright we are no matter how hard we work out how do you know the true nature of what you're asking for that over incomprehensible. You're asking no in a way that I'm not willing to concede is the proper way to describe religious conviction. It's like saying to me how do you know that love exists. Or how do you know that another human being is beautiful. Or how do you know that that I don't know that these that these lights are a pageant of gorgeous colors. The answer is you don't know. Something you have the deepest conviction of your

soul. And there are things that make sense of the world in ways that nothing else make sense of the world. But if you ask me do I know that God exists the way I know that that glasses on the table. Then I say you are putting it in a in an empirical scientific framework which is exactly the framework that religious people want to keep religion out of. No but I to say the way about how do you know the mystery won't be solved one day because the because it's not a mystery of a question that's solvable. It's like saying Gee how do you know the mystery won't be solved. The fact that you have us have in the radical sense that the world is wondrous I don't know how you would even think about solving such a mischief I could understand it and still find it wondrous. Christopher what about you if it's not God is all soluble first. One day you'll write the science has made many things will comprehensible to us than that it's explained things that religion used to take credit for in other words. Now we know there's a germ theory of disease. Diseases are

not curses or revenge is from heaven. Same with earthquakes and so on the stuff they use to teach us and many of them still do nonsense evil nonsenses as well as humans. But it's also taught us that just in my lifetime an enormous amount more about how little we know we are much much more ignorant than people who lived before got to do we just because we have a now an increasingly larger idea of how one has to get expanse of the unknown best precisely the moment at which to say that skepticism is what's necessary. Inquiry debates douch where is faith in this wisdom the usefulness of faith. There's no use at all. Socrates who as far as I know existed but may well not have done. It doesn't matter to me. No one will insult me if they say Socrates your great hero didn't exist. Try it on a Muslim try it on a Christian. The prophets didn't exist. So people of Moses is a myth. They are still holding themselves about making menacing noises. So as you said you were only

education would have understood how ignorant you are and you only could even find out by doubting everything all the time. That's all the difference in the world between that outlook and that mentality now and Winchelsea of faith and second on metaphysics which you know to take refuge in. Several times already this evening. Like what is love is something poetic or is it prosaic. Very good questions but metaphysical ones. Those who say God exists and intervenes in the world. No it was those who say there was a religious god the god of religion all saying that redemption is all of which are human beings. That salvation is on offer to them and that if they reject the offer they can be in really big trouble. Now just don't start talking on issues like this or if you don't mind to debate a debate party like me as if religion was a private matter because everybody knows that if it was there wouldn't be anything to argue about. It's precisely because it claims to be a total solution a complete solution to all problems available on on on pain of

death sometimes and some forms but available to you if you only have enough faith based on faith is probably the most overrated of the virtues and the one most least useful to us in the real dilemmas that we actually have to face. There are so many things to unpack in that statement that I'll just pick on two or three. First being interestingly Socrates whether he exists or not existed or not according to Plato at least believed in the gods and even an afterlife. So he didn't doubt everything. God maybe but wait wait wait wait didn't even interrupt you. But I want you to know see in particular. I didn't interrupt you twice. But I want you to know you are quick enough. I take it mate. No it may be true that part of it wasn't was speed but I also think it's because civilities very religious virtue. So. I could have said that the.

Jewish tradition actually doesn't tell you that everyone must do this in the world. Rather it prescribes goodness and that's what it is that religion is supposed to bring into the world. Now can you point to examples of religion without religious wickedness of course you can but that's clearly what Judaism asks of people. The first obligation that you have is goodness. And that's why when you talk about religion as though it is inherently totalitarian it tells you you must act this way. It makes two mistakes. First of all it doesn't see religion as evolving as everything else does when in fact the Judaism of thousands of years ago ought to be must be should be is expected to be different from the Judaism of today. Still has the Ten Commandments. I wish them good night. You have to let me finish my staker. OK. Thank you. You're welcome.

I feel a little bit between a sandwich here. By. The second and the second part of it is that if you say that faith does nothing for you as Christopher repeats over and over again it's very hard to explain why it is that millions and millions of people all over the world and throughout history have felt that faith deepens their life gives them meaning increases their goodness and why it is. For example in America that people of faith if more to charity VOLP more in elections volunteer more help the more you know what the largest aid organization is aid and development organization in the United States it's not care. It's not save the children. It's a one world which is a Christian organization out of Seattle which not only gives millions and millions and millions of dollars but sends people all across the world to the most beleaguered helpless places. And they do it because they believe they're called to do it by God. Just not true that having faith makes no difference in this world. It makes a tremendous difference. And the vast majority of that difference not all of

it but the vast majority of that difference is for goodness. Let me put a question and if you'd be so good the rabbi feels the rabbi fills in a sandwich and I don't mean for you to fill in a sandwich so what does it do. Oh that's OK. Christopher what about the solace of faith. So of the most religious people I know ended up there. Oh had a softball. But no I mean I know what he's going to say to this. Well maybe but he minded hard hearted. It's not the meter it is just worse. You're a misanthrope because you're not sympathetic to people's need for religion. I send my book available find bookstores everywhere. That is as long as I don't have to hear about it. I don't mind what people believe if they say well thanks to Joseph Smith and his gold plates. I have real faith now and I've got a family and I have friends and I have a real system. And so I said Fine fine just don't come to my front door with it.

Don't ask for a tax break for it. Don't ask my children to be taught in the school. Did you sign up for that when you hear about it and I asked them. I asked the question in the book. People think they have a personal relationship with creation. It possesses a wonderful secret. It must be. I've never felt it. I presume it feels great what doesn't it make them happy. They're not happy. They call be happy. Everyone else believes it to be good and proselytize very often. Just don't let your love so it's a good faith effort in the guise of charity. You do so from that religion rather than Also the questions that I've put. Like how do you know there's a God. What evidence do you have for it which you say Well lots of good people do good things because they are religious. Well that's true the most recent repressing case. Richard Dawkins and a few others. The response to the Haiti earthquake set up an emergency charge for people who nonbelief to give to because so many child molestations are in fact proselytizing groups. So we raised about 2 million in a weekend and all that money goes straight.

