What Hitchens expresses in his (admittedly non-responsive) answer is essentially the problem of evil. Why would a loving and all-powerful god permit the evils that befell, say, Elisabeth Fritzl? It is (or should be) a difficult question for theists. But understand the limitations of the problem of evil.
The problem of evil is not a logical disproof of god. It could be that god is all-powerful, but malevolent. It could also be true that god is loving, but not all-powerful. Indeed it may even be the case that god is both loving and all-powerful and his reasons for permitting evil are beyond our understanding. So the problem of evil is not an argument for atheism.
This is precisely why I like Hitchens. Unlike Dawkins and Harris, Hitchens doesn’t make a case against god’s existence. He doesn’t give a damn. As Dr. Kleiner says, “The least interesting fact about god is that he exists.” The question for Hitchens isn’t whether god exists (though of course Hitchens doesn’t believe god does), but whether god is worthy of worship. In the spirit of Job, Hitchens is demanding that god account for the evil in the world. And it is not of enough for god to bark, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” That makes god sound like the “celestial dictator” Hitchens accuses him of being.
And in these videos, where he debates the Ten Commandments with Evangelical radio personality Todd Friel, Hitchens again voices a moral (not scientific) opposition to the God of the Bible. He argues that even were Christianity true, the atonement was a wicked abrogation of our free will and personal responsibility and that an eternity in Heaven would—for him—be Hell.
The problem with Hitchen’s answer is that it does not address the question. He asserts that Theism doesn’t server the downtroden, but it doesn’t follow that atheism does. Perhaps nothing serves the downtroden – is it better to believe that your plight is tolerated by the indifference of man or the indifference of god?
Though for the person asking the question, you don’t earn points saying that one person’s ideas are for intellignet people but your notions are better served to the ignorant. Not a particularly wise tactic that.
My particular answer to the question is that by believing that a person and their society is responsible for their situation there is an empowering notion. Society can’t ignore a problem because it will be rectified in the next life, or because it is percieved as the celestial order of things or god’s will (how many evils are tolerated by that pretense). Living with the notion that someone’s suffering is the only existance they will know is substantially more difficult than believing their suffering is only temporary and they will move on to better things. It puts the impotus on a person to want to improve what they have now, and on society to be less tolerant of suffering. Removing an intervening theistic worldview cements accountability and responsibility on humans, both for themselves and for their fellow organisms.
Josh,
I am inclined to say that atheism is an intelligent person’s solution to theist paradoxes. When one considers the problem of evil there is no good theist solution for the the reasoning person. The intelligent person may conclude the starkness of ‘the void’.
However, I have seen the best theist solution lived by ‘the simple’ and not reasoned by the intelligent. Their hope-filled lived solution has no reasoning. Sit in the presence of a child that is going to die of cancer. Their simple hope in the next world is not reasonable but it is profound.
Jewish wisdom simply states that the world is created with darkness so that the lived hopeful solution becomes a brighter light of good than if the world were all light. It is no answer, but it recognizes the brilliance of hope.
I agree with the first video questioner. I also agree that Hitchens has found his own solution. It may be intelligent but I don’t consider it profound.
I am not so sure I want to pit intelligence and ‘the simple’ against each other quite so. And my experience with most atheists I encounter in my classes is that they are as thoughtless as most of the theists SHAFTers seem to know (obligatory disclaimer: I am pleased that this blog seems to be an exception to both alleged rules).
But your point about the “intelligent” versus the “profound” hits the Marcel point I tried to make. Hitchens solution is not profound because it is a solution to a problem instead of a plumbing of a mystery. He rejects the possibility of mystery from the very beginning. So his solution is tidy and complete, but it is closed instead of open. This leaves him nowhere to move. This is sad, he loses some of his own humanity in his answer (see Marcel’s point that mysteries are different from problems because we are ourselves caught up in the mysteries). The stories Vince has shared here about suffering and hope have so much more humanity in them than Hitchens’ resentful diatribes against the supposed ‘celestial dictator’.
