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

That 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 Maybe you should be a little intimidated in this field. 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 it and when the preacher you know got the water with the droplets and began to put on a head and he said it isn't the name of God. And she said What is God. Let's just let's start with the simplicity of a child. What is God. Rabbi. Well it depends who you are answering if you're entering a two year old ranch or one way but it's your answer.

Discussing it with an adult. You begin with a 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 difference 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 own thumbnail definition of what God is is that God is the source of everything that exists and God is someone something with whom a human being can have a relationship and that you can live your life in alignment with a godly purpose by any definition that is greater than that is

in some ways to produce 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 for 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 and we can wrap it up right now. Thank you very much for coming. It's been a wonderful day. May I. Apologies perhaps to Muslims in the audience who say God is great all the time. We'll circle back. OK. Chris Hedges to you. I know this question maybe will warn her off if you don't mind. It would be Christopher Hitchens. Chris Hedges is a horrible tragedy. Forgive me because I was just a horrible apologist for liberation Christopher Hitchens that is that when he gets to the door. And I exist to you Susan I mean this is just off 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 died. And I think both of them are probably right. The concept of God is is like every thing else in the country manmade. It's an invention of human beings. But unless you take the view that God made us. In which case would be a lot to explain how and why did we in that case make so many gods. It just seems 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 manmade it's fear made is the unexpressed or partially expressed wish for a protector of parents someone who will never desert you someone who will do in a way of thinking for you especially on questions of moral philosophy at its best. It's that simple. It's a wish to be loved more than you probably deserve and at its worst it's because 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 it is infinite and the new God is created almost every day by some colors or other. But it used to be that there was a belief that gods were in the trees and in the woods in the springs in the sea and the clouds and so forth. Polytheism of a kind then something a bit more polytheistic like Olympus where there was at least a location for the divine. But it was mostly faceted and then monotheism getting it down to one. So I regard this as progress of a sort because the getting near the true figure all the time I actually had progress maybe which is well which by the way is where the Vatican in its old days

was very upset by the concept of zero didn't like 0 2 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 him as a sinister import from from in cause of his infidelity and from from pagan lands. But also the trouble the concept of zero it was very troubling for atheism and must be and does indeed remain so as one of the many many ways in which theism is not compatible with the scientific world. I'm hoping that. I just want I just want to point out without even taking issue with the incorrect statements that he made. I'm quite sure I don't care what you did in that way. Anyway 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 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 you ever leave to psychology.

So religious people believe in something because they need to be loved. Do they need a crutch for their 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 that 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 FoxxHole 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 that you can accuse that of being an incorrect statement you would accuse it of being an incomplete when I didn't give all the reasons why people 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 the two questions were. I better not say lest I be accused of not having exhausted anti-socialism my first response I to say there are 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 word of the universe seemed to suggest that it couldn't just have been random. That may have been a designer but the designer didn't take any part in human affairs and that in the late 73 centuries was probably a late 80s early 90s centuries with probably a very intelligent position to Hobbs's proprio Einstein pre-Darwin was as far as you likely to get with philosophical speculation. But believing that might be a cause or a mover or AKCA 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 a deist have all their work in front of them before they can say that they are really religious. Are you prepared to be a deist. No. No divine mover even at the whatever the origin. There's nothing in the natural in the cosmic order. That's the macro level on 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 when he demonstrated his working model his Orrery as it's called of the solar system to the Emperor and then said Well I see there's no God in this system in place. And William attitude works without that

assumption. Rather I don't want to play God to give form to this. Sure it's 2010. You said you think of God as the source of all in. DC 2010 why it should be the source of all to divinity What about science. And you just said project that was going to address is the first of all there are two separate ways of thinking about this and 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 instead.

Deep down do you believe that the universe is constituted only by stuff by material. Or is there a mystery at the heart of things. Do you believe that you are purely 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 immaterial 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. Teal's to you or speaks to you then you understand that love loss 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 in 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 to 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 at it. I can't I can't paraphrase him properly but I really want to get hold of. It's easy to find on on Google a lecture given by Lawrence Krauss.

