Hitchens vs Wilson - Round 3

From: Christopher Hitchens To: Douglas Wilson

CH objects to being called a fool, corrupt and abominable, a dumb and vain and ingrate by the Bible. Again he just wishes to be left alone.

CH believes ethical imperatives derive from innate human solidarity and not from the supernatural. Folk pre-Sinai and pre-Christ knew what was right and wrong on the biggies (murder, theft, perjury etc.). He thinks it is belief in the supernatural that can make otherwise decent people do things that they would otherwise shrink from (mutilating the genitals of children, frightening infants with talk of hellfire, forbidding normal sexual practices, blaming all Jews for "deicide," applauding suicide-murderers, and treating women as Paul or Muhammad thought they should be treated).
CH is not saying that all athiests are wonderfully moral and thinks that an atheist can as easily be a nihilist, a sadist—even a casuist.


From: Douglas Wilson To: Christopher Hitchens

DW does not think CH is 'dumb'. He used the word fool in the sense that it is used in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, where folly is a moral question, not a matter of intelligence.

I am quite prepared to cheerfully grant (and not for the sake of the argument) that you are my intellectual superior. But our discussion is not about who has more horsepower under his intellectual hood—the point of discussion is whether your superior car is on the right road. A fast car can be a real detriment on a dark night when the bridge is out. And you insist on continuing to wear the sunglasses of atheism.

Do atheists have to do evil? DW has said, no they don't and CH agrees.

Can atheists do evil? CH has just said yes they can.

But that is not the point. We are not talking about whether your atheism compels you to run downtown this evening to shoot out the street lights. I grant that it does not. And we are not talking about whether atheists can do vile things. You grant that they can. We are talking about (or, more accurately, I am trying to talk about) whether or not atheism provides any rational basis for rational condemnation when others decide to misbehave this way. You keep saying, "I have come to my ethical position." I keep asking, "Yes, quite. But why did you do so?"

Take the vilest atheist you ever heard of. Imagine yourself sitting at his bedside shortly before he passes away. He says, following Sinatra, "I did it my way." And then he adds, chuckling, "Got away with it too." In our thought experiment, the one rule is that you must say something to him, and whatever you say, it must flow directly from your shared atheism—and it must challenge the morality of his choices. What can you possibly say? He did get away with it. There is a great deal of injustice behind him, which he perpetrated, and no justice in front of him. You have no basis for saying anything to him other than to point to your own set of personal prejudices and preferences. You mention this to him, and he shrugs. "Tomayto, tomahto."
I am certainly willing to take the same thought experiment. I can imagine some pretty vile Christians, and if I couldn't, I am sure you could help me. The difference between us is that I have a basis for condemning evil in its Christian guise. You have no basis for confronting evil in its atheist guise, or in its Christian guise, either. When you say that a certain practice is evil, you have to be prepared to tell us why it is evil.

To CH's statement that ethical imperatives are "derived from innate human solidarity." DW asks a load of (difficult) questions that need answering for CH to have provided a rational for his saying that one thing (Christianity) is evil and another is good:

• Derived by whom?
• Is this derivation authoritative?
• Do the rest of us ever get to vote on which derivations represent true, innate human solidarity?
• Do we ever get to vote on the authorized derivers?
• On what basis is innate human solidarity authoritative?
• If someone rejects innate human solidarity, are they being evil, or are they just a mutation in the inevitable changes that the evolutionary process requires?
• What is the precise nature of human solidarity?
• What is easier to read, the book of Romans or innate human solidarity?
• Are there different denominations that read the book of innate human solidarity differently?
• Which one is right?
• Who says?
• And last, does innate human solidarity believe in God?