Christopher Hitchens vs. Douglas Wilson - Debate

[crabbygaz]

But at least most of what he says is true, and can be demonstrated as such.

Don't envy clever people, become one.

[procommenter]

Historical revisionist/charlatan Christopher Hitchens believes himself to be the most erudite man who has ever lived. He fancies himself the authority of all things worth knowing. He the epitome of all things wrong with academicians these days as he's a self-serving, self-righteous, self-important advocate of empire, eugenics, autocratic government & genocide.

[spike874]

Athiesm, perfect example of contradiction.

[LJonathan]

Do explain.

[spike874]

It's very simple, Athiesm is based on a theory, making it no better than the belief of a supreme being beyond humans.

[LJonathan]

...but then what you say is not a contradiction?

Anyway, I think your definition of atheism is incorrect. Let me explain. Atheism is lack of belief. There may be atheists that make statements that they believe there is no god but they need to provide evidence to support this statement. Regular atheists just don't believe, plainly, just like you don't believe in all other religions. You are an atheist too in regards to all other religions that you are not part of.

[spike874]

well I'm refering to those athiests that support their claims that there is no God with theories such as evolution.

[LJonathan]

Okay, so you agree that Atheism is not a contradiction then?

[spike874]

The definition itself of course, but most Athiests usually contradict themselves, because when there's a debate, one side has to explain the reasoning behind their claims, which is a queue for contradiction.

[LJonathan]

It's possible that many arguments become contradictions from a philosophical point of view, because well, God is omniscient. If God can do anything, how can we disprove anything?

What I think atheists can do, is to attack the idea of God from our perspective, imagining how we would judge God if God was human. There is a contradiction in materialistic point of view of the humanlike way the biblical God acts and the perfect way God creates the world IMO.

[DemokritosAbdera]

boring argument from ignorance.

[Bazanadu]

You are right, Atheism is only another belief system. It is one, however, for which there is a multidude of direct evidence for. I can study all of nature and see the evidence of evolution, plate tectonics, physics, chemistry etc rather than a book written by many different people thousands of years ago who seem to continually contradict each other...

[Doormatters]

atheism isn't a belief system. its a lack of one. i am an atheist but it doesn't mean i have to believe evolution or the rest.

[isaachaze1]

@Doormatters "atheism" is an unfortunate term, because it doesn't really describe who we are. it's just a sub-set of the true "atheist" culture. no, atheism doesn't require that you believe in anything.

[mherberts]

So you BELIEVE atheism doesn't require that you believe in anything. Interesting.

[isaachaze1]

@mherberts yes, just like i "believe" i know the definition of "atheism" in the first place or that i "believe" i am responding to a comment on youtube right now lol. yea, we could play this game all day long i guess. i think at some point it would become a bit tiresome though

[1234989ful]

@Bazanadu No evidence for 'not God'. Just evidence for how the world works.

[Bazanadu]

@1234989ful I believe that a pink elephant kicked a teapot, it is now in orbit around alpha centauri. Disprove it.

[Bazanadu]

I should have really said evolutionist rather than atheist..... although presumably atheists themselves are as curious as anyone else as to how the world came into being...

[Bazanadu]

I should have really said evolutionism rather than atheism..... although presumably atheists themselves are as curious as anyone else as to how the world came into being...

[Hardysamnin]

@spike874 - That simply isn't true. There is no evidence to suggest God is real so the neutral standpoint is atheism. I'm not claiming "There is no God" that would be stupid, but i am saying, "I have seen no evidence to support the belief that there is a God"

Atheism isn't "based on a theory" in any way. Not all atheists believe in Evolution either.

[Henw]

hahaha was a funny dude

[xtrashed]

If a scientist didn't assume universal objective intelligibility, his science would never get off the ground. He'd have no confidence that his inquiring mind would meet an intelligible truth. I think that is extremely interesting and extremely strange. It begs an explanation.

God Bless

[RightousJew]

I'm glad I finally found a believer who can actually THINK properly! I've been a Christian all my life but lately I've been struggling with atheism. One of the things that I cannot comprehend is God's plan for humanity.

