In front of a sold-out crowd of 1,200 in Birmingham, Alabama, Christopher Hitchens, famed atheist and author of “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” debates Dr. David Berlinski, Paris mathematician and author of “The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions.”
Hitchens and others of the New Atheism movement have called for the annihilation of religion in order to establish a purely secular society. Berlinski, who describes himself as a secular Jew and an agnostic takes the position that a society absent religious influence is not the kind of place where most of us would want to live.
So the question stands: Is a purely secular society preferable to a religious one? Ultimately, this is a question of importance to everyone. Whether a given society is with or without a religious influence affects people of all persuasions, not just Christians and atheists.
Free study guide at http://fixed-point.org/
While listening to the debate I started wondering what sort of event, evidence or miracle would make Christopher Hitchens a believer. I came across this article which I would like to share: Atheism – Freethinker or Non-thinker
Below are some interesting ideas (emphasis added). More
“The Soviet block countries were founded upon atheism.”
Wrong, Eliot. The Soviet Union was built on communism. Stalin’s version of communism did not tolerate any other ways of thinking, which resulted in oppressing religions, as well as other opposing secular views; the Communist Party even oppressed other communist views; just see it’s ban on factions in the Communist Party in 1921. And we know where this lead to.
In short: the problem is not atheism; the problem is intolerance towards opposing views. And we can see this problem in Spain during the Spanish Inquisition, the Middle-East under ISIS, Chili under Pinochet and indeed, the Soviet Union.
Jack, can you name any other “form of communism” that tolerated other ways of thinking?
The problem with communism is that it is a closed system. It is a self-referencing, which is to say that it denies any authority except the ideology itself. It makes the authority of the state its god. It’s greatest threat is God, which is to say the Christian because the Christian will not, in the end, swear fealty the state. That’s why Lenin’s first target was the Church.
Two essays that discuss this (I am the author):
Christians Who Pray to ‘St. Marx’ are Building the Next Gulag
The Artist as Vandal: Culture and the desecration of religious symbols