Anti-theist and Christian debate religion
Hitchens and D’Souza argue the merits of evolution, faith and the existence of a supernatural power
Published: Thursday, April 8, 2010
Updated: Wednesday, September 12, 2012 12:09
 "Photo: PAT COVENEY/The Observer")
PAT COVENEY/The Observer
Christopher Hitchens, an anti-theist debates Dinesh D’Souza, a Christian apologist, during the event titled “Is Religion the Problem?” in DeBartolo Performing Arts Center Wednesday.
Anti-theist Christopher Hitchens and Christian Dinesh D'Souza may initially appear to have nothing in common.
Hitchens argues the merits of evolution, while D'Souza argues for the existence of a supernatural power. In the absence of evidence, Hitchens doubts, while D'Souza defers to faith.
But despite their opposing views, both figures had one thing in common — they approached religion from a purely logical, factual perspective when speaking to a sold-out audience in Wednesday's debate at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.
Hitchens said religion is merely a man-made attempt to make sense of the world.
"Religion was our first attempt to make sense of our surroundings. It was our first attempt at health care, in a way," Hitchens said. "It was our first attempt at psychiatric care, at dealing with terrible loneliness of the human condition.
"It is the worst attempt, but partly because it was the first."
Hitchens said evolution and the big bang theory should be used to explain the world and human existence. Meanwhile, D'Souza pointed out flaws in evolutionary theory and said religion is the best explanation for essential human questions.
"Evolution doesn't explain the presence of life on the planet," D'Souza said. "Evolution merely explains the transition between one life form and the other."
D'Souza said evolution also fails to explain human evil, rationality and in particular, morality.
"Think of a couple of moral facts. Think of simple things. Getting up to give your seat to an old lady in the bus. Giving blood," he said. "Now if we are evolved primates who are programmed to survive and reproduce, why would we do these things?"
Hitchens said humans do good deeds because they wish to.
"I'll tell you why. It gives me great pleasure to do so," he said. "I enjoy the sort of people it makes me come in contact with. And I like giving blood."
But D'Souza said these moral characteristics exist because humans were made in the likeness of God.
"Those are the characteristics of the creator who made it that way," he said.
D'Souza also said he favored religion simply because it was the more likely explanation.
"If we see a fine tuned universe, what's more likely? Someone fine tuned it or it fine tuned itself?" he said. "Let's go with the best explanation," D'Souza said. "If you go to a village and 95 percent of the people in the village say we know this guy named Bill. Five of them say, ‘We've never met Bill.' And three of them say, ‘There is no Bill.'
"Is it more likely that the 95 percent are right and the other three percent just don't know the guy?"
But Hitchens said the position of faith "has to be discarded first."
"The only respectable intellectual position is one of doubt," he said. "[Atheism] is a refusal of faith and a refusal to use it as a method of reasoning. What we don't know, we don't claim to know."
But D'Souza said the atheists and believers actually have more in common than one might think.
"The believers position, no less than the atheist, is an attempt to grapple with the facts to make sense of the data," he said. "Faith is not a substitute for reason. Faith only comes in when reason stops."
The difference, D'Souza said, is in how believers and nonbelievers choose to apply their faith.
"The atheist who says there isn't, just like the believer who says there is, is making a leap of faith," he said.
But Hitchens said he is more comfortable not making assumptions.
"If there is any such judge [in the afterlife,] I will be able to say at least I never faked belief," Hitchens said. "At least I wasn't a hypocrite."
29 comments
It is true that as science discovers and explains how and why things happen, religionists will have to squint their eyes even more to sync the buybull with reality.
This is where religion fails. Rather just being content in something being a "great mystery," science strives to provide answers. When religion deems something a "mystery," it's an admission that there is no way such a thing is possible, but the religious are so credulous they'll believe it anyway. z.B. The claim that something of the universe is not subject to these laws without any sort of evidential backup. Though we might not fully understand the laws of physics in this universe, they nevertheless exist and are unbreakable, no matter how hard you believe something can break them.
But it takes him *6 days* to create everything. Then he takes a *day* off. I'm skeptical.
You're still stuck on anthropomorphism. If your god doesn't need a creator, why does matter?
'Whose saying all matter wasn't there to begin with?"
All matter is subject to The Laws of Physics. The Creator of the Laws of Physics is not, to begin with:-)
Who's saying that all matter wasn't there to begin with? You're anthropomorphic creator always existed. Why can't matter? And why does it have to be a "who" rather than a "what" that is the designer?"It would be irrational to believe that The Creator of the Laws of Physics, Nature's God, is not an Intelligent Designer."
Frequent use of capital letters would indicate a literal, conservative position. So I will address this quote under that notion.
It took the intelligent designer (God) a few billion years to make a homo sapien after the first signs of life. The same God is responsible for 99.9% of species being extinct. The same God gives us wisdom teeth to be extracted, an appendix to be cut out, and a tailbone to bruise or break. Nice design. I think my favorite is the voicebox nerve in a giraffe that comes from the brain, passes the voicebox, goes down by the heart and then loops back up to its intended destination. That one deserves an award.
On a larger scale, He makes a moon that is drifting from orbit, a growing sun that will eventually burn the earth to a crisp, disease and natural disasters that kill thousands at a time, wonderful gifts like mercury and lead, unstable radioactive matter, and a galaxy that's on a collision course with ours.
I think a 6th grader would have done better.
Are you really that arrogant?
It'd be a cold day in hell when that happens...And since hell does not exist, neither will that group. "
I question what the goal of that group would be. Perhaps to give ourselves a sense of community, but I don't understand why you would want to form a community around nothing. (That is, all atheists have different perspectives on all sorts of issues. The only thing they have in common is that they don't have faith. Still, that's not something they have in common, rather a nothing they have in common, which seems silly to focus a group around.) Most of the worthwhile atheist groups aren't so much focused on communal non-belief, but rather the promotion of common values that most atheists seem to (but don't necessarily) share like humanism, secularism, and scientific progress.
Of those, I think a humanist group at ND would be redundant. While most of ND's humanist efforts are in the vein of a Christian humanism, they are nonetheless effective. ND has a very humanist message, albeit one flavored with religious purpose. A group for scientific progress is also not a necessity. The Colleges of Arts & Letters, Science, and Engineering and their various opportunities for research already fulfill that goal, and they often do so without any sort of religious entanglements.
That leaves a group promoting secularism. This is one value that I would think any atheist would support. Religion has no place in the public square, but trying to promote that sort of agenda on this campus would fall mostly on deaf ears. Just look at the issue of homosexuality. Many people on this campus believe it's wrong b/c God tells them so. Because of their faith position, they don't think homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals. All discussions on this issue on campus always come back to "This is the position of the Church, based on what we [think we] know about God, and that's that." A secular group would stand against positions such as these, remind those that wish to make public pronouncements aware that not everyone recognizes the authority of God, and so what "God's will" might be doesn't really make a difference to some people.
I know I sound sort of defeatist, but I don't think there's really any way atheists can really make a stand at ND. Rather, I would advocate that we remain strong in secular and humanist values and remember that, as Christopher Hitchens has said, "The initial emancipation an intelligent human being has to be able to come up with is this: the beginning of freedom and liberty is to say there is no single human that… knows God’s will. There’s no human being who can appoint himself and say he’s got God on his side and that’s why he’s got the right to tell you what to do."
is a member of the 
