For wrap up – full audio – extra comment from Mark Roberts, click here.
It’s on now. Listen here . Scroll down, waaaaay down.
6:20 – They’re talking about Einstein’s belief. Hitch said the science has explained life, so God is an ‘optional belief’ – it has no explanatory value.
Roberts comes back , admits that most scientists don’t believe – but says it’s because how you were raised. Falls back on Gould’s non-overlapping majesteria.
Hitch – refers to Stenger “God the failed hypothesis”. The extraordinary thing is that we don’t need myracles.
6:35 – Long commercial. Here’s a summary of the Stenger book.
Proposition 2 – All religions have been bad at some time, but that doesn’t prove that all religions can be bad.
Roberts – concedes religions can be bad.
Hitchens – Religions are innately bad.
- Based on sexual repression.
- Based on acceptance of absolute authority / unchangeable authority.
- Religion claims we wouldn’t act morally without fear.
Religion is violent if practiced correctly.
Roberts – claims never used fear card, or eternal reward card (his words). Says eternal punishment not a motivating factor. Says that the world is sick and we live in order to make it better and more like god wans it to be.
Hitchens – it’s like saying that man was created sick but ordered to be well.
6:45 Proposition 3 – The existance of Jesus is Highly Questionable. Prove it.
Hitchens – the gospels are all contradictory on his life story.
Roberts – says gospel not the earliesat witness of him. Says refer back to the letters of Paul, which refer to earlier oral traditions.
Hitchens – it’s all hearsay; no reliable witness. The only proof is that the gospels are so fabricated. E.g. Bethlehem fable.
Roberts – Back to josephus and tacitus. Disagrees about the contradictions. says they agree in 33 points. Like a witness viewed the body first.
Hitchens – says look at the death, an important point. None of the gospels agree on the detail of his death.
Roberts – says, Foucault solved the problem.
Hitchens – Do you believe : the dead walked the streets.
Roberts – Yes as a believer. as a historian, it’s unlikely.
Hitchens, – it cheapens resurrection – so what’s so special about jesus.
Roberts – Matthew was a reliable historian so yes, the dead did walk the streets of jerusalem after the crucifiction.
Hitchens – it seems like something at least one other historian would have noticed.
Back to commercial. Tacitus on historical Jesus
6:55 – Hewitt refers to “Mark Herman” – why do you like him?
Hitch – great scholar.
Roberts – yes
Hitch – and he came to the conclusion that it’s mythical
Roberts – sputter, it’s – uh – old news
Book called Misquoting Jesus
Roberts – Erman an oponent of Christianity, he’s an atheist. He’s an oponent.
Hitch – really?
…………………….. end of first hour ……………………
Here’s some more on Snr. Roberts, from his blog.
Listen to a review of Ehrman’s book, Misquoting Jesus
Read more about Ehrman
…………………….. start of second hour ……………………
Hewitt – Mencken right that the bible is rubbish, much of biblical scholarship says the book is a collection of appocrypha,
Roberts – nuh’uh
7:30 – midway
Hewitt – Hardest part of Hitchens’ book, when he refers to the evil of the old testament – is he right to do so?
Roberts – The old tesatament is intuitively hard to accept it as right, but he’s been greatly helped by Jewish writers talking about it. It has to be seen in 2 contexts: 1 in the culture of that time 2. the old testament gives us the beginning in the first few chapters, the brokeness of the world, how god tries to deal with it.
The larger story justifies the rotteness of the rest.
Hithcens – are you telling me that these things are real?
Hewitt – Well, there was a Jewish kingdom.
Hitchens – no sign for the enslavement.
Hewitt – but jews can’t go to Egypt.
Hitchens – Why does it matter that the old testament have to be your own? Why not ignore what Saint Paul said? How does it make human life better? How does it help us to be ethical? You can’t prove the historicity and morality…
Roberts – Jericho may have had walls that fell…
7:45 – back from commercial. More Christian rock.
Hewitt – Dr Roberts – why not just toss it off? get rid of the jewish scriptures? Jefferson did it?
Roberts – Marcian an orthodox Christian decided to get rid of this in the 2nd century. there was an argument in the early church about getting rid of it. But the old testament is the soil that the new testament came from.
Personally, I knew an orthodox jew who became a christian. It surprised me how he was able to be a better christian because he new the old testament.
Hewitt – Hitch, do you like Walker Percy. percy “I’ll stop believeing when someone explains the jews”. How could they get back to jerusalem without god?
Hitchens – No. If there’s been a supervising hand it’s been so harsh. That’s maybe why there are so many atheist jews. The Rabbi’s didn’t have much to say after the shoah, about God’s hand. They didn’t talk about him until after the 6-day war.
Hugh – well god’s not responsible for that.