I've got to get his living because this is it it's it's about the quantum and it's about a whole universe of nothing that's exactly how you get from nothing to something that caused 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 moves of the big bang. It's a lot that'll be a lot of suns going out as we speak and there's a lot of Annihilations and a lot of destruction. So it's rather what you might call almost a wasteful scale. It does have the positive outcome there that we are all constituted of as 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 been more impressive.

Gives you more to think about it. Seclusive also has been mutually exclusive. I'd make a start as one has the virtue of being true and provable and study of which the other doesn't and I do think that the verifiability of many is is a virtue. We simply material. Yes. We didn't have bodies we are bodies fifty 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 with lost. We don't know if they are gods or not. So you think so inexplicably no religion ever invented appears to have known that these creatures even existed because the the religious are forced to believe that the only really significant event that happened in the human story happened about 3000 years ago or the minute it is inexplicable. We're not waiting. It's not true. No it's not factually. Is this this or this massive big bang. Because cosmological churning and destruction and annihilation which is

Pellow by the way on earth on earth where 99 percent of all species that have been on the planet have already gone extinct leaving no sun as well. This could be part of a plan. There is no way an atheist can prove it's not. But it's some plan isn't it with mass destruction fishless extermination annihilation all the time and all this set in motion on a scale is absolutely beyond our imagination in what the pope can tell people not to jerk off. Right now I think you are way way way too childish to be reached an area of agreement. Try to repudiate that statement by the pope but I'm happy to do it publicly. I'd like to of that the. That 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 but nonetheless your life believe that everything you did got word 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 was 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 for it's pathetic. So it is I have to say of the cosmological and the genetic that these are deterministic processes they're not it's all they're full of extraordinary randomness. And in the genetic case of mutation. Stephen Jay Gould talento just 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 a mountain you can see it as if you look at a blackboard and you can see the growth and develop the species so you realize that it's not a tree. It's more like a bush that we go the reverse branches that go off and go nowhere and the others that succeed and there are different kinds of failure and different kinds of mutation. His most exciting thought. Most revolutionary thought is this if you could so to speak put all that onto a tape and rewind it and then press play again.

It was near-certainty would come out the same way if it was every reason to believe that it would not. So there's nothing predetermines nothing deterministic about this at all. But thanks to our understanding of genetics which are also not preserving 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 organ transplants from pigs we're 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 it has 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 I was trying to say the miraculous the inspiring the tragic and majestic in this that simply are not in the incantations of Genesis where the supposed to all of this claims 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 the show. Second if you read his book on the purchase 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 is in 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. Now 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 quest 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 it's just a weird because the element of eye to eye could be purely instinctual and put my head in a stream and drink and choose not to do that I would have to do it. Now you say just wait wait. When you say choose where does that where does that choice come from. Any more than 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 it wasn't budging. It was a question that will make you uncomfortable Farhad 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 are you assuming that we have free will one night. Are you sure that we have free will. If you are honest if you ask you then give me an honest question to me another source. You answer my question with no give me an answer. OK. I will still answer with like you. Your question is an honest of mine rather not a response one. The view I take about free will is that of course we have free will because we have no choice but to have it. I am a time I was so I wasn't as eloquent. Not he wasn't just a little to some extent am a dialectical materialism. I think there are some there are some ironies in the history but to say of course we have free will. The boss says we've got it is to make a mockery of the whole concept and sources invite the question. What kind of tyranny is this that you want you all supervising while deciding person. I asked you first. What sources of information do you have about this person's existence. I don't have that are denied to me.

I'd like to know and second why did you want it. Why would you want to arrive at a terminus of unfreedom 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 and that's all I don't know. I don't think that's a terminus of unfreedom I enjoyed every one you've declared against it. That's the beginning of freedom is the emancipation. Is that uncoated a tyranny 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 was 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 Brashers and evolutionary biologist says that either Steven Pinker had the same reaction is that it is more or less a commonplace of modern science that determinism is the only worldview that's consistent with an understanding of the way science works. So you may be able to find it in time but I haven't met a scientist yet who's been