By the way thank you. If you guys are Richard's Web site you can find out more about what this was. It's it's permanent It's good to stay and being without money went straight to doctors without borders of course. And the International Red Cross which do it has a cross isn't sort of disorganization boobies all that is already in Haiti. They're proven none of the money goes to support any missionary activity. None. And the Scientologists and all the others who turned up in Haiti and the people took advantage of kidnap babies to convert them to their faith and birth Catholics who could sew it up and said standing in the ruins of their own cathedral with a quarter of a million Haitians buried under the rubble said God spoke here today. And you should listen to his message. Don't tell me that's good. Don't tell me that's good. That's wicked. It's proselytizing. It's proselytizing with the helpless. Using them as objects of charity and conversion. It's lying to people but it's also a order. To. The life. And the lives of people. And it's getting them is getting them first hopes and aspirations for their plight. Not

guilty of any of that. And I ask you another question where in the jackalope is the word goodness. Well that's a good swath of this fleet. We're next to this as well. Goodness. Where in this commandment rich territory does the word goodness or the enjoyment to be good occur. This should be stuff. OK. It's first of all it tells you it tells you what you ought not to do it says Love your neighbor as yourself. In the Book of Leviticus I mean I'm allowed to move to Leviticus from Exodus. I think that's right yes that's. Yes. OK. Back to you. I appreciate that. It says you should pursue justice justice justice you shall pursue it says it over and over and over again. And also by the way you know no tradition at least certainly not the Jewish tradition and I'm not aware of any other tradition is only the Bible. Judaism is a long exegetical tradition and it says several times in the Talmud that the one purpose of the meat to vote is let's pray for Cabrio which means to refine human

character. It's clear that Judaism is directed around goodness. It's repeated over and over again. The whole system and framework of meet to vote are to get people to treat each other decently. And if you say which you do that people use authority governmental authority religious authority military authority political authority to do bad things. My answer is of course they do. Any time you set up the structure of authority people will do bad things like churches. But that isn't what I thought but that. Yes of course. So what you say is what you heard is when religion does good things it doesn't count because sometimes they want people to believe what they believe when it does bad things it's because of religion. When you make everything group that happens that religion is invalid and everything bad that religion does. Representative that's called arguing in bad faith which is ironic for someone who has not. It seems a fair question. Yes. I mean as as you know that isn't it's all what I said. Say it's the bad things I've done in the name of religion or by authorities I say it's religion itself

that is the problem. I go out of my way to make clear that I don't take refuge in any other position. Now in Leviticus and in Exodus if your neighbor you know knew this person's best you're supposed to love him this person better not be an Amalekite Midianite Moabite but nobody you know be a witch. Yep. Destruction of whom is enjoined by not being homosexual the stoning of whom is enjoy being Obeah a slave. The terms of slape of enslavement of which are laid out. Now these primitive tribal agricultural moments were all the jackalope whether it was addressed to the trouble in Close's Here's what you can do with your servants here your service was to pay the school why the command was addressed. We will have staff why while the women it's a rather large objection. I thought one of the women counted as part of the animal and chattel that's disposable by these holders of property.

Could it be any more obvious that this is a manmade phenomenon and at a time when people were not at their best and were full of fear and ignorance and greed and covetousness of other people's property. How can we be faithful and not be trapped by history. Not all of it Televen So it's true that. Christopher knows very well. I assume that the Bible was put together by human beings and that the Jewish tradition is a long evolving tradition as are other traditions in which the dross of history is gradually refined in the same way that you would not expect someone 3000 years ago to be able to understand the sort of arguments that you're making tonight. People change there's an evolutionary process also not only to biology but to sociology to ideology. All of those things. And that's why the question is very much does religion make people better and can be systems refine themselves and can they get rid of the stuff that is bad in religion. And I think that to assume that you can

cherry pick things and statements in religion that are negative and those things are necessarily enduring contradicts the history of every tradition. I know what Cherry picking is an not words used with somebody that's thrust upon you. I've got no choice but to study the jackalope. No actually I pointed out it says it's appropriateness and enjoying some to keep women as property. Are you what you are cherry your. Are you out favor of theft murder and adultery. Do you think those are good things as no use. Exactly the nub of your question. If what you say is true yes. Not that I've never said it wouldn't couldn't interpret as having said no religious person can do a good thing if you go by what you say is true this should be true and you should find it easy to point it out. OK that must be something they can do or do with I cannot do. That's a good thing. Either my statement made or most ethical statement performed the personal faith could perform that I cannot. You must be able to identify that. Actually your point is to have any facts could you.

How how can one human being do something that another human being can't do physically physically of course you could do anything that I could do but I can say lots of things to say lots of things you don't do. Not that you can't do. You probably don't do as I do. Bless your child on a Friday night. You probably don't create great works of art based on religion. You probably don't go half way across the world feeling that you're motivated and called by a God who tells you to help other human beings. I mean all those things are things that religion motivates people to do. Not that you can't do them but that people generally don't do them if they're not motivated to get real. I mean pronouncing an incantation Yes isn't a moral action. Of course it isn't it isn't. It's only it's only not a moral action. If you don't object you even miss it. Don't you just want to do something it may. It is something I could do. It's not I I know of course you can't. And I encourage you to do it. It's only not one day you don't feel. The unique expression of love when it takes place in an atmosphere of sanctity that is not the same as saying to a child I love you. I have to tell you I mean some of you knew my father who

passed away in May who was a rabbi. When I think of the most powerful and intimate moments that I had with my father it was when he put his hands on my head and blessed me on a Friday night. Now he would not have done that were he not religious and it wasn't the same as when he kissed me good night and said I love you because there is an element in which religious people dwell. It's called a world of sanctity that you can't invoke and can't dwell in if you don't believe that that roamings Christopher told you. Way first. First I'm sorry for your loss. They are so sorry for your trouble. For a second that a. But I'm still going to have to insist. I don't think anyone in the audience can consider that some nonsense of my challenge. Of course as you say there's a moral or ethical statement or action that an unbeliever could not perform that could not means that you're physically incapable of it and I'm willing to concede that it would do everything I can do. That's if you can go the best you can. Well then coming from that you also wouldn't do it. The answers you want

answered. Or just leave the question to the audience if anyone can come up to me and say here's a moral thing you couldn't do. Not Don't do it could not do the original but only overexpose. I'd be interested to hear of it. No one's ever come up with it. Let me ask you there was a brief crawler we think of a wicked thing done. All evil things said that is done precisely because of faith. You've already thought of one but any that a way that any that someone who does not and they are you know they tell me one that I could not do. I didn't say that. OK. But that's exactly the point. It's a human being can't do certain things whether they're believers or not they have the physical ability it's still leaving something with you a knew it was no problem to you that the suicide murder community the genital mutilation community. These are all faith based communities. You want me to have charity who doesn't hear Hamas saying the reason we're loved by all people is because we provide social services. We we help the needy. We are the only people who come out to do that which is by the way I'm horrified to have to say is true.

