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

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 community for all you know. I'm the son of snake handlers and Primitive Baptist. In fact I am. So we'll see what happens here. I hope that 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 was 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 answering a two year old ranch or one way. But if 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 thumbnail definition of what God is is that God is the source of everything that exists and God is some one 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 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 in. And 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. And so I know this question maybe will warn her off if you don't mind. It would be Christopher Hitchens. Yes sir. Chris Hedges is a horrible tragedy. Forgive me because I was a horrible apologist for liberation Christopher Hitchens that when he gets Ilori did exist to you Susan I mean this is what stop establishing that ontological. Yes.

Well Friedrich Nietzsche famously said that God was dead. And Sigmund Freud can be rendered as having said that God was died and I think both of them are probably right. The the concept of God is is like every thing else another country man made. 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 many. 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 anyone. God made all men and women and the rest of creation and as well as being man made. Fear made is the unexpressed or partially expressed wish for a protector. Apparence someone who will never desert you. Someone who will do in a way of thinking for you especially on questions of moral philosophy at his best. It's that simple. It's a wish to be loved more than you probably deserve and at its worst it's that it's the underdeveloped 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 as it is infinite and the new God has 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 in the 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 read maybe

which is well which by the way is where the Vatican in its old building was very upset by the concept of zero didn't like 0 2 and most important number of all the number of that which you can't do anything which wasn't there in Roman numerals. 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 from 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 the ISM is not compatible with the scientific world. Did you ever help him ask. 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 to hear what you just said 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 belief to psychology.

So religious people believe in something because they need to be loved. Do they need a crutch or they are 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. 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. Did know. I mean that's it. And that was why you should go

and I don't think is is the reason why many people do remember that those two questions were I better not say lest I be accused of not having exhausted soldiers in my first response I say there are at least two questions. One is this. Is there a God or a creator or a prime mover an uncaused cause or whatever you like to call it. And this was the question on sort of a certain points. Not very long ago in 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 be random. That may have been a designer but that the designer didn't take any part in human affairs and that in the late 1738 of centuries was probably a late 80s early 90s centuries were probably a very in socialization to his proprio Einstein pre-Darwin was for as far as you're likely to get with philosophical

speculation but so believing that might be a cause or a mover on occasion 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 Jesus have lived well 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 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 the other forms of life like plants that isn't susceptible to a much better explanation. Well here I am. As the great physicists Laplace said when he demonstrated his working model

his Orrery as it's called of the solar system to the Emperor and Napoleon said well I see there's no God in this system and plus said William has to work. Without that assumption 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 your DC 2010 why it should be the source of all to divinity what about science. And you just said soundtrack that is going to address is the first of all there are two separate ways of thinking about this. 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 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 it to you or speaks to you then you understand that get 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. Hi too is there are in fact things that are suggestive of something greater in even the scientific world 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 right ahead. I can't I can't paraphrase him properly but nobody really want to get hold of.

It's easy to find on on Google. A lecture given by Lawrence Krauss regard to get his living because this is it it's about the quantum and it's about a whole universe of nothing it's exactly how you get from nothing to something in fact quite a lot of things. One means by which this happens is the following. Every second that we're speaking 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'll be a lot of suns going out as we speak. And there's a lot of annihilationism there's 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 are all constituted of those materials we are made of stardust. Now I find that a rather more majestic and wonderful and even beautiful idea than say the idea of the burning bush

been more impressive. Gives you more to think about seclusive also has not been mutually exclusive. I'd make a start as one has the virtue of being true and provable and study able which the other doesn't. And I do think that the verifiability of something is is a virtue. Or we simply material. Yes. We don'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 with 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 any really significant event that happened in the humans story happened about 3000 years ago or the middle of the inexplicable. Are we waiting. Not true. It's you no factually is this this or this massive big

