Christopher Hitchens: Religion Poisons Everything (a Truthdig interview)

[marmar]

Christopher Hitchens: Religion Poisons Everything


Posted on Jun 6, 2007


By Jon Wiener

In his latest book “God is Not Great” Christopher Hitchens makes the case against religion and for “free inquiry and open-mindedness.” Hitchens of course is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, a visiting professor of liberal studies at the New School, and author of many books. He spoke recently with TruthDig’s Jon Wiener.

Jon Wiener: You show in your book how many horrible things men have done because of religion. In Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, and Baghdad, men kill other men, and say god told them to do it. But why blame god for the bad things that men do?

Christopher Hitchens: I don’t blame god. I blame religion. I don’t believe there is such a thing as god. Religion makes people do wicked things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. It doesn’t make them behave better—it makes them behave worse. You couldn’t get people to hack away at the genitals of their newborn children if they didn’t think there was a religious obligation to do so. The licenses for genocide, slavery, racism, are all right there in the holy text.

Wiener: Yes, the Old Testament is full of these horrors. But it also contains the Ten Commandments, prohibiting killing, stealing, adultery, and lying—isn’t this a good thing?

Hitchens: No. it’s not. Because these are prefaced by a series of injunctions to fear a permanent, unalterable dictatorship. The first three commandments say “just realize who’s boss.” Let’s assume the story of Moses is true, even though archaeologists have utterly discredited it. Do our Jewish ancestors have to put up with the insult from us at this late stage that, until they got to Sinai, they thought murder and theft and perjury were okay? Of course not. There would have been no such people if they thought that. There has never been a society or civilization that did warrant those things. And you don’t need divine urging to see that they’re wrong yourself.

Wiener: There’s one other commandment, the tenth—thou shalt not covet.

Hitchens: That is a particularly horrible crime of dictatorship, namely the crime of thought. It says you can’t even think about this. To say you’re not allowed to steal your neighbor’s possessions—including his wife—that’s one thing. But to say you’re not allowed to envy your neighbor is absurd. It’s impossible. And the spirit of envy can lead to ambition and innovation and initiative. I would say that’s an immoral commandment. ......(more)

The complete interview is at: http://www.truthdig.com/interview/item/20070606_christopher_hitchens_religion_poisons_everything/

[durrrty libby]

1. It is really something when a pompous drunk makes more sense

than half the world

[roamer65]

2. I have to admit I am starting to warm up to Hitchens.

His critique of religion is accurate and fun to read and hear. I heard the snippet he did on Faux Snooze where he levelled Sean Insannity.

:popcorn:

[Phredicles]

3. Has Hitch ever convincingly explained why, if he honestly believes

that religion is so pernicious, he loudly and famously lined up behind a criminal war launched by the most destructive religious fanatic of our age?

Until he does, he can suck my agnostic ass - I know plenty of devout people with more integrity than he'll ever dream of having.

[rhiannon55]

4. Christopher Hitchens is certainly paradoxical.

BRILLIANT when talking about religion, STUPID when talking about the war on Iraq. :shrug:

[pokercat999]

12. And I'll bet DRUNK most of the time.

[BeyondGeography]

5. Not a believer myself, but Lincoln and Martin Luther King were both

deeply religious, and their belief in God was at the source of their political and moral leadership, both of which helped save this country. So the one-sided "religion only leads to evil and misery" argument will never work for me. Hitchens points out that secularists like Rustin and Randolph were also involved in the civil rights movement, but they would have had no movement to participate in if it hadn't been for the ground work done by King and others in blacks churches throughout the South.

[EST]

8. What you say reveals passion, thoughtfulness and intelligence.

I would like to take issue with this statement, however.

On what authority can you state-with assurance-that their belief in god was at the source of their political and moral leadership?
Religion has been, throughout history, a useful tool of politics. Could it not also be posited, with at least as much surety, that they were both gifted with an intuitive grasp of politics which their other gifts of compassion and empathy fit so very well with?

There is no doubt of their skill at manipulating people (politics) and evaluating their own prospects were vast. Those skills were demonstrated convincingly.