The PBS film done a few years ago called “God on Trial” reminds me of this point as well. If I recall the ending correctly, they find God guilty and conclude that “God is not good”, and yet they finish the trial with a prayer. After all is said and done, they remain within the lived tension of the mystery. Indeed, they cannot escape it. This is the profound place, that is the human condition. Ironically it is the atheist Hitchens here who has the “easy” answer, too easy to my way of thinking. The resentful “no” is just banal.
Thus my saying that Hitchen’s answer was “admittedly non-responsive.” But I agree with your response to the question–that atheism can be empowering to some and burdensome to others.
To be fair to the answer given to Job, it is not just that God said “Where were you at the foundation of the world?” That is an important part of the story, and an important lesson. Evil is a great mystery, and the lesson Job learns is the lesson Socrates always teaches – we are surprisingly ignorant of the real causes and purposes of things. Man is not the master.
But what Jon forgets, in appealing to Job, is that Job did get an “answer” to the problem of evil. Look, Job seems a reasonable fellow. And he expresses the problem of evil – which is much more a lived existential problem than it is a theoretical problem – better than any philosopher could. Job demands of God the answer to suffering, just like Hitchens. But what is forgotten by Jon, in his appeal to Job, is that Job is in fact satisfied with God’s answer. Now how could he be satisfied with an answer that amounts to “You don’t know my business, so back off”? As Jon says, what kind of an answer is that? But it is not the words that satisfy Job, Job sees God’s “face”. Job’s response to God is not, “Hey, you didn’t really answer my question!” Job’s response is humility and submission. What other response is possible in the face of God? Hitchens, however, refuses to see God’s face. He is too hard of heart. So the problem of evil remains a difficulty for him, he lives the problem but refuses to live the solution.
Both the cause and the cure of evil are the greatest of mysteries. Mysteries are different than problems. The French existentialist Gabriel Marcel is very good on the difference:
“A problem is something which I meet, which I find completely before me, but which I can therefore lay siege to and reduce. But a mystery is something in which I am myself involved, and it can therefore only be thought of as a sphere where the distinction between what is in me and what is before me loses its meaning and initial validity.”
In short, a problem is different than a mystery because I am caught up in and involved in mysteries but not in problems. The identity of the person asking about a problem is not an issue, but the identity of the person contemplating a mystery is an issue. (For SHAFTers of a continental disposition, there are fingerprints of Heidegger here – Dasein/man asks the question of being, but in asking the question of being he is always already implicated in the question as the questioner whose own being is also an issue for him).
Another big difference, for Marcel, between problems and mysteries is that mysteries cannot be solved with “techniques” or through reduced modes of thinking. Mysteries are “plumbed”, not “solved”.
Point is, there is no tidy “answer” or “solution” to the problem of evil. The Catechism says, “No quick answer will suffice. Only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer … There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil.” (CCC 309). The problem is lived, but the only solution is also a lived solution. +
Jon is right about Hitchens. He is often not so interested in the existence question as he is about questions regarding God’ attributes (is God really Love? Is God worthy of worship). This is important, and I think it explains some of Hitchens intemperance.
CS Lewis remarked that when he was an atheist, he “did not believe God existed. I was also very angry with him for not existing. I was also angry with him for having created the world.” This is Hitchens’ attitude – he is angry. This is, I think, a legitimate expression. And it is a very personal expression, it is not abstract or theoretical. But that means that it is not really an intellectual problem per se. This problem is different than the problem skeptical scientists (Dawkins, etc) have. For the skeptical scientist, the problem is a problem of hypothesis.
For Hitchens, it is not that kind of a problem, it is a problem of betrayal. Hitchens is like an angry divorcee, his lover has been unfaithful or has broken the basic trust. As such, his comportment with the God question is characterized by resentment and rebellion. This is why I said Hitchens is “hard of heart”. His problem is not really an intellectual problem, it is a “heart” problem.