What do you excuse them for that because they're charge. Of course not. Do you not think that they blessed their children a whole lot. Yes I think you do it right. You try being you don't think of your children. No would not be blessed. The entire time. That's part of the mythology that they claim but they just say the one thing I want to ask who's this is faith based. Who steps up to you will like any of the language. But life has a lot of despair. People fall into despair. Who steps up to save and I don't mean in Christian terms necessarily at all but who steps up to reach out to those people and for society as a whole if you don't have the teaching of religion what will offer a kind of moral construct I don't see it in schools. I don't. The union halls are gone. Who's going to give people such a structure. Well it's called Hollywood Hollywood. I mean what it may have blemishes it may be deeply flawed it may be fatally flawed you would say but what's the substance what's the

structure for moral teaching getting saved the despair. I think despair is quite a good starting point Melissa. I mean I think it's very good to know that we're born into a losing struggle. I think that the stoicism that comes out in the reflection that comes out is very useful. I'm not very impressed by people who say well I wish it wasn't true so I'll try and act as if it is. It is true. Everything is governed by entropy and decline and annihilation and disaster and you're born into a losing struggle and because you're a mammal primate primate mammal you know you are and you know you're going to die and that there will be a lot of struggle and pain on the way. I do wonder well without anxiety and grief and pain and struggle I want I can't get no one save you but for me I spurn the gift. I don't want what you want. I don't want the feeling of eternal love and peace love and peace. Very very overrated in my view. One reason. One reason why I'm one of the many reasons I chose I should despise all religions equally with one and I do in a way

one way which I prefer Judaism to its rivals is that the emphasis is more on justice than on love. I want to the other about why is that not misanthropic of you. That attitude isn't trouble doesn't mean I have to hate people. What it means what it means I respect it means respect them and respect them enough not to offer them false counsel. I do think it's import the realm of illusion will not help you to cure this condition. I do think it's important to say that part of this heart of this is based in temperament but also part of it is based on life experience. I spent a lot of my time at the bedside of people who are dying with parents who lost children with husbands who lost wives and wives who lost husbands the sense of community that is created by religion the sense that life is meaningful even if it's short. All of that. It's not trivial. It's not cheap consolation. It's not illusion it goes to the depths of the questions that human beings ask themselves. And I know that you can make a clever remark about

the sheep selling of religious consolation but you know what the remark gets melted by the heat of human anguish. When you're standing beside the grave of a child who died and the mother is saying a prayer. And that brings her some measure of comfort because she really does believe that this world in some sense is meaningful and is not nihilistic and is not empty. And he's not foolish. And although I can't prove to you in an empirical sense that in fact the world is meaningful at that moment even as I question it. It seems to me the deepest instinct of my soul. Well if you're. Go well if you'll pardon me I won't show any of my groups with you. But I've never had one. How do you know anyone who had one who's of the famous consolation from religion being told as the Christians told them that though to a better place and so on I think it's positively wicked to do the line to the dying for a living. What a self-respecting

person can do that. And you know it's an idea once you just tell me how you know it's a lie once you assert it again and because the person saying it cannot possibly know it to be true and therefore they don't have access to information even if they believe it is a lie. Yes that's a lie. But how do we create for those who aren't able or don't desire to walk around and disappear or to walk around. You know I really in a world that brings can bring pretty spread. Try try fine. But I think it's manifestly clear lots of people don't choose that. So what does atheism offer. Well it offers the chance of living without illusion which I think is the philosophy philosophy and literature will do a great deal more for you. There are much more there's a lot more morality in them. There's a lot more ethical discussion and in those tasks so many people will present those who are really sure a diety who represent them anyway. I'm different there is no one present there is. Isn't. Going to be very easy.

I can only appeal in my own post and didn't even say that some extent will see this irony. I think it's tremendously useful as well as his philosophies especially the philosopher Spinoza. Especially in times of anguish and the realization that there's no fool's consolation can actually cheer you on. But once you face the fact that you're going into a losing struggle things immediately appear a great deal more manageable in some ways. And really the romance against this movie is not one of these remarks couldn't have been made by a devout member of the Muslim Brotherhood. And what I want to ask him is this if anything of what he says is true is he really saying that he would he would prefer me not to be myself not to be an unbeliever. And so he believes in me and that I'd be morally better off if I was a Wahhabi Muslim. For me as a Roman Catholic see me and asked Are you as an outcast. I mean couldn't you you know I would be a better target only.

It was a question of you ask me the question if you're not allowed to answer it for me you imply my employer wants to know if you really mean that. Actually I never said that you were automatically better off if you believe and you didn't believe. I think Christopher is very useful in the world because he forces religious people to do. I mean he useful for many many reasons obviously to the world but he also forces religious people to think seriously about their faith. And as I understand the God that I believe in and the God that Judaism presents the first and primary demand is not belief. The first and primary demand is goodness. That's exactly what characterizes Judaism. And therefore if you say to me I'm a good person but I don't believe is it better that I would be a miserable person who believe all I have to do is look at the sources and say obviously not. Obviously it's better for you to be who you are and to promote goodness in the world. That's exactly what the man who chaired by is what the Jewish tradition teaches to make the world better under the sovereignty of God. But notice the very first clause in that is to make the world better. So if you do that. That's

