Christopher Hitchens debates Peter Hitchens: Hitchens vs. Hitchens video and writeup
by Andy Kaiser
Article ID: 1218
[The Hitchens vs. Hitchens video is available. Scroll down to find it.]
Watching a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Peter Hitchens is fascinating on so many levels. They are both very good speakers and debaters, so the oratory mastery is impressive on its own, and the technique is fun to watch. The topics discussed are easily inflammatory: just ask anyone, “How do you feel about the Iraq war?” Or, “How does God affect your life?” You’ll receive very heartfelt responses. Finally, as you may assume upon reading their last names, Christopher Hitchens and Peter Hitchens are indeed related. They’re brothers.
What’s interesting about their relationship is that it’s not what you’d expect. Or, at least not what I expected upon seeing them debate for the first time. To specify: 1) this was the first time I’d seen either one debate any one else, and 2) this was the first time Peter and Christopher have publicly debated each other in the United States.
Let me set your expectations with a little third-party information. What would you expect if you saw the following ads about the debate:
“One-on-one for the first time ever, brothers will clash” - From Grand Valley State University’s ad. (GVSU was the host for the debate.)
“Hitchens Brothers: Anatomy of a Row” - An article from The Independent
You may think this sets expectations for a heated - perhaps angry and shouting - debate. After attending the debate itself, I’m glad to report that there was no bloodshed, no torn clothes, nor any physical violence. While the debate did at times involve angry, emotional words, the outcome was on a balanced give-and-take debate.
Christopher Hitchens and Peter Hitchens have a history of being alienated for years, with only a recent reconciliation. That behavior, at least, met my expectations. The brothers are both excellent and well-focused speakers. There was no camaraderie during the debate, no emotional winks towards the other. No sign of a brotherly relationship. There was, actually, more signs of antagonism, more “polite impoliteness” than usual. Since I haven’t seen either Hitchens debate until now, I was unable to tell if that was just the way they normally carry their debates, or if - being related - they were pushing each others’ emotional buttons. Christopher seemed to be the better composed of the two. If he was aggravated by any part of the debate, he rarely showed it, whereas Peter became exasperated at a few points. When the moderator asked him for comment after a particularly heated exchange, he gestured dismissively and exclaimed, “Why? It’s futile!” (To Peter’s credit, Christopher had evaded Peter’s direct question, was talking over Peter at that point, and the moderator hadn’t done anything.)
That’s not to dismiss Peter Hitchens’ debate skills or the presentation of his content. He was the right-leaning conservative in this debate. Based on audience responses to debate points (clapping and cheering), I’d say the strong majority - perhaps eighty percent - were liberal (and perhaps atheist), like Christopher. Far less were conservative (and perhaps religious), like Peter. The forum was a college-sponsored event, and GVSU students were given many free tickets. The audience makeup ranged from young college age on up. College students certainly didn’t dominate, though. It was a good mixture of ages.
When I arrived at the venue - a large, ornate Catholic church, one of many beautiful buildings in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan - I heard from an event coordinator that they were booked up way beyond expectations. There were over 1100 people attending. Many were Christopher Hitchens fans. A college student setting behind me excitedly told her seatmate, “I heard about this an hour ago, but when I heard Christopher Hitchens was here I had to be here too!”
So Christopher Hitchens had more fans. He had his books available for purchase, and autographs afterward. Put short, he had the overwhelming support of the audience going in. It generally stayed that way throughout the debate.
The video of the Hitchens vs. Hitchens debate is here! Here’s the first part of the sequence (1 of 14).
For the rest of the series, click for any part you’d like:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14
I’ll summarize the various positions and points of the debate below.
Position 1: “The Invasion of Iraq was wrong”
Peter Hitchens: Peter agreed with this position. He used as illustration his own childhood growing up in England. Back then, Christianity was a “pallid and anemic thing”. The stronger “religion” of the time was about the aftereffects of World War Two. That religion stated, “we won the war!”
