Full Version: Hitchens and Boteach Debate on God
- Thread starter Scott Free
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I watched the initial 15 minute presentation by both......IMHO the Rabbi wins.
he does not prove God exists, that is impossible......as it is impossible to prove God does not exist.
He does prove our need for God.
Good enough.
he does not prove God exists, that is impossible......as it is impossible to prove God does not exist.
He does prove our need for God.
Good enough.
He only proves some people have an emotional need for god. A need Hitchens points out that leads people to crying and bleating at an empty sky.
Hitchens points out too that no physical need for god is required for the universe and us to exist.
Hitchens points out too that no physical need for god is required for the universe and us to exist.
I disagree....the Rabbi hits home when he argues that law, to be taken seriously, must have more behind it than mere human legislation....if not, the Holocaust was perfectly right and legal, as was the Cambodian genocide, and any other mass murder undertaken by the authorities........
I mean, exactly how much respect to you hold for Canadian law?
I would guess even less than I.
The Rabbi also points out that from a purely scientific view, the purification of the human race by the elimination of the weak, the flawed, the intellectually or physically inferior is not only allowable, but a necessity..........
Not an emotional need..........it is a philosophical need......
Well I'm still watching it, but I do have a question.
It would seem that with God there is an expectation of acting in a certain manner that is basically harmless to other people. Now without God there should be no expectation or reward for acting in that same manner, in fact ones conduct should be the very opposite from what Scripture says it should be. Whatever it takes to get ahead should be promoted, what we condemn in others (and send them to jail for at times) should be the rule of the day. Liars, thieves, murderers and all the rest should be admired, they are taking control of their destiny. Whatever works to make your life more successful (by your own definition) should be done with no consequences period.
It would seem that with God there is an expectation of acting in a certain manner that is basically harmless to other people. Now without God there should be no expectation or reward for acting in that same manner, in fact ones conduct should be the very opposite from what Scripture says it should be. Whatever it takes to get ahead should be promoted, what we condemn in others (and send them to jail for at times) should be the rule of the day. Liars, thieves, murderers and all the rest should be admired, they are taking control of their destiny. Whatever works to make your life more successful (by your own definition) should be done with no consequences period.
There is the original grievous malignancy of hate for mankind. He argues that mankind must have more than justice, more than law, more than love itself, it must have the priest. The Rabbi uses the mental set and path of the psycopath to sow terror of mankind and fear of god. How does god and the priest escape blame when those hands built the Holocaust?
I got to thinking about the main arguments presented in this video and rendered them down into their essential parts.
Hitchens: If there is a god we should need him in our explanations. We don't therefore god doesn't exist (in all probability).
If A, then B.
Not B
Therefore not A.
Boteach: Something cannot come from nothing. We exist therefore something (god) created us. (I distilled this from his argument about a lack of fossil record).
If A, then B
B
Therefore A
So now what I am wondering is if both arguments are false dilemmas i.e., there is some other option?
Any ideas?
Hitchens: If there is a god we should need him in our explanations. We don't therefore god doesn't exist (in all probability).
If A, then B.
Not B
Therefore not A.
Boteach: Something cannot come from nothing. We exist therefore something (god) created us. (I distilled this from his argument about a lack of fossil record).
If A, then B
B
Therefore A
So now what I am wondering is if both arguments are false dilemmas i.e., there is some other option?
Any ideas?
A natural sense of morality? If there was such a thing then we would not need a very long list of Laws (what not to do). The cream of our societies (world-wide not just local) would be shinning examples of how we should conduct ourselves (rather than living behind a veil of secrets). Prisons would not be needed because 'crime' would be against everyone's better judgment and people are just not all that inclined to do things they are against.
The morality preached in Scripture seems to have very little effect even on the members that say they believe in them. ie the # of 'Christians' that actually commit 'crimes', that would include people who are 'elected' in that they are even more responsible to care for 'others'.
A natural sense of morality? If there was such a thing then we would not need a very long list of Laws (what not to do). The cream of our societies (world-wide not just local) would be shinning examples of how we should conduct ourselves (rather than living behind a veil of secrets). Prisons would not be needed because 'crime' would be against everyone's better judgment and people are just not all that inclined to do things they are against.
The morality preached in Scripture seems to have very little effect even on the members that say they believe in them. ie the # of 'Christians' that actually commit 'crimes', that would include people who are 'elected' in that they are even more responsible to care for 'others'.
That's mostly a good thing. There are over 600 rules for correct behaviour given in Scripture, mostly in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and a lot of them are pretty nasty. They prescribe, for instance, death for many relatively minor and silly transgressions including, if my memory is correct, planting two different crops in the same field, wearing clothes made of two different fabrics, and my favourite, being a stubborn and rebellious son. They also prescribe death by stoning for adultery, but only for women, it seems men can't commit adultery. The point of course is that even when we have clear and unambiguous rules supposedly handed down from on high, we don't follow them, we pick and choose what suits current social conditions and reject the rest. That clearly must mean religion is not the source of our ethics, religious justifications for them are just post hoc rationalizations, they must come from somewhere else. Where they come from is the fact that humans are social animals and need to get along with each other. The laws, to the extent that they deal with morality, are just the explicit codification of sensible rules for getting along in groups.