I gues I could start by asking you a very fundamental question: Why (for what purpose) did God create human beings?

[martiangrundy]

Hi there RightousJew.

If your concerned with thinking properly, as you say, and are certainly asking searching questions, I'm afraid eventually the chances are good you will become atheist.

The reason your struggling with these questions, is they fundamentally do not make sense, as I'm sure your finding more and more.

Once you truly start to free yourself from the stifling yoke of religion, things will become so much clearer.

Whatever, good luck, and keep learning, the universe is beautiful.

[xtrashed]

Religious belief is not assent without evidence; that would be superstition or credulity. Religious people are deeply interested in evidence, but they know that assent is not reducible to what John Henry Newman called formal inference. Rather, assent--even to ordinary truths--involves rationality but also hunch, intuition, direct experience, the testimony of others, etc.

[xtrashed]

Faith is not credulity or superstition or accepting claims without evidence. All of those are examples of infra-rational moves. Faith is beyond reason, which means that it is not irrational but supra-rational. God cannot, by definition, be the object of analytical reason, since God is not an empirical object in the world. Therefore the move of the mind that grasps God is a reason other than scientific reason.

[xtrashed]

If your answer is that we have no current natural explanations for the former but only for the latter, then you accept that "evidence" means things we have no current natural explanations for - I can provide you with plenty of those. If your answer to that is that just because we have no current natural explanations doesn't mean we won't eventually find any, then the same argument could be made against the stars being evidence for God.

[xtrashed]

Proof exists in Reason. Reason exists. Logos exists. Therefore God exists. God the Father is not a man in the sky.

God would not break the laws of Reason, for then we would have no basis of knowing Him.

[xtrashed]

Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe." (John 20:29)

God appreciates faith. If all the proof were given, what would be the need for faith?

[xtrashed]

The easy answer why undeniable proof of God does not exist is that such evidence would destroy free will. If such proof existed - say, if He in His Blinding Magnificence showed up on the streets of New York one day - then we mere humans would have no choice but to believe. It wouldn't even be belief but fact. We would have no free choice in the matter, and our existence in this imperfect universe would be for naught.

[xtrashed]

The universal intelligibility of reality--which must be the starting point for all science-is a mystery that calls out for an explanation. Why should it be the case that laws of tremendous mathematical complexity should obtain at both the microcosmic and macrocosmic levels? Science can't dispute this, precisely because it rests on it. I think that a very reasonable explanation is that these laws are the work of a supreme personal intelligence.

[xtrashed]

The Big Bang itself shows as dramatically as possible that the universe in its entirety came into being and is therefore contingent, that is to say, in need of a cause. Since time and space commenced with the Big Bang, the cause of the universe must be outside of space and time, which is to say, infinite and eternal. You're quite right in saying that science cannot pronounce on this matter, for it would take science beyond its own limits. But philosophy can illumine things.

[xtrashed]

God's existence can be proven through a metaphysical reflection on the radical contingency of the world (best proven, by the way, by the Big Bang).

Would you have decided to follow science as an absolute norm if certain mentors and teachers hadn't formed you in that direction? Secularism, too, is easy to believe because "everyone else does." I'm always amazed how people assume that only religious people have unexamined prejudices!

[xtrashed]

The claim is that objective intelligibility must be grounded in something like a universal intelligence. The world is not dumbly there, precisely because it is marked, through and through, by stunningly complex intelligible structure. In fact, it is upon this assumption that all of the sciences rest. The mind capable of imbuing the universe with this formal intelligibility is what I mean by "God." It doesn't matter terribly to me what you call it.

[SeaTurtle00]

"The mind capable of imbuing the universe with this formal intelligibility..." Since we now a mind cannot exist without the neurons and physiology necessary for it to function, this mind you call god turns out to be nothing beyond a fantasy.

[xtrashed]

Newton, Kepler, Descartes, Pascal, Tycho Brache, Copernicus--in short all of the founders of modern science--were devoutly religious. And the discoverer of the Big Bang was a priest. Even Einstein declared himself "a proundly religious man." The myth of the incompatibility of science and religion is not only stupid but dangerous. And yes, add yourself to a long line of the predictors of the end of religion: Marx, Comte, Nietzsche, Lenin, Mao, etc. etc. How correct were they?