Everything from his childhood was overshadowed by the war, and society and his childhood education convinced him that the World War Two was good. He’s now “much less sure of this”. Why? For two reasons:
“There was an arrogance about the war.” The war had an inherent “rightness” to it, that Peter’s side was in the right, and the war was being waged by people who knew their influential place in the world, and through war demonstrated their power.
“This was an idealist war.” Or, to use another quote from Peter, “there is nothing more terrifying than somebody who thinks he is right.”
Parallels can be drawn between the above points from Peter’s experiences of a post-World War Two childhood, and the existing Iraq war today. And that was indeed his point. The situations are similar, and the arrogance and idealism we have today are as wrong as when they evidenced half a century ago.
Christopher Hitchens: “Lots of things about this war are unsettling, and so they should be.” Christopher took the position of being for the war. He began his statement by listing common reasons why people oppose the war. “Our reasons for going were based on lies”, “The U.N. decision was based on false evidence”, ” the disappearing weapons of mass destruction”, and “we attacked a sovereign nation”.
Then he brought up many reasons that trump the reasons above. One was that “Saddam was a bad guy.” And Christopher used that sentence with the caveat that anyone who says it doesn’t know what they’re talking about. And that person has “no real appreciation of a fascist rule”. If someone really knew about Saddam, his policies and actions, they’d have far stronger words than the benign-sounding “bad guy”.
Among Christopher’s points for supporting the war and the Iraq invasion:
- We’ve removed a psychopathic crime family from power.
- We brought a infamous war criminal and his associates to justice.
- We’re undercut the oil monopoly of Saudi Arabia and Iran (yes, he says, some of the side effects may have been serving the interests of the United State and other western powers).
Peter Hitchens: Peter countered with a list of his own points of what the war was doing to the countries of the invaders (primarily the United States):
- We’ve spent six trillion dollars we do not have.
- There are torture allegations against the US government.
- Thousands of innocent people are dead.
- It was not a justified military action.
- The war was a result of “willful ignorance”.
- Does the United States have the right to intervene anywhere it thinks there’s a problem? If so, why are we not doing the same to China? Or Iran? It’s a double-standard.
- And finally, a plea to common sense: Given this list, how can anyone say this war is a success?
Christopher Hitchens: So it “comes down to the actuarial”, and Christopher replied to Peter’s points with his own list:
- We have indeed intervened when appropriate. He gave the examples of Gaddafi, who was “much worse than we thought”, and the result turned out to be a major “non-proliferation victory”.
- He addressed Peter’s claim that we attacked a sovereign nation, but haven’t done the same to China or Iran. This is because there are conditions that need to be met before a war of that magnitude can be brought. Iraq met those conditions. China and Iran do not. Those conditions are:
1) “Violations of the genocide convention” (I’m quoting him here for accuracy, but I believe Christopher is referring to the Geneva Conventions.)
2) Violations of the non-proliferation treaty
3) Aiding and harboring terrorists
4) Invading other nations
(While it can be argued that Iraq did do all these things, Christopher did not say (or I missed) where this list came from. Is there a list detailing “we will attack these countries under these conditions”, or did Christopher make this up as a reasonable assessment of a world threat?)
Christopher said that this is “the critical standard”. We can’t just invade anyone we don’t like. In this case, “we invaded Iraq much too late. Therein only lies our shame.”
Position 2: “God does not exist, and he is not great”
(This position is a tip-of-the-hat to Christopher, as he’s written a book titled “God Is Not Great“.)
Christopher made the first claim.
Christopher Hitchens: “I don’t think it’ll take ten minutes to disprove the existence of god.” His points:
- There is not a reason to believe in a god.
- You may wish to be a deist, but getting from deist to a theist is a huge step. Theism is “the wish to be a slave under a totalitarian being”, one that watches you at all times, is overly concerned about your sex life, needs constant worship, and wants you to slice the tops off penises. It’s “a celestial North Korea”. And, “the tyranny only begins by your death”, and during your life, you are forbidden to think for yourself or to gain scientific knowledge.
