This weekend I am in Vegas sampling some great shows, food and shopping. I took math in college, and so I know exactly why I shouldn't play the casinos. (It's not a question of morality; it's a question of knowing when you're being shafted.) Besides, I'm saving my brain for a bruising man-to-man debate against Christopher Hitchens. Every survey taken following one of my debates with leading atheists has me the winner, and I'd like to keep it that way.
In this blog I want to return to one of Hitchens's favorite arguments, one that he used in our New York debate last October and also in an Orange County debate last spring. In fact, in the Orange County synagogue event that also featured Jewish radio host Dennis Prager, Hitchens came out swinging with precisely this argument. Essentially Hitchens noted that Homo sapiens has been on the planet for approximately 100,000 years but for most of that time God seems to have been indifferent and inactive, choosing only to intervene in human history a few thousand years ago. What kind of a God, Hitchens contemptuously asked, behaves in this way?
When Hitchens first sprung this on me last year, I was surprised. But since then I've given some thought to it. When Hitchens brought it up a second time I was ready for him. Here I want to show how Hitchens' argument completely backfires on atheism. Let's apply an entirely secular analysis and go with Hitchens' premise that there is no God and man is an evolved primate. Well, biology tells us that man's basic frame and brain size haven't substantially changed throughout his terrestrial existence.
So here is the problem. Homo sapiens has been on the planet for 100,000 years, but apparently for more than 95,000 of those years he accomplished virtually nothing. No real art, no writing, no inventions, no culture, no civilization. How is this possible? Were our ancestors, otherwise physically and mentally undistinguishable from us, such blithering idiots that they couldn't figure out anything other than the arts of primitive warfare?
Then, a few thousand years ago, everything changes. Suddenly savage man gives way to historical man. Suddenly the naked ape gets his act together. We see civilizations sprouting in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, and elsewhere. Suddenly there are wheels and agriculture and art and culture. Soon we have dramatic plays and philosophy and an explosion of inventions and novel forms of government and social organization.
So how did Homo sapiens, heretofore such a slacker, suddenly get so smart? Scholars have made strenuous efforts to account for this but no one has offered a persuasive account. If we compare man's trajectory on earth to an airplane, we see a long, long stretch of the airplane faltering on the ground, and then suddenly, a few thousand years ago, takeoff!
Well, there is one obvious way to account for this historical miracle. It seems as if some transcendent being or force reached down and breathed some kind of a spirit or soul into man, because after accomplishing virtually nothing for 98 percent of our existence, we have in the past 2 percent of human history produced everything from the pyramids to Proust, from Socrates to computer software.
So paradoxically Hitchens' argument becomes a boomerang. Hitchens has raised a problem that atheism cannot easily explain and one that seems better accounted for by the Book of Genesis.
Reader Comments ( Page 34 of 35)
496. GHB,
Sometimes even I feel guilty for living on stolen land. Hey, is it unamerican NOT to call Indians savages unworthy of this great land? Wasn't it our "God-given destiny" to conquer it? Here we are living in comfort, profiting from those broken treaties.
My time's about up...
Mokele Mbembe at 5:25PM on Jul 14th 2008
497. Somber - I'm surprised you wonder what a soul is. I thought everyone was aware that souls are aircraft passengers.
Natural Puppy at 5:30PM on Jul 14th 2008
498. ABA... "There are problems that I think have no adequate answer." do you think other's behavior falls into this category sometimes?
Monty... I always imagined the soul to fall into the mind/emotion realm... and spirit is something separate.. maybe a deeper realm.
Shannie at 5:32PM on Jul 14th 2008
499. Getting revenge turns you into what you object to.
a born atheist at 6:12PM on Jul 14th 2008
500. New blog up, and you're not gonna believe the title!
"How I Became So Modest"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Godless Heathen Brian at 6:14PM on Jul 14th 2008
501. ABA... "There are problems that I think have no adequate answer." do you think other's behavior falls into this category sometimes?
Absolutely. People can put you in no-win situations. Some people enjoy watching or causing these situations. You can end up with no choice but to take it or walk away from other people that you do care deeply about.
a born atheist at 6:15PM on Jul 14th 2008
502. DD is just messing with us on this one!!!!
It has been suggested many times on this blog that DD's wrong-headed and illogical postings might not be just the result of his ignorance but instead be his purposeful stirring of the shit in order to whip the rational readership into a froth. I have resisted this notion up to this time under the view that doing so would be an unproductive waste of time even for DD (who doesn't seem to have much else going).
However, this latest post is so poorly reasoned that even a sophomore in a high school philosophy or anthropoly class wouldn't offer it up. I think DD is messing with us....wanting us to set out all of the rational ideas opposing this view so he can "study-up" for his debates. Even DD cannot possibly believe this tripe!
John Galt
John Galt at 6:30PM on Jul 14th 2008
503. Are we helping DD to 'win' his debates? By providing him with the rational arguments that he then can construct intricate pseudo-logical arguments against them?
Godless Heathen Brian at 7:06PM on Jul 14th 2008
504. The next one, "How I Became So Modest" is the capper. He's proud of his modesty!!!!!!!!
Proud of his modesty...
Hmmmm..........
I sense something wrong with that.................
Godless Heathen Brian at 7:08PM on Jul 14th 2008
505. 502. Are we helping DD to 'win' his debates? By providing him with the rational arguments that he then can construct intricate pseudo-logical arguments against them?
Godless Heathen Brian
XXXXXXXX
I wouldn't worry too much about that since he still uses Augustine and Pascal's wager as arguments, he has a couple of centuries of catch up to do before he gets to your arguments....
Steve at 7:14PM on Jul 14th 2008
506. My take on a spirit is how you have affected the world and people around you. As in, Ghandi's spirit is alive and well in many of us.
a born atheist at 9:11PM on Jul 14th 2008
507. 1) Allow those men who want to marry men, marry men.
2) Allow those women who want to marry women, marry women.
3) Allow those folks who want to abort their babies, abort their babies.
4) In three generations, there will be no Democrats!!!
(Man, I just love it when a plan comes together)!
___________________________________
Sorry to pop your cork, mister man, but this dem has been married for 20 years, has two children - I waited until I was married to have - has never aborted any fetus or gleefully pushed the button on a death chair - OMCCG - guess that squashes your turds doesn't it?
TJ at 10:17PM on Jul 14th 2008
508. You have got to be kidding Dinesh.
It's called the discovery of agriculture. Not persuasive eh. Sheesh, ignoramus indeed Mr. D'Souza.
Peter at 1:50AM on Jul 15th 2008
509. What will DD say next?
"Agriculture is too complicated a field for man to have [poof] learned on his own. It must have by divine inspiration been given to man. "
Mokele Mbembe at 9:04AM on Jul 15th 2008
510. "Agriculture is too complicated a field for man to have [poof] learned on his own. It must have by divine inspiration been given to man. "
Mokele Mbembe at 9:04AM on Jul 15th 2008
xxx
pizza too. pepperoni be praised! I did actually see a place in Raleigh called 'prince of pizza' so maybe....
Clif Kuplen at 2:04PM on Jul 15th 2008