[SeaTurtle00]

Errr, but Newton, Kepler, Descartes, Pascal, Tycho Brahe and Copernicus all believed in very different gods (particularly Newton and Descartes). Besides, they lived in a time when not to publicly admit to believing in God was punishable by death.

[SeaTurtle00]

Einstein stated explicitly that by "religious" he meant reverential of the beauty and sublimity of the cosmos, nothing more - very different to the others. Anyway, I don't think Hitchens (or that many atheists or secular thinkers) are predicting the end of religion any time soon, if ever. Nobody is proposing thought control or policing. The challenge for us all is to educate one another into realizing inflicting harm on innocents is NEVER justified. Debates like this are a way forward.

[xtrashed]

Think of some of the smartest authors you know: Dostoevski, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce. Do their writings strike you as particularly easy to understand? So why should God's word then be construed as simplistic? Are there numerous schools of interpretation that have sprung up around those human authors? Why should we expect anything different in regard to God and his word?

[SeaTurtle00]

So are you saying the Bible is a work of fiction like those of Dostoevski, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, T.S. Eliot, and James Joyce? That might explain why so many different religious groups can't agree on how to interpret it.

[xtrashed]

Friend, who's talking about absolute certainty? Descartes and his modern disciples wanted absolute certainty, but that is given so rarely in life! But this doesn't mean that agnosticism is our only refuge. Our belief in God and in his revelation is reasonable (and one can show this in a number of ways), but to expect absolute certainty is to chase after the wind.

[xtrashed]

But friend, why isn't it "beyond arrogance" to claim to know that God doesn't exist? And I'm not simply making assertions or relying on the authority of old texts. I'm making arguments. Show me where they are wrong. I think that one can move logically from the contingency of the world to a non-contingent ground of existence. And I think that one can move from the complex intelligibility of the world to a creative intelligence. Those are arguments; not assertions.

[xtrashed]

I just think that, given the stunning level of complexity and intelligibility in the universe, it is far more reasonable to suppose that the universe is the product of an intelligent God than simply of chance. The former strikes me as an eminently coherent explanation of the phenomenon and the latter as indeed "desperately inadequate."

[xtrashed]

I always find it amusing that atheists think that religious people are the only ones who might be motivated by their psychological needs! This video makes it clear. I don't believe in Unicorns, I don't need to write books and produce memorabilia to prove that Unicorns don't exist, that they are just a delusion. ;)

[SeaTurtle00]

I don't know any atheists who'd claim that only religious people are motivated by psychological needs. That would be an absurdity. But one need for humans is to seek reliable knowledge, another is to expose falsehoods, and another to reduce needless suffering caused by superstition/sloppy thinking. I'd never say all atheists do this all the time, or that no believers aren't attempting the same, but to date rationality and verifiable evidence seems the best hope of improving the human condition.

[xtrashed]

I'm continually astounded that you atheists never even consider the possibility that your atheism is "a comforting illusion." I think life would be a heck of a lot easier and less complicated if God doesn't exist. But I have not allowed myself to accept this finally childish wish-fulfillment. What compells you to make time for something already decided in your mind!?

[SeaTurtle00]

Hmm, an all-powerful being who has my best interests at heart and who promises eternal life to his followers, or an cold, vastly enormous universe that couldn't care less whether I live or die. Which sounds more like a comforting illusion to you?

[megagoosey]

The difference is one isn't an illusion.

[telboy1966manu]

Stop arguing over whose interpretation of a Bronze-Age fairy tale is right.

[MRSstraightA]

Indeed !

Listening to theists argue the case for their own superstition over another is like listening to two asylum residents insist that the voice in their head is real whilst the voice the other man hears illusory.

Literally no difference. Literally, here, used technically.

Shiva, Ganesh, Thor, Yahweh, Allah, the Peacock Angel - all fiction, regardless of what your equally indoctrinated parents told you.

