 As you know, just a few short years ago the exalted one, His Hitchness, loftily descended from the heavens and truly mystified the great unwashed with a mighty challenge, one so baffling that to this very day it still confounds all mere mortals.
And at the Pew Center last fall this same sage, during a debate against that worthless, no-good brother of his, again reannounced the cheap publicity stunt cynically designed to sell books I mean, the very serious and profound philosophical challenge:
I used to ask a question. I’ve now asked it in public, on the radio, in print, in TV debates with quite a lot of leading religious figures and thinkers. It’s simply this: You ought to be able to tell me of a moral action performed or an ethical statement made by a believer that I couldn’t make because I’m a nonbeliever. You ought to be able. Given what you think, it must be very easy for you to say, here’s something you couldn’t say or do that would be morally right or morally true. No takers; I haven’t found a single example. I’ve tried everyone now — and by the way, there’s a prize. And I’ve even entered myself for it, as I’ll tell you in a second.
Now our preening Popinjay does strike me as the kind of chap who would proudly award himself his own trophy in some made-up contest (where he's the only judge), so what, pray tell, was this valiant stab at it?
Here is my attempt to win my own prize. When Lech Walesa was starting his work in the Polish shipyards and the Polish militia, the outer ring of the Polish army were closing in on Gdansk, he was interviewed with his then-fairly small group, and he was asked, aren’t you frightened, aren’t you afraid? You’ve taken on a whole all-powerful state and army — aren’t you scared? And he said, I’m not frightened of anything but God or anyone but God.
This came back to me, I thought, well, this meets my two criteria. It’s certainly a noble thing to have said, a distinguished thing to have said, and I certainly couldn’t have said it. So it does meet both my criteria. But it was also the slogan of Gen. Edwin Walker of the John Birch Society in a different situation — the man whom Lee Harvey Oswald took target practice on, right-wing, paranoid Crusade for Christ nutbag in the ’50s. Doesn’t sound so good when it’s said by him and it’s a summons to think of nuclear war as not too bad, for example.
It’s not quite the same.
So there, I’ve partly answered the question. I hope I partly asked one.
I do have to confess that ever since Chris 'Itchens declared his little challenge a few years ago I've been utterly amazed at how unpersuasive, fatuous, and downright pathetic the "answers" submitted by the religious have been. "What about praying?" they ask. Please. "Tithing?" Excuse me? "Well how about submitting your whole heart and mind to Christ forever, and blindly obeying him for all eternity like some abject, groveling slave?" (Or something like that). Honestly, are you people joking? But alas, they are not. Yes, one would really have thought that adherents of one of the greatest intellectual traditions in human history would have been able to come up with something a tad more clever than this tripe.
Though there appears to have been a small handful of efforts that have almost grasped at something more substantive. Some variation of "How could Michelangelo have painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel without Christianity, or how could John Donne have possibly written all of his elegies, sonnets and poetry without religion?" They could not have of course, but this is a little like pointing out how Eisenstein could not have shot October without Bolshevism and the 1917 coup. Besides, art can be beautiful, but it is not really a moral nor ethical action per se. Or there's an argument, though usually put a bit more crudely, that no moral action can be done by a nonbeliever because for them morality, in the end, is just an illusion and nothing more than a meaningless, biochemical reaction occurring in the brain (and regardless of whether or not there is a divine the true atheist should always reject all of His "morality" outlined in the Bible). Maybe no act by an atheist is objectively moral, but at least there is always the possibility, minute as it is, that a theist's act could be moral if God exists. However there is a salient weakness in this position. Namely, it is typical Christian hypocrisy. It turns out that the religious are actually the relativists. When God orders you to slit the throat of your most beloved son for no reason, that is suddenly moral. When the Lord commands you to commit genocide against your neighbors and then, as a spoil of war, brutally rape and enslave their daughters, that too is now moral. Morality is in flux, oscillating with the caprice of an erratic deity, so ultimately there is no absolute, moral objectivity. It is only objective in the sense that it is consistently God's fiat, which is not really objectivity but more like a sort of omniscient solipsism. And the interpretation of these "eternal" verities and morals by all the priests and clerics is constantly changing, and always will. The religious often claim that if there is no God then they can't believe in the idea of objective morality, so since there is not, they must be relativists as they suggest.
Thankfully, without God morality can exist: an innate, universal moral grammar hardwired into our heads like language that has objective, physical existence and is manifested in the mysterious, beautiful and awe-inspiring works and actions of humankind.
Now Mr. Hitchens says, 'Name one moral action that an unbeliever can not take.' Well, that's trivially easy. If God exists there are all kinds of moral duties that we have that the unbeliever cannot recognize. At the panel discussion last week in Dallas, when Mr. Hitchens demanded that someone name such an action, a pastor on the panel immediately piped up, 'How about tithing?' Well, leave it to a pastor to think of that. Clearly, that's an action that only a believer would take. Even more fundamentally, what about the first, and greatest, commandment? 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your mind.' That is an action that only a believer can take, no unbeliever can discharge even this most fundamental of moral duties.