Hitchens – The SS were confessing catholics. Hitler was not a christian, but was respected by the X’tns.
Roberts – Hitchens is a friend of the church because he forces us to look at the hard parts of faith. X’tns need to wrestle more honestly with X’tn history. It’ll lead the x’tns closer to the truth. X’tn’s use your brains.
Hugh – Hitch is a magicians trick. Why let Pius XII replace the pro Jew pope before? Hugh – God’s not involved in that, and you’re not fair to Pius XII
Hitchens – Right, I wasn’t harsh enough. Does God pick the pope?
Hugh – Yes.
Hitchens – right before WWII he choose a pro-nazi pope. Why saddle yourself with the defense of him?
* commercial * more on Marcion here. * More on Walker Percy
7:55
Hewitt – Hitch is deterministic about the Bible, he leaves out the free will.
Roberts – That’s right, he also leaves out the fact that the “world itself is broken” . God is in the business of putting the world back together – that’s what people are for. An act of god is not an act of nature.
Hitchens – I think you’ve misrepresented what I write. I say that that’s silly,I don’t know why anybody does. I think we have free will – but no choice to have it. And X’tns invite this criticism anyways. Think of what you just said about the jews hugh. How can you claim to know about God or about what he’s thinking?
……………………………… end of hour 2 …………………………………..
9:07pm Last hour
Hugh – the impact of relgiion in the 20th century. Net positive or net negative? How did we do as religious people, vs non-religious?
Hitchens – ZWe’ve behaved worse than at any time before. The implication of religion in all of these was pretty gross. I don’t think christianity will ever live down supporting the rise of fascism.
Hugh – the atheist stalin, the atheist hitler…
Hitchens – Dictatorship catholic over most of the world and supporters helped nazis escaped. In jana the emperor was a God. In russia, the people were raised to believe their leader was almost a God, and stalin (a seminary student) exploited the servility and credulity. Hence his inquistion, miracles, worshipof the leader etc… It’s a replication of the same thing as you find in religion. Point to me a society that lived by Paine and Jefferson and went into poverty.
Roberts – Hitchens is reachng. Yeah, something poisons everything, but it’s not relgion. It’s because man is partly rational or something like it. Religion when mixed with partial rationality is wicked. But what is the deeper problem of humanity?
Hugh – So when you brought up Rwanda you leave out what the church done to free Poland.
Hitchens – yes, John Paul II was a great mammal. I still want to be informed of a moral action or preachment made by a believer that can not be made by an unbeliever. If you can’t show me one then religion is optional.
Roberts – ok, the action that I did last night. I prayed for my son. It’s the most moral thing I can do.
Hitchens – that’s as moral as aerobic dancing. And you’re saying that by not praying for my children, I’m not as moral as you are.
Roberts – uh, well for me an atheist can’t pray for a child in all honesty
Hitchens – it’s irrelevant and not of itself a good thing
Hugh – Eeryone disagrees with you Hitch. Religion is popular, it’s books are selling well.
Hitchens – islam is sleeping the world, great time to be faith based.
Hugh – Why aren’t atheists winning?
Hitchens – It is still hard not to beleive. People are not yet fully evolved, people seek patterns, people fear death. You have to allow me to be unimpressed.
Roberts – have you read ‘Simply Christian’?
Hitchens – a sickening title
Roberts – it’ll teach you the wider belief and explain the yearning for God, becasue we believe that god put it there.
* Commercial *Simply Christian.
8:25 Back from commercial
Hugh – the Anthropic principle. The 20 unique features of the world, they couldn’t have happened. It takes an extraordinary amount of faith to believe we’re here because of an accident.
Hitchens – Read Victor Stenger, more scientific. Look the unebelievable thing is that we are the point of creation. We’re a dead solar system etc…
Hugh – Look at all the different things that are required to make life possible – do they increase your belief?
Roberts – It increases my belief
Hitchens – You can’t possibly say that you derive your faith from it.
Roberts – let me point to another book – by Owen Gingrich. He wrote a book called God’s Universe, how he as an astrophysicist is a man of faith. When he looks at the unlikelihood of human existance, it increases faith, but there may be life in other places so we may not be the cause of it.
One of the things I want to say is the Christianity has been wrong to oppose science.
Hitchens – suppose that you could infer a creator from these calculations (which hs been proved inadequate), this still means that all of your work is still ahead of you if you think that he cares about us.
So why do you claim to know things you can’t possibly know?
Roberts – stammer – I have to be intellectually honest and try to be faithful, but I can’t lop off of my faith those things i find inconvenient or difficult to understand. the faith makes the most sense of all things. I have had an experience of God.
Hitch – I nknow you think you have. I also don’t think people who claim they’ve seen UFO’s think they’re lying.