bang because cosmological churning and destruction and then and annihilation which is Pellow by the way on earth where 99 percent of all species that have been on the planet have already gone extinct. Living. No sun is all 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 set in motion on a scale is absolutely beyond our imagination in order that the pope can tell people not to jerk off. Right now I think you are way too childish to be to an area of agreement on try to repudiate that statement by the Pope I mean I'm happy to do it publicly. Now wait 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 your life believe that will be everything you did God 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 is I have to say of the cosmological and the genetic that these are deterministic processes they're not it's all full of extraordinary randomness. And in the genetic case of mutation. Stephen Jay Gould great talent just wrote a book which I recommend you call 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 of 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 succeeded

and the different kinds of failure and different kinds of mutation. His most exciting fourth most revolutionary thought is this if you could so to speak could roll that onto a tape and rewind it and then pressed play again. There's no certainty would come out the same way if there 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 same and because the result of random mutation and natural selection as everyone now knows that's why we can have. Sad to say for the kosha of we can have skin transplants and organ 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 it is nothing deterministic about it. It's always a much more exciting. It's much more interesting most 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 his claims and know the divinity the creator on personal terms. This is nonsense. It's with children. Rabbi first of all it is 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 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 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 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 but just where does the element go. I could be purely instinctual and put my head in a stream and drink and Celek to do that. But why would 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.

Good piling on completely unnecessary assumptions that also converging. You 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 are you assuming that we have one. Are you sure that we have free will. If you want if you ask then get me and give me another source you answer my question with another give me an answer. OK. I will start with you. Your question isn't on mine. No not a response. One the view I check about free will is that of course we have free will because we have no choice but to hold it. I am a giant. I was so I wasn't as eloquent as I still to some extent a dialectical materialism. I like to think there are some there are some ironies in the US this isn't 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 sort of invite the question.

What kind of tyranny is this that you want you know supervising deciding person. I asked you first what sources of information do you have about this person's existence that I don't have that are denied to me. I'd like to know and second why did you want it. Why did 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 there's a code of the tyranny the tyranny of of theocracy. Yes I actually think that the whole point that I was making was that a belief in a god to create you is what gives you free will and that without it you have to fall into a determinism. And by the way you may not you may think that science gives it to you but every scientist I've asked on this question including David Brashers an 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 science but I haven't met a scientist yet who's been able to account for it. Not every site is leading that aside. No of course not. I'm saying that those that 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 set greater choices once you have. Granted you've made my point and English you know it's about time you're granted. Thank you. Thank you for making me for your credit. No you're granted freedom. So you were 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 that Einstein says the miraculous thing about the laws of nature is they're 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 be around well they wouldn't otherwise. You asked not my monitor. It depends who you ask and really is is there a fundamental contradiction in your mind between Jewish teaching and evolution. No none at all. No. But. Evolution as we learn it doesn't require a 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 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 and comprehend. In other words when we can describe my reaction to the question of great

