» Sunday, 20 May A.D. 2007
dismantling hitchens
I noticed that Doug Wilson has been posting a thorough dismantling of Christopher Hitchens's God is Not Great on his blog. What I was not aware of is that Christianity Today has been hosting a debate between the two of them. You can find links to the parts of the debate at the above link or you can jump directly to the fourth installment. Hat tip to barlow, who nails the idea driving the whole thing:
Wilson is asking Hitchens not to provide evidence that morally good atheists exist or even are possible. He is asking Hitchens to provide warrant for seeing the categories of "good" and "evil" as meaningful given Hitchens's atheistic worldview. The particular example that stands out from this exchange is Hitchens's view that morality is innate, to which Wilson responds that given evolution, what is innate changes, and so the creatures that humans were ate their own young. What he doesn't ask is what the creatures that we will be someday might consider obviously right based upon innate sensibility.
Addendum: The New Yorker is running a review of Hitchens's book which includes this little zinger:
The idea that people would have been nicer to one another if they had never got religion, as Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris seem to think, is a strange position for an atheist to take. For if man is wicked enough to have invented religion for himself he is surely wicked enough to have found alternative ways of making mischief.
posted by Nate @ 1:09PM