He does indeed. He implicitly states that the greatness of humans, apart from other mammals, is that we can aspire to do good. He calls it divine spirituality, but never succinctly makes the case that it is indeed derived in such a manner.
In order to have laws in the first place, that 'spirit' needs to exist. We exist for mutual benefit when we live in communities. Laws aren't made for the sake of making laws. It's what a group wants for the whole, what is good and what is bad. If we didn't have this capacity, the rule of natural law long ago would have spat upon the societal rules, norms, and laws and took back it's place, along with the defining 'might is right' explanation.
God isn't needed anymore than our natural human components. As you can't prove existence or absence of the many deities, we're back to square one. A first guess at how the world works isn't needed, when we know better.
Okay, I've now seen the entire video. Hitchens won that one, no contest. His essential point seemed to me to be that religion was originally an attempt to make sense of the world--our first and worst such attempt, he calls it--and in light of what we now know, not only does it not make sense as an explanation for anything, it's neither useful nor necessary as an explanation for anything. Boteach started out in his initial presentation with an abusive and mocking ad hominem attack that really put me off, a tone he maintained throughout, and as far as I can tell his entire case is based on quote mining and well known fallacies like the argument from personal incredulity and the argument from design. He also clearly has no concept of how the theory of evolution really works, and neither did several of the people he quoted with approval, like Sir Fred Hoyle. Boteach came across like a demagogue of the worst sort and I thought, as Hitchens himself pointed out toward the end, he made a fool of himself.
In terms of the way Scott summarized the arguments, I'd put them this way. From Hitchens: if there is a god with the usual presumed attributes and motives, there would be objective, verifiable evidence of his hand in things and he would be necessary to our explanations of them. Neither of those results are observed, therefore the postulated cause of them probably doesn't exist either, and at best is not necessary. From Boteach, it's the old arguments from design and first cause, which is self defeating. Something cannot come from nothing, we do observe something, so there must be a creator who caused it, but the argument exempts the creator from the initial premise, thereby falsifying it.
In terms of the way Scott summarized the arguments, I'd put them this way. From Hitchens: if there is a god with the usual presumed attributes and motives, there would be objective, verifiable evidence of his hand in things and he would be necessary to our explanations of them. Neither of those results are observed, therefore the postulated cause of them probably doesn't exist either, and at best is not necessary. From Boteach, it's the old arguments from design and first cause, which is self defeating. Something cannot come from nothing, we do observe something, so there must be a creator who caused it, but the argument exempts the creator from the initial premise, thereby falsifying it.
In this case it should be the fact alone that there are Laws needed, if the punishment was changed you might be totally in favor of most if not all, even one for the "stubborn and rebellious son"
Add in there that he is always drunk and a glutton an the vision of a 'little boy' vanishes to be replaced by somebody at 30 or so. kicking him out would be more preferred than actually stoning him these days. Back then being outside the 'group' probably shortened a life quite abit.
De:21:18: If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
De:21:19: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
De:21:20: And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
Is there any link of the written debate between them, other than the video (which is difficult to download)?
The most important point is the association with God, i.e. to associate others together with God in the worship and servitude, which is the most flagrant crime.
While God's existence; it is there straightforward; none disbelieves in God's existence other than one whose mind is not intact, and whose heart is not pure; who only follows his own desires and leaves the plain truth: of God the Creator and the Reason for the existing universe and nature.
While God's existence; it is there straightforward; none disbelieves in God's existence other than one whose mind is not intact, and whose heart is not pure; who only follows his own desires and leaves the plain truth: of God the Creator and the Reason for the existing universe and nature.
Oh sure, anyone who doesn't believe is insane and corrupt. That's what makes religious belief like yours dangerous and offensive, that dogmatic, arrogant certainty, what Jacob Bronowski characterized as absolute knowledge with no test in reality. True believers think they have the moral authority to condemn those who don't share their views, which historically has caused much human misery and suffering and continues to do so. That's really the core of Hitchens' criticism of religion. His contempt for it is readily understandable.
This is mankinds dilema isn't it? Let's be clear here that the folly of the true believer is not confined to the religious alone although it may best be illustrated by religious adherants. When we have to use fire on fire we mimic thier hopeless solutions to no good end and that's evident by the very fact that 10,000 years later we're involved in the same questions that our remotest ancestors could not provide rational answers for. So we seem doomed to recycle those philosophical arguments through all suceeding generations untill we have that further intellectual developement you mentioned earlier this week. What might act as catalyst for this required transformation?