Americans I I like questions and comfort. I'm not sure I understand. Tell me about some other way 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 of will no matter how no matter how bright we are no matter how hard we work. How do you know that there are you're out whether 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 it. Some things you have 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 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. But I wouldn't say the way about how do you know the mystery won't be solved one day because because it's not a mystery of a question that's solvable. It's like saying to you how do you know the mystery won't be solved. That that you have a haven't in the radical sense that the world is wondrous I don't know how you would even think about solving such a mystery I could understand it and still find it wondrous. Christopher what about you if it's not God is all soluble. Well first one day you're right. Science may make things more comprehensible to us and that it's 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 from heaven. Same with earthquakes and so on the stuff they used 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 and increasingly large idea of that one has to get expanse of the unknown. That's precisely the moment at which to say that skepticism is what's necessary. Inquiry debate douch 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 would insult me if they say Socrates you are your great hero didn't exist. Try it on a Muslim try it on a Christian. The prophets didn't exist. So people with Moses is a myth. They start holding themselves about making menacing noises. So as 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 know does take refuge in several times already this evening. Like what is love is something poetical 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 all human beings that salvation is on offer to them and then 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 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 that Socrates whether he exist 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 whatever may happen 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. Maybe it makes no it maybe 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 the 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. Still had ten commandments. Not a good night. You have to let me finish my Staker Okay. 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 is 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 vocal more in elections volunteer more help the more you know what the largest aid organization is aid in developing an organization in the United States to foster 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 beleaguer 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 good. Let me put a question then 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. The most religious people I know ended up there. Oh the soft fall. No I mean I know that you're going to say to this well maybe. But he will find it hard hearted. My meter is on his wrist. 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 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 think when you hear about it and I asked them. I asked the question in the book. People think they have a personal relationship with the creator and that possesses a wonderful secret. It must be. I've never felt it. I presume it feels great. Why doesn't it make them happy. They're not happy. They can be happy. Everyone else believes it too. They get proselytized very often not just a conflict you'll feel you've lost a good effort in the guise of charity you whole from that religion rather than answer 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 let's take the most recent pressing case Richard Dawkins and a few others in response to the Haiti earthquake set either an emergency charge for people have nonbelief to give to you because so many charge lower 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 rich it's web site you can find out more about how dangerous this was. It's it's permanent. It's going to stay and being without money went straight to Doctors Without Borders of course. And the International Red Cross which it has across isn't sort of disorganization if all that is already in Haiti. They're proven not that 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 Asia 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. 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. This is also another way to live a life of evil 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. I asked another question where in the jackalope is the word goodness

appear. Well that's a good swathe of Exodus fleet. We're next to this as well. Goodness. In this C'mon Rich territory. Does the word goodness or the enjoyment to be good occur. 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. In the book of Leviticus I mean I'm allowed to move to Leviticus from exercising That's right. 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 vote is little Raiford Caprio 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 me 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. Church is another thing but that isn't what I thought but that. Yes of course. So what you say is what you heard 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 as representative. That's called arguing in bad faith which is ironic for someone who has not it seems a federal question. Yes. It's not. I mean as as you know that isn't it's all what I said. Don't say it's 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 know and you have this personal bests you're supposed to love him this person better not be Amalekite Midianite Moabite that and not be a witch. Destruction of whom is enjoined not being homosexual the stoning of whom is enjoyed being a slave. The terms of slape of enslavement of which are laid out. Now these are primitive tribal agricultural moments where all the Dekel weather was addressed to the property owning classes. Here's what you can do with your servants here your service was to pay the school. Why the command was addressed to you half 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 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 its elements. It's traveled Lapidus 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 draft 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 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 about the 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. No. Here's 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. But if what you say is true. This should be true and you should find it easy to point out OK that must be something that they can do or do but I cannot do. That's a good thing either moral statement made or most ethical statement that formed the personal faith could perform that. 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 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 or is it. It isn't. It's only it's only not a moral action. If you don't object even if anyone does want to do something great it is something I could do. It's not I say I know of course you can't and I encourage you to do it. It's only not of my working 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 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 of it. Well wait. First I'm sorry for your loss. I'm so sorry for your trouble for a second of that. But I'm still going to have to insist. I don't think anyone in the audience can consider that's an answer to my challenge. 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. Well you know everything I can do. You can go but you can't. I mean read the book which I wouldn't do you say well the answer is you won't answer.

I 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 that religious but only of those I'd be interested to hear of it no one's ever come up with it. Let me ask you there was a brief corollary 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 do not call 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 a new you know problem to you that the suicide murder community the genital mutilation community. These are all faith based communities. You don't 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're the only people who come out and do that which is by the way I'm just 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 had them do it right. You try being you don't think that American children know me should not be blessed the entire time. That's part of the authority that they claim but they just don't want to. I want to ask who's this little faith based who steps up to you will like any of the language that 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 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 despair. 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'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 it. No one save 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 one of the many reasons I guess I should despise Origin's equally with what I do in a way but one way which I prefer Judaism to its rivals is that the emphasis is more on justice than on love.