the primary demand of any faith that I think is worth its salt. May we turn on that point to what very shrewd grazed as an acute concern that is violence. And the question of whether violence is integral to religion or exceptional and in offense to religion or both or all three. Violence and religion. Ok so I'm going to try to abbreviate this. There are two things to remember. First of all most religious conflicts are not about religion. What you find is religions will fight when there's land when there's power when there's resources when there's what or when there's money. It's very rare for a religious group not a not inconceivable very reffer religious group to say hey guess what. There's someone halfway across the world who believes differently let's go get them. It's the people who live next door to us are other than not wish other than us. We should get them in by the way along the way. We're going to take their land and we're going to take their riches and we're going to take this. And that's

because if you look in the encyclopedia of war which is probably not something that you peruse in your leisure hours but if you do you will see that it identified. Seventeen hundred and sixty three wars since the beginning of time 123 of them are identified as religious wars. When you take religion out of a society you don't get a more peaceful society. We look at the 20th century it was like a laboratory for that Stalin ism Maoism Naziism Cambodia North Korea versus South Korea on and on and on and on. The fact is the record of extracting religion is very poor and the final point is this which is if you ask why religious people fight. The answer is clear. It's because they're people. I have a colleague and not a rabbi but a psychologist in Los Angeles who studies bullying. Do you know at what age bullying is most prominent. Think to yourself what age and then I'll tell you the answer

by far. The answer is preschool because we're not born all sweetness and light it's why it's so much hard work to get a kid to be good parents don't have to say to their child why don't you share a little bit less. You know because you're really you're too selfless you're too kind. Instead it's very hard work to get people to do well. What religions are known for is their attempt to make something straight of the crooked nature of human beings and they fail again and again and again exactly as you would expect if you know human nature. But that doesn't mean that the attempt to do it makes people worse. Quite the opposite at least according to the evidence of history with violence and Mr. violence. Violence arises because we are primates imperfectly evolved of Priefer the lives of two small dwindling bands of too big the various other forces of this kind. Sexual organs designed by committee. All the rest of it.

And we agree. We're greedy. We're back to power. We as a media were greedy and fearful and covetous of other people's. And also surprisingly it's a biggest defect. Given that the reason we're so successful is there's almost no genetic difference between us. If we were dogs we'd all be the same breed. The fantastically little variation but incredibly prone to tribalism and ethnic and racial what Freud called the narcissism of small differences. So of course if a tribe let's say that's calling itself the children of Israel for the sake of argument decides they should kill all the other tribes and get in its way take their women as slaves butcher their man take their land take their cattle. So better this way across to Canaan and take it one else and then burn down. That's going to happen where there's a God I don't know where there's religion or not but it will happen very much more intensely if they believe they have a mandate from heaven to do so. It's a terrific force multiplier. I think that would have been a

quarrel between the who's who in the Tootsy of Rwanda say once Belgian colonialism would establish that there were these two different church groups types and tribes. But it's a terrific force multiplier that the Catholic Church was as strong as it was in Rwanda the most Christian country in Africa made it infinitely worse. What makes the Israel-Palestine two state solution unguessable. Because then there's a chunk of people on both sides who say they have gone in that corner and God gave only the group that they can negate the votes of everybody else including the whole international community by the way just because of their faith. Northern Ireland is the same. That would have been a Republican Nationalist dispute. It's infinitely worse because of religion. So I think that the the the possible the. I'd like whole would be that the less religion the wars the less violence there would be. But I can't I can't in good I can't in good conscience say that.

But I think the more that the more the people refuse orders that were divine. As for example the preposterous allegation that the rabbi makes that the wars of the 20th century was secular was the belt. Buckle worn by every soldier in the Nazi Army that says Got Is God on our side. I think that was a help to you. Things are bad enough as they were. On page 70 I think it is of mine. If Hitler says that we're taking on the filthy virus of Judaism. I know I'm doing the work of the Lord and I'm cool. I'm someone by the Lord to do this work. A book one of the very few books the Vatican didn't ban in that period. By the way that was help either. So I'd say on the whole we'd be better off without the belief either in a supreme dictator because that leads to violence or the idea that God takes sides in our prophetic Memarian dispute. I want to just say as a coded to this. When you say that we shouldn't take orders I just want to remind you of a long history for example the abolition of slavery was almost entirely the

work of people who believed they were taking orders from something higher and societal orders. Wilberforce in England. And here you know Beecher and John Brown and so on they believed they were doing God's work by abolishing slavery. And it's interesting to note how the slave slavery it's interesting the abolition of slavery was a Christian movement but the idea is it's not an issue of who you take orders from. It's an issue of the orders you take. That's the issue. And it comes down in part to one kind of religion you practice not whether you practice religion cooperates. I just I'm sorry comrades. Just what kind of what is your take rather than it sounds rather than just comments. I suppose it is somewhat to the credit of some Christians that in the waning decades of thousands of years of slavery that were biblically mandated. Some of them belatedly join things like the American Anti-Slavery Society sties of which Well Thomas Paine Benjamin Franklin. Not really. That's right.

Whereas to the last day of the Confederacy the flag of the Confederacy said Diovan to check God on our side and every justification for that slavery came from the Bible won't do this. I'm going to take questions from you to it. One minute there are microphones. If you have questions make your way and we will take them very shortly as we begin to do that. May I ask. CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS You have debated Rabbi David Wolpe on this subject you've debated the Reverend Al Sharpton. Yes. What's the difference between these debates. Where the Reverend Al Sharpton is another case of the damage done to society by religion because once it was agreed by the rest of America that black people are best led by preachers. And once it was agreed to right out of the civil rights record the heroic black secularists like Bayard Rustin and the Great Black Union Leader Philip Randolph who actually organized with the help of automobile workers

the March on Washington once all of that had been forgotten and we decide you are black people we love their preachers. Then once the king is gone it's one succession of junk demagogues off to another with them give him the mantle because the holy orders. There's no fraudulence you can't get away with in this country if you can get the word reverend put in front of your name. Question is a very conspicuous example of that. We'll begin right here. Madam your question sir. I can't see. I'm sorry it had just hit you. And I could beat you up now that was later. OK. It seems to me that you know most religions deal with the operational aspects of life such as human capital development that is the cumulation of literacy and technology economic development mental and physical well-being and public service which deals with charity and those kinds of things.

