The Hitchens Challenge

[AlexMagd]

This has been floating around the blogging community for a while, so I thought I'd bring it in here. From the inimitable Mr Hitchens:


Here is my challenge. Let Gerson name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever. And here is my second challenge. Can any reader of this column think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith? The second question is easy to answer, is it not? The first -- I have been asking it for some time -- awaits a convincing reply. By what right, then, do the faithful assume this irritating mantle of righteousness? They have as much to apologize for as to explain.


So can anyone think of an ethical action/statement that can only be performed by a religious person?

[Ellis Pugh]

Haha my favourite! I love this challenge and frequently use it when I'm debating/arguing religious types. So what ethical action can a believer do, that a non-believer cannot? The answers I get are very limited:

- Pray (well duh, but I don't consider prayer an ethical/moral action)
- Love God (again, it's daft and only relevent if 'God' exists)

Perhaps more interesting are the lines of argument which go something like; 'well the call for the end of the slave trade was led by Christian preacher William Wilberforce...' or 'The Civil Rights movement would never had succeeded if it weren't for the Christian Martin Luther King...'. These are more difficult because it is impossible to say whether a non-believer COULD have done what Wilberforce or King did as both cases are placed in a specific time and place.

However you can respond to this by pointing out 1) Problems like the slave trade and racial discrimination were usually tolerated/supported by the church or 2) It is hard to imagine that it would never occur to a single non-believer of the time that slavery or racism was wrong. Therefore this line of argument is flawed and the challenge still stands