To which CH replied:
Second, on the matter of my moral question: Yes, it's true that Doug Wilson said that tithing was something I couldn't do, but then not just—I'm not moving the goal posts here—I don't think I'd regard giving all my money to the New Saint Andrews church as a moral act. The only challenge that I've had so far that I really couldn't get out of—I should share it with you—was I was told well you couldn't do this: You couldn't say, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." No, but nor could you as people of faith, you wouldn't dare. It would be blasphemy to do it. There's only one person who can do that even on your account so, with respect, ladies and gentlemen, I think both my challenges stand.
But this exchange does underscore an important point concerning the challenge. There is an unstated condition that's absolutely critical in answering the question, a tacit requirement that the theists have consistently neglected. Namely, 'Itchens himself has to rule that it is a moral action, as he is judge and jury in this trial.
So let's turn back to CH's own attempt at the Pew Center. His brother Peter, that worthless, antidisestablishmentarian dog (there's nothing I hate more than a vile antidisestablishmentarian!), was quite impressed by Chris' undertaking on the question and declared in a post on his blog that the unsolvable puzzle had finally been solved, once and for all (somehow missing how Chris explicitly stated that his so-called answer is inadequate given the Birchers, and that there were still no "takers" nor "a single example" yet of a successful answer). Peter then even viciously denounced some poor, swooning Hitch-lovers over this in a subsequent post on his blog (OK, so maybe Pete is not so bad after all).
I don't think that this is the first time that Chris has attempted to solve his own challenge in public with a specious answer like this. Take the Craig debate that I mentioned, and I believe that there are other occasions. Another thing Peter has missed. As for the merits of the "partly" valid answer itself, it's a pretty lame effort, as fearing God is obviously not a moral nor brave action whatsoever. In fact quite the opposite, it is an example of gross intellectual and moral cowardice. Rightly fearing a nuclear war is far more legitimate than trembling over some morbid, masochistic delusion like a celestial Big Brother (Incidentally, I can't help but wonder if Orwell was alluding to a line from Bertrand Russell's Why I am Not A Christian when he named that character). Of course Walesa and Solidarity participated in all sorts of admirable and important activism, but I'm a bit surprised that 'Itchens would zero in on such an intellectually pusillanimous piece of political rhetoric like that. Does Chris actually believe that fearing God is moral? No, of course not.
So that's the background here. Now let's proceed to the next question: is there actually an answer to Chris' challenge?
It sounds like our boy is about to give up, as he has "looked everywhere" and "tried everyone." Well, seek and ye shall find. It's always, ironically, in the last place you look.
Early in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov there is a rather curious exchange. The bastard Smerdyakov is at his father's table when the elder Karamazov notices that his lackey has been piqued by a rather gruesome story:
That morning Gregory had gone in Lukyanov’s shop to buy something, and the owner had told him a story about a Russian soldier who, while serving somewhere far away, on the frontier, had been taken prisoner by Asian tribesmen.
Under threat of torture, he was ordered to renounce the Christian religion and be converted to the Muslim faith. He refused and underwent the ordeal. They flayed him alive and he died a martyr’s death, praising and glorifying Christ.
....
"It's about that soldier, sir." Smerdyakov said in an unexpectedly loud, brisk voice. "Even if his act was very brave, I still think he would not have sinned if he had renounced Christ on that occasion, as well as his own baptismal vows, so as to save his life for good works, which in time would have made up for his moment of weakness"
"What do you mean, would not have sinned? You’re saying wicked things and you’ll go straight to hell for it. They’ll roast you there like mutton," Mr. Karamazov declared.
…
"As for the mutton, sir, that’s not so. I won’t get into trouble for it there. I couldn’t if there’s true justice," Smerdyakov declared sententiously.
"What do you mean 'if there’s true justice?'" Mr. Karamazov said, gaily egging him on and nudging Alyosha with his knee.
"He’s just no good, that’s what!" Gregory suddenly blurted out, glaring at Smerdyakov.
"Don’t you be in such a hurry to call me names, Mr. Gregory," Smerdyakov parried with quiet self-assurance. "You’d better try to work it out for yourself. If I happen to be in the hands of Christ’s enemies and they demand that I curse the name of God and renounce my holy baptism, my reason tells me that I have the right to do it, and that there would be no sin in doing so."
"You’ve already said that. Don’t just keep repeating it again and again — prove it!" Mr. Karamazov said challengingly.
"Just listen to the miserable cook!" Gregory hissed scornfully.
"Again, don’t be in too much of a hurry to call me names instead of trying to reason things out, Mr. Gregory, because the moment I say to my captors, 'No, I’m no Christian and I curse my God,' I at once become anathema by God’s highest judgment and am banned from the Church, just as if I was a heathen — all that not within a second of when I say it, but the moment I think it; before a quarter of a second has passes after I’ve thought it, I’m already excommunicated from the Church. Isn’t that right, Mr. Gregory?"
…
"You’re anathema and you’re damned already!" Gregory exploded suddenly again. "And how dare you argue after that, you scum, when…"
"Stop that, Gregory, don’t keep abusing him like that," Mr. Karamazov interrupted him.