These these are the work of religion. Yes. That they profess. Yes. And that all faiths professed these things and since they do it seems to me that it's not so much their profession that causes the negative externalities but between people who profess these things but it's still labels that hate that they take hold such as. I think Mr. Hitchens alluded to the fact that people say things about their faith that they actually don't practice or believe. And so I'm saying that should we just abandon these labels and stop calling ourselves Jews Christians or Muslims or whatever and deal with the operational facts of life which deal with again human capital. You know literacy you get economic development mental and physical well-being and public service and charity helping others without the things. Rabbi if I understand your question correctly I would say this the largest organized groups of charities in the world over

and over and over again all around the world organize themselves around religious groups. I don't think that that's a mistake and I don't think that that's a coincidence. So that in fact if you disbanded the idea that we're doing this as a religious group if you will in one stroke undo a great deal of the good that happens in the world. So no I think that communities which by the way without religions I don't know where you get communities where young and old sit together in common purpose. It's very rare especially in our society if you disband that I think you get trouble because without community labeling I'd implied it works. David says is that a person exists who would say now that I don't believe in God I'll stop giving money to charity. I don't care anymore. I didn't know. I don't think there is such a person. And if that was so it would be a very strange religion that they've been professing organized in. Why is it that in survey after survey religious people do get more and religious

people watch less television and have used drugs and alcohol. Religion is down. It has social utility very impressive to me because often it's very often the first thing when we debate with Catholics they always change the subject and charity right away. Jews it's usually a little later. You just see that they. With Muslims. Instead with Muslims at the time because what else can they do want to defend their faith. You just said it. They just said they didn't believe he would do it and defend the faith. They don't want to say they don't they feel used to talk about redemption salvation was going to. But look at the good what if you talk to the Mormons. They'll say you shouldn't you may not think much of Joseph Smith and I say you got that right. But boy you should see missionaries in government will do the work of legislation. What has this got to do with the existence of God or the validity of religious claims. It has nothing to do with social justice. It's a time wasting tax day. Way Wait wait wait wait. Now he's got. Nothing to. Do with it.

I. Just. Ask you this Christopher says to me God doesn't exist. And I say but we do good things. He's got a point but his previous comment was people who don't believe in religion do good things. In response I say in response to the question people who believe in religion do good things and agree to a greater extent. And then he says well why aren't you talking about whether God exists. You made an argument against the social utility of religion. I then made an argument is illogical. I have not conceded that it's to a greater extent. Let me give you an example with the great Brazilian photographers best Salgado whose wonderful work on the primary producers of the third world wants us to be committed. One of the great photographers. He's the ambassador. As the UNICEF calls it the United Nations Children's Fund for the eradication of polio. I work with him with a big goal.

We went we got it down to the point where except for a few bits of Afghanistan and Salvador polio it was almost gone from the world. We could go with smallpox. Not a small thing done by UNICEF a secular secular organization and we nearly got it was a date was announced but we're pretty sure polio would be gone. And it spread back because of the Muslim groups in Nigeria and also in parts of Bengal and Afghanistan told people don't go get your children inoculated. It's a it's a plot by scientists and Jews and others to sterilize Muslims. And. That plus the Hajj that plus the wonderful devotional habit of going to Mecca all the time and taking all the diseases with you as man the he was but all the way across Africa now. So I'm not going to have it said that in order to do good you've got to be more religious and so on. It's complicated by another question if I may approach is the other way and it's nothing to do with the polls a great thing. Thank you. Thank you. First comment to Mr. Hitchens. Thank you for a very well

argued book. You and I are in violent agreement. Second it seems to me not to talk about religion and faith for the moment. But the question as to whether God exists let's not duck that one it seems. It seems to me that to discuss that subject one needs to have some scientific knowledge. Why. Because science tends to helps to explain the way things work in the absence of scientific knowledge. Arguments can be made with respect to the supernatural and possibly be accepted by someone who just doesn't know the difference. Consider for example 900 years ago the Inca in Peru had gods of thunder lightning and rainbow. We have since learned how these phenomena take place. Gods they are not.

So it seems to me that you have to have some scientific background to be able to handle these kinds of things or else you'd devolve into a kind of flurry of English turning the question on its head. So let's stay with the question. Third comment. I'm Jewish and I love my religion. I love it because of its values and I love it because it tends to turn out wonderful people that's all but wonderful people. But I reject the assertion of God. I didn't. This is a child. I've done it as an adult. This isn't wrestling with angels. This isn't Spinoza. I've gone beyond that in my way. I don't understand why in the 21st century we can't get beyond that and let reality talk to us. We don't need faith in make believe it's not necessarily it.

Oh my God. I. Have. A question. So my my question my question is very simply to Rabbi won't be and please take a second to think about it. My question is and I've asked this of priests reverends and rabbis many times. Already. Guess is if no one ever explained God to you not in writing not orally would you have figured it out. Thank you so. First of all I think that it's important to understand that the idea that there's an inbuilt opposition between scientific knowledge and belief is contradicted by some very prominent scientists including Francis Collins who's the head of the human genome project who wrote a book in favor of God. Owen Gingrich was an astrophysicist at Harvard who wrote a book talking about his belief in God. I always find it interesting that people assume that the expertise they have is necessary in order to

make the assertion that someone else makes and if they don't have it then they can't speak about it. I grew up in a home where one of my brothers is a Ph.D. in bioethics and the other one is a Ph.D. in developmental biology. They talked science all the time. I think for a layperson I have a reasonably good grasp of of some sciences and I would say absolutely I can make the assertion that god exist precisely because the criteria that is used for a scientific assertion is not used for a religious assertion. Nobody asks in the same way that you make philosophical statements that are not subject to scientific criteria. If you freak if you ask yourself what does the world look like. For something that's not human to a back when. And the answer is we can't possibly know. That because we can't know what we know and we can't look at the world for different eye. So if you ask me what I have come to this belief it wasn't explained to me. My only evidence to answer that is yes