[frc1968]

The Hitch is awesome in debate as always.

[RedBeetle]

Douglas Wilson is not a Christian. He is a proponent of the heresy of Federal Vision, which teaches that man is justified by faith and works. This is Roman Catholic soteriology.

Gary Demar is supporting Wilson in this venture, and James White is now associating with Gary Demar (taking pleasure cruise/seminars as advertised on his Alpha and Omega website).

Don't be fooled by cheap imitations.

Read John Calvin.

[JohnDCrawford]

Wait a minute. Are you saying that Catholics aren't Christians? Last time I checked the Catholic Church was the original form of Christianity.

[RedBeetle]

Catholicism is not Christianity.

If you would have checked the Bible, then you may have avoided such an embarrassing mistake.

Haven't you read Erasmus' "Praise Of Folly"?

Erasmus, a humanist, demonstrated during the Renaissance that the Catholic Church in no way resembles Biblical Christianity. Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Luther, and John Calvin hatched the proverbial egg Erasmus had laid. If Catholicism claims to be Christian, then it does so only nominally.

Calvinism is Christianity!

[SpearSiix]

Hahahaha, you believe in such folly. Silly Rabbit, religion is for kids.

[RedBeetle]

I bet you can't even define the term 'religion.'

Atheism today is so dumbed down that they must resort to plagairizing an anthropomorphic cartoon rabbit character, a.k.a., the Trix Rabbit.

What would Ayn Rand think?

[knoathasaurus]

Ask 99% of catholics, and they'll tell you that catholicism is a denomination, and of course they're christian.

So did they forget to check their bible? Where does it say that catholicism isn't christianity? What does resemble biblical christianity?

You say the catholic church doesn't resemble 'biblical christianity' The catholic church now, by the way, doesn't resemble the catholic church 200 years ago either, and it's not alone -all of the denominations have changed overtime.

[jerarm07]

Oh, you know so little redbeetle. The church decided long ago in about the 6th Century A.D. that "Calvinism" was heretical so I think you are on the wrong side of the debate... Catholics are Christians, don't be so arrogant...

[RedBeetle]

Oh, you know so little jerarm07. The church has no authority to decide such things. The Bible Alone Is The Word Of God.

[malcolmmcdermott]

Then why do you have the power to differentiate between which way to worship in Christianity is right or better?

[jbrack95]

There is a much better version on Westminster Online channel

[phuturexy]

i hope the audio is much improved in the final release, and whats with the shaky cam ?? buy a tripod fs

[jbrack95]

There is a much better version on Westminster Online channel

[bmcguire80]

I wanna see the whole debate!

also... me want Honeycomb!

[jeremyshambles]

thanks for sharing these videos, hitchens always enlightens in the most eloquent and discerning manner. cheers

[ThePissedOffAtheist]

Hitchens loves a fight!

[Frigdogg]

and he is most definatly gonna get one

[WintersSokaro]

Probably not but there could always be an upset. It is all the same for when I see these and the nontheist is willing. And when he is willing, he reduces the theist logic to ash, as is for easy bidding to do when the logic is fallacious. After they have debated for long enough and all the logical fallacies have been identified and destroyed, we are left to see the theist's absolution in his god(s), and that is that, end of story.

[Di66en6ion]

As always, the best a theist can do is circular logic or an argument from personal experience.

[DeusNova]

Thanks

[Katalyzt]

Is this Christopher Hitchens closing statement? I ask, because I have seen other debates at which Hitchens openings are a lot longer. In other words is this series being uploaded in reverse?

Katalyzt

[silverback5169]

This wasn't his closing statement. It was about halfway through...

[Katalyzt]

Aaahh...

[EpicHiroDJ]

Great! You got this up real fast : )

You just have to love Hitchens' wit. I hope they do instate that Christopher Hitchens aisle at the Westminster Theological Seminary, that would be awesome.

Hope this entire debate finds it's way online. Seems like a great format - not a moderator to be seen wooo! And very conversational too... No excessive speechifying (tho, tbh, I admit to my bias that I don't at all mind listening to excessive Hitchens).

Thanks heaps, Silverback : )