I think it’s important to note that after God responds to Job, he turns to his friends (the “yes-men” if you will) and declares “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7, NRSV). This seems to suggest that God believes that it is better to act like Job than his friends who came up with all sorts of inappropriate responses to the problem of evil. I would hope that most theists take their God seriously enough to grapple with him as Job did (that said, I think that most theists on this blog, including Dr. Kleiner, are of the thoughtful variety and I don’t mean to accuse them of being flippant about God).
This is further illustrated in Elie Wiesel’s play, The Trial of God (it’s very different from the movie). In it, an innkeeper and his daughter are the sole survivors of a pogrom in the Ukraine during the 1600′s. He, like Job, is angry with God and doesn’t that there is an adequate theodicy to defend the death and destruction that occurred in the village. Eventually, one of his customers offers to defend God, and postulates that man can’t see what God sees, and thus we must simply “endure, accept, and say amen.” At the end of the play, he has convinced most of the people (with the exception of the innkeeper) of this line of thinking, and they all ask him to save them from the mob that has come to finish the pogrom (as they believe that he is a holy man). However, the defender reveals himself to be Satan, and laughingly ends the play with the lines “So-you took me for a saint, a Just? Me? How could you be that blind? How could you be that stupid? If only, you knew, if only you knew…”
I guess my point with all this is that I think that to “endure, accept, and say amen” is not godly. Quite the opposite in fact. It’s satanic. God didn’t like it in the Book of Job, and Satan encouraged people to adopt such a mentality in the Trial of God. My question to Dr. Kleiner is how to be like Job without being like Hitchens (whom you have said has a “hard heart”). We clearly need to grapple with the question of God’s goodness, but at the same time we need to avoid being “hard of heart.” How do we walk the line as believers and non-believers alike?
Great post, Mike. I don’t have some kind of ready made answer to your question. Though I used to be an atheist, I now never deny God. That doesn’t even seem like a living possibility to me. But I wrestle with God (Israel, he who wrestles with God). But how one wrestles makes a big difference. My own personal experience is that bitterness and resentment are poison in the soul. The theological virtues – faith, hope, and love – seem to be the cure for such spiritual ills.
I am also reminded of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who when asked what the four cardinal virtues are replied, “Humility, humility, humility, and humility.” It is easy to forget that man (and one should always think first of oneself here)belongs in the dock. My faith is extremely confident, but it is the kind of confidence that can grow only out of restlessness. St. Augustine has written most clearly about this in the Confessions (really a must read for anyone who strives to be literate).
The Evangelical Radio Host was excessively irritating and Hitchens gave all responses honestly and thoroughly. The Host refused to listen. He was looking for Hitchens to give the only answer the Host could imagine.
During the exchange (I couldn’t listen to the whole exchange) Hitchens stated that he saw no need to praise a god responsible for the good things in his life. Additionally, he felt if god was real then those that suffer (like Job) would have every right to complain about the bad-father god. Hitchens would take Job’s complaints to the bitter end just as Kleiner suggests. I think the first video did present the real question to Hitchens — and he gave only his bitter answer.
Here are my observations of human nature that pertain to the question about ‘hope’ that theism offers based on my work at a recreational camp for the physically handicapped (Camp Courage at Maple Lake, Minnesota during summers of 75, 76, 77). The overwhelming majority of those with handicaps from birth defects are looking forward to a new life with a whole body. These people are incredibly articulate about their positive view of life in spite of the life they have been handed and the hope of a new life after death. There is the blind nun who thinks it is wonderful that ‘Jesus will be the first face she ever sees’. There was the computer expert with only one fully developed leg and no arms, who saw no barrier to his life, but did look forward to life beyond death. My work at the camp came right after I had left the Mormon Church. The positive personalities of these ‘unfortunates’ turned me back towards pursuing G-d seriously. (Maybe I need another dose of summer employment at Camp Courage for my benefit.)