- You and I can’t decide right from wrong without a god’s dictates? Christopher calls this concept nonsense.
- Religion was what we thought up when we didn’t know anything as a species. It was our first attempt at philosophy and morality. It was a reliance on the supernatural over reason and science. Consider the accomplishments and the scientific underpinnings on Einstein and Darwin, and compare them to the concepts of a burning bush and circumcision. The former are enlightened thinking. The latter is back from the days of limited knowledge and superstition.
- Consider: Heaven watches our race evolve for at least 100,000 years. And then, within just the last 3000 years, suddenly decides to get involved with our species? It does nothing through our frightening and horrific 100,000-year evolution into mankind (including wars, high infant mortality, short lifespan, rampant disease), and suddenly decides 3000 years ago it’ll get involved when we become educated? This makes no sense.
Peter Hitchens: He felt that Christopher was simply picking the worst aspects of religion as examples. He wanted the “flippant tone” to be more serious. He brought up his own problems with atheism:
- Why is there something rather than nothing? There being something implies a creator.
- “How can we be so certain there is no god?” I believe this was Peter’s response to Christopher and similar “strong atheists“, who actively and strongly propose there is no god.
- The question of morality is irrelevant. Christopher and others like him, Peter says, suffer from “luxury atheism”. This states that religion is truly needed in the real world. If you have no religion, Peter argues, you have no moral direction. And this is one reason why we have so much more violence in society today. In practical use (and not armchair discussions), atheism is doing whatever you want. And that leads to abuse of others.
- When you despise the idea of god, you try to become a god yourself. It destroys authority in society. It gives us a “trash culture”. This brings a breakdown of civility: “I will do what I want.” He says, “Without religion, we are lost.” He added, “And don’t trivialize circumcision. This is far more serious.”
Christopher Hitchens: Chris’s rebuttal was brief:
- Circumcision is indeed not funny. He brought up the example of female circumcision being particularly abusive.
- The concept of “vicarious redemption” (where God’s automatic and instant “removal of sins”) is ridiculous.
- The Andromeda galaxy is on a direct collision course with our Milky Way galaxy. (Our collision with Andromeda is a known fact.) In three billion years - a fairly short time on the cosmic scale - all life in our galaxy will most likely be destroyed. Christopher’s point: This is God’s design? This is the work of an intelligent creator? If there was a creator, that creator seems to be filled with “extreme incompetence, cruelty, and indifference”.
Peter Hitchens: Peter responded with the following points:
- If you abolish religion, “it wouldn’t be replaced with a blank space”. Something would take it’s place, and that would be abused horrifically. When you give someone power, they abuse it.
- Christianity is hope. This was a part of humanity before religion was formally invented. We need religion to give us hope.
- It’s circular logic to ignore any good things that religion does, and flag every bad thing and find its connection to religion. You can’t have it both ways.
Christopher Hitchens: Christopher had the final comments.
- The story of Abraham and his son Isaac is a story about submission. It’s a story about a god-dictator toying with his creation. Anyone who loves this story loves to be a slave.
- To counter Peter’s earlier point, Christopher said that nihilism and relativism do not equal atheism. The concept of “do what you will” is bad when taken literally. But how is this different than a person who acts while saying, “God is on my side”?
- If morality can only be derived from the supernatural (God and religion), then Christopher has two challenges for us:
1) Name a moral action that couldn’t be made by a non-believer.
2) Name a stupid or evil action that can be done by one who claims “God says so”.
Christopher’s point? It’s extremely difficult to come up with an answer for the first request. The second request is far easier to answer.
Audience questions
At this point, the debate was closed and the floor was opened up to audience questions for Peter and Christopher Hitchens. I had questions I wanted to ask. I walked to the front and stood in line for the microphone, as did many others. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take notes effectively while waiting in line, so won’t transcribe the audience questions here (hopefully we’ll someday have a video or transcript available of the whole event). Also unfortunately, I didn’t move fast enough, as only half the questioners were allowed to ask questions before they called the evening to an end.