I have known people whose level of empathy were astounding and that's just the way they were, without attribution to anything else. The stage they found themselves on, however, limited their ability to actually contribute to society.

So they chose, consciously or not, to occupy a niche that allowed them to escape the smallness that the inherent meanness and self centeredness of most of society attempts to force people into.
The correctness and power of their choices assures them of positions in history that most presidents and virtually all congresspeople can only aspire to, but it does not affirm the soundness or commitment they may have had to religious precepts.

I just don't think any of us can confirm or deny the origins of their drive and ambitions.

[shrike]

9. But on the other hand, if religion poisons everything

Shouldn't it have poisoned them, as well?

I agree with you're saying, that good people are good, bad people are bad. Goes for religious people as well atheists. But if religion is the poison ol' Hitch (I'm not a fan, btw), shouldn't it have overpowered the good that was definitely in them.

As for where good actually comes from, that's probably the biggest mystery of all.

[BeyondGeography]

11. I have no authority on the matter

and it's probably an overstatement in the case of Lincoln that belief in God was the foundation of his ability to lead us through the greatest crisis we've faced. But Lincoln, after many spiritual twists and turns in his life, turned unquestioningly to God in his presidency.

This was a statement he made to General Dan Sickles, a participant in the battle of Gettysburg:

<"Well, I will tell you how it was. In the pinch of the campaign up there (at Gettysburg) when everybody seemed panic stricken and nobody could tell what was going to happen, oppressed by the gravity of our affairs, I went to my room one day and locked the door and got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed to Him mightily for victory at Gettysburg. I told Him that this war was His war, and our cause His cause, but we could not stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville... And after that, I don't know how it was, and I cannot explain it, but soon a sweet comfort crept into my soul. The feeling came that God had taken the whole business into His own hands and that things would go right at Gettysburg and that is why I had no fears about you.">

http://members.tripod.com/~greatamericanhistory/gr02004.htm

And a "deal with God" is said by many to be what motivated the Emancipation Proclaimation:

<Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles recalled the meeting the same way Chase did. Lincoln called them together and said the slaves were to be freed. “He had, he said, made a vow, a covenant, that if God gave us the victory in the approaching battle (which had just been fought) he would consider it his duty to move forward in the cause of emancipation.” Lincoln knew his listeners might be skeptical or puzzled, but there it was. “We might think it strange, he said, but there were times when he felt uncertain how to act; that he had in this way submitted the disposal of matters when the way was not clear to his mind what he should do. God had decided this question in favor of the slave. He was satisfied he was right—was confirmed and strengthened by the vow and its results; his mind was fixed, his decision made.

Thirty years before, in the Age of Jackson, Tocqueville heard an American clergyman utter these words at a public gathering: “O Lord! Never turn thy face away from us; permit us always to be the most religious people as well as the most free.” In Lincoln’s understanding, God required, first, a guilelessness and purity of purpose, and in exchange would relieve the country of fear and sustain her through the fires of war, and the penance he was exacting. Then, and only then, might light come from darkness.>

As for King, the case is more clear. He stated famously that he was "just trying to do God's will," and he also said these words at the Holt Street Baptist Church in Montgomery in 1955:

<May I say to you, my friends, as I come to a close, and just giving some idea of why we are assembled here, that we must keep--and I want to stress this, in all of our doings, in all of our deliberations here this evening and all of the week and while, --whatever we do--, we must keep God in the forefront. (Yeah) Let us be Christian in all of our actions. (That's right) But I want to tell you this evening that it is not enough for us to talk about love, love is one of the pivotal points of the Christian faith. There is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation. (All right) Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love. (Well)

The Almighty God himself is not only, not the God just standing out saying through Hosea, "I love you, Israel." He's also the God that stands up before the nations and said: "Be still and know that I'm God (Yeah), that if you don't obey me I will break the backbone of your power (Yeah) and slap you out of the orbits of your international and national relationships." (That's right) Standing beside love is always justice, and we are only using the tools of justice. Not only are we using the tools of persuasion, but we've come to see that we've got to use the tools of coercion. Not only is this thing a process of education, but it is also a process of legislation. (Yeah) >

http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/speeches/MIA_mass_meeting_at_holt_street.html