Those who became a paraplegic or quadriplegic as adults had a lower percentage of theistic hope (maybe 60%). Many of the 40% demonstrated a bitter personality that everyone can certainty understand. I remember the 20-year-old who suffered a brain injury in a motorcycle crash (no helmet). He tried to throw himself out of his wheelchair and into a camp fire twice before they sent him home. I personally think that he will find his peace after life even as he struggles in his current life. Those who maintained a hope of repair after death were incredibly inspirational. I am thinking of the truck driver who now paints with a brush in his mouth, of the paraplegic teenager who discovered himself through a Christian cliff climbing club, etc, etc.
The joy of these ‘damaged’ humans from this ‘false hope’ is strangely compelling for its positive effects on their personality and those that benefit from their friendship. The positive effects were blindingly apparent at this camp for the handicapped (the blind shall ‘see’ and those that see will remain ‘blind’).
One of the people (camper) I talked to as I left Camp Courage for the last time was Jo Jo, a 25-year-old cerebral palsy victim confined to a wheel chair her entire life. She was not able to dress herself or feed herself. I was a good friend of the female camp counselor who generally care for Jo Jo during the two-week stay at Camp. My friend made sure I got to know Jo Jo. We often sat at the same table for meals. As I was leaving CC, Jo Jo gave me wise words for life then asked me if I had something that she could pray for. I mumbled some generic request and she chastised me, ‘In my present body I cannot do anything BUT pray. This is my work, to pray! Give me some work to do!” I shared personal struggles for the first time because I had previously failed to see how she could ever help me. We smiled, hugged, then parted ways.
One more item I noticed of these giants of faith in this ‘false hope’, they were often faith-filled without dogma. They were just as comfortable at a Mormon service as at a Lutheran service. I was the travel companion for a young gentleman with Lou Gehrig’s disease, Steve Hansen. I was asked to attend him to give his parents a 2-week break because I was very good at reading his ‘finger writing’ on the handle of his wheelchair and we enjoyed ‘talking’ during his camp visits each year. We went to listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square on one of Steve’s winter visits. Steve was very impressed by the friendliness of the usher that helped us find a good place for Steve’s wheelchair. I translated for a 5-minute conversation between the usher and Steve. After the usher left Steve told me that he was looking forward to speaking directly to that nice man in heaven.
Believe me I did not give a modicum of the benefit that I received from these wonderful believers in this false hope of a future restored body and brain. Dawkins’s complaint that he tries to put in their mouths falls dead on the floor.
I don’t hear an answer to the problem from this explanation either. All you seem to say is that the possible good that religion can do in a persons life out weighs the possible bad. It doesn’t address the problem of evil, or the evil acts that God partakes in and condones.
If you are to judge everything based solely on experience, then someone is equally justified in showing that God is an evil force. Yes, you can think of all the handicapped people that have found hope in their lives. But do not forget all of the murders, rape, torture, and abuse that has come about through religious peoples and religious texts. This isn’t a good way of determining truth.
In either case, it’s only a good reason to not believe in a deity who claims to be all powerful, all knowing, and all loving. Any other type of God could wiggle around this problem. I do think it is an issue that theists need to confront. Personally, I see religious people ignore the problem far too often. Atheists use this as a means to break the mental boundaries of many that prevent them from questioning their god. It opens them to the possibility of doubting that god exists.
Ben, I agree that it is an issue that needs to be faced by theists. I think I have pointed this out here before, but St. Thomas Aquinas could only find 2 objections to the existence of God. This is noteworthy, since I believe it is the only place in the entire Summa where he finds fewer than 3 objections to something. Anyway, the 2 objections are the problem of evil and the problem of miracles (that God is a superfluous hypothesis if naturalistic explanations can be comprehensive).