I noticed that the majority of audience questions were directed at Christopher. Mine were all for Peter Hitchens. Here are the questions I was going to ask (I hadn’t yet narrowed them down to a single question). They’re actually pretty standard, obvious questions, and I wanted to ask them because I’m surprised they didn’t come up during the debate itself.
1) The religious aspects of this debate have centered on Catholicism. With the many differences, conflicts and inherent contradictions between religions, how do you know your religion is the right one?
2) What evidence in your life do you have that God and Christianity are truth?
3) Different religions have different miracles and different myths. Creation stories seem to contradict each other. Reigns of various gods or goddesses would interfere with other gods in other religions. Can these coexist, or is there only one true religion?
Conclusion
I loved this debate. Why? Because when done correctly, a debate is critical thinking at its best: Christopher Hitchens and Peter Hitchens actually spoke about issues and ideas. That’s a much improved change of pace for anyone who watches political discussions on TV or listens to talk radio, where both are filled with hatred and ad-hominem attacks towards anyone who thinks in opposition. In that case, the goal is to make sure your side wins the war of ideas, regardless of common sense, logic, or fairness. I much prefer the debate format: everyone has their say, and if you start attacking the character of the opponent, that actually detracts from your own impact.
The Hitchens brothers kept to the point. They both made their cases well, defended them well, and gave us an enlightening debate. More importantly, they gave us a lot to think about later and (in my own case) gave me a better understanding of both sides of multiple issues.
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D-:
There was a live feed webcast of the event, hence the cameras. I think I read something on the website about Youtube next week.
4 April 2008, 12:57 amSandra L H:
Very nice write-up. I’m glad to hear that people were interested and engaged. I’ve seen CH debate on youtube but it must have been something different to see it live and with his brother. Thanks a bunch Andy!
4 April 2008, 7:16 ampaul:
Hi! Enjoyed the write-up…
In response to your last points from Christopher’s final comments, can I point you to this:
http://dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=Anchor&CategoryID=1&BlogID=5293
Cheers!
4 April 2008, 8:21 amAndy Kaiser:
Hi Paul,
Thanks for the feedback. I wanted to address one of the points you linked to. Specifically, this one:
“The issue is not what believers and unbelievers can do. The issue is logical consistency. When believers do evil, are they being consistent with their premises? No, they are not. When unbelievers do good, are they being consistent with their premises? Yes, but only in the sense that they would be equally consistent doing evil, and equally good with some kind of creative mix of the two. The reason for this is that they cannot give an account for the difference between the two; when one questioner asked him whether he believed in truth, and how he accounted for it, for a few moments, before he got a case of the cutes again, Christopher was effectively pole-axed.”
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t what you’re talking about here the idea that an atheist has no sense of morality? I would argue that a non-believer can indeed have a moral compass. In addition, an atheist’s morality is based on logic, as opposed to a God’s morality which, while supposedly unquestioned and absolute, is not. (Particularly when you take into account contradicting moralities between religions.)
I do agree with you that the “what is truth” question caused Christopher to stumble a bit. That surprised me, but it’s always earlier to judge in writing than it is when you’re on a stage.
4 April 2008, 9:14 amAndy Kaiser:
Just received an email back from GVSU (the event coordinator and host):
“We will be posting the event to YouTube ASAP — hopefully today or Monday. You will be able to find it at: http://youtube.com/HauensteinCenter”
I’ll link to the video when it’s available.
[EDIT: The Hitchens vs. Hitchens video is available - scroll back up to higher in the article to view it.]
4 April 2008, 9:17 amkatecho:
No, the issue is not that atheists have no moral compass. Moral compasses are a dime a dozen. The problem is that atheism has no magnetic field to direct the compass. You can make the needle point wherever you want. Not only is there no magnetic field in atheism, but there is nowhere to go. There is no moral destination.
