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 4 of 35)
46. The four horsemen of the apocalyse; Famine, War, Death and Toilet Paper.
a born atheist at 9:53AM on Jul 11th 2008
47. Gangsta: Considering that you have yet to explain why the creator of these pathetic do-nuttin "slacker men" sat by for so long
PV: I have yet to hear any justification of why allowing humans to exist in a primitive form would be a bad thing. Who cares? Plus, a Creator can do what a Creator decides to do.
All of these objections seem silly. Who's to say it's a negative that the Creator allowed humans to exist in a pre-civilized way?
preteristvision at 10:02AM on Jul 11th 2008
48. Worst. Idea. Ever. Everyone will have to hunt to survive, wildlife will get wiped out, cannibalism will become necessity, and natural selection will make a brutal comeback. A return to agrarian lifestyles might be better.
---------------------------------------------------
I dont think brutal natural selection is all that bad. The human population grows every day. What happens when the ecosystem cannot support our numbers? When water shortages, disease pandemics, and wars break out.
The answer is "Everyone will have to hunt to survive, wildlife will get wiped out, cannibalism will become necessity, and natural selection will make a brutal comeback." People need to realize that the human race will not last on this planet forever. We will die off if we do not colonize another planet.
Why?
Because humanity believes it has a god-given right to rule the earth, treat it like shit and expect to be fine. A global climate change, meteor strike, or second coming could wipe humans out.
I just think the human race is too arrogant to survive for more than a few hundred years more unless it reaches equilibrium with the environment around them.
CaptainCack at 10:03AM on Jul 11th 2008
49. PV:Who's to say it's a negative that the Creator allowed humans to exist in a pre-civilized way?
For once, I can agree with you. Why shouldnt we exist in a pre-civlized way?
CaptainCack at 10:06AM on Jul 11th 2008
50. Wasn't farming established in genesis?
a born atheist at 10:07AM on Jul 11th 2008
51. "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...[chosen] to intervene in human history a few thousand years ago. What kind of a God, Hitchens contemptuously asked, behaves in this way?"
What kind of a God behaves in that way? A God-sort of god. Why would a God-sort of god need to have picked another way? A Creator does what a Creator determines. Who is to say humans should have been developed this way or that way?
So what if Hitchens, as Creator, would have done things differently? Hitchens didn't get that role. Some other being did.
preteristvision at 10:08AM on Jul 11th 2008
52.
If early christianity didn't put such dampers on scientific thought we would have had much progress by now.
Men were pre-occupied with wars and there was much less contact to provide progressive ideas Computing has made huge strides in the past 30 years or so, does it mean people earlier were not thinking. Most of innovations stems from what is already known and that it takes step by step approach. DD maybe you need so called God's intervention to enhance your brain.
Thiaga at 11:09AM on Jul 11th 2008
53. CC,
All that seems easy to say when you're just sitting at a computer. You'll fine-tune your idea of what's better for humanity when hunters creep up behind you to reap your flesh.
Mokele Mbembe at 10:16AM on Jul 11th 2008
54. Idiots, didn't they teach you in school that agriculture was one of Prometheus' gifts to mankind?
Mokele Mbembe at 10:20AM on Jul 11th 2008
55. Is it just me, or is post 50 a moronic statement?
sparrow at 10:28AM on Jul 11th 2008
56. PV,
You seem to be subscribing to "Might is right", which I thought you had denounced before. Plus, is it really so difficult to explain today's topic without falling back on some unseen external being?
Mokele Mbembe at 10:30AM on Jul 11th 2008
57. Who is this jackass, and why does he have a public platform? Crazy.
antishock8 at 10:43AM on Jul 11th 2008
58. When the times for society to crumble, I will not be among the hunted. I have spent much time in the wild, I will do the reaping. The situation I speak of is very likely, probably not in our lifetime, but one day technology will fail.
On that day, since I will probably be in the christian hell, I will throw some fireballs at you from across the pit of flames.
CaptainCack at 10:43AM on Jul 11th 2008
59. Mokele: You seem to be subscribing to "Might is right", which I thought you had denounced b
PV: Hi Mokele. I fail to see why Hitchens' claim amounts to any sort of real objection at al. I mean, it's a matter of personal taste. Hitchens, as Creator, would have done things differently. So what? Objections of personal taste don't count.
preteristvision at 10:51AM on Jul 11th 2008
60. http://www.godandscience.org/images/iqvsreligion.gif
The moral: Intelligence is evil.
Mokele Mbembe at 10:49AM on Jul 11th 2008