"Why don’t you wait a short moment, Mr. Gregory, and hear what I have to say, because I haven’t finished yet. Because at the very moment when God damns me, at that exact, precise moment, it’s just the same as if I’d become a heathen and my baptism is taken away from me and no longer counts. Don’t you agree at least with that?"
"Come, my boy, get to the point quickly," Mr. Karamazov urged, sipping his brandy with relish.
"Well, then, if I’m no longer a Christian, it’s not a lie if I told my torturers when they asked me whether I was a Christian or not. Because by that time God Himself has stripped me of my Christianity, just for having thought it, before I even said one word to them. And if I was already stripped of it, how could they accuse me in the other world of renouncing Christ since, before I could renounce Him, I had already been deprived of my baptism? It’s the same as for a pagan Tartar: who could hold him responsible, even in heaven, Mr. Gregory, for not having been born a Christian, and who would want to punish him for that, since no one can strip two hides off the same ox? Besides, God Almighty Himself, even if He decides to punish the Tartar after he dies (since it’s impossible not to punish him at all), would give him only a very small punishment, considering that a Tartar cannot be blamed for having been brought into this world by infidel parents…”
Now I'm going to take a wild guess that Chris would not consider converting to Islam as a particularly moral act, but Smerdyakov ignores that aspect of the story and more narrowly focuses on the morality of renouncing Christianity in such circumstances. Bear in mind that this is not some trivial exercise that Dostoevsky is engaging in here. He writes about this for good reasons. CH knows his Bible, and must be aware that being persecuted for one's faith in such a manner is a test, a leitmotif, that occurs throughout the Judeo-Christian tradition. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Jesus himself, early Christians, many others.
I could without hesitation claim to renounce my atheist socialism at gunpoint, but there's an enormous moral distinction, and no equivalence at all, between that act and a Christian denouncing Christ in such a situation. It's easy today to underestimate how much ethical and intellectual courage it must have required then for a theist to commit such a hypothetical act. Many good and moral people at that time had been tricked by clerics and religion into believing that foolishness and cowardice at such a critical moment would in fact be virtue and valor.
So what Smerdyakov broadly recommends is a moral act that a religious person could do but which a nonbeliever could not. A nonreligious person can't overcome such deep theistic indoctrination and renounce a faith that they don't possess to justifiably save their life. And it satisfies Chris' tacit requirement: He no doubt believes that renouncing Christianity under such a scenario, and averting a needless and stupid suicide, would be the moral and just thing to do. Plus Hitchens is such a faggot for literature that I don't know how he could resist an answer like this plucked from a passage in arguably the greatest novel of all time, a book whose whole purpose was tendentious, Christianist propaganda. This answer lives up not only to the letter of the challenge, but its spirit too, as this also vindicates the whole implication of the contest. The only answers to such a challenge are ones that further discredit the faithful concerning questions of morality.
Yes, one could imagine Ol' Hitch curtly replying to such an answer with a "Listen you scoundrel, you are as stupid as that flunkey Smerdyakov!" However, we have prepared for that contingency. "But Mr. Christopher sir" we'd say "it's always rewarding talking to a clever man, so who would that make you if you insist on such a comparison?":
"You’ve already said that. Don’t just keep repeating it again and again — prove it! [that the act is moral]" Mr. Karamazov said challengingly."
...
"Ah hell, I can't even think what I would do to whoever it was who first invented God. Hanging would be too good for him." [said Fydor]
"If they hadn't invented God, there would have been no civilization today" [said Ivan]
"No civilization without God? Why?"
"Nor would there be any whiskey. I must take that Johnny Walker away from you."
"Wait, wait, my boy, just one more little glass of Johnny Walker... Tell me, Ivan, do you like Alyosha?"
"I do."
"I want you to like him." Mr. Karamazov said, now visibly drunk.
So let the word go forth that Hitchens Watch has now incontrovertibly solved the riddle. In fact Comrades, we've been aware of this solution for years but did not bother claiming our trophy. Why? Well, let's just say that it would have made us feel a little bit too much like the Zionists Avraham Stern and Lehi when they reached out to Hitler. And we all know how well that went. But just for the public record, and for our vast audience of entire dozens of readers out there: Hitchens is a deadbeat who owes us big, yet again (Hitchens Watch is still awaiting our cut of the profits from GING. The cheque must have got lost in the mail. Poor Mark G. is in penury, toiling away in some arctic wasteland right now, and how has 'Itchens repaid him for enriching him beyond his wildest dreams of avarice? Like this. I haven't seen somebody so happy to see an old friend since that photo of Clinton meeting with Kim Jong-il last year. Indeed, 'Itchens will be hearing soon from our lawyers, perhaps with a frivolous lawsuit -- Obama hasn't brought in tort reform yet!).
Granted Our Antagonist would probably not be too keen to bestow the prize upon his most hated enemies who have been besmirching and sullying his good name for so long, but he has to admit that this is the winning answer, and that he owes us our prize (even if it is probably going to be an autographed copy of GING or something worthless like that). After all, while it sure may not look like it, Hitchens is trying to be intellectually honest. And who knows, Chris is just queer enough of a cat to concede that we've won. |