able to account for it not every study that is leading out aside. 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 once you said better choices whatsoever. Granted you've made my point and well English you know. Your graphic language thank you for making me feel you 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 know. You have all sorts of freedom in the Cocytus right to that extent. Einstein says the miraculous thing about the laws of nature is never suspended. That's what's so amazing about their immutable regin claims that on occasions the laws of nature are suspended in order to the rabble they wouldn't otherwise. You asked not my Monti's. It depends who you ask and really is is there a fundamental contradiction in your mind. Or am I between Jewish teaching and

evolution. No don't at all. No not but evolution as we learn it doesn't require deity. No well it depends what you mean by requiring 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 power. What a difference to your mind between mystery and in comprehension and comprehend in other words when we apprehend describes my reaction to the question of great America I think I like questions and comfort. I'm not sure I understand. Tell me about some of other ways for the restively made a lot of things comprehensible. Yes mystery mystery means those things that by the very nature of the

world are an figure out a book no matter how no matter how bright we are no matter how hard we work. How do you know that there are nature. You're out whether you're asking for that over incomprehensible. You're asking now 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 it. Something you have is the deepest conviction of your soul. And there are things that make sense of the world in ways that nothing else makes sense of the world. But if you ask me do I know that God exists the way I know that that class is 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

the way. How do you know the mystery won't be solved in one day because. 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 that that you have a have an ineradicable sense that the world is wondrous. I don't know how you would even think about solving such a mess. If I could understand it and still find it wondrous. Christopher what about you if it's not God is all soluble. Well first one day you're right. Science may make things more comprehensible to us and explain 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 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 ignorance. 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 God. We just because we have a now an increasingly large idea of

how fantastic expanse of the unknown. That's precisely the moment at which to say that skepticism is what's necessary. Inquiry debate doubts. Where is faith in this where's the usefulness of faith. There is no use to it at all Socrates who as far as I know existed that may well not have done. Doesn't matter to me. No one will insult me if they say Socrates you are your great hero didn't exist. Try as a Muslim try it on a Christian. The prophets didn't exist. So people that Moses is a myth. They start holding themselves about making menacing noises Virial. So you said your only education when you understood how ignorant you are and you only don't even find that 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 our metaphysics which you notice 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 are saying that redemption is on offer to human beings that salvation is on offer to them and that if they reject the offer they can be in really big trouble. Now Joe don't start talking on to an audience like this or if you don't mind to the debate of the way 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 and that statement that I'll just pick on two or three.

First being interestingly that 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 that way I didn't interrupt you. But I want you to know and you should know this in particular I didn't interrupt you twice but I want you to know you are quick enough. I take it mate. Now 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 that Jewish tradition actually doesn't tell you that everyone must do this in the world. Rather it prescribes goodness and that's what is that religion is supposed to bring into the world. Now can you point to examples of religion or 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. To have ten commandments is not a 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 repeat 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 in their life gives them meaning increases their goodness and why it is for example in America that people of faith if more to charity

vote more in elections volunteer more help more. You know with the largest aid organization is aid and development organization in the United States it's not care. It's not save the children. It's a one world which is a Christian organization out of Seattle which not only gives millions and millions and millions of dollars across the world but sends people all across the world to the most beleaguered helpless places. And they do it because they believe they're called to do it by God. It's just not true that having faith makes no difference in this world. It makes a tremendous difference. And the vast majority of that difference not all of it but the vast majority of that difference is for goodness. Let me put a question and if you'd be so good the rabbi feels the rabbi fills in a sandwich and I don't mean feed of Hewlin assent which is what this issue is. Oh that's OK. Christopher what about the solace of faith. So the most religious people I know ended up there. Oh softball. No I mean I know what he's going to say to this. Well maybe. But he will find it hard hearted.

My meter is on his worst. You are a misanthrope because you're not sympathetic to people's need for religion. I send my book available in bookstores everywhere that 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 when 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 I say when you hear about it. I asked. I asked him. I asked the question in the book. People think they have a personal relationship with the creator and possessed of 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 can be happy. Everyone else believes it too. They get proselytized very often.