I am sure you are right that religious people ignore the issue too often. But, as a counter-point to that, it is worth pointing out that some of the sternest and most thorough expressions of the problem have come from religious writers (Augustine comes to mind right away), not from atheists. And I don’t know that this is just the few religious who are so capable. An old professor of mine, in his phil of religion classes, breaks up the class into two groups. He has all who are atheists try to make arguments for God, and he has all the theist students make arguments against God. What he finds every time is that the theists make powerful arguments against God (indeed, sometimes better arguments than the atheists themselves can muster!), but the atheists come up with pathetic arguments for God. (I know, I know, that is because ‘there aren’t any good args for God’).
One last point, and I am sorry if I am belaboring the problem/mystery distinction here. But one of the frustrating things for atheists about theist answers to the problem of evil is that they are not “solutions.” I think you are right, Vince did not provide a “solution” or an “explanation” to the problem of evil. What he did provide were some really human stories that plumbed the mystery of evil. In other words, the theist never really gives the atheist the sort of answer the atheist wants, because the theist is thinking in terms of mystery while the atheist is thinking in terms of problem.
(I might add, I do think there is a “problem” approach the theist can take, and the standard apologist move is to link natural evil to moral evil and use the goodness of free will combined with original sin to “explain/solve” the problem of pain. I think it is a satisfactory answer, as far as things go when you are looking for that kind of an answer. It gets God off the hook, so to speak. But it is, again, “intelligent” instead of profound).
By the way, looking at Aquinas’ 2 objections to the existence of God just shows how little there is “new” about the “new atheism”. Actually, if you want nice and succinct arguments against God, Thomas is a great place to turn (though both are packed in with some jargon).
Thomas, from the Summa, Part I, Question 2, Article 3:
“Objection 1. It seems that God does not exist; because if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But the word “God” means that He is infinite goodness. If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist.
Objection 2. Further, it is superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few principles has been produced by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be reduced to one principle which is nature; and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God’s existence.”
How could I forget Dostoevsky? If you want a potent expression of the problem of evil, look no further than the Brothers Karamazov (the greatest novel ever written?). If you don’t want to read the whole book (and you really should read the whole book if you have not), then read The Grand Inquisitor chapter (you can buy it stand-alone).
Ben,
You are right. There is no solution in my comments. When I was re-examining my belief system as a 20-year-old, I had two requirements that a ‘system’ had to meet:
The ‘Truth’ (which I use with great humility here) had to be —
1. accessible to the simple human, and
2. deeper than the most intelligent human
The solution to the problem of evil seems best expressed to me in the unfathomable hope of my friends at the recreational camp for the handicapped people of Minnesota — Jo Jo in particular. At the same time the problem can be pondered by the intelligent person continually with reason and insight to the end of life. Maybe the intelligent human might not find a satisfactory solution, but the wise human can step back from reason to maybe ‘understand’ the solution presented by the simple human — a mysterious hope in G-d who is good. They live a positive life that encourages others rather than discourages. The problem of evil is a mystery from beginning to end, but my friend Jo Jo lived the solution and I am still trying to grasp it intellectually and live it existentially.
As to theists ignoring the problem, I have got to say I struggle with this problem greatly. I sometimes feel like the prophet of Lamentations looking out across the desolation of Jerusalem. Where is good? Where is justice? Does the No-god reign? Hitchens has leaped into the abyss of the no-god and feels intellectually satisfied in the leap. I stand at the edge and stare into it. I shudder. Like Nietzsche said, ‘when you stare into the abyss, it stares back at you.’ I cannot take that leap and weakly try to emulate Jo Jo’s solid hope of G-d’s goodness. The profound part of her simple solution is that she lives it in a positive life without an intellectually satisfying system of reason.
Ben, I have no intellectual system to state the solution to the problem of evil. I have to rely on prose to paint my response to the problem of evil and leap into Jo Jo’s answer. Her smile towards me is a face of G-d’s goodness that does not cause me to shudder like the face of the abyss.
Faith beyond (in spite of) reason is probably why I like Kierkegaard and Pascal so much.