I appreciate your comments, and this is a particularly beautiful bit of writing: <I have known people whose level of empathy were astounding and that's just the way they were, without attribution to anything else. The stage they found themselves on, however, limited their ability to actually contribute to society.>

My sentiments exactly. I too, am open to goodness in all its forms. Where I differ with Hitchens is his apparent refusal to acknowledge religion as a powerful force for good. Such an approach cedes all of the religious terrain to the Right. As we've seen on our own history, the religious impulse is also capable of being aligned with the values that we ourselves believe in most.

[EST]

13. Thank you for your reasoned and literate reply.

Usually the subjects of religion and god, especially when linked to a pretty powerful point of view, tend to disintegrate into a spiteful bit swordplay, leaving most everyone less than satisfied with the exchange.

Having been on the inside and outside of this particular stage and spent a good portion of my life in an attempt to create some original insight into religious belief and practice, I have found some interesting things.

We, humans, find out rather early in life some important lessons in handling the stresses of living. Some courses produce satisfaction and development and some wind up destroying the learner.

A very important lesson has to do with "owning" responsibility for who you are and what you experience. Unfortunately, often that ownership shows up as being a victim of circumstances which is so destructive that it creates tyrants as well as suicides.

Interesting in its application to matters of faith is another form of ownership or acknowledging responsibility which actually looks like giving away that ownership or sharing it. This appears oxymornic until investigated carefully, but it shows up quite powerfully in prayer and in appointing a "higher power" as partner, director or ultimate arbiter in life. This also, when the councilor is a true professional, shows up in quality psychiatric counseling.
This type of "giving it away" ownership produces the powerfulness of owning responsibility while limiting its pain producing attributes by having an outlet in putting a more powerful entity in charge.

Showing up in both prayer and meditation, that sharing ownership also seems to set in motion a powerful healing process after severe mental stress. Counterintuitive, at least when viewed superficially, this powerful tool is often avoided; it just doesn't seem logical.

Just as with having allergies, good vision or athletic ability, people simply aren't the same and their minds are not wired exactly the same. An unfortunately common malady is an urge to despise attributes that are not understood or are viewed as weaknesses. Another sad fact of that wiring is a tendency to regard the unknown with suspicion, often amounting to intense xenophobia.

Religion, faith, however it needs to be named, can become a nasty tool, a club to threaten and beat those who have discovered their facility for ownership through giving it away, when wielded by an unscrupulous manipulator, and a powerful source when used to amplify and inspire empathy and commonality of purpose by someone whose scruples, at least in that arena, are beyond doubt.

We are in alignment, although I am of the persuasion that faith is a tool, rather than the source of benevolence or healing, and this tool, or method, or cast of mind, can be of enormous value for good or ill. The sharks among us, and there are far too many of them, leave as damaging burn marks on society as can the selfless leave healing and satisfaction.

People are such sources of entertainment and inspiration that its easy to assume that they couldn't be that way simply because that's the way they are and the evidence, again, depending on point of view, can be quite persuasive.

Thanks again for such a thoughtful exchange; I am inspired.

[roguevalley]

6. you know what, Hitchens? When people keep their yaps shut and

manage their personal philosophy like they used to in this country, things were pretty all right. You could believe or not in this country once without shame or worry because it was BAD MANNERS to bring up religion around another person once.

What a person to lecture about morality.

[EST]

7. Normally, I detest that drunken sod, but I must admit to a rather catholic,

non-intellectual point of view of him, surprising even myself.
Don't know whether I should pay more attention to him in the future or not. A delightful quandary-rarely considered and certainly worthy of further thought.

Perhaps I am not as well informed as I supposed.

[shrike]

10. Hitch doesn't mind taking their money, though

Somebody, can't remember who, wrote a column about all the fees Hitch has earned from speaking engagements in front of moral majority types and religious or quasi-religious organizations. Then there's his unabashed backing of Bush, who feels he's been called to serve by God . . .

Guess he's entitled to be a hypocrite as much as any religious person is, or has been.