The appeal to “logic” is a detriment for the atheist. Atheists, including Christopher (Christ bearer) Hitchens, are not lacking in moral conviction, but applying logic to an atheistic paradigm leads one directly away from the sort of moral convictions they want to endorse. In the atheistic universe everything is accidental– a cosmic fart in the wind. Not random, yet without purpose, or teleology, or framework of meaning. There is no one driving the bus, and the road doesn’t go anywhere. Atheists are eager to propose themselves as bus drivers, but given their starting points, such an agenda is contrary to logic, not an application of it. Logic would entail that the atheist abandon their moral posturing and stop pretending there is some moral destination for which a moral compass might actually mean something.
4 April 2008, 11:17 amAndy Kaiser:
Katecho,
I would argue that a non-theistic moral system can indeed have a direction, and that atheists are not “driving the bus”. A few questions, please to have you elaborate on your point:
What do you think of the theory of evolved morals? That is, evolution and our inherent desire for survival (or self, family, and community) cause us to behave in ways that continue our survival. This is morality created by evolution.
What about empathy? Do you think one must be theist to have empathy for others?
4 April 2008, 11:41 amkatecho:
Atheists are not lacking moral directions. Atheists go in every conceivable direction. Unfortunately, moving in a direction does not mean there is anywhere to go, let alone that one *should* go there. This is quite apparent in the atheistic paradigm, and in Christopher Hitchens in particular.
Regarding evolved morals, imagine that one could describe, in step-by-step detail, an evolutionary origin for our compunctions about survival and empathy. Still, this would be nothing more than a catalog of an accident. Unless one wants to engage in a genetic fallacy, there is nowhere to go with such descriptions. It is not as if it was *supposed* to have happened that way. There was no intent at work in such a process.
If evolution had deposited in us the sense of “kill or be killed” (which some argue that it has), then would this somehow justify killing as moral? Male chimps will kill and partially consume offspring in their own clan. I presume materialistic atheists must argue that evolution deposited this “morality” in chimps by the same mechanisms that you are appealing to? Now what?
One can describe the smell of a fart in ever finer detail, but description is not prescription. “Are farts supposed to smell that way?” In atheism, they just do. And gravity pulls down instead of up. Do atheists really want to ground their sense of morality upon descriptions of accidents in nature like that? At the end of the debate, this is simply a concession that evolution “cause[s] us to behave” in a certain way– just like nature causes farts to smell a certain way. This evolutionary theory of morality never rises above a stalemate strategy, since even theists could, for rhetorical effect, use it with just as much authority to justify their inherited morality. Did not nature deposit theistic moral sensitivities in them as it has deposited atheistic sensitivities in others? Now who’s moral compass are we going to use? Why should we use any other compass than the one nature put in us?
The whole project of ascribing moral properties to accidents of nature is contrary to the logic and reason that you invoked a bit ago. Accidents make lousy fuel for reasoned conclusions.
4 April 2008, 12:26 pmDoug P:
The point being made was not that “one must be theist to have empathy”; rather, that “if one wants to explain one’s empathy, it certainly helps to be a theist.” In effect, plenty of hand-waving and speculation (case in point: “theory of evolved morals”) is required to provide an explanation of empathy from an atheistic set of presuppositions.
4 April 2008, 12:29 pmpaul:
G’day Andy,
Thanks for the reply. I’m in Australia, so half a world away.
Katecho made a very good reply. Although mine would just echo his, and put it simply.
Consider Stalin (Joseph) and Hitchens (Christopher).
Considering both are atheists, Stalin’s “moral compass” is the same as Hitchen’s. How can Hitchen condemn Stalin? On what basis?
Now if we consider both are Christians, Hitchens can “rightly” condemn Stalin on even one act of murder, knowing full well the explicit Biblical command - fixed and based on the character of God.
Thanks for the discussion. Looking forward to the video.
