By JERRY COYNE - WHY EVOLUTION IS TRUE
Added: Tue, 21 Sep 2010 04:55:39 UTC

Instead of praying for Hitch today, let’s all enjoy watching him take apart the haughty David Berlinski.  Two weeks ago these guys debated the question “Does atheism poison everything?” in Birmingham, Alabama.  C-SPAN has just put up the link to the 68-minute debate; you can also see it, in 15-minute chunks, on YouTube).

UPDATE:  A reasonably good debate, though, after watching Hitchens in action in many of these, I didn’t hear many new arguments. Still, his eloquence remains a treat, especially in the question-and-answer session, where he said the following:

“[All religions] make the same mistake. They all take the only real faculty we have that distinguishes us from other primates, and from other animals—the faculty of reason, and the willingness to take any risk that reason demands of us—and they replace that with the idea that faith is a virtue.  If I could change just one thing, it would be to dissociate the idea of faith from virtue—now and for good—and to expose it for what it is: a servile weakness, a refuge in cowardice, and a willingness to follow, with credulity, people who are in the highest degree unscrupulous.”

Hitchens has the rare ability to utter words that, when reproduced on the page, are perfect prose.

TAGGED: ATHEISM, RELIGION, SPEECHES