Tuesday, August 12, 2008

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....

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a very interesting debate, just disappointed that I had to be a work, dealing with the result of the fall - as with no sin in the world there would be no need for any cops!

Steven Carr said...

Judging by 1 and 2 Corinthians, the people who scoffed at the resurrection were the target audience. They were the ones who converted to Christianity.

Paul assures them that Jesus became a spirit, and thinks they were idiots to discuss how corpses can come back.

I have a debate on the resurrection at Resurrection Debate

Comments are always welcome...

cath said...

Thanks for this review - I was at the debate too and was also impressed by Lennox's calm, warm presentation of precisely the doctrines that were most guaranteed to provoke ridicule :)

Hitchens's concluding point about morality had actually already been undercut by something Lennox briefly mentioned earlier - ie, the question is not whether atheists can do good things (as they manifestly can and do, and as Lennox said, often put Christians to shame), but what their basis for doing good things is. Denying an absolute standard of morality means that you end up relying on your own or other people's understanding of what even counts as "moral". Christians who do good things are only living according to their lights - atheists who behave morally are living better than their professed principles require! :)

My review is here :)

Steven Carr said...

Many Christians have told me they often thought of certain things as immoral, until they converted and read the Bible and realised that those deeds were moral.

My advice to atheists is that if they think something is immoral, then that is only their opinion, which could well be wrong.

Anonymous said...

Lennox was told that he keeps using naive arguments, despite the fact that he is a mathematician. He was also told that he is contradicting himself in at least 3 points and gave no reasonable response.

1. That his choice of religion is a product of his upbringing is obvious. Not for him only, but for anybody who grows within a particular society. Why, have we ever seen a significant number of people choosing to become Zoroastrians in, say, Aberdeen? No. Why? Because the only thing they hear is (the Aberdeen's version of local) Christianity. So, even though Lennox thinks he made a choice, he really didn't.

2. He is, obviously, a member of a *particular* Christian Church. Being so, he obeys some leader. Be it R. Williams (Anglican), Razinger (Catholic), Bartholomew (Greek orthodox), etc. he makes a choice to indirectly report to and support corrupt institutions (who support murderers like Tony Blair or Vladimir Putin). Also, the institutions he's a member of practice a version of "Christianity" that is quite different from the one of Jesus. It was a series of Roman-Byzantine political leaders who decided what people should believe in. In particular, the ruthless, brother-slayer, pervert Emperor Constantine declared a number of dogmas by himself, for political reasons.

3. Lennox also contradicts himself by believing whatever he believes in, which is diametrically opposite to what other religious people believe (e.g. Hindus have many Gods, Christianity has 1), while, at the same time, he finds it OK for people to have other religions. As a mathematician, it is more reasonable for him to support agnostics, rather than accept that all religions are OK.

cath said...

Anonymous,

are you the guy from Heriot Watt that asked a three-point question remarkably similar to this one, in the discussion session?

Anonymous said...

Is this debate somewhere on the Internet?

cath said...

Review by the organisers here
http://wetlenses.blogspot.com/2008/08/new-europe-new-atheism.html

It will be made available on dvd later this year
http://www.fixed-point.org/store/shop.asp?ItemID=88&CategoryID=102

Anonymous said...

WHY do people need to be critical about our religion? The mere fact that we exist is a PROOF of existence of our Lord. Otherwise, we would not be talking about Him.

Can't people see that this is the ultimate explanation of why we are here, of why we need to revere, obey and fear of our ultimate fate?

In the Song of Songs you will find a perfect description of Love. Anybody who reads it will immediately be convinced that it was not written by a mortal human being.

Hitchens is the personification of Satan. Like Satan, he tries to interfere with our work, with our life, to poison our soul, to darken our hearts. Look at him, listen to his words and you will see that it is not him who talks. He is possessed. Poor fellow, if only he could be helped! But to be helped, he needs to seek for it. Otherwise nobody can extract the Demon who resides in his body and spirit.

Bless you all.

cath said...

Hi,

Andy, I hope I'm not overstepping the mark with all my comments here!

Isn't it funny how anonymous comments tend to be incoherent whether they're from an atheistic or religious perspective :-)

Cath