On 'Mars Hill' Edinburgh

'The New Europe should prefer the New Atheism' - debate in Usher Hall, 9th August 2008.

Hosted by James Naughtie, Dr Christopher Hitchens & Prof John Lennox (Oxford University) debated the motion above. Thus ensued 90 minutes of very interesting and high quality discourse. Hitchens - urbane, carrying the constant whiff of disdain for the world around him, well read, and fascinating on his analysis of trends. Lennox - warm, with keenly structured arguments, and wonderfully unashamed to use the Bible and talk freely about Jesus.

It was the latter point that heartened me most - a man of the intellectual calibre of John Lennox, sitting in the ancient city of 'Enlightenment' thinking, surrounded by the savvy sophisticates of Edinburgh's Festival - who was clear and unembarrassed to speak of final judgement, miracles, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Throughout the debate it was the mention of Jesus and references to the Bible that brought forth scornful tutting, heads thrown back in dismay, and incredulous yelps.

Yet above all it was the mention of the resurrection, just as it had done at Mars Hill in Athens, that aroused the greatest sneers. Hitchens, smiling as if he couldn't believe his opponent could be so tactically naive, responded with the words, 'Well I don't usually need 5 minutes to disprove the resurrection!' Laughter. Although interestingly he then said nothing more about it. This was Mars Hill - the Gospel regarded as the foolishness of fools.

For Lennox it would have been easy to stay on the 'safer ground' of philosophy, ethics and epistemology - that is, stuck to those areas deemed worthy of debate by the world's intelligentsia. But here was a man, praise God, who knows that his most powerful weapon, in bringing down the strongholds that oppose God and the Gospel, is to declare Jesus Christ risen from the dead. Just as at Mars Hill where the Gospel was regarded by many as foolishness, it is nonetheless for those who believe the very power of God for salvation. Lennox was a great example of knowing that apologetics could only take the Gospel so far - what people ultimately need to hear is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Saviour of sinners, and the one by whom God will judge the world as testified to by his resurrection.

Of course much of the other ground was covered as well, (let's pray for people like John Lennox who are able to defend the Faith in the public square), one such example was...

At the end each had 5mins to sum up - Hitchens was second so had the 'last word'. His piece de resistance (rather cunningly left to the end so that it couldn't be responded to) was: 'As an atheist is there anything immoral that I am compelled to do?' His answer: 'No, there nothing immoral I'm compelled to do by virtue of my atheism. However, if I hold religious belief can you think of anything immoral I may be compelled to do?' His answer: 'You've already thought of one haven't you!' Ta da - the curtain comes down (so to speak).

Now the obvious responses to that are:
1) that true religion is perfectly moral therefore it could not compel me to do anything immoral;
2) if God exists then atheism is intrinsically immoral - as it denies the source of your very life and tells a lie about reality;
3) if God does not exist then it is a meaningless question anyway - because the very terms 'moral' and 'immoral' just become expressions of personal preference.

Beyond that, however, I was trying to think (responding in Hitchens' terms, Pr 26:5), of an example of something immoral that atheism does compel someone to embrace/do/believe. The best I can do (and it's a bit of a mouthful) is - '

The immorality that atheism compels me to embrace/do/believe is that I need not be moral'.

Or atheism forces me to be immoral because it forces me to believe that I need not be moral.

Any other suggestions? Please post....