Just don't let your last ounce of good work in the guise of charity. Utos whole from that religion rather than all of 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're religious. Well that's true in the most recent repressing case. Richard Dawkins and a few others in the response to the Haiti earthquake set up an emergency charging for people of nonbelief to give to because so many chose known as patients 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 how dangerous this was. It's permanent. It's going to stay in being all that money went straight to Doctors Without Borders of course. And the International Red Cross which it has across isn't sort of disorganization movies all that is already in Haiti that 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 turned

up in age to kidnap babies to convert them to their faith. And the Catholics who sat 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. They're telling 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 a line of people. This is also a lot of want to live and it's getting them is giving them first hopes and false explanations for their plight. And we're not guilty of any of that. As you know the question Where in the jackalope is the word goodness appear. Well that's a good swathe of Exodus Ffolliott were an exodus as well. Goodness. Well in this commandment rich territory does the word goodness or the enjoyment to be good because this should be a softball. OK. It's first of all tells you it tells you what you ought not to do it says Love your neighbor as yourself.

And in the book of Leviticus I mean I'm allowed to move to Leviticus from exercising. That's right yes that's yes. OK. Thank you. I appreciate that. It says you should pursue justice justice justice you shall pursue it says it over and over and over again. And also by the way I know no tradition at least certainly not the Jewish tradition and I'm not aware of any other tradition it 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 a foreign governmental authority of religious authority military authority political authority to do bad things. My answer is of course they do. Any time you set up a structure of authority people will do bad things churches other things. 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 good 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 liked it seems a fair question. Yes but it's not. I mean as as you know you know that isn't at all what I said. Don't say it's the bad things are done in the name of religion or by authorities I say it's religion itself that is the problem. I go out of my way to make clear that I don't take refuge in any other position. Now in Leviticus and in exodus if you are a neighbor you better know who this person is best you're supposed to love him this person that better not be Amalekite Midianite Moabite better not be you know be a witch. Yeah. Who are the destruction of whom is enjoined by not being homosexual the stoning

of whom is enjoyable being a slave. The terms of slape of enslavement of which are laid out. Now these are primitive tribal agricultural by the way all the Jeckle whether it was addressed to the proposition and Close's Here's what you can do with your servants here your service was to obey the school. Why the command was addressed you have staff why the women. It's a rather large objection I thought why the women counted as part of the animal and chattel that's disposable by these holders of property. It couldn't be any more. 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 and how can we be faithful and not be trapped by history not all of its elements so it's a trap 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 rest 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 these 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't cherry pick the things in the statements in religion that are negative and those things are necessarily enduring contradicts the history of every tradition. I know what Cherry picking is and not words used with somebody that's thrust upon you. I've got no choice but to study the object. No actually I pointed out it says it's the best appropriateness and enjoying some to keep women as property as I like you are you are charged with

murder and adultery. Do you think those are good things as most used to be the nub of your question. If what you say is true. Yes. Not that and I've never said it wouldn't I couldn't interpret as having said no religious person can do a good thing if you know what if what you say is true. This should be true and you should find it easy to point out. That must be something that they can do or do with I cannot do. That's a good thing either moral statement made or most ethical statement performed the person of faith could perform it. I cannot. You must be able to identify that actually your point is to have any how 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 you know I have 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 halfway across the world feeling that you're motivated by a God who tells you to help other human beings.

I mean all those things I think 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. No it isn't. It's only it's only not a moral action. If you don't object don't you or if anyone does want to do something great I could do it's not. I say I know of course you can and I encourage you to do it. It's only not of my day. You don't feel not 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 where he not religious and it wasn't the same as when he kissed me good night and said I love you because there is an element in which religious people dwell. It's called a world of sanctity that you can't invoke and can't dwell in if you don't

believe that that realm is because you were away first. I'm sorry for your loss. I'm so sorry for your trouble. For a second that a. But I'm still going to have to answers. I don't think anyone in the audience can consider that so nonsense of my challenge. Of course others 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 you could do everything I can do. Well you can go there but you can't. Well then I mean the. I wouldn't to you the answers you want answered. I just leave the question to the audience if they can come up to me and say here's a moral thing you couldn't do. Not Don't do it could not do that really is the only evidence that I'd be interested to hear of it. No one's ever come up with it. Let me ask a question. It was a brief COLLAERY 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 may I do not make me one the one who could not do. I didn't say that. OK. It is big 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 and you will have no problem to you that the suicide murder community the genital mutilation community. These are faith based communities. You have charity who doesn't hear Hamas saying the reason we're loved by all people is because we provide social services. We help the needy. We're the only people who come out and do that which is by the way I'm horrified to have to say is true. 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. I don't think American children should not be blessed the entire time. That's part of the authority that they claim. But the one thing I want to ask who's this is all 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 union halls are gone. Who's going to give people such a structure. Well it's called Hollywood Hollywood actually. 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. I think despair is quite a good starting point. 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 to act as if it is. It is true. Everything is governed by entropy and decline and annihilation and disaster.

