Hitchens vs. Blair

Be It Resolved Religion Is a Force for Good in the World

Tony Blair, Christopher Hitchens

• Publisher: House of Anansi Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781770890206
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Philosophy of Religion

Intellectual juggernaut and staunch atheist Christopher Hitchens goes head-to-head with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, one of the Western world's most openly devout political leaders, on the highly charged topic of religion.

Few world leaders have had a greater hand in shaping current events than Blair; few writers have been more outspoken and polarizing than Hitchens. In this edition of The Munk Debates -- Canada's premier international debate series -- Hitchens and Blair square off on the contentious questions that continue to dog the topic of religion in our globalized world: How does faith influence our actions? What is the role of people of faith in the public sphere? Is religious doctrine rigid, or should we allow for flexibility in our interpretations?

This exclusive debate, which played out to a sold-out audience, is now available in print form, along with candid interviews with Hitchens and Blair. Sharp, provocative, and thoroughly engrossing, Hitchens vs. Blair is a rigorous and electrifying intellectual sparring match on the oldest question: Is religion a force for good in the world?

THE MUNK DEBATE ON RELIGION

PETER MUNK: On behalf of the Aurea Foundation, and on behalf of the Munk Debates, I’d like to welcome you all. I’ve been here for all six debates, and this time the excitement seems to be noticeable beyond the hall and beyond the city.

When we had the idea of starting these debates we hoped for excitement. The idea behind it was to try to elevate the quality of discussion, the level of dialogue on important global issues amongst Canadians. There are many ways of doing that, of course, but there was no better way than a high-quality debate, involving issues of vital importance to all of us, and discussions by people who are superbly informed and highly qualified — people who have the expertise, the knowledge, and indeed the commitment to the very subject we want to bring to the fore. And, I must say, to the credit of everyone involved in tonight’s debate we did succeed.

Debates, in contrast to a speech, are multi-dimensional. It is a whole different ball game for our venerable guests to have the courage to come here in front of a large number of people, to be given no more than five minutes to offer their prepared presentation, and then to be faced with somebody equally as smart as you are, equally as well-prepared as you are, equally as committed as you are, but determined to destroy your points. And now you’re rattled, you’re shaken up, but you’ve got to come back and you’ve got to say something. And it is that kind of stimulus, that kind of adrenalin, that gets the most out of you. Brilliant minds, even mediocre minds, operate better under stimulus. We all operate better if we have been challenged.

So, in that spirit, this debate will not disappoint. I think the subject is as relevant as any subject we could have chosen. As to the speakers, we simply could not have done better. As to their commitment to the topic, no one can doubt the commitment of the two parties.

Before I conclude I would like to welcome three people. The first person is Rudyard Griffiths, the co-organizer of the Munk Debates and a member of the Aurea Foundation Board. It was Rudyard’s idea to have this debate, and he deserves unlimited credit for this very successful Munk program. A great idea coupled with great execution can change the world. Rudyard is a brilliant creator and a brilliant executioner. Tonight, he will be the moderator of this debate.

Next, I’m personally and truly honoured to welcome our two debaters. First, I’d like to welcome the Right Honourable Tony Blair, former prime minister of the United Kingdom. I don’t believe that another human being has had as much impact on the events of the world over the past twenty or thirty years. I could not tell you how honoured we were when he accepted a role in this debate. And we know how committed he is to the side he is going to argue.

Next, I’d like to welcome Christopher Hitchens. The world has known many skeptics, but very few skeptics of his calibre. I do believe that if anybody can stand up to Tony Blair’s razor-sharp debating skills — honed and trained over two decades in the British Parliament — Christopher Hitchens will do it and can do it. In my opinion, Christopher also happens to be one of the greatest minds of our time. Thank you for being with us.

RUDYARD GRIFFITHS: Welcome to Toronto, Canada, for the Munk Debate on religion, in association with the British Broadcasting Corporation. I want to begin by welcoming the worldwide audience of the BBC — some 240 million people that will have access to this debate through the BBC World Service, BBC online news, and BBC World News. I also want to welcome the tens of thousands of people watching this debate live on munkdebates.com — it’s terrific that they’re part of this conversation too.

I also want to turn my attention to this hall, this spectacular hall, the lucky 2,700 people who are here in the flesh to listen to this debate. Let it be said that on this day, thanks to the generosity of Peter and Melanie Munk, Canada, and its largest city, Toronto, are truly at the heart of the global conversation.

Now, the moment we have been waiting for. We have our motion before us: Be it resolved that religion is a force for good in the world. All we need is our debaters. Please welcome Mr. Tony Blair and Mr. Christopher Hitchens.

Tony Blair was the prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. Among his many international roles today, he is the Quartet representative in the Middle East, working with the UN, the U.S., Russia, and the EU to secure a lasting peace in the region. After leaving politics, Mr. Blair converted to Catholicism, and he launched the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, a global initiative to promote respect and understanding among the world’s major religions. Many of us have read his recent bestselling memoir, A Journey: My Political Life.

