The entire debate between brothers Christopher Hitchens and Peter Hitchens is not available on line right now (YouTube videos were removed).
But that doesn’t mean a couple excerpts can’t be found in print!
Christopher Hitchens praised the war in Iraq, saying it “brought one of the great war criminals of the world to justice.”
And it’s about time for humankind to depose the “heavenly dictator,” too, he said.
“(Religion) is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave (to someone) who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep,” Hitchens said. “Unless you’re North Korea, who wants this to be true?
“At least you can (expletive) die and leave North Korea. Does the Quran or the Bible offer you that liberty? No. The tyranny, the misery, the utter ownership only begins at the point of death. This is evil.”
…“Far more good has been done by religious belief than harm,” Peter Hitchens said.
“If you were to abolish (Christianity), it would not be replaced by a blank space,” he said. “In societies that don’t believe in hell, hell pretty quickly comes into existence. You will find a complete absence of self-government.
“If the universe does have an origin, then wouldn’t it be a good idea to try to find out and to seek to govern ourselves by it?”
Waiting to read the full transcript…
Reader Chad said this:
I was hoping to hear a stronger argument out of Peter. Instead, he focussed on character attacks against Christopher, perpetuating the all-atheists-are-dreadfully-evil stereotype, and pulling out the atheist=Hitler=Stalin=Mao card. All in all, he had no leg to stand on and eventually got to a point where he all but stopped answering.
Near the end, things kinda fizzled into the standard bickering by both sides, blaming the other for causing more wars and violence. But if you’re a fan of Christopher Hitchens’ scathing wit, you’ll enjoy this.
***UPDATE***: The torrent of the debate can be downloaded here.
[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]