And you boardings are 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 a I can't get it no one save you but 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 is one one of the many reasons I guess I should despise all religions equally but one and doing away with it one way which I prefer Judaism to its rivals is that the emphasis is more on justice than on love. I want to know why is that not misanthropic of you. That attitude isn't growing doesn't mean I have to hate people. It means that I means I respect him as a victim and I respect him enough not to offer them false counseling. 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 harvest 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 of 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 is 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've. Well if you'll pardon me I won't share my grief with you. But I've never had one. Had any known anyone who had one who's had the latest consolation from religion. I knew being told as the Christians told them that they are off to a better place and so on I think it's positively wicked to do a line to the dying for a living. What most self-respecting person can do that. And you know it's your life you just tell me how you know it's a lie. Once you start 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 it's a lie. But how do we create for those who aren't able or don't desire to walk around in despair or to walk around. In irony

in a world that brings can bring a desperate tribe tribe fine. But I think it's manifestly clear lots of people don't choose that. So what does atheism offer. Well it is the chance of living without illusion. Which I think is a philosophy philosophy and literature will do a great deal more for you than much will. There's a lot more morality in them as the ethical discussion in Dostoyevsky say that may be able to present the order we all share that idea who will present them my way. I'm going on present areas for now of course you are going to be very busy. I can only appeal in my own person here. I would even say that some extent would see this irony. I think it's tremendously useful as as his philosophies especially the philosopher Spinoza. Especially in times of anguish. And the realization that there's no false consolation can actually cheer you on. But once you face the fact that you're born into a losing struggle things immediately appear a

great deal more manageable in some ways. And really the rants against this movie are not why 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 be myself not to be an unbeliever and someone who believes in irony and I'd be morally better off if I was a Wahhabi Muslim is me as a Roman Catholic me out. I mean couldn't you know I would be a better target only I was a question if you asked me the question. If you're not allowed to answer it for me you wouldn't like it. I want to know if you really mean that. Actually I never said that you were automatically better off if you believed then you didn't believe. I think Christopher is very useful in the world because he forces religious people to mean he's useful for many many reasons obviously to the world but

he also forces religious people to think seriously about their faith. And as I understand the God that I believe in and the God that Judaism presents the first and primary demand is not belief. The first and primary demand is goodness that's exactly what characterizes Judaism and therefore if you say to me I'm a good person but I don't believe is it better that I would be a miserable person who 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 how can a lump them all who Chibuye is what the Jewish tradition teaches to make the world better under the sovereignty of God. But notice the first clause in that is to make the world better. So if you do that. That's the primary demand of any faith that I think is worth its salt. May we turn on that point to what very Schrag raised 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 water when there's money it's very rare for a religious group not a not inconceivable very repr religious group to say hey guess what. There's someone halfway across the world who believes differently let's go get them. It's the people who live next door to us who are other than not wish other than us. We should get them and by the way along the way we're going to take their land and we're going to take their riches and we're going to take this. And that's because 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 and 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 will resolve. And Mr. voevoda some balance arises because we are it's imperfectly evolved of Priefer the lives of two small dwindling bands of too big the other forces of this kind. Sexual organs designed by committee. All the rest of it. And we agree that we're greedy and we're back possibly a greedy greedy and fearful and but 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 of fantastically little variation but will credit be prone to tribalism and ethnic and racial what Freud called the narcissism of small differences. So of course if a tribe let's say this 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 the women as slaves butcher their man take their land take their cattle. So better this way for us to Canaan and take that one else's land and burn down there. That's going to happen when there's a God I don't know whether his 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 there 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 of tribes. But it's a terrific force multiply that the Catholic Church was as strong as it was and went to 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 got in the corner and God gave only the group that they can negate the votes of everybody else including the whole of the international community by the way just because of their faith. Northern Ireland is the same. That would have been a Republican Nationalist dispute. It's infinitely worse because all religion. So I think that the the possible the quality I hope would be that the less religion there was the less violence there would be. But I can't I can't in good I can't in good conscience say that. But I think the more that the more people refused orders that were divine. As for example to take the preposterous allegation that the rabbi makes that the wars of the 20th century was secular was the belt buckle worn by every soldier in the Nazi Army that says got Middleton's got 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. Hitler says that in 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. One of the very few books the Vatican didn't ban in that period. By the way that was a 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. I want to just as a coda to this. When you say that we shouldn't take orders I just want to remind you of 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 obviously David very

