The Lord Cannot Be Pleased With This
A week or so ago back in Berkeley, the progressive and spiritually enlightened Chris Hedges and the atheist “neo-con” Christopher Hitchens (yeah, you heard that right) squared off in your usual debate about the existence of God–and we’re not talking about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. We’ve seen Hitchens go head-to-head with Jon Stewart and Bill Maher and hold his own, and, as we expected, he took Hedges to school in this faceoff. Frankly, it wasn’t even close.
After tearing off a 15-minute rant that trashed Islam, Christianity and Judaism — with asides to the “mush-headed” spirituality that blooms in Berkeley — Hitchens offered his audience a challenge. He asked if anyone could name a moral stand taken by a religious person that couldn’t be equaled by a person who does not believe in the existence of God.
“The whole extraordinary galaxy was created with us in mind?” he told a laughing, clapping audience. Ah yes: “The ‘me’ galaxy.”
Religion comes “from the stupid infancy of our species,” before people knew the world was round, he said.
He detailed a history of carnage, cruelty and callousness leading to the present day, in which the Pope declares condoms more dangerous than AIDS and where, in Iran, “parties of God are set on wreckage.”
But by oversimplifying faith, Hitchens himself has become a sort of fundamentalist, Hedges said.
“He sees only the chauvinistic, the bigoted and intolerant brand,” he said. “It’s a cheap way to avoid exploring the wide range of religious belief.”
In fact, monotheistic faith created the concept of the individual, Hedges argued. With it, people acquired the freedom to develop and act upon individual conscience, the ability “to resist the clamor of the tribe.”
God is not a noun but a verb, a commitment to transcendence, he said.
“Faith is what we do,” he said. “Faith is the sister of justice. The danger is not in Christianity, Islam or Judaism, but the human heart — the capacity we all have for evil.”
Hedges said repeatedly that he shares Hitchens’ disdain for fundamentalism.
But the polite and civil Hedges was no match for Hitchens, who bit off the ends of Hedges’ sentences to register indignation (”It’s not an interruption; it’s a comment”) and volleyed questions from the emcee by pontificating on other points.
The rowdy audience with an obvious appetite for an intellectual feast alternately roared, applauded, booed and cheered each thrust and parry.
The room reached its boiling point when Hedges explained suicide bombers as people whose despair has driven them to desperate acts.
In the occupied territories in 1988, he found a “strangled” people, 1.1 million “living in what can only be described as a prison,” he said, “living 10 to a room, no possibility of work.”
“You’re rationalizing murder,” Hitchens cried. “You’re rationalizing murder. Shame on you.”
Seeking to understand the motivations of suicide bombers represents “a new fashion among the half-baked,” he said.
By the time the emcee took questions from the audience, one man accepted Hitchens’ challenge. He mentioned a spiritual leader who “ministered” to the Ku Klux Klan out of love.
“It’s a start,” Hitchens said gallantly, before suddenly souring. Better than loving them, the religious leader should have sued them, and pushed them into economic ruin.
“Love your own enemies, don’t love mine,” he roared.
Hitchens drew brickbats from the crowd by defending the United States’ incursion into Iraq as a mission to bring democracy to that devastated country.
“Though you sneer and jeer at them — and you have to live with the shame of that — these people are guarding you as you sleep,” he said.
“I feel like I’m reading Rudyard Kipling’s’ ‘The Burden of the White Man,’” Hedges quipped.
“You mean you wish you’d read it,” Hitchens shot back.
Not convinced? Judge for yourself in the videos. Recognize also that it’s the traditional Islamists who are helping heckle Hitchens and cheer on Hedges in his feeble defense of suicide bombers and their so-called despair. Kind of funny how Berkeley is becoming a place where radical Islam gains sympathy because everything America and Israel do is bad.
Christopher Hitchens vs. Chris Hedges Debate [Zombie Time]
Debating value of religious faith grows contentious [Contra Costa Times]
Videos of the debate [YouTube]
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