Roberts – if i live out god as much as I can , it would cause people to belive
Hugh – you think people are deluding themselves
Hitchens – I knew an ex-jew anglican – bishop Hugh who had a personal visit from jesus and that made him believe. He made your same arguments. I can’t deny that he feels that he was visited.
* commercial * Bishop Hugh obituary * Victor Stenger Home page
*Owen Gingerich “The book nobody read: full text
8:35
Hugh – 3 segments left. From Randy Ellrod of ethos blog. An understanding of something greater than ourselves, it gives us the goal of living for something definite. Must man hae an understanding of something greater or does it become meaningless or insane?
Hitchens – Yes. Science and philosophy and literature as a moral guide is enough for most people’s lifetimes. Humanism meets this existential need. Accepting the bible does nothing for people morally.
In the last segment you claimed belief on an experience of god. Do you accept the validity of Mohammed? He believed he was guided?
Roberts – No I don’t. We need to be open-minded, I don’t accept these expereinces on face value.
Hitchens – By what standard to you sort through these? Are you happy when a man on the street says that he has an experience from god? Do you get excited and throw your hands in the air and say ‘ how fantastic, you too?!’
Roberts – I listen to them and try to discern if they are telling the truth. There’s no absolute standard.
Hitchens – It would have something to do with proof. A smidgen of evidence wouldn’t kill would it? You don’t judge people by what they say about themselves. You’d be saving people with these claims if you told them they need help.
Roberts – Well, uh stammer, I don say that to schizophrenics because they do need help
Back from commercial 8:45
Hugh – earlier you said that hitch doesn’t seem to inhabit the same universe. the last segment made me think of that comment. maybe that’s where the disconnect comes because most X’tns lead great quiet lives.
Roberts – when you look at the things X’tns have done that are bad – it doesn’t ressemble what we experience. Because we see how God motivates people to do good. We sent people down to mexico to do good works because of god. I don’t see how that poisoned anything. I’m willing to say that sometimes religion poisons everything, but sometimes it doesn’t.
Hitchens – You will note that I talk about how religious people helped out and fixed problems caused by other religious people in Uganda. But I don’t say that charity poisons everything,
…
Hugh – Who works in god’s name? The lord’s army of uganda or those who clean up from them.?
Hitch – Both. Who comes to bring not peace but a sword?
Roberts – The religous come on a divine mission to love.
Hitch – Who needs an order to love? And how can you love others as much as yourself? It’s impossible
Roberts – God helps us.
Hitch – You think all this – universe – is directed at you?
Roberts – I don’t think that. God has enlisted me to help in his work of fixing the universe
Hitch – Don’t you have a high opinion of himself.
Roberts – It’s like I’ve been drafted into the army.
Hitch – mm-hmm, onward Christian soldiers – that has a wonderful history.
Roberts – When in your book, you ridiculed people of faith – why do you do that when it seems like you will lost the chance to influence them?
Hitch – That’s how I am, i’m a polemicist, I need to get people’s attention. One can’t write a book called, God is not that brilliant.
Roberts – “It’s hard to be told that I’m stupid”
* Commercial *”I come not to bring peace but a sword” – Jesus
8:55 – final segment
Hugh – final thoughts
Hitchens – I can’t believe you let Dr. Roberts last observation go uncommented on. I certainly do not say he’s stupid. I say the bleief is stupid and unfounded and false and latently always wicked. Ad intion a poison. They’re compatible with intelligence and morality – but we would be better if we put it behind us.
Roberts – Hitchens is a man of high morals – and I share his outrage at evil and admire his willingness to fight islam against risk and shelter Rushdie. I appreciate hi smoral stance. I belief that if one has a faith basis for morality, one can make more warrant to call more people to it. I’m happy that he hasn’t fallen into moral relativism.
Hugh – done. back tomorrow.
………………………. end of debate …………………………
n the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos.
June 5th, 2007 at 11:16 pm Dr. Roberts,I appreciated your effort on the Hugh Hewitt show and your debate with Christopher Hitchens. One thing you said confused me.While refuting Hitchens you referred to ‘Acts of God’. You said those things that your insurance company referred to as ‘Acts of God’ are in fact just ‘Nature’.I’ve never heard a Christian talk about a dichotomy between God and Nature. Would you please explain this dichotomy?
June 5th, 2007 at 11:57 pm Robert: Sure. God created the natural world, but is separate from the world. So things can happen in nature that aren’t necessarily acts of God. God doesn’t send every snowflake. Clouds do that when it’s cold. This is especially true given the fact that nature is fallen and “in travail,” which means that things happen in nature which are not what God had orginially intended, though everything that happens is still encompassed by God’s overall will. Does this help?