Happy Darwin Day

Happy Darwin Day! Unfortunately, I missed the celebrations down on campus yesterday due to illness. But it's Sunday, so let's take a look at what some of my fellow atheists have been up to.

Last night Christopher Hitchens "debated" Playthell Benjamin, a writer for The Black World Today. I put debated in quotes because it was apparently not much of a debate. The New York Daily News reports*:

The catcalls started almost from the moment the prickly Brit began defending the Iraq adventure during Wednesday night's squabble at the Ethical Culture Society.

"Make zoo noises!" Hitchens taunted. "Bear in mind, if you had been listened to, Bosnia would part of greater Serbia, Afghanistan would be run by the Taliban, and Saddam Hussein would still be in charge of Iraq."

For good measure, he added: "British intelligence was quite right to say that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Niger. That you can look up."

To which a peacenik screamed: "F- you!"

"Shut up," Hitchens retorted. "You're rude and silly. And ugly."

An eyewitness account of the night can be found at The Accuser:

Hitchens opening was clean, concise, well-thought out and argued. In fact, an actual opening statement. He set out, and this is important because it was the only point he was allowed the make the entire debate and not be interrupted, why he supported the war and why the war was just. He mentioned the four conditions under which a country is allowed to be invaded (of which Iraq had broken all). He mentioned the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, the legislation unanimously passsed by the US Senate (and near-unanimous House).

Playthell, on the other hand, did not make a single argument. And for an atheist, he certainly preached an awful lot. And... like a bunch of trained seals, the audience learned to bark at the right comments (PNAC, Blood for Oil, George the Second, etc). Hitchens came to debate, and instead, he got to watch a grown man yammer on and had to endure an audience that preferred Playthell's ranting to a reasoned debate.

It's the sort of thing one goes to Church for... to listen to someone who says exactly what you believe. But that is because people are afraid to listen to reasoned arguments. Because to discuss something using reason, means to open yourself up to the possibility of being wrong. It means you have to think about what you believe, instead of just believing it.

Sam Harris has a new screed up at Truthdig in which he bears down on "the Reality of Islam":

Let us take stock of the moral intuitions now on display in the House of Islam: On Aug. 17, 2005, an Iraqi insurgent helped collect the injured survivors of a car bombing, rushed them to a hospital and then detonated his own bomb, murdering those who were already mortally wounded as well as the doctors and nurses struggling to save their lives. Where were the cries of outrage from the Muslim world? Religious sociopaths kill innocents by the hundreds in the capitols of Europe, blow up the offices of the U.N. and the Red Cross, purposefully annihilate crowds of children gathered to collect candy from U.S. soldiers on the streets of Baghdad, kidnap journalists, behead them, and the videos of their butchery become the most popular form of pornography in the Muslim world, and no one utters a word of protest because these atrocities have been perpetrated “in defense of Islam.” But draw a picture of the Prophet, and pious mobs convulse with pious rage. One could hardly ask for a better example of religious dogmatism and its pseudo-morality eclipsing basic, human goodness.

Noted apostate from Islam, Ibn Warriq, weighed in on the cartoon controversy last week:

A democracy cannot survive long without freedom of expression, the freedom to argue, to dissent, even to insult and offend. It is a freedom sorely lacking in the Islamic world, and without it Islam will remain unassailed in its dogmatic, fanatical, medieval fortress; ossified, totalitarian and intolerant. Without this fundamental freedom, Islam will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality; originality and truth.

On the world stage, should we really apologize for Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe? Mozart, Beethoven and Bach? Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Breughel, Ter Borch? Galileo, Huygens, Copernicus, Newton and Darwin? Penicillin and computers? The Olympic Games and Football? Human rights and parliamentary democracy? The west is the source of the liberating ideas of individual liberty, political democracy, the rule of law, human rights and cultural freedom. It is the west that has raised the status of women, fought against slavery, defended freedom of enquiry, expression and conscience. No, the west needs no lectures on the superior virtue of societies who keep their women in subjection, cut off their clitorises, stone them to death for alleged adultery, throw acid on their faces, or deny the human rights of those considered to belong to lower castes.

Finally, I want to return to Hitchens and his comments on the cartoon controversy up at Slate. I think he makes several good points but the one that hasn't been made often is in regards to the Bush administraion:

As well as being a small masterpiece of inarticulacy and self-abnegation, the statement from the State Department about this week's international Muslim pogrom against the free press was also accidentally accurate.

"Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief."

Thus the hapless Sean McCormack, reading painfully slowly from what was reported as a prepared government statement. How appalling for the country of the First Amendment to be represented by such an administration. What does he mean "unacceptable"? That it should be forbidden? And how abysmal that a "spokesman" cannot distinguish between criticism of a belief system and slander against a people...Therefore there is a strong case for saying that the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and those who have reprinted its efforts out of solidarity, are affirming the right to criticize not merely Islam but religion in general. And the Bush administration has no business at all expressing an opinion on that. If it is to say anything, it is constitutionally obliged to uphold the right and no more.

Emphasis is mine. This is a very salient point. The Bush administration indeed has no business at all taking sides here. Does Bush & Co. now want to censor South Park? Does it want to silence atheists? I am offended that one of the branches of our government has gone on record against free speech here (not surprising, though) and repeats the ridiculous piety that religion is exceptional so thusly should be given a get out of jail free card. If anything, more criticism of religion is needed.

*See comments.