Christopher Hitchens is a British-born American author, journalist, and atheist. His regular Vanity Fair columns and his prolific speeches and essays are essential reading for anyone and everyone concerned about global affairs. Christopher has a number of bestselling books, too — god Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and his recently published memoir, Hitch-22. Christopher was recently diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and as such we are doubly grateful that he and his family have joined us.

Before getting our debate under way, let me briefly run down how the debate will unfold. Each debater has been given seven minutes for their opening remarks, for and against the motion. Next, Mr. Hitchens and Mr. Blair will confront each other through two rounds of formal rebuttals. I’ll also be taking some questions from audience members on the stage. Those questions will be asked directly to Mr. Blair and Mr. Hitchens. We’ll also be asking questions on behalf of our online audience. The debate will conclude with short, five-minute closing statements and a second audience vote on the motion.

Before I call on our debaters for their opening statements, let’s find out how the 2,700 people in this audience voted. Twenty-five percent of you voted in favour of the motion, fifty-five percent opposed, and fully twenty percent of you were undecided. Now, we also asked a second question. We asked you if you are open to changing your vote depending on what you hear during the debate. Let’s have those numbers too, please. Wow — seventy-five percent of the audience, that’s three quarters, could change their vote, depending on what they hear during the debate. We will poll the audience again at the end of our proceedings to find out which of these two debaters was able to win by swaying us with the power of their arguments.

Now, the time has come for introductory remarks. Christopher Hitchens, as we’ve agreed, you will begin first with your opening statement.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Thank you very much to the Munk family. You are great philanthropists for making this possible. I have a text, and it is from Cardinal Newman.[1] Recently, Cardinal Newman was beatified, and he is on his way to canonization. He is a man whose Apologia [Pro Vita Sua] made many Anglicans reconsider their fealty and made many people join the Roman Catholic Church, and is considered, I think rightly, a great Christian thinker. The text reads, “The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die, in extremist agony, than that one soul, I will not say, will be lost, but should commit one venial sin, should tell one willful untruth, or should steal one farthing without excuse.” You have to say it’s beautifully phrased. But to me, what we have here is a distillation of precisely what is twisted and immoral in the faith mentality. That is essential fanaticism, its consideration of the human being as raw material and its fantasy of purity. Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes humans objects in a cruel experiment whereby we are created sick and commanded to be well. I’ll repeat that: created sick and then ordered to be well. And a celestial dictatorship is installed over us to supervise this, a kind of divine North Korea. Greedy and exigent. Greedy for uncritical praise from dawn till dusk, and swift to punish the original sins with which it so tenderly gifted us in the very first place. However, let no one say there’s no cure. Salvation is offered. Redemption, indeed, is offered at the low price of the surrender of your critical faculties.

Religion, it must be said, makes extraordinary claims. Though I would maintain that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, rather daringly religion provides not even ordinary evidence for its extraordinary supernatural claims. Therefore, we might begin by asking — I’m asking my opponent as well as the audience — is it good for the world to appeal to our credulity and not to our skepticism? Is it good for the world to worship a deity that takes sides in wars and human affairs, and to appeal to our fear and to our guilt? Is it good to appeal to our terror of death? To preach guilt and shame about the sexual act and the sexual relationship — is this good for the world? Of asking yourself the while, are these really religious responsibilities, as I maintain they are, to terrify children with the image of hell and eternal punishment, not just for themselves, but for their parents and those they love? Perhaps worst of all, to consider women an inferior creation — is that good for the world? And can you name a religion that has not done that, to insist that we are created and not evolved in the face of all of the evidence?

Religion forces nice people to do unkind things and also makes intelligent people say stupid things. Handed a small baby for the first time is it your first reaction to think, Beautiful, almost perfect. Now please hand me the sharp stone for its genitalia that I may do the work of the Lord. No. As the great American physicist Steven Weinberg has very aptly put it, in the ordinary moral universe the good will do the best they can, the worst will do the worst they can, but if you want to make good people do wicked things, you’ll need religion.

Now, I’m going to say why I think this is self-evident in our material world. Let me ask Tony Blair again, because he’s here and because the place where he is seeking peace, in the Middle East, is the birthplace of monotheism, so you might think it was filled with refulgence and love and peace. Everyone in the civilized world has roughly agreed, including the majority of Arabs and Jews and the international community, that there should be enough room for two states, for two peoples in the same land. I think there is rough agreement on that. Why can’t we get it? The UN can’t get it, the U.S. can’t get it, the Quartet can’t get it, the PLO can’t get it, the Israeli parliament can’t get it. Why can’t they get it? We can’t get it because the parties of God have a veto on it and everybody knows that this is true. Because of the divine promises made about this territory, there will never be peace, there will never be compromise. There will instead be misery, shame, and tyranny, and people will kill each others’ children for ancient books and caves and relics, and who is going to say that this is good for the world? And that’s the argument made from the example nearest at hand.

Have you looked lately at the possibility of what will happen when messianic fanatics get hold of an apocalyptic weapon? Well, we’re about to find out as the Islamic Republic of Iran and its Hezbollah [Party of God] allies are in a dress rehearsal for precisely this event. Have you looked lately at the...