Last night in Orange County I had one of my liveliest debates with atheist Christopher Hitchens and the Jewish radio host Dennis Prager. The debate--a sort of Christian-Atheist-Jew slugfest--was held at the Bat Yahm synagogue in Newport Beach. There was a sellout crowd of 1,500, with about 400 turned away.
The debate was unusual in that it involved not two but three different perspectives. Hitchens was particularly harsh in his exchanges with Prager, at one point accusing Prager of covering up for anti-Semitism. My exchanges with Hitchens were consistently sharp but also mutually respectful, and later Hitchens told me that I am one of the most formidable debaters that he has ever faced. I predict this debate will generate huge interest when it is posted on the web. After the debate Hitchens joined my wife and me at the bar where we downed two bottles of Pinot Noir and solved many of the world's problems.
Since our debate focused on God as understood from a Christian, Jewish and atheist perspective, missing from the event was a Muslim perspective. This is a pity, because one staple item of atheist rhetoric is the equation of Islamic extremism with Christianity. In my cross-examination I pressed Hitchens on this issue, and will let viewers watch our exchange for themselves and make up their own minds.
We find the equation between "Islamic fundamentalism" and "Christian fundamentalism" not only among the new atheists but also in the popular culture. Several weeks ago Christiane Amanpour of CNN did her special on "God's Warriors." The premise: The Abrahamic religions all lead to extremism. So Amanpour did three segments, one on Islamic extremism, one on Jewish extremism and one on Christian extremism.
Striking to the viewer, however, was the strained attempt to equate the three. Islamic extremism featured the 9/11 attacks, the Bali bombing, the London bombing, the Madrid bombing, and the list goes on. What about Christian extremism? Well, there was Christiane Amanpour in desperate search for the Christian Bin Laden, the Christian Al Qaeda, the Christian Hamas, the Christian Hezbollah, the Christian state currently run along the lines of post-Khomeini Iran.
Poor Christiane came up empty handed. So she was forced to locate marginal groups which would be repudiated by 99.9 percent of Christians and try to pass them off as the Christian equivalent of the Islamic radicals. I was especially interested to find out that there is an old guy in the hills of Montana who wants to blow up the world in the name of Jesus. Too bad he's broke and doesn't have any teeth. Still, one day he hopes to get a job and carry out his nefarious plans. I suppose this is the closest thing to a Christian Bin Laden. We are all supposed to be very afraid of this man!
One of the new atheists very cleverly termed 9/11 a "faith based initiative." But the witticism conceals an intellectual sleight-of-hand. Bush merely wants the government to be able to support faith-based charities on the same basis as it supports secular charities. What happened at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon seven years ago can hardly be placed in the same intellectual category.
Of late some of the new atheists are backing off from their fraudulent analogy between Islamic extremism and Christianity. This is a powerful blow to the new atheism, because so much of its relevance came from its ability to surf on the wave of current events and interpret modern terrorism as the expression of a generic religious impulse. In reality Bin Laden is more accurately compared to an atheist despot like Pol Pot. I realize the analogy is not entirely fair--to Bin Laden! After all, Bin Laden's death toll (several thousand killed over a dozen years) doesn't come closer to Pol Pot's 2 million killed in the space of three years.
Besides, Pol Pot was a Little League atheist compared to Mao and Stalin, whose death toll was in the tens of millions. When it comes to mass murder in the modern era, Islamic radicalism simply cannot keep up with atheism.
Reader Comments ( Page 4 of 54)
46. Sad that our children are signing up for war because for so many of them...it's the only way to further there education...they take a chance at dying for an education...then come home and many have a life long battle of post tramaic stress...that's terror....the bankers kids should go...oh wait the prince wants to go....idiot...oh wait...God will protect him...and if not...it was God's will...or was it the queens...well something like that.....or maybe it's Human sacrifice...one prince to war...one princess gets to marry...fair deal...for the banker.....
Pati at 6:02PM on May 2nd 2008
47. JFV; thanks, much apprec.
Goddess; if your numbers are accurate, and I don't have time to research right now, then I am saddened and sickened by it.
Chick; there is a meter: "Ye shall know them by their fruit". Christians aborting babies is bad fruit, in my humble opinion.
fanmanaf1 at 6:08PM on May 2nd 2008
48. Mr D'Souza writes:
I was especially interested to find out that there is an old guy in the hills of Montana who wants to blow up the world in the name of Jesus. Too bad he's broke and doesn't have any teeth. Still, one day he hopes to get a job and carry out his nefarious plans. I suppose this is the closest thing to a Christian Bin Laden. We are all supposed to be very afraid of this man!
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It's interesting, to me, that Dinesh meantions MONTANA.
Let's see. . . who else was an old recluse from Montana, someone with seemingly no monetary recourse? Ted something or another....Ted Unasomething....KACZYNSKI, yeah that's him, Ted Kaczynski.... What did he ever do with himself?
mac at 6:12PM on May 2nd 2008
49. Where did everybody go?
I guess I tend to scare 'em off!
goddess1prevail
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Yeah, me to.
mac at 6:10PM on May 2nd 2008
50. @ #36
Dear Pati,
If Darwinism is true then why would we want to propetuate the life of a disseased, impoverished person who is unable to care for themself, makes no contribution to society (only taking from it) and run the risk of infecting the rest of the otherwise healthy and stronger part of our population and thus bringing them to a certain death? if we allowed such a person to live we also run the risk of them procreating and having babies who are HIV positive and multiplying the danger to society by two.
It's called Natural Selection and survival of the fittest...get over it!
Matt at 6:12PM on May 2nd 2008
51. goddess1prevail at 5:32PM on May 2nd 2008 in Post 38.