Dostoevsky also puts the no-god solution into Ivan’s deep intellectual analysis and the faith solution into the simple brother, Alyosha.
Kleiner, I didn’t say that theists haven’t thought/discussed the problem. Only that your everyday believer and practitioner doesn’t think about it. I have a feeling that your social religious circles tend to be more philosophical and thought prone. Unfortunately that isn’t in the majority of religious America. However, thanks for pointing out Aquinas’ objections.
Vince: “I had two requirements that a ’system’ had to meet: The ‘Truth’ (which I use with great humility here) had to be —
1. accessible to the simple human, and
2. deeper than the most intelligent human”
This seems like an extremely biased and error filled way to go about finding truth. Why can’t truth be complicated, inaccessible, and not knowable to a simple mind/human? Or why does it have to be “deep”? To me, it seems as if you started out with some very strong assumptions. You don’t start out trying to find truth by determining what that truth is and then finding the easiest reasons to accept it. That isn’t truth, it’s making up whatever one likes.
Ben,
Yes those are perhaps flawed requirements on answers to many questions. However, those 2 items don’t state the questions that we are asking (Why evil?). Some questions may have easy answers and some questions may have very complex answers, but “why?” questions often seem beyond answers. So the paradox of my requirements on the answers to those questions seem very apropos. However, I recognize that the paradox is only set up because I stand on theist ground. The atheist ground has a simple answer to ‘why?’ questions that amount to ‘because the amoral universe says so.’ Simple! Terrifying!
As a theist main objection to my Mormon upbringing is the feeling that I was generally given simplistic answers to these very difficult questions. So I start to require my two rules of any truth that a religion puts forward.
My requirements may only make sense to the theist, because the atheist has a ready answer. “Because the amoral universe says so.” This can be the simple answer and the science of the universe can be the complex answer, but neither is a profound answer. The atheist can stand with pride over every question, just as Hitchens does.
As a theist I must approach paradoxes of “Why?” differently.
The requirement that the answers be deeper than the deepest thinker only means that humility is really required by the intelligent as they approach questions. On a philosophically inclined blog you ought to recognize that even the simplest questions do not have transparently simple answers. Cause and effect of the simplest observation in life has been called into question by Hume for example.
The requirement that the answers be accessible to the simple only means that even they must be able to live a good life before G-d in the midst of these questions. The answer of living well in a difficult world can even be accomplished by a child. (Jesus said, “Let the children come to me for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”) Again — humility.
The theist answer to difficult questions? I guess it is really just as simple as the atheist’s answer, but the theist must answer with humility. Live with humility before question. The simple come by it naturally.
To the atheist ‘humility’ may be no answer, but to the theist ‘humility’ is the only answer. I agree with everyone that it is bad that too many religious people do not live this answer (including me).
I hope it is obvious that I have not defined ‘the simple’ as opposed to ‘the intelligent’. For example, Jo Jo was not stupid but I would not put her as intellectual. I need to use profound and simple simultaneously to describe her — like Alyosha of ‘Brothers Karamozov’ — or Prince Myshkin of ‘The Idiot’ also by Dostoyevsky.
In my last post I assigned pride to the atheist position and humility to the theist position as part of their respective answers to ‘why is there evil’ type questions. I am viewing both of these terms as positive in these statements. Indeed, I also recognize that both pride and humility can have arrogance, which I view negatively.
Oops. It is obviously not Dawkin’s but Hitchens’s words that fall dead on the floor (or lower).
It appears that this thread is done. However, I would like to think about a conversation between Dr. Hitchens and Jo Jo as he tries to pose a solution for her to life live well in his material world. Please give Jo Jo better alternatives than the one she has chosen (G-d).
————–
Hitchens: Jo Jo. I see you are in a wheel chair. I have come to sit with you today and feed you for dinner so that I might also answer any questions about this life you are living.
Jo Jo: Well I hope I am serving G-d well.