I want to know the. Why is that not misanthropic of you. That attitude misanthropy doesn't mean I have to hate people. What it means is I respect them and respect them enough not to offer them false consent. I do think it's in 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 on 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. What 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. I hadn't known anyone who had one who's the latest consolation from religion and being told the Christians told them that go to a better place and so on I think positively which wishes to do. He lied to the dying for a living. What a self-respecting

person can do that. And you know I just I don't see 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. You know irony in a world that brings can bring this pet tribe tribe fine. But I think it's manifestly clear lots of people don't choose that. So what does atheism offer. Well it has the chance of living without religion which I think it's a philosophy and literature will do a great deal more for you that much will. There's a lot more morality in them as the ethical discussion and Dostoyevsky say that what you presented with the light in her wheelchair diety who it wasn't the my way. I'm afraid it is all going on present areas. Now are you going to be very busy.

I can only appear in my own person did I even say that some extent works for me this irony I think is tremendously useful as as his philosophy 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 remarks against this neighbor know 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 so who believes in irony and I'd be morally better off if I was a Wahhabi Muslim. For me as a women can be seen. Are you going to sit out. I mean couldn't you. I would be a better target Tony. It was a question that you asked me the question.

You're not allowed to answer it for me. You imply I want to know if you really mean that. Actually I never said that you were automatically better off that you believed than you didn't believe. I think Christopher is very useful in the world because he forces religious people to die. I mean he's useful for many many reasons obviously to the world but he also forces religious people to think seriously about their faith. And as I understand the God that I believe in and the God that Judaism presents the first and primary demand is not belief the first and primary demand is goodness. That's exactly what characterizes Judaism. And therefore if you say to me I'm a good person but I don't believe is it better that I would be a miserable person who 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 came 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 an 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 not inconceivable very rare for a religious group to say hey guess what. There's someone halfway across the world who believes differently let's go get them. It's the people who live next door to us. Other than that 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. Twenty three 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 are 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 up 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 mystery of violence and violence arises because we are it's imperfectly evolved of prefrontal lives of two small dwindling bands of too big. The other differences of this sexual organs designed by committee all the rest of

it. And we agree and we agree and for backup probably is as a greedy and fearful and butts and covetous of other people's power 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. Fantastically little variation 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 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 close to Canaan and take it one else's land and burn down there. 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 Hutu and Tutsi of Rwanda say once Belgian colonialism would establish that there were these two different kinds of groups types and tribes. But it's a different 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 their corner and God gave only that group that they can negate the votes of everybody else including 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 of religion. So I think that the the the possible the country I'd like 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 the 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 buckle worn by every soldier in the Nazi Army that says got middlings got on our side. I don't think that was a help to you. Things are bad enough as they were. On page 70 I think it is of mine Kampf. 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 because of the very few books the Vatican didn't ban in that period. By the way I don't that the 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 good. I want to just say has 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. I'm 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. DAVID Very 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. Congrats. I just I'm sorry comrades I just kind of what is your take rather than it comes out of the system. That's better country. 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 join things like the American Anti-Slavery Society sties of which were almost pain.

Benjamin Franklin. Not really. That's right. Whereas to the last day of the Confederacy the flag of the Confederacy said David deci God on our side and every justification for that slavery came from the Bible where indeed there's no fun going to take questions from the on. 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 halti 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 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 you know what would be left as the March on Washington once all that had been forgotten and we decide you are black people 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't see. I'm sorry. I just had to come and beat you up later. OK. It seems to me that you know most religions deal with the operational aspects of life such as human capital development. It is the accumulation of literacy and technology economic development mental and physical well-being and public service which deals with