Nice job with the statistics! I could hear the crack upside the Rev's head from here. Amazing how that bunch never lets the truth get in the way of a self-righteous assertion.
John Galt
John Galt at 6:12PM on May 2nd 2008
52. Being a christian is not synonymous with being a good person. No good person kills another. But many christians kill others. Are they good christians? No. Are they christians? Certainly. Most abortions are done by christians. Not atheists. Christians. So stop laying it at our door. You're the abortion lovers. It's your group that's the most "pro-abortion" of all. We atheists are anti-abortion, but don't wish to make it a law. But you guys are the consumers, mainly.
Most christians nowadays are not good christians. But they're definitely christians. The BTK killer was a faithful christian. So was David Kouresh. Hitler may have been as well, or if not, he used the relifion like someone very familiar with it might use it. He was raised by a VERY christian mother, and he loved his mom a lot. Eventually all the god crap got to him and he believed that he was the next messiah. Gott Mit Uns.
Godless Heathen Brian at 6:12PM on May 2nd 2008
53. I agree with K, Moke, et al on this one. DD has gone to this particular well a few too many times. Usually there is a little sport to be had in thrashing DD's latest post but this one smacks of Groundhog Day. Maybe he had a little "bottle fever" this morning from guzzling the pinot and had to retreat to an old standard.
John Galt
John Galt at 6:18PM on May 2nd 2008
54. It's called Natural Selection and survival of the fittest...get over it!
Matt at 6:12PM on May 2nd 2008
----------------------
That's social darwinism, not the theory of evolution by natural selection. Get it straight. The first is a social movement, the second is science. And social darwinism not a good thing.
Stop comparing apples to albatrosses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_darwinism
Godless Heathen Brian at 6:21PM on May 2nd 2008
55. Goddess brought up an interesting point. If most abortions are gotten by christians (68 percent!) then the whole thing about christians getting pissed at atheist liberals for it, is complete bullshit to take the blame off themselves.
Shame on you people.
Godless Heathen Brian at 6:25PM on May 2nd 2008
56. Dinesh says, "Pol Pot was a Little League atheist compared to Mao and Stalin, whose death toll was in the tens of millions." Yet, the regime of the mass-murderer Stalin wasn't even an Atheistic regime:
http://russian-crafts.com/customs/russian-church-history.html
The catastrophic course of combat in the beginning of World War II forced Stalin to mobilize all the national resources for defense, including the Russian Orthodox Church as the people's moral force. Without delay churches were opened for services, and clergy including bishops were released from prisons. The Russian Church did not limit itself to giving spiritual and moral support to the motherland in danger. It also rendered material aid by providing funds for all kinds of things up to army uniform. Its greatest contribution, however, was expressed in financing the St. Dimitry Donskoy Tank Column and the St. Alexander Nevsky Squadron.
This process, which can be described as a rapprochement between Church and state in a "patriotic union", culminated in Stalin's receiving on September 4, 1943 Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergiy Stragorodsky and Metropolitan Alexy Simansky and Nikolay Yarushevich.
Since that historic moment a "thaw" began in relations between church and state. The Church, however, remained always under state control and any attempts to spread its work outside its walls were met with a strong rebuff including administrative sanctions.
The Truth at 9:44PM on May 2nd 2008
57. Goddess
if the science of Darwinism is true then it would logically effect us socially.
Can you help me understand why there is a difference?
Matt at 6:27PM on May 2nd 2008
58. So I was naturally selected...was that from God...or the banker...or was it a mistake from the banker...or God...because I heard..."God loves me" "God loves everybody" "God loves the Queen.....wait.....hmmmm....no no...that was God save the Queen...of course...daughter of the the banker.....she's worth saving...I'm not though even though my mother called me queenie...speaking of do you realize how many American Company's are being bought out...by british banks...but I heard...you don't have to be Btitish to have a British account...hmmmmm
maybe just maybe I can come back after I die as Jesus sister...I'll write a new book...and you'll believe because it will be "the word" and you will be taught to believe it.....anyone want to get an early autograph...picture with or anything????Or because I talk about ...this like this...am I dammed to hell....But I can't go to hell...I'm to good of a person...I would not be let in...I guess...I float into ....can anyone tell me....???
Pati at 6:29PM on May 2nd 2008
59. Matt in 49:
"propetuate"...haven't heard that word before. Is that the latest from “Ten Days to a Stronger Redneck Vocabulary?” I think I remember that phrase from “Deliverance”….”Hey, yur purdy….want to propetuate with me. My sister and me dun propetuated this mornin’.
Ass!
John Galt
John Galt at 6:28PM on May 2nd 2008
60. Rev, from the abortion facts website:
"Who's having abortions (religion)?
Women identifying themselves as Protestants obtain 37.4% of all abortions in the U.S.; Catholic women account for 31.3%, Jewish women account for 1.3%, and women with no religious affiliation obtain 23.7% of all abortions. 18% of all abortions are performed on women who identify themselves as "Born-again/Evangelical"."
Rev, are you telling me that these hundreds of thousands of women who say they believe in God are all LIARS? That number adds up to 70% believers, Rev. That means out of the 1.37 million abortions performed in the US, 959,000 of them were to women who are self-proclaimed believers in God.
18% performed on self-proclaimed Born-Again evangelicals. That is almost a quarter million aborted Born-Agains. Unless, as Rev would have us believe, that they are all lying atheists, pretending to be Christians.
Hmmm. Perhaps women who would lie at an abortion clinic would also lie on a census. Maybe this country isn't all that "Christian" after all.
Kodiak at 6:36PM on May 2nd 2008