human beings did. And either it was explained to them by God which is what I assume you would come naturally. So yeah I think I would come to it naturally but can I prove that to you. No it is precisely one of the many examples of unprovable questions that we nonetheless can feel deeply about. My point though is that early on a debate is really on going to Christopher. Do you assume that everything will one day be solved scientifically or does it matter to you. No. All the science is good to do is keep wanting to use how little we know multiplying the distance between our entertainments and our desire to most of these masses the many these questions will remain undecided which is the way I like them. Religion and science can co-exist in the same person. That's true. I know Francis Collins wrote brilliant on the genome but if you've read C.S. Lewis you don't need to read him on religion. It's unbelievably naive. So Isaac Newton was an alchemist. Very strong for the superstitious christians thought the pope was the anti-Christ might have been on to

something there. But a very. Very. Very weird sort of very weird beliefs. I thought if you knew the measurements of the old temple you'd know more than if you understood gravity Alfred Russel Wallace who did most of Darwin's work for him was a spiritualist would go to table rapping sessions listening to babblings from the beyond. Joseph Priestley was a Unitarian and believed in the phlogiston theory and that the old age really only and so I would say it's only until Albert Einstein not notions of being over that Einstein did you get a scientist who is also essentially a philosopher of pure mind. That's the great breakthrough. And now you can have private beliefs and be a scientific person but no one says my science helps to vindicate my religion. No one says that anymore. But that's not doable. I want to get to more questions please. Yes I have a question for both of you regarding the existence of universal universal morality. My question for Mr. Hitchens. Is there one. And if so where does it come from. And my question for the rabbi is if there is one and it's for example in the 613

mitzvot How do you personally pick and choose which ones to follow. Because I notice you know you're not wearing suits. And some of the other prescriptions. So if it's my version might be under my shirt. There are. I won't go there. But. Generally speaking can you be a good Jew and not follow the 613 if that is a prescription for universal morality. Well the most commonly taken universal absolute moral statement is what's sometimes called the Golden Rule which Well Rabbi Hillel says don't do this to another person. What would be repulsive to you. Others say Do as you would be done by just putting it the other way. It's in the Analects of Confucius. It's very few societies don't have it. So I think that's what we'd have to take is the US to an absolute. It's obviously subject to various derivative issues. Alas for one thing it's only really

as good as the person saying it. Should not do to Charles Manson. What I don't want him to do is to me. Well. If you see me I mean should we say let's do it. Charles Manson what we wouldn't want to do ourselves or this thing on. It's just like the contradiction in between the Old and New Testaments the Old Testament says an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth which would lead to a lot of us into this world. And then the Nazarenes says you can't condemn anyone unless you can cast the first stone. Actually that bit was knitted into the Bible quite late and is almost certainly a fabrication. But it's believed by many Christians who you know as you know believe me nothing but. If you can't condemn anyone without being yourself. That's it. Then we can't even arrest Charles Manson unless we were sinless ourselves. So these moral absolutes are actually more full of moral relativism than you might think. And they said that the reason people want there to be absolutes is this they want that to be an absolute authority

who can give them to you because that saves you all the trouble of thinking out the ethics for yourself which is where I started. Why not take that jobs more enjoyable and less subject to approval and commandments to stone witches and all the rest that have a universal morality. And if there is the word I'm not I'm not I'm not sure that Christopher said whether he believes in a universal morality but yes someone who believes in God assumes that there is a universal morality but also assumes that it's very hard. It's not that the 613 it's about instantiate universal morality and moral reasoning as far as I know. Certainly in other traditions. But but obviously in Judaism is an essential part of the Jewish tradition it's not that you get out of thinking by being part of the Jewish tradition in fact questioning reasoning wondering thinking objecting is an essential part of

Judaism. Anybody who studies Hollywood knows it's filled with objections and questions but the assumption is that there actually is a right and a wrong in any given case. If all human beings are evolved primates there is not a right and a wrong. There's a better and a worse. There's a more powerful and less powerful nature was exactly right. If God is dead then power is all that matters because ultimately there isn't a right and wrong there something that promotes short interest and something that negates your interest. But I don't believe that because we do what you don't believe that human beings are evil. Yes but you also believe all but I also say they are. I said that all they are is evolved primates as opposed to evolve primates who have a spark of the eternal in them which I believe we do. Two questions for Mr. Hitchens. The first one is I was taught by a physics professor that if you go back to the big bang beginning of the universe in the first one to the sixty first of the first second time universe is

in a tiny amount of space and at that size space and time can cross. And his point was that the whole universe came into existence out of a hiccup in the space time warp and therefore it's just kind of a big accident that we were here. And so my question is the same one that I posed to him that day. Why is there a space time warp. Which leads me to the second question which is wouldn't it make more sense that there would be nothing there is should be no universe there should be no space time or there should be none of us and unless we're hooked into the Matrix right now we seem to be here. And so we take that as an argument for God. Is that what you're saying for something. There's a great mystery at the core of the universe. And then why are we here is the second question to argue in. OK. Thank you very much. Well again I commend to you. So what is my next book on this subject. Lawrence Krause's lecture on a

whole universe from nothing but where's the ground. Where's the divinity and the hiccuped and who produces the hookup. All you get from this is an infinite regression. Who creates this creator who gets to know it. And again if you do make the assumption which I can't dispute or certainly cannot refute that there is a first cause or uncaused cause it still doesn't mean that there's a God who takes sides answers prayers enjoins me and ask about it. So what do I mean. So I'm afraid you wouldn't believe me to somewhat to repeat myself. Can I just ask a quick question of what you just said. If it's an assumption that you can't refute which I understand I think everybody here would say you can't prove that there's not a god. That doesn't mean that there is one but if it's an assumption that you can't refute why is it that when someone says I believe that it is true do you say they're lying so that they like you said to me when someone stands they say no I say so when you lie.