interested 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. Congrats. I just I'm sorry. Just a kind of what is your take rather than it comes out better than just comment. But. I suppose it is somewhat to the credit of some Christians that in the waning decades of thousands of years of slavery there were biblically mandated. Some of them belatedly joined things like the American Anti-Slavery Society sties of which where Thomas Paine. Benjamin Franklin. Not really. That's right. Whereas to the last day of the Confederacy the flag of the Confederacy said David to shape God on our side and every justification for that slavery came from the Bible when there's no one going to take questions from the audience.

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've debated Rabbi David Wolpe on this subject you've debated the Reverend Al Sharpton. Yes. What's the difference between these debates. Well the Reverend Al Sharpton is another case of the damage done to society by religion because once it was agreed by the rest of America that black people were 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 have black people we love their preachers. Then once the king is gone it's one succession of junk demagogues off to another. All of them give him the mantle because they're in holy orders. There's no fraudulence you can't get away with in this country if you can get the word reverend put in front of your name.

Question is a very conspicuous example of that. We'll begin right here. Madam your question sir. I can see. I'm sorry. Hedges You must have had them beat you up again 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 profess 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 the labels that they 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 start calling ourselves Jews Christians and Muslims or whatever and deal with the operational facts of life which deal with again human capital literacy you get economic development mental and physical well-being and public service and charity helping others without the leavings. 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 organized themselves around religious groups. I don't think that that's a mistake and I don't think that that's a coincidence. So that in fact if you disband the idea that we're doing this as a religious group 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 atomised society if you disband that I think you get trouble because without community without a label 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 don'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 organized in the alley. 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 when religion is down just 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 to charges right away which uses your show a little later.

You just say that they are with Muslims and with Muslims at the time because what else can they. No they want to defend their faith. You just said the opposite. They just said they did what you did in the late you know to defend the faith. They don't want to say they don't they feel it's all about redemption salvation was going to go. 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 you should see our missionaries in government will do the work. Nice moment. What has this got to do with the existence of God or the validity of religious claims. It has nothing to do with the social Well in 10 years there's a time wasting way way way way way way. You know he's have. Nothing to do with it. I just want to 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 that I then made an argument is logical I've not conceded that it's to a greater extent. Let me give you an example. With the growth of Brazilian football the first vesture Salgado whose wonderful work on the primary producers of the Third World you watch as you want to be committed. Greg 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 went with him with a goal. We went we got it down to the point where except for a few bits of Afghanistan and Salvador 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 who was a date was and I was pretty sure Perry would be gone.

And it spread back because largely Muslim groups in Nigeria and also in parts of Bengal and Afghanistan told people don't go get your children in occupation. 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 these diseases with you. Amanda Berry was back 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 the other way and it's nothing to do with the polls of prayer. 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. 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. Grace 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 is an inbuilt opposition between scientific knowledge and belief is contradicted by some very prominent scientists including Francis Collins who's that 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 talk science all the time. I think for a lay person I have a reasonably good grasp. Of some sciences and I would say absolutely I can make the assertion that God exists precisely because the criteria that is used for a scientific assertion is not used for a religious assertion. Nobody asks a 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. Here's something that's not human to 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 through different eyes. So if you ask me what I have come to this belief that wasn't explained to me my only evidence to answer that is yes human beings did. And it was explained to them by God which is what I assume or you would come up with naturally. So yeah I think I would come to it naturally if I can 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 the debate is early on going on. Christopher do you assume that everything will one day be solved scientifically. Does it matter to you. No. Well the size is going to do is keep on his use of what we know multiplying the distance between our entertainments and our desire to most of these masses. The questions will remain undecidable which is the way I like them. Religion and science can co-exist in the same person that's true. I know Francis Collins is brilliant on the genome but if you read C.S. Lewis you don't need to read him on religion. It's unbelievably

