{"id":67,"date":"2008-08-01T05:00:15","date_gmt":"2008-08-01T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.consider.org\/blog\/?p=67"},"modified":"2008-08-01T05:00:15","modified_gmt":"2008-08-01T11:00:15","slug":"hitchens-god-is-not-great-viii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/hitchens-god-is-not-great-viii\/","title":{"rendered":"Hitchens – God Is Not Great VIII"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listen to the MP3<\/a><\/h2>\n

This week I continue my extended review of Christopher Hitchens, \u201cGod Is Not Great<\/a>.\u201d Following his comments on happiness and Mother Teresa that I discussed last week<\/a>, the bulk of the second chapter consists of a response to an argument made by Dennis Prager<\/a>. As presented by Hitchens, \u201cI was to imagine myself in a strange city as the evening was coming on. Towards me I was to imagine I saw a large group of men approaching. Now would I feel safer, or less safe, if I was to learn that they were coming from a prayer meeting?\u201d\u00a0 Hitchens\u2019 answer was that he had personal experience in places where he would not feel safe, such as Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem, and Baghdad, just to stay in the letter \u2018B.\u2019 The bulk of the chapter then recounts the conflict in these areas.<\/p>\n

When Hitchens appeared on Dennis Prager\u2019s show,<\/a> an interesting discussion occurred concerning the details of this argument. Prager claimed that instead of a prayer meeting, he had specified a Bible study, and that he has restricted it to the United States.\u00a0 While I was not at the panel discussion mentioned by Hitchens, this is an argument I have heard Prager make many times, and in fact I cited this argument in my book, Christianity and Secularism<\/a> (pg 180). Both my memory, and the version in my book, supports Prager.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

These are not trivial details. All of Hitchens examples cite areas of active conflict, split along religious lines, and which, except for Belfast, all involve Islam. \u00a0In such places the primary source of fear would come, not so much because they had come from a prayer meeting or Bible class, but rather that they were a group of partisans in an ongoing violent conflict. In such a conflict of course you would fear a group from the side of the conflict, or where you might be mistaken as the enemy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is vastly different than the situation presented by Prager.\u00a0 The United States has no such ongoing violent conflict. Here crime is the main concern. With the exception of extremist Islam, few if any of those who become religious, are worst people for it, and in fact there are many examples of those who turn their lives around and become significantly better people.\u00a0 So unless one was driven by some bigotry against Christianity or Judaism of course one would feel safer. So as a rebuttal to Prager\u2019s argument, the chapter fails.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

There remains the culpability of religion in the conflicts Hitchens mentions, which is his broader point.\u00a0 As I have discussed many times in the past, this is not the clear cut indictment on religion that the neo-atheists claim. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is nothing inherent in the claims of Christianity or Judaism that says all religions are good. Quite the opposite, in the Bible God strongly condemns some other religions, such as the practice of the Canaanites to sacrifice their children.\u00a0 Finally, it is simply irrational to claim that because some, or even most religions are bad, therefore all religions must be bad.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In terms of the list given by Hitchens, remove the conflicts involving Islam and you are left with just Belfast. While this conflict is split along Catholic and Protestant lines, that is not the reason for the conflict. The conflict existed well before Henry VIII decided that England should become protestant, and if for some reason one side suddenly converted to the religion of the other side, that would not resolve the conflict, which is far more historical and political than religious.\u00a0 So again Hitchens\u2019 argument fails, at least in relation to Christianity. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there are a few things we can learn from Hitchens. For one, Hitchens misunderstanding of Prager\u2019s argument is something we all should be on guard against. When we hear an argument that challenges something we believe, there is a natural tendency to seek flaws in the argument, and in that process, unless we are careful, we will distort the argument so as to more easily answer it.\u00a0 If we are going to correct the flaw in our own thinking we must listen carefully to the criticism of others.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

More importantly, as Christians, we must remember that we represent God. To use God\u2019s name to justify our own personal beliefs and actions imputes our errors and folly to God. This is, I believe, the true meaning behind of the Commandment to not take the name of God in vain. (Ex 20).\u00a0 It is not just to use the name of God as if it were nothing more than a verbal punctuation mark, or worst as an explicative, though this is wrong. Rather, we must not justify our beliefs and actions by claiming we are acting in the name of God, unless we are very certain that we are.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is one thing to be mistaken and wrong, to act in ways that we later regret.\u00a0 We are human and we all do this. But when we attempt to justify ourselves by appealing to God or the Bible, we in effect make God responsible for our errors.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

To see the damage done, just look at the crusades.\u00a0 So while Hitchens\u2019 argument is false, the there is nevertheless something we as Christians can learn from the fact that it is so easy for him to make this argument.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity<\/a>: a Faith Based on Fact<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listen to the MP3 This week I continue my extended review of Christopher Hitchens, \u201cGod Is Not Great.\u201d Following his comments on happiness and Mother Teresa that I discussed last week, the bulk of the second chapter consists of a response to an argument made by Dennis Prager. As presented by Hitchens, \u201cI was to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6,14],"tags":[119,123,152,173,248,1079,510],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}