So when he goes to the. So what he goes to tell a child if they don't behave well they'll go to hell. That might be an example of someone who goes to the death over and says I believe that there is a world other than this or going to a better place. I think Shillington knows how long I'll let it. QUESTION Could you point to that Mike's halfway back. There are people halfway back. Oh thank you for that. Yes. I didn't realize. I'm sorry. Yes I have a question of protocol for Mr. Wolpe. In view of the fact that non-atheists self identified non-believers are the fastest growing constituent in the U.S. population over the past 10 years. It's it's obvious that there are going to be more encounters between publicly organized atheists and publicly organized theists. So how do we be nice to one another. Mike My question to you specifically is. When you told us the anecdote of the reminiscence about your father I felt badly for you. I felt I felt badly that the best memories you had with your father. I'm sure it was a fine man depended

upon your shared belief in a fiction I mean scorned by this. Show I would say it's a way that we're nice to each other is by not studying remark I. I. Honestly to make sure that I take the question is a sincere question the way that you do it is the way that we do it. We argue with each other we disagree with each other but we are not personally abusive. We I hope I like Christopher I hope that that's reciprocated. Well what I like personally abusive. What did you find out. My response to your anecdote personally abusive. I found it disparaging to the point of aging on a lack of respect. Yes. And maybe I'm alone. I too thought it was somewhat comes with the phrase maybe even a little I'm

feeling but I don't worry that there's a surplus of rudeness in this country if anything this culture is far too polite. I look forward to that. I look forward. To. That. We could risk a little more here. Wow. I hate coming debates. I have to tell you we would have no decision makers here. We've been to each other. I want to cut you both off and they are OK. You could have stood a little more stuff back. Yes. Whether God exists or the university's turn no let me not be given to us to know that gravity will continue forever except for all the things we care about. But it seems me while we're here we can try and show ourselves and the question is whether religious people at the highest level have a better understanding of themselves than people who claim to be atheists. And in particular we can ask the question is Mr. Hitchens

himself really as great an atheist as he claims. He's a pretty good guy. What do you mean. I don't think so. I don't see that. But let me explain the belief for instance in the transcendence of justice and goodness the belief in the culpability of wrongdoers which he said earlier today that the people willingly have free will so that there is evil in the world in other words which Socrates didn't believe. It doesn't seem rational from a scientific viewpoint to believe in that he believes in the belief for instance he doesn't leave it just that we are made of snow. Yes to add that it's a majestic thing. But is the universe majestic or is the majestic something we're adding into it. It seems to me that these are all signs of piety religious belief and I mean frankly the Ignatius the Crusades. Mr. Hitchens go on which are very enjoyable I mean against Mother Teresa and so forth to make them seem to me to share

more in common with a Jesuit Dominican than than the real atheist. And it it's. And then if you compare let's say Dostoyevsky what your mention of Plato. People who are aware of it religious people its power seems to be more aware of human psychology themselves Mr. Hitchens are you a closet believer. No. A point of agreement between the rabbi and myself is that the human species mammalian primate on dogs is made out of the dust of exploded. Science does have a need for I would say that the Transcendent One what the numinous even the extatic wouldn't trust anyone who had felt this it has to do with landscape lights music love. And I think also a permanent awareness of the transience of all things and the melancholy that invests all this so it isn't just gaping happily at sunset while listening

to music. You're doing that knowing that it can't last for very long. Very important part of the awareness. People who didn't have this would I think be beyond artistic but there's no need for the supernatural in this at all. There was no supernatural dimension of which just gives you a show. And was of course for poetry indulgence. Will we ever stop with the pathetic fallacy if you know what I mean. That fallacy is giving human attributes to material things. So we were tempted to do that too. Rabbi I can just say the word evil though I personally find it funny. So what do you do you have to have I decided this in Iraq as a matter of fact after I'd seen the Saddam Hussein's attempt with chemical weapons to destroy the Kurdish people of northern Iraq and see the as it were the stench of evil. I thought about everything else you can say about Saddam Hussein. Psychopathic dictator mass murderer genocide lists bad guy as some would use to call him things. This was wasn't up to it. There was a surplus value to totalitarianism a sort of

a numinous bitch shimmer around it. That meant that we evil as well. We could not do without. Do you see in he who speaks up for the numinous the possibility of belief you smell a potential person of faith in Hitchens or no way I think. No I mean to be perfectly honest and not to make a cheap joke about it. I think that Christopher is a person of tremendous impressive faith not the faith that I have at all but faith in justice faith and goodness I mean what he's done with much of his life is I think really awe inspiring. That doesn't mean for a minute that I think that he's being dishonest about his lack of faith in the things that I believe. But does he have faith in a different sense. Absolutely. And we do more. Yes. Mr. Hitchens you are likely the world's most charming roguish and enlightened atheist and I love you for that. But as a Sufi

Muslim I'm very ruffled by the title of your book and the title is that you likely had at your disposal. Did you have to settle for the little negation of Allahu Akbar. Yes I thought. I. Think. It's a very good question and rather I wanted to go back to. The as I said I think that all religions of Rome in the same way that the privilege of faith over reason but they're not all equally bad in the same way all the time. I mean if I've been writing in the 1930s I would certainly have said that the Roman Catholic Church was the most dangerous religion in the world because of its open alliance with fascism and anti-Semitism which the damage from that our culture has never recovered from and never will. But at the moment it's very clear to me that the most toxic form that religion takes is the Islamic form the horrible idea of wanting to end up with Sharia or with a religion governed state or stage of religious law.

And the best means of getting there is jihad holy war. Wisdom's have a special right to feel aggrieved enough to demand this I think is absolute obscene wickedness and I think their religion is nonsense. India in its entirety the idea of God speaks to some illiterate merchant warlord in Arabia. He's able to write this down perfectly and it contains the answers to all who don't waste my time. But. You're saying. That. The God speaks. Angel Gabriel speaks Arabic. So I just want to say in retrospect were very simple. Actually I don't. Know. This. Is. A. Nation of all religion. Actually no because remember is it all makes one special claim for itself. All the religions claim to be revealed truth. They were all founded by divine revelation but Islam dangerously says Ours is the last and final one. There can't be any more after this. This is God's last word. Now that straight away the temptation to

violence and intolerance and if you note it's a temptation they seem quite willing to fall for it. Rabbi I had another motive which is this. If you remember Dick Gregory the old income rates who will great black comedian and civil rights activist. When you read his memoir he called it nigger right. Upset a lot of people including his own mom who called him and said Why are you doing this. He says Mama every time you hear that word again they are selling my book. To reminds people that we're in a very serious struggle with a very depraved religion and with no agenda. There's a role in the brand. You give no quarter. Look he believes in the prophecy. I'm sorry to say. I think he's been at best and you know our time is ticking down with respect. If I may be the protocol guy. I want to go back to your answer to the question just before this.