naive. So Isaac Newton was an alchemist just very strong for the superstitious christians thought the pope was the anti-Christ might have been on to something very very very full of very weird beliefs. But 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 that the old age really only and so I would say it's only until Albert Einstein not notions who I mean don't start because you get a scientist who is also essentially a philosopher of pure mind. That's the great breakthrough. 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. That's not doable. I want to get two more questions please. Yes I have a question for both of you regarding the existence of the universal universal

morality 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 seat and so many other prescriptions. So if 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 the 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 nearest to an absolute. It's obviously subject to various relativities. For one thing it's only really as good as the person saying it. Should I not do to Charles Manson what I don't want him to do to me. Well if you see this and he I mean should we say let's do it. Charles Manson what we wouldn't do unto ourselves are they not. It's just like the contradiction in the Old and New Testament the Old Testament says an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth which would lead us into this world. And then then that 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 in by many Christians who you know as you know we're pretty present you know. But if you can't condemn anyone without being yourself without sin 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 to be absolutes is that they want that to be an absolute authority who can give them to you because one might say to you all the trouble of thinking out ethics for yourself which is where I started. Why not take that chance more enjoyable less subject to approval and commandments to stone witches and all the rest. Well we have a universe of morality. And if there is the which 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 and 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 in Iran there's a better and a worse there's a more powerful or 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 or something that promotes your interest and something that negates your interest. But I don't believe that because we do and you don't believe that human beings are evil. Yes but I also believe that but as I said they are. I said of all they are as evolved primates as opposed to evolved primates who have a spark of 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 in it 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 had 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 should be no universe there should be no space time where there should be none of us and unless we're hooked into the Matrix right now we need to be here. And so we take that as an argument for God's sake for something. There's a great mystery at the core of the universe and then why are we here is the second question to in. OK.

Thanks very much. We'd like to get a comment to someone who's much more expert on the subject started by mentioning Lawrence Krause's lecture on the whole universe from nothing but where's the ground. Where's the divinity and the hiccupped. And who produces the hookup. All you get from this is an infinite regression. Who creates this creator who gets into it. And again if you do make the assumption which I can't dispute or certainly kind of refute that there is a first cause and we're 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 that means though I'm afraid you and me compelled me to somewhat repeat myself. Can I just ask a quick question about what you just said. If it's an assumption that you can't refute which I understand I think everybody here would take. 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 so much damage take I say so when you lie so when he goes to the soda goes to tell a child if they don't behave well they'll go to hell. Not that like the example that someone who goes to the death that over and says I believe that there is a world other than this or going to a better place. I think the show isn't there and I'll let it. 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. It's pretty good pretty good. 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 earth is made out of the dust of

exploded. Science does have a need for. I would say that the Transcendent One was the numinous. Even the extatic wouldn't trust anyone who had felt this has obviously to do with landscape light 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 last for very long. Very important part of the awareness. You want to just 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 this gives you a share. And he was of course purpose in literature where we are out of step with the pathetic fallacy if you know what I mean the fallacy is giving human attributes to material things. So we were tempted to do that too. Rabbi

