Does Atheism Poison Everything? Debate Between David Berlinski and Christopher Hitchens
| September 7, 2010 | Posted by Clive Hayden under Culture, Darwinism, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science |
The debate is happening today, Sept. 7th, at the Fixed Point Foundation.
Our next debate features famed atheist Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and Dr. David Berlinski, author of The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions. The question being debated: What are the implications of a purely secular society? It promises to be a formidable clash of titans. In addition to being highly entertaining and witty, these two men have a serious message they want to communicate.
The Does Religion Poison Everything? Debate begins at 7 p.m., September 7.
The luncheon, reception, and debate all take place at the Sheraton Birmingham Hotel:
For those of us who cannot make the debate, the DVD can be ordered here.
Dr. Berliski is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute.
David Berlinski describes himself as “a secular Jew and an agnostic.” He has written a number of books on mathematics, but he is best known for his appearance in the Ben Stein film “Expelled” as well as for his irreverent assault upon the New Atheists in his book, The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions. Mr. Berlinski, whose immediate family was saved during the Holocaust by the “American Schindler” Varian Fry, resides in Paris. He possesses a Ph.D. from Princeton University and formerly taught philosophy and mathematics at Stanford University and the University of Paris.
Christopher Hitchens, an atheist and polemicist, is best known for his controversial book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and, most recently, for his memoir, Hitch 22, which has been on The New York Times Best Seller List since its release last month. Hitchens has been a columnist for The Atlantic, Slate, and Vanity Fair, and has debated his views around the English-speaking world. Hitchens is one of the so-called “New Atheists”, along with other notables like Richard Dawkins.
34 Responses to Does Atheism Poison Everything? Debate Between David Berlinski and Christopher Hitchens
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Zeroseven,
Being made in the image of God — comes from the start of the book of Genesis. God made man “in His image”.
It means we are made in His likeness. We share His attributes. We are a reflection of His nature.
However, we are also distant in all these things, by which I mean that we not gods, or even close to being gods, but we are poor reflections of the divine.
So, for example: within the trinity there is pure love between the Father/Son/Spirit. Likewise there is love between a father/mother/children.
There is submission Father to Son, and there is submission husband to wife to children.
Our inward groans for eternity and abhorrence of death are there because God is eternal and He has placed eternity in our hearts. Humans were not created to live to die, but rather to live eternally as God is eternal.
God is a God of Justice, and humans reflect that in our desires for justice.
There are obviously many more pieces of the image that could be added, but you get the idea…
Which must one accept first:
Jesus’ sacrifice?
Quantum mechanics?
The evidence for Design?
Zeroseven–you may wish to pick up Augustine’s Confessions. He, too, struggled with the idea of what God is made of if he’s not made of matter. This, in fact, was one of the core ideas that kept him from becoming a Christian in the first place. But once he started reading Plotinus and being exposed to Platonic philosophy–breaking his materialism–he found Christianity much more plausible. And he then realized that to ask what God is “made of” is something like a category confusion. It is also what is wrong with asking what the soul is ‘made of’ in philosophy of mind. We’re trying to explain their composition via insufficient categories and analogies. If materialism is true then all that exists is matter and anything that exists is made of matter. So we want to find out the ‘stuff’ something is made of. But non-material entities are not made of ‘stuff.’ To be made of ‘stuff’ just is to be material. God and souls are not made of stuff; they have parts (i.e. mind, will, emotions) but these are inseparable.
Anyways, thought it’d be interesting to read the spiritual autobiography of a very intelligent man, like yourself, who came to Christianity after struggling with the very question you posed. Hope it helps!
The way this entire debate is framed is wrong. atheism too is a religion just like any other and is based on faith, moreso I would say than traditional religion, although its adherents are still in denial of the fact.
It’s time Theists and anyone arguiing against atheism – and especially this anti-intellectual breed of new atheism – started addressing this belief system as such. atheists need to be put on the defensive of this because quite frankly, their dishonesty has gotten a little too tiresome. Special pleading fallacies galore!
Once this is done, then the question woul dbe “Which religion is most poisonous/destructive?” Thereafter an honest discussion may resume.