charity and those kinds of things. These 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 x Invalides between people who profess the thing but it's the labels that they do 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. And so I'm saying that should we just abandon these labels and stop calling ourselves Jews Christians and Muslims or whatever and deal with the operational facts of life which deal with again human capital literacy and economic development mental and physical well-being and public service and charity helping others without believing. 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 atomized society if you disband that I think you get trouble because to her without community labeling I'd implied it works. David says is that a person exists who would say 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 professing organized

but 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 is what religion has done has social utility very impressive to me. Often it's very often the first thing we debate with Catholics. They always change the subject to Choudhry right away which use this a little later. You just say with Muslims instead with Muslims. It's 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 lead. You defend their faith. They just want to say they don't they feel each way about redemption salvation but look at the good what would you if you talked 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 in isolation. 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 social justice civil rights. There's a time wasting. Wait wait wait wait wait. Now he's got. Nothing to. Do with it. All of your help 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 that I then made an argument in theological I have not conceded that to a greater extent let me give you an example. With the growth of Brazilian for so the first vesture So God whose wonderful work on the primary producers of the third world you you to be committed. Greg one of the great photographers

He's the ambassador as the UNICEF calls of the United Nations Children's Fund for the eradication of polio. I work with him with a big goal. We went. We were going down to the point where except for a few bits of Afghanistan and Salvador polio was almost gone from the world. We could go with smallpox. Not a small thing done by UNICEF a secular secular organization and we'd nearly go who was the date was and I was pretty sure polio 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 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 as a matter of time and taking all the diseases with you as to believe was bad 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 break it up. Sir thank you. Thank you. First comment to Mr. Hitchens. Thank you for a very well argued book. You and I are in violent agreement. Which. Is 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. Is. If no one ever explained God to you

not in writing not or really would you have figured 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 started the human genome project who wrote a book in favor of God. Oh and 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 layperson I have a reasonably good grasp. 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 asked 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 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 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 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 a debate is really on going on to Christopher do you assume that everything will one day be solved scientifically or does it matter to

you know that all this is going to do is keep on with us under the we know multiplying the distance between our entertainments and our desire to muster these masses. The question 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 writes 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 the superstitious christians thought the pope was the anti-Christ might have been on to something there but a very they very well for a very weird beliefs but if you knew the measurements of the temple you'd know more than if you understood gravity Alfred Russel Wallace who did most of Darwin's work for him was a specialist we 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. Albert Einstein did you get a scientist who 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. 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 universe universal morality. I 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're not wearing it and some of the 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 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 relativity's 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 to me. Well if you see and he I mean should we say that let's do it. Charles Manson what we wouldn't want done to ourselves. Obviously not. It's just like the contradiction in the old and new testaments the old testament says an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth which would lead us into this world. And 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 by many Christians who you know as you know we're pre-press to be nothing but if you can 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 there to be absolutes is this they want that to be an absolute authority who can give them to you because when I met Sally all the trouble of thinking out ethics for yourself which is where I started. Why not take that job more enjoyable and less subject to approval in commandments to stone witches and all the rest. That a universal morality. And if there is the well I'm not I'm not and 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 townward 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's 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 or