Cheers
4 April 2008, 6:18 pmAndy Kaiser:
Katecho and Paul,
As I read your response, a few things struck me:
The whole project of ascribing moral properties to accidents of nature is contrary to the logic and reason that you invoked a bit ago. Accidents make lousy fuel for reasoned conclusions.
- You keep mentioning evolutions and traits as being “accidents”. An evolved trait (whether we’re talking morals, or an eyeball) is not an accident. Natural selection forces a direction to evolution. I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing, so wanted to clarify.
- Are you truly saying that the only reason you don’t kill, steal, hate, and do other bad things is from religiously-defined laws? That’s the only thing keeping your id in check? To me, that’s pretty scary. It says something about your character. It also makes me wonder how you would act differently if you’d been raised in a different religion.
- You seem to be saying that morals are absolute, as defined by your religion. How then do you handle the differences between religions with conflicting sets of information? Or where a sin in one relgion is allowed in another? I don’t agree that any religion is a proponent of absolute morality - this is one reasons why we have so many religions, so many denominations - no one can agree what’s right.
7 April 2008, 12:19 pmkatecho:
Andy,
You appear to be misinformed regarding evolution. Natural selection is *not* alleged to be a directed process. There is no design or purpose or intent or goal or expectation driving it. Evolution is a blind process. Contrary to your claim, there is no direction, or destination, or route, or pathway along which evolutionary processes “force” anything.
Note that I haven’t said that alleged evolutionary processes are strictly random at the chemical level– evolutionists propose that its processes unfold according to fixed laws of matter. However, there is no destination or route imposed on the system. Where the system goes, what path it takes, and what the system looks like at any given point is arbitrary. The proposed mechanism is mutation, such as DNA copy errors, mistakes, mishaps. In other words, *accidents*.
So in this paradigm the number of eyes that a species has at any moment is an accident in a long chain of accidents. Likewise, the number of fingers that man has is an accident, as are the “moral” instincts that evolution deposited in us. There is nothing anywhere that says we ought to have the number of fingers that we have, let alone the instincts that we have.
My prior posts address the consequences of such a paradigm. I don’t usually encounter atheists who try to deny the obvious accidental nature of a godless universe.
8 April 2008, 12:47 amEric J:
Andy,
Classifying Christopher Hitchens as “liberal” to his brother’s “conservative” may be a slight over-simplification.
While many of his views are quite leftist, he’s quite welcomed in some libertarian circles as a speaker. And his pro-military viewpoints certainly take him outside the “mainstream” liberal establishment.
He’s a hard one to classify at times. His criticisms of the Clintons made as many enemies on the American Left as his criticism of Mother Theresa made on the religous right.
At times he seems to be a “reformed socialist” turned iconclast. Anti-multi-culturist when fighting against European/American left-leaning political activism. And with an interventionist foreign policy streak favoring the underdog (consistently anti-Isreal, pro-palestenian people. Pro-Kurdish rebels long before most people knew who the Kurds of Iraq were.)
I agree and disagree alternatively with Hitchens on many subjects. But I do find refreshing that he doesn’t fit easily on the usual Left / Right dichotomy of most American politics. And few things provide as much intellectual amusement to me as watching him attack a target I dislike.
8 April 2008, 1:58 amkatecho:
Andy,
Regarding the second thing that struck you, I am not appealing to “religiously-defined laws”, whatever those are. Rather I appeal to the moral revelation of the Creator, and His image imprinted on mankind, since His expectations are what I will be judged by. He is the one who defines my reason for being. He is the one I desire to please and to enter personal fellowship with, because He first blessed me and showed favor toward me.
You express fear that the only thing keeping me in check are God’s expectations. You cast Christians as latent beasts, restrained only by a thin theistic leash that could snap at any moment, while rational and calm atheists look on. This seems like a cheap psychological shame tactic on your part, but if your fear is as you claim, it simply demonstrates that you agree with the point I have made. If you are afraid that Christians, without God, would revert to ravenous beasts then it says something about your view of nature itself, under atheism. After all, man really is just another animal in your paradigm. Your psychological shame-game wouldn’t mean much in that ensuing animal world.