Because I think and particularly I want to interrogate you Rabbi because you in your earlier discussion than your answer to a couple of the questions you seemed to suggest that if there is something beyond the material that's evidence for God or it and then on the question of whether there can be moral behavior one can have a reason to act morally. You say that only you know that requires the existence of God. It does not exist if God doesn't exist you don't believe in God. You don't have reasons to behave morally but then I think in the answer. So I think that's where it was until your answer to the question before last and at that point you seem to grant that the gentleman sitting to your left actually did have reasons to Kamar Lee even though he

does not believe in God. Yes right. And I'm trying to figure out how explain the the difference is not whether people in their own minds have compelling reasons to act moral. The question is if you don't believe in God and you say you know what I'm going to free why would you do good in secret as as as Balzac put it that perhaps only believers in God do good in secret. Now obviously that's not true. But you understand the ideology behind it which is if you don't believe that there's a universal moral code that comes from beyond us and that human beings make up what's right and what's wrong. Why is it that I as a human being can't decide this is right for me even though I know it's going to be wrong for anyone else. In other words the standard that arises only from human beings is easily broken by human beings. Whereas if you think that goodness is woven into the fabric of the universe which is what a believer says then it's always wrong at all times in all places whether someone's watching where they're not watching whether you're a believer or you're not a

believer. That's always true and that's the distinction I was trying to get at. I was very struck up because this is the core question which we must revisit. I was struck this week reading I'm sure you saw the pope's brother Suniel go Old some guy who runs the choir school Ragan's. He's discovered recently there's been some unpleasantness of this school of which he was a student for about 20 30 years he said he didn't know about any of that. He claims not to have taken a prostitute but he said he did used to smack the boys around quite a lot until Bavarian law changed a major legal for teachers. Right. Well I don't want to be told any more of that without religious people we wouldn't know what morality was. He didn't know this until the secular law intervened and taught him how to behave. No it was just the church. What does the whole record of the church in this project you yourself are saying they would it don't go to the courts don't go to the police. We'll what we'll sort this out among ourselves and they say they're the people who prevent us from succumbing to moral relativism. I'm not

hearing it from them. I'm sorry it's insulting to be talked to in that way. The great governor of this state Mr. Romney wants to be president. OK there's a constitutional issue. Mormons are supposed to say that their prophet is that as they call their leader his word is over and over anyone else's including the Constitution of United States. So Romney has to say and finally people did force him to answer the question. Well do you think that about your property you said no the Constitution takes precedence in all cases. Fine. To the extent that he is an acceptable person it's the extent he's not a Mormon. The discipline of the discipline of secularism the discipline of secularism is necessary to civilize these superstitions. I hope very few of you begin your day by thanking God that you're not a female or a goy. Our time is going to swing around for a little bit. Yes right here. This is from Mr. Wolpe at the start of your talk. You've said your belief was scientific but you spent the rest of the talk backpedaling from that. But my real question is about free will you

say that you cannot get free will from a deterministic system I can create a pseudo random number generator that you can not distinguish from randomness no matter how long you look at it you can. It'll take longer than the life of the universe. Right. So you know when it is randomness that doesn't keep you intensional free will. And I know that if you do but if you say at the beginning by the way that my belief was scientific but if you take that as an opiate it's deterministic but it gives you a random result of your own free will. Now where did you get free will. If he if it hasn't if it doesn't have it it's not much of a deity. If it does have free will and God itself why can't we do it or some other day and he gave your deity free will which gives you infinite regress. The last question I'm afraid. The answer yes the answer is that there is no analogy between the deity and between human beings. Just like when someone says who gave birth to God. That's a mis conceiving of the religious concept of God which is that God has always existed and God isn't a biological creature. Therefore God doesn't get free will the way human beings get free will.

The objection and the problem with human beings getting free will is that if we're purely biological How does that alchemical metaphysical free will get into us. And a random generator doesn't give you free will. Even if it gave you random numbers that's quite different from actual choosing to do something or to do something else. What do you think in our society is winning this debate. The atheist the new atheists the religious was the center of gravity going and this will be the last book and I'm afraid. I think a very large number of people do. But they say that personal experience debating a large number of churches and synagogues go there for some of the reasons the rabbi gives community really and reasons you might say American American communities charities self-help. Often they run a school this kind of thing. They don't really believe the holy books. They don't think they have been specially noticed by God or have can any special favors from him. But they see it with no home. There's a great deal of schism among those who do believe enormous schisms. So when

people say in opinion polls that when you read that 90 percent of Americans believe in the virgin birth and insatiate and so forth I don't believe it at all. I don't believe. I do believe people have doubts about it. So it was someone who rang them up in the kitchen on the telephone either. I think that underneath this there's a huge crust of doubts and a great resentment against American theocrats. They know how to piss off an American Protestant in the south say Are you one of those Jerry Falwell people they hate that right. Do you think you're winning then you know. No I think that I think that the supposed religious monolithic nature of America is grossly overstated doesn't describe reality and it is certainly true as one of the questions mentioned about the number of those who say no there are atheists who are still a very small minority with those who say that they have no faith and allegiance to any church has doubled in the last few years and that's a decent opinion survey the pew one and all around them.

Rabbi what do you see the sort of gravity. Think. It'll tell you Christopher somewhere else. I I'm not. I mean I don't have a sociological expertise I can't tell you in terms of statistics where it's going. This is what I would say. I think that there are lots of reasons why organized religion has trouble many of them have been enumerated by Christopher. There are various other reasons as well. But I actually think that the impulse to piety and the sense of something greater than ourselves is deeply implanted in human beings and will never go away. And in that sense although people will find different expressions for their religious belief I feel quite confident that actually most people will continue to be religious in the sense of believing that that in fact Life isn't an empty howling wilderness the way that Christopher describes it but that there is that there is something deep lasting eternal meaningful about you about those you love and about the world that we live in. Rabbi

David Wolfe. Christopher Hitchens your great audience. Thank you very much. Such. Stimulating. And. I think from the minds of questioners we could have gone on for many more hours. I want you all to know that sign books are available by both our speakers from Harvard bookstore in the lobby as you exit. If you parked in the Hancock garage take your parking voucher with you and your parking will be free. Thank you for joining us and we look forward to seeing you at upcoming news center programs tonight.