Transcription
New subway ads in New York City have renewed the debate in America about religion and God. So, I thought this would be a perfect time to bring in the stars of Collision, a new documentary on religion and atheism. Christopher Hitchens, self-proclaimed anti-theist and author of God is Not Great, and Pastor Douglas Wilson, evangelical and author. Welcome to the show.
I saw the movie, and I really enjoy the movie very much. It's very, very interesting, but I don't I don't want you two to just rehash the debates. Okay. All right. Because I want you to make me understand where you're at and people who are watching the show cuz you know so okay let's start with you. Uh can you give me just in a nutshell pastor a case for God? Okay. That God exists.
Uh one of the things I would want to do is is uh ask about where your starting point is. Who has the burden of proof? So, does a does a a Ford automobile have the burden of proof of demonstrating that there was a Henry Ford or that there wasn't? Who has who has the burden of proof? And a lot of this debate is actually scrambling for the high ground of who has to do the proving, who has to do the maintaining, who carries the burden of proof. Now, for uh and who do you think carries the burden?
I believe the one who denies the self-evident fact that God exists and created the world that I think that that is the person who has the burden of you say it's self-evident yes self-evident to those those who believe who those who believe those who don't believe you know if you watch this movie collision it's sort of like watching hype diving competitions in the Olympics the Romanian judge comes up with a completely different uh score you know two points 10 points so this is the sort of debate where atheists go to it and they I think Christopher carried the day and believers go to the debate and they think that the Christian is there any there may not be a solution to this.
Well, no, I think there is one. I mean, and I can't avail myself of the almost beautiful circularity of Pastor Wilson's argument. And I I wouldn't want to sherk any burden of proof or disproof, but it does seem to me that if someone says if I don't agree with them, I might be condemned to eternal punishment. and that snakes talk, virgins bear children, and dead men walk. That extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence. What what atheists say is not that there is no God. We couldn't possibly prove that. We say there is there's never been any evidence. There's never been a convincing philosophical argument that there is such an entity. In fact, we say there is no supernatural dimension. The natural world is much more wonderful.
Uh but but you don't pastor, you don't you don't really believe that snakes talk and that Noah had all those animals on the boat, do you? Yeah, I believe I believe the Bible. I'm a Christian, so I believe the Bible. But it it sounds like you're too intelligent to really believe that literally. I understand your faith, but that animals all those animals were on the boat. Come on. Come on. We're we're we're animals and we That's a fact. We're primates and and we talk. [snorts] Yeah. By the way, that's an advance that's an advance of where Presbyterianism used to be. They used to say we weren't primates. Now we know now everyone agrees we are. Now everyone agrees that the cosmos is created by an explosion, probably without us in mind. Now, we're very likely not the object for divine design. Okay, it might be more modest to think that we aren't.
All right, one of the things I would want to maintain is that Christians aren't going to make any headway by trying to split the difference between faith and unbelief. If you have unbelief [clears throat] and faith, and you split the difference, you just get a muddled form of faith or a muddled form of unbelief. I I'm not interested in trying to dilute the Bible to make it acceptable to people. So, um if if I'm a Christian, then I I' do what Jesus says, believe what he taught and and that sort of thing. That's what a Christian should
What about this idea of Jesus, Christopher? You don't buy it at all, I take it. Well, I don't think he was the son of God. You don't? No, I don't think his mother was I don't think his mother was a virgin, and I don't think he died and was resurrected or revived or resuscitated. None of that. None of that. And even if he was, by the way, any of those things, he would only have that in common. Virgin, virginal birth, miraculous circumstances, mysterious death with many, many other mythological figures. It wouldn't prove, even if it could be proved, wouldn't prove his doctrines were true or moral or ethical, which I don't think they are.
Does it surprise you to know that Einstein probably believed in God? That's pretty surprising. No, I absolutely know that the contrary is true. Well, Einstein wrote very, very clearly he was a pantheist or possibly a deist. He did not believe in a personal god, a god of religion. He didn't believe in a God who could intervene in human affairs, would answer prayers, would take side, would care what you ate, who you had sex with. There's a certain um self-absorption in the idea that the sky god is watching me particularly do my show right now. There's something strange about that.
Do you do you believe that? Do you think he's watching you specifically right now? Yeah. Jesus said he uh God numbers the hairs on our head. He It's not just So it's Google. [laughter] Yes. And and is there self-absorption in that? Yeah. So, here's here's the here's the fundamental issue. Of course, you can believe in an omnisient God and believe in it in a way that flatters yourself. There have been all kinds of believers who who take the doctrine that God knows all things and has has the hairs of your head numbered and they do it in a self-flattering way, self-absorbed way. Yes, that does happen. But it's also something that can humble you if you think about it uh correctly. It it makes you it helps put everything in perspective. It makes you too humbled. Okay. Makes you It makes you into a servant. You say, "I'm just I'm just a player thing of God's will."
Well, let's talk about the the Ten Commandments, for example. Do we really need the Ten Commandments to be good people? I mean, I know not to murder somebody. I didn't need to be raised Catholic, even though I was to know that, right? Um, part of the problem that we come up against is that we have been inculcated in the Ten Commandments, the 10 the tenants of the Ten Commandments for many centuries. And then we kick the ladder away. We've climbed up climbed up to this height. Click the kick the ladder away and say, "Look how high we are." Well, I don't think it is self-evident that you shouldn't murder or commit adultery. What did people do before the ten commandments? They didn't murder and kill every otherwise we wouldn't be here. Well, no. Look at look at the crime rates. If if sin disappeared overnight, if somebody waved a magic wand and sin disappeared, our economy would collapse. We We are
What do you say to that, Chris? That doesn't make me That doesn't make me say [laughter] anything. I I I have some tougher stuff to say. I mean, well, first, the story isn't true. I mean, the the wandering in the desert, the exile, all that's the Jewish version of the Christian mythology. It's worse than talking snakes. The anales of the anal the analytes of Confucious written long before say to people the what the golden rule is. Don't do to others what you wouldn't want done to yourself. The first three or four commandments are all are all saying you must fear someone you love. a a heavenly dictator. They're not moral at all. Then there are two or three that are self-evident. Don't kill, don't murder, rather. Don't steal and don't um commit perjury. And then the others are um putting women on the level of beasts and saying they're among the chattles of your neighbor. You mustn't cover it. It's a bronze age tribal agricultural reruns. Really?
Well, let's go go at this from another angle. Take the code of Hammurabi and the and the analex of Confucious and the command for eye tooth for tooth. Well, I eye for eye tooth for tooth is less talionus was given because it used to be before that a life for an eye, a life for a tooth. All right. Strict justice was imposed to keep these things from escalating out of control. But the reason you have all these codes enforced by armies and police departments and that sort of thing is because people don't obey them naturally and spontaneously.
What do you say to that? For example, there are no well there is no commandment against genocide. There's no commandment against slavery. Very common at the time. And no no no commandment saying no commandment saying parents should respect and be nice to their children. Why is this? Because in the next chapter, the so-called children of this terrifying God who exacts compulsory love are going to be ordered to commit genocide against the Amalachites and the and the Midionites and the Moabites. They're going to be ordered to enslave them and they're going to be ordered to kill all their children in the name of God. So don't have a commandment. That's not very So this is this is this is completely relativistic.
By the way, I read somewhere I saw it in the in the uh it's a wonderful film by the way, which I'll keep pushing for you. Good for you. Um that you were spanked and Yes. That's not very nice to spank a child. Why do you think that's a Christian thing to do? I was the kind of child that needed it. Oh, all kids say that and they did. They It's They're so wrong to spank from so not Christian.