something that promotes your 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 I also believe. But as I said they are. I said of all they are as evolved primates as opposed to of all 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 I posed to him that day. Why is there a space time where. 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 is that what you're saying for something that there's a great mystery at the core of the universe and then why are we here is the second question to answer. OK. Thanks very much. And again I commend to someone who's much more expert on the subject but I started by mentioning Lawrence Krause's. Lecture on whole universe from nothing but what was the ground. The divinity and the hiccuped and who produces the hiccup. All you get from this is an infinite regression. Who creates this creator who if it gets you nowhere. And again if you do make the assumption which I can't dispute I will 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 and joins me in asking about it. So what do I mean. So I'm afraid you and me you 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 it it's something that you can't refute. Why is it that when someone says I believe that it is true you say they are lying. I just said that. Like. You said to me with so much damage 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. Not that my example that someone who goes to the death over and says I believe that there is the world rather than this going to a better place. I think the show. No. 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. He's 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 sun is made out of the dust of exploded suns. It does have a need for. I would say that the transcendent would be one with the numinous. Even the extatic wouldn't trust anyone who had felt this. It 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't last very long. Very important part of the awareness. People really 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 this gives you a share. And it was of course the purpose in literature when we are out of step with the pathetic fallacy. You know what I mean a fallacy is giving human attributes to material things. So we were tempted to do that too. Rabbi I can just it just on the web. Evil though I personally find it so. Well you do you have to have. 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 as it were the stench of evil. I thought about everything else you could say about Saddam Hussein psychopathic dictator mass murderer genocide list bad guy as some people used to call him things. This 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 belief 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 Sufi Muslim I'm very ruffled by the title of your book or the title that you likely had at your disposal. Did you have to settle for the little negation of Allahu Akbar. Yes I thought thank you. Thank you. It's a very good question and I wanted to get that right. Yeah. The as I said I think that all religions are growing in the same way in 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 say 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 or state of religious law. And the best means of getting there is jihad holy war. But 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 God speaks to some illiterate merchant warlord in Arabia and 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 the same. God. The God speaks. Angel Gabriel speaks Arabic. So I just want to say in retrospect were very simple. Actually I don't think. This. Is. They should of all religion. No because remember is no makes one special claim for. So all religions claim to be revealed truth that 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 a temptation to violence and intolerance and if you note it's a temptation they seem quite willing to fall for rabbis I think had another measure of this. If you remember Dick Gregory the old comrades who will great 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 selling my book. It reminds people that we're a very serious struggle with a very depraved religion and with no brand. You give no quarter. Look he believes in the prophecy. I'm sorry to say. I think he's been at best. 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 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 Kamali 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 reason is fact 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 far 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 or 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. 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 Suniel Georg Ratzinger who runs the choir school Ragan's he's discovered recently there's been some unpleasantness of 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 until Bavarian law changed and made it illegal for teachers to get it right. Well I don't want to be told any more that without religiously 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 don't go to the courts. Don't believe the police will say we'll sort this out among themselves 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 here. Mormons are supposed to say that their prophet as they call their leader his word is sovereign 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 said no the Constitution takes precedence in all cases. Fine. To the extent that he's an exceptional person it's extent he's not a Mormon just a bit of that just a bit 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 going to swing around for a little bit.

Yes. 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 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 cannot distinguish from randomness. No matter how long you look at it it can. It'll take longer than the life the universe. Right. So when it is randomness that doesn't keep 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 but it that as an output it's deterministic but it gives you a random result that you can use for free will. Now where did you get free will. If it has a if it doesn't have it it's not much of a deity. If it does have free will either it got itself. Why can't we do it or some other daddy gave your daddy free will which gives you an infinite regress. Your last question I'm afraid the answer. 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 myth 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 freewill 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 freewill 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. Well what do you think our society is winning this debate. The atheists the new atheists the religious ones the center of gravity going and this will be the last but I'm afraid I think a very large number of people don't. They say it is based on experience debating a large number of churches and synagogues go there for some of the reasons the rabbi gives community talk million reasons you might say working 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 have expect any special favors from him. But they see as it were no homeliness

and there's a great deal of schism among those who do believe enormousness the schisms. So when people say in opinion polls that when you read that 90 percent of Americans believe in the virgin birth and 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 that to someone who rang them up in their kitchen on the telephone either. I think that underneath this there's a huge crust of doubt and a great resentment against American theocrats. If you want to know how to piss off an American Protestant in the south say Are you one of those Jerry Falwell people they hate that right. Say 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 that 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 always a decent opinion survey the pew on a random prayer. Rabbi what do you see the sort of gravity. I don't know if 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 in the at 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 Wolpe Christopher Hitchens say audience