Hitchens: Well that is just it, Jo Jo. God really doesn’t exist. You just were born under unfortunate circumstances. That is really too bad, but it is foolish to think that god can give your situation any meaning. People are born with unfortunate conditions and that is just the way it is.
Jo Jo: I always felt that there was a reason — a meaning behind why I was made this way. I have been taught that the world is damaged because of humanity’s sin and I was born imperfect in this fallen and imperfect world. We are all imperfect though aren’t we Mr. Hitchens? But even in this imperfect body in this imperfect world I can try to be kind and do good. Some day, probably after I die, G-d will make a new earth and give me a new body and a new life.
Hitchens: Well, no. First, You were just born this way. There are no reasons and no meaning. You just are. You need to learn to live in your situation as best you can. You can certainly be kind and good if you like. That is commendable. I know I have been born with a less damaged body, but I see no reasons or meaning. It is just the way it is. I find Nietzsche a helpful guide in life. He recommends that beings find their natural ‘will to power’. To find the will to live the life you desire to live. Unfortunately, your abilities limit your will to power, but it is important to do the best you can.
Jo Jo: I don’t know. I feel that G-d has given me at least something important to do in what you might consider my helpless condition. I pray for people if they are sick or lonely. I pray for people if they are strong and healthy. I pray for people to serve G-d well. I can encourage people and let them encourage me. G-d has asked me (or really everyone) to be kind and …
Hitchens: Well. You are praying to empty air. There is no power there. You must establish your own power. Do you read?
Jo Jo: Well, I listen to books-on-tape because I am legally blind.
Hitchens: Ok. I think I can get a copy of “The Gay Science” for you on tape. In it Nietzsche proposes that god is dead and then describes something called ‘eternal recurrence’ to help us seize the moment of life that we experience. Let see. Here is my copy. Let me read you this:
“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more’ … Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.’ ”
Jo Jo: Hmm. You want me to call such a demon – divine? You want me to embrace my wheelchair and physical helplessness and embrace it for all eternity?
Hitchens: That is the best you can do.
Jo Jo: I think G-d offers me hope of a better option.
Hitchens: Wait a minute, Jo Jo. If god is real then he permitted you to be born this way. How can you be so true to a god who put you in this wheelchair? You should be cursing the skies at such a horrible god!
Jo Jo: No. Mr. Hitchens. In don’t understand why I was born this way. I don’t have that answer, but I will not curse G-d. You don’t understand how good G-d has already been to me. He has given me excellent friends in my church community and He has given me work to do in praying for and encouraging people. Eventually, He promises me a new body in wholeness in a new earth.
Hitchens: Just imaginings. There will be no new earth. There is no future hope. You are as you are. Come on Jo Jo. Accept it and live.
Jo Jo: Do you know my friend Vince?
Hitchens: No.
Jo Jo: Well, I was able to help him get past his some of his difficulties in life just because I bear mine with hope and a smile. G-d does good things through me sometimes and I am looking forward to a new body. In fact, Jesus says that in the new Earth “the first will be last and the last will be first.” I think I will be able to beat Vince in a foot race. I would rather not embrace my wheelchair for an infinity of recurring moments.
Hitchens: Well ok. But it is all illusion. You would have a better life if you would simply accept your situation. You know. Another though comes to mind. Job in the Bible thought of this too. It probably would have been better to not have been born than to have to suffer under your situation through a lifetime. Perhaps if you parents had know of your condition they could have requested an abortion.
Jo Jo: No, Mr. Hitchens. I have a hope and you offer none.
May I propose the Nz-ian solution to the video argument and my pretend discussion between Jo Jo and Hitchens. In (good) pride of his own solution and (good) humility towards other’s solutions, Hitchens should agree with Nz that perhaps Christianity may provide needed meaning for many of ‘the simple folk’ like Jo Jo — like me. Hopefully, the simple folk can walk a humble road too. I believe Hitchens’s enemy is not theism, it is arrogant theism.