If the Creator really didn’t exist, you would have every reason to fear the atheistic result. You should listen to your fear regarding the implications of atheism upon morality, and don’t kid yourself that atheists would somehow remain little angels. Stalin and Mao would beg to differ with you.
However, unlike you, Christians need not live in constant fear of atheists and what they may do in their atheism. God does exist, and He has made the world in such a way that evil has consequences which even self-professed atheists want to avoid. Also, even when atheists deny Him, they still have moral awareness as a result of bearing His image and being children of Adam and Eve. In other words, atheists are usually not very good at living out the implications of their own atheism.
8 April 2008, 2:33 amEric J:
>Consider Stalin (Joseph) and Hitchens (Christopher).
>Considering both are atheists, Stalin’s “moral compass” is the same as
> Hitchen’s. How can Hitchen condemn Stalin? On what basis?
I think this is a great example of “definition by non-essentials”. If, to you, the fundatmental characteristic of both Stalin and Hitchens is their atheism, and you really can’t see any difference in their “moral compass”, then I suggest you re-evaluate your method of judging people.
Basically, I would challenge your assumption that their “moral compass is the same”. That’s a premise which assumes your conclusion that only religous standards are correct standards to judge moral behavior.
There are many moral standards by which an atheist can condemn another. Some atheist would be ethical intutivists, others ethical naturalists. Individual atheists can have any number of ethical or philosophical veiwpoints.
Basically, you are advocating the point of view, that God is the only standard of the moral, which was criticized as far back as Plato in Euthyphro. (and there’s a pretty well-discussed philosophical dilema named after that dialouge).
Personally, I see no reason why “obedience to God’s will” is a better meta-ethical standard than several others that are available in various philosophies.
8 April 2008, 2:43 amEric J:
>He has made the world in such a way that evil has consequences
> which even self-professed atheists want to avoid.
alternatively, the laws of nature and logic result in negative consquences from evil acts, which every reasonable human, theist or non-theist, want to avoid.
Human evolution resulted in most of us having emotions and intuitions which help us identify good behavior (condusive to a fulfilling human life and society) and seperate it from evil behavior (destructive and anti-social).
Religion then codified many of these behaviors (some intuitive, some socially learned), and explained them through the lens of our pre-scientific understanding.
Atheism does not imply a-morality. It does imply that morality would have to be arrived at by some other method than mystical revelation from authority. Luckily for the atheist, creating moral systems that don’t require religious justification go back to at least Aristotle, and probably to Socrates.
8 April 2008, 3:03 ampaul:
Andy,
I appreciate the questions. I’ll work with what you have…
Of course, “to kill, steal, hate, and do other bad things” are absolutely wrong! Even you would admit that without my appealing to “religious laws”. Whatever you mean by them.
The situation is reversed to what you described. Very briefly, I “see” (as you also have implied) without a doubt that “to kill, steal, hate, and do other bad things” are morally wrong - but why? Who sez? And then I see the character of God that the Bible proclaims - and realize it flows from Him…
Any religion or denomination then that subscribes “to kill, steal, hate, and do other bad things” - then they have exactly violated the moral law. You seem to want to make morality all encompassing so I’m not sure why you said “no one can agree what’s right.” You and I, I hope, agree that “to kill, steal, hate” is not right. And that to “not kill, not steal, not hate” is right.
Thanks…
Eric J,
Thanks for your thoughts.