can just see evil though. I personally find funny it's a word you have so 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 could say about Saddam Hussein psychopathic dictator mass murderer genocide lists bad guy as some people used to call him things. This was wasn't up to it. There was a surplus value to totalitarianism a sort of a numinous ditch 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 believed you smell a potential person of faith and 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 all inspiring. That doesn't mean for a minute that I think that he's being honest 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 like the world's most charming roguish and enlightened atheist and I love you for that. But as a Muslim I'm very ruffled by the title of your book and the title 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 that I wanted to go. That's what I like. Yeah. The as I said I think that all religions are growing 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 was damaged from that. Our culture has never recovered from it 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 with a religion governed state and state of religious law. And the best means of getting there is jihad holy war and the Muslims have a special right to feel aggrieved enough to demand this I think is absolute obscene wickedness. And I think their religion is nonsense in its entirety. The idea of what 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. I don't waste my time. It's. What you're trying to say. My. God the God speaks. The angel Gabriel speaks only Arabic. So I just want to say in retrospect were very simple. Actually I don't think. This is. The same should of all religion. No because remember is not makes one special claim for itself. All religions claim to be revealed truth. They were all founded by divine revelation but Islam dangerously says as is the last and final one. There can't be any more after this. This is God's last word. Now that straight away a temptation to violence and intolerance. If you note it's a temptation they seem quite willing to fall for rabbis. I think Paul had another measure of that which is if you remember Dick Gregory the old comrades here will get black comedian and civil rights activist when he 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. Reminds people that we're in a very serious struggle will you pray for religion and them know that there are other main event. You give no quarter. Look he believes in the prophecy of Mohammed. I'm sorry to say. I think he's been at best kind. You know our time is ticking down with respect. 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's 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. 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 Kumara really even though he does not believe in God yes. Right. And I'm trying to figure out how it might be. 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 say why would you do good in secret. As far as Balzac put it 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 is we must revisit. So we struck this week reading I'm sure you saw it the pope's brother John Suniel Georg Ratzinger who runs the choir school and. He's discovered recently there's been some unpleasantness at this school of which he was the steward for about 20 years he said he didn't know about any of that and he claims not to have

taken a party but he said he did used to smack the boys around quite a lot. So until Bavarian law changed it made it legal for teachers. Right. Well I don't want to be told any more 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. With It was just the church. What is the whole record of the church in this project you yourself I would say they would. Don't go near the courts. Don't believe the police will say 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 answer. One is supposed to say that their prophet as they call their leader his word is over and over anyone else's including the Constitution of the 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 said no the Constitution

takes precedence in all cases. Fine. To the extent that he is an exceptional person it's 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. A time for you are all going to stick around for a little bit. Yes right here. This is for Mr. Wolpe at the start of your talk you said your belief was scientific but you spent the rest of the talk back 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 cannot 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 when it is randomness that doesn't give you intensional free will and I know that if you do but if I use it beginning by the way that my belief was scientific about it that is an open it's deterministic but it gives you a random result and you have free will.

Now where did you get free will. If he if it has a if it doesn't have it it's not much of a deity. If it does have free will it has got itself. Why can't we do it or some other day to give your deity freewill which gives you an infinite regress. That your last question I'm afraid. The answer yes the answer is that there is no analogy between the dating and becoming human beings just like when someone says who gave birth to God. That's a myth conceiving of the religious concept of God which is that God has always existed and God isn't a biological creature and therefore God doesn't get free will the way human beings get free will there be objection. And the problem with human beings getting free will is that if we're purely biological How does that alchemical metaphysical freewill get into us. And a random generator doesn't give you free will. Even if it gave you record numbers that's quite different from actual choosing to do something or to do something else. Well 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

but I'm afraid I think a very large number of people do. And I'd say the special experience to you a large number of churches and synagogues go there for some of the reasons the rabbi gives community Tolkien reasons you might say work in American communities charity 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 can expect these special favors from him. But they see as it will no harm. And 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 in Satan and so forth I don't believe it at all. I don't believe and I don't believe people have doubts about it would tell it to someone who rang them up in the kitchen on the telephone either. I think that underneath this there's a huge crust of doubt and a great resentment against American theocrats.

They didn't 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 supposedly religious monolithic nature of America is grossly overstated doesn't describe reality and it is certainly true as one of the questions mentioned. The number of those who say no they're atheists we're still a very small minority with those who say that they have no faith in their allegiance to any church has doubled in the last two years and that's a decent opinion survey the pew one all around them. Rabbi what do you see the center of gravity. I don't know. You took 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 who love and about the world that we live in. Rabbi David Wolpe Christopher Hitchens audience