Exorcising Christopher Hitchens

 

When I realized that my God given male member would give me no peace, I determined to repay it by giving it no rest.

--Christopher Hitchens

Winter in New Hampshire means I cannot ride my bike up and down the steep hills for exercise and I'm confined to my basement treadmill and the beer truck size TV screen my son gave me for Christmas, where I watch hour after hour of youtube. 

Lately, it's been all Christopher Hitchens all the time. Any man who can toss of bromides like "Hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays to virtue" paragraph after paragraph has got my full attention.

Hitchens interviews by Bill Maher, Dennis Miller and Hitchens in debate with various doctors of theology, and after the first seven debates, you see he has his schtick down very nicely, an armamentarium of moves, as my son had, when he wrestled, which he could throw at an opponent to bring him to the mat, just as soon as his opponent made his first move. 

William Lane Craig

Noticing online remarks that Hitchens has met his match or even been "annihilated" by William Lane Craig, I tuned in to that one. 

Any man with three names deserves to be taken seriously, and Dr. Craig was introduced as having an impressive array of credentials, and he began the debate by racing through a series of statements of "fact" which he claimed used the second law of thermodynamics, the Big Bang theory and various other impressive sounding things, to establish, using these "facts" that God has to exist. 

Clearly having spent a lot of time in departments of philosophy, Craig tried to execute a "proof," as one would in geometry, which ran something like this:  a/ If we really do exist, there must be a cause for that existence, b/ Our universe had a moment, as everything must, when it began to exist c/ Thus, if there is a cause to the beginning, there must be a God which is that cause.

None of this bothered Mr. Hitchens in the least, who proceeded, in his first 10 minute response, to demolish all that Craig said. 

Very simply, Hitchens remarked, almost off handedly, well, if you cannot conceive of something that simply exists without cause or beginning, then who made God? When did God begin to exist? And for what cause?

I had previously heard Hitchens get at this by reciting a line George Carlin loved to use: If God is all powerful, can he create a rock so large even He cannot lift it?

Responding to Craig's declamation that all the experts had established as undeniable fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, which proves there must be a God, Hitchens said this is a very curious claim. And he unwound the path by which Craig had stumbled to it.

Religious authority had, for generations, no access to the Big Bang theory or space telescopes and simply used for their authority faith, that is, the pope says it's true, therefore it's true or some text from the Bible, but in recent years they've decided they ought to marshal evidence to back up their claims. This is just what Craig had done in his opening 20 minutes. Evidence based theology.

Hitchens noted that after establishing the universe operates according the laws of physics and thermodynamics, which is the way God actually does things, according to his Devine plan, when it comes down to the resurrections, the evidence based theologians leap to a miracle to prove the laws of nature actually do not apply in the case of the Resurrection, which proves their point, there must be a God.

Hitchens, with impish delight, then notes the scriptures say that upon the resurrection, the graves gave up their dead, who were seen wandering all over the Holy Land, so that resurrection in that time and place, must not have been remarkable at all, common place even, if everyone could do it.

Hitchen's has a set of propositions which his debate partners can never seem to dent:

1/ The claim from the religious that were there no God, there would be no objective right or wrong, since rape, murder, theft could all occur in primitive or developed societies unless there were a set of rules from God, is a special delight to Hitchens. "Name me a single morally good  thought or action which a religious person can have or do which an atheist cannot do." And then, "On the other hand, name me a dreadful, immoral act done by a religious person, often in God's name or said to be at God's direction--it won't take you five seconds to think of one. The entire suicide bomber community is religious." You do not need stone tablets to know the difference between right and wrong, to know kindness and charity are good and murder and rape bad.

2/ If morality flows from God, down through his religious prophets to man, then why have a long list of iniquities been done by the churches, mosques, synagogues throughout history, from endorsing Hitler, to flying airplanes into buildings, to subjugating Palestinians because they want to live on land given to Jews by God? And, of course there is the child rapes by Catholic priest which Hitchens calls a policy of let no child's behind be left alone. 

The response to that is always that churches are the works of fallible man, and we are all sinners but that does not mean God is not perfect, even if his messengers are imperfect. Poppycock, says Hitchens. Either you speak for God and He speaks through you, or you do not. You can't have it both ways. And why should any of us believe God has decided to speak not directly to people but only through a chain of command?

3/ Hitchens says, essentially, God is man made and a horrible God that is: He knows your thoughts, a celestial dictator even worse than Orwell's Big Brother, so you can be sent to Hell not just for what you do, but for what you think, for thought crime! At least in North Korea, the most religious place on earth, where everyone worships the Dear Leader from sunrise to sunset, you can escape by death. Not so for Christians who are paying for their trespasses  for eternity after death. 

4/ The impulse toward wanting to create a God is the impulse toward desiring a totalitarian dictator, the impulse to want to be a slave to be told what to do and what to think. The prospect of freedom, that you have to create meaning in your own life by your own thoughts and actions is terrifying, but it is the courageous thing to do. The religious are often described as a "flock" and that is a horrible thing to want to be part of.

I could go on. But really, he is important and fun and well worth watching on a winter's day when you cannot be outside, enjoying the wonders of God's green earth.