Actually, the post I linked to above answered the last comments by Christopher Hitchens as Andy listed them… Which for the sake of those arguments validates the questions I asked to clarify for Andy. No one’s judging anyone - just the arguments whether the reality we experience are consistent to what we claim are the explanation. Thanks again…
Cheers
8 April 2008, 4:57 amEric J:
>The situation is reversed to what you described. Very briefly, I “see” (as you
>also have implied) without a doubt that “to kill, steal, hate, and do other bad
>things” are morally wrong - but why? Who sez? And then I see the character of
> God that the Bible proclaims - and realize it flows from Him…
>
>Any religion or denomination then that subscribes “to kill, steal, hate, and do
>other bad things” - then they have exactly violated the moral law.
so, if I may break this down:
1) you observe moral truths, accepting them as true
2) you then note that God backs up your moral observations confirming they are true
3) and then you know you’ve picked the right religious beliefs, because a religion that contradicts the moral truths would be false
sounds to me like you are saying you validate your moral code because it comes from God, and you know God is the correct choice due to the correctness of the moral judgements.
God proves the morality. And the morality proves God.
I honestly don’t see why one can’t stop at the moral truths be observed / deduced / intuited, and avoid the possible circular reasoning trap.
You say that other meta-ethical standards are insufficient, that one needs divine guidance to “know” that one made the right call in choosing a moral code. Yet, you acknowledge that if another religious person came forth and gave you different set of moral values, claiming those values came form God, you would know they are wrong, as they are giving wrong moral judugements. This requires you have standards for judging the correctness of a moral system other than simply an appeal to religion.
8 April 2008, 1:32 pmEric J:
>If evolution had deposited in us the sense of “kill or be killed” (which some
> argue that it has), then would this somehow justify killing as moral?
The thing is, modern research has shown that things like compassion, social bonding, empathy, and many other things we would classify as moral value do, indeed, have evolutionary value, either in survival value, or in kin-survival.
I would argue that a reasoning, social species will evolve certain behaviors, based on the basic logical ramifications of interaction between thinking beings.
“Kill or be killed” doesn’t really work that well for a reasoning species, that expects to flourish based on the power of their mind, rather than on strength of limb and sharpness of claw. The risks of constant conflict are too high, and anti-survival as a general strategy.
correct behavior for humans, with their characteristics, is different from correct behavior for a great white shark, with very different characteristics.
asking if evolution can give sanction to murder isn’t relevant, because it didn’t and it couldn’t, unless we had evolved as very different creatures indeed.
now, to indulge in wild speculation: maybe someday we’ll meet an alien species out in the stars that is so different that their survival modes are totally contradictory to anything we think of as moral by human standards. Like the creatures in the “Alien” movie. If so, we’ll probably have to treat them as we would a psychopathic murderer or a rabid dog. Kill them as a threat to our survival, if it turns out they are total incompatible with us. But we wouldn’t call them “immoral”, any more than we would call a rabid dog immoral.
But now, I’ve ranged too far afield from the top at hand. Forgive my diversion.
8 April 2008, 2:19 pmpaul:
Eric J,
Exactly!!!
But now we’re back to square one: which is at Christopher’s last comments and which you think makes possible “circular reasoning trap.” To which I linked above to simply say that the challenge has been answered.
And that’s why I let Andy and his readers read it. To show that his challenge has been adequately answered - no matter how he tries to make it appear insurmountable. Maybe Christopher “forgot” or has yet to understand it.
As an aside - here’s another post titled “Weird Guy” - http://www.dougwils.com/index.asp?Action=Anchor&CategoryID=1&BlogID=4153 - I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
Now, to be sure, morality is just one way to know that God does exists! Katecho pointed out how atheist stumble in logical consistency.
There’s also the fact that “there is something, instead of nothing.”
So, there are other avenues to explore and prove that God exist. As a Christian, my reason for being: is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, “who is God overall, blessed forever.”
Christians do not only know a way of life, but the very purpose of life. Not only do Christians know right and wrong but also why they ought to do right.
Atheists may grasp the right way but cannot stand for its rightness and why they must obey…
I’ll stop here for now. Sincere thanks and God bless…
9 April 2008, 7:45 amjen:
Andy, great commentary. One point of clarification - the church (Fountain Street Church) is non-denominational categorized most often as “liberal religious” and has a long history of providing a forum for the great philisophical debates of God and religion. In its former life, it was American Baptist.
11 April 2008, 10:00 am