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September 10, 2008 | 9:41 am

Answering Hitchens on moral superiority

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By now, everyone knows the name Christopher Hitchens. That’s an impressive feat for a print journalist not named Woodward or Bernstein or at least Hersh. But Hitchens notoriety—and to the God-fearing it is notoriety—stems from his membership in the corps of New Atheists. One of Hitchens main arguments is that man doesn’t need God to be moral. He has made that claim many times, including here, often invites his critics to prove him wrong.

“Name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever,“ he says.

How about worshiping God?

I wish I could say that was my response; it’s a good one. But I can’t claim credit. That goes to Amy Hall of the Stand To Reason Blog, who in responding to Hitchens points out that he doesn’t really want a response because there is no response he would accept:

By the definition of the answer required, we must come up with something that is moral, but that atheists do not recognize as being moral.  But if atheists do not recognize it as moral, Hitchens won’t recognize it as moral.  Therefore, any true example (if it exists) of a moral good that meets the criterion of not being recognized by atheists will, by definition, necessarily be rejected by Hitchens, and any answer that fails to meet the criterion will be easily refuted by him.  It is unanswerable.

Since it is logically impossible to give an answer that will satisfy Hitchens, he may as well ask us to draw him a square circle and then declare himself the winner when we fail.  In the end, his challenge is nothing but a rhetorical trick, and it should be exposed and dismissed as such.  Hitchens should never get away with even asking it, let alone demanding we give him an “acceptable” answer in order to defend theism.

As it happens, there is an answer to Hitchens’s question—one that seemed obvious to me immediately—and it illustrates perfectly the problem with the challenge.  The highest moral good a person can do is to worship the living, true, sovereign God—to love Him with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Not only will no atheist ever do this, no atheist can do this.  But of course, since they do not recognize worship as a real, valid moral good, no atheist would accept this response to Hitchens’s challenge.  They necessarily reject it precisely because it correctly answers the challenge; because it succeeds, it fails.  Any correct answer that exists will necessarily fail.  Only an invalid question could lead to a paradox like this.

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg in 8 Comments — Leave your comment

Tags: atheism, christopher hitchens, god, morality, worship

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I think Amy may be correct about the paradoxical nature of Hitchens’ challenge, but I don’t think that lends any weight to the “worshipping God” response. The fact that the question raises a paradox only outlines the subjective nature of morality. Perhaps that was not Hitchens’ original intent, but he succeeded nonetheless. I find nothing moral or even remotely productive in worshipping any god. In many cases I would call that an immoral action (depending on the god in question, I suppose). What is moral to one person is immoral to another, and no noisy declarations or holy-book-thumping will change that.  Imagine if the question were reversed: I would say that standing on your own two feet without relying on the favor & “grace” of some immaterial overlord who considers you to be unworthy scum is a moral action no theist is capable of. Would you agree with that?

Comment by Jason on 9/10/08 at 11:31 am

For anyone who has played the game “Black and White” the philosophical question arises, Why would a omniscient, omnipotent, omni-good uber-Being wish, desire or even demand its insignificant creations to suck up to them?  How could this syncophancy be a moral good?

Comment by Bill on 9/10/08 at 3:38 pm

There is no paradox here.  For worshipping a god to be ethical, one would have to prove that a god exists in the first place.  Unless you can convince people that a god exists, your assertion that worshipping said god is as meaningless as saying worshipping any other god is ethical or moral.  Is it moral to worship Zeus? Odin? Ra? Cthulu?  Your religion says “no”.  Why?  Because another tenet of your faith is that you shall have no other gods aside from the one you’ve chosen (or, as the case may be, the god you say has chosen you).  So…the pagan who worships the ancient Greek pantheon is somehow less moral than you are—but wait!  That pagan may think you’re immoral for dismissing the validity of that faith. 

This “moral” of worshipping your god is nothing more than a cop-out on the challenge Hitchens puts forth.  You believe that your god is the one true god, dismiss all other possibilities, and never offer any concrete evidence that your god actually exists.  What you accept on faith is somehow “moral”.

Comment by Greg Reich on 9/10/08 at 7:25 pm

Gibberish.

There is nothing moral about believing in gods any more than it’s moral to believe in UFOs, Big Feet or any other myth or legend.

Atheism means one knows there are no such things as gods. It makes no other comment on no other subject, certainly not one as deep and wide as morality.

But theists like good Madison Avenue marketers know that they have to find a use for their useless product and claiming some sort of moral angle is one way. “Buy our god and you’ll be a good person!“ is the message and it makes no more sense than any other aspect of god worshiping.

Comment by salvage on 9/11/08 at 4:44 am

Insofar as ‘worshiping God’ can be seen as ethical, then yes, it’s rather hard for an atheist to reproduce this.

Insofar as most people, many believers included, don’t think that worship is ethical or non-ethical, it’s a weaselly way to answer the question: you’ve taken the one act that atheists cannot do and NAMED it ethical with no religious or rational support for such a claim. “Hey, guess what else? Going to Heaven is ethical!“ “Being religious is ethical!“ “Not being an atheist is ethical!“ (the last example, I might add, being what you’ve just said in essence). Starting to see why this isn’t going to work?

How is an act which helps no one else but results in Earthly and Heavenly rewards for the actor possibly ethical? Where is the altruism, the difficulty of choice, the conflict and perseverance? By this criterion, eating is ethical. Sleeping is ethical. Things that are in my own best interest can be totally ethical?

How is worship considered to be a ethical act even within the various Scriptures? True, lack of worship is often punished, and worship of other gods is frequently met quite harshly, but worship of G-d is more of a duty, instead of a voluntary act of goodness (especially in the Torah).

Besides, your setup of Hitchens’ paradox is nonsense. If you can’t find a way out of it, it is either because it is a paradox, or because it’s true. I am inclined to believe the latter.

Comment by John on 9/11/08 at 6:27 am

The answers and argument presented in this article are just lame. Morality is dependent upon our mental being and how we choose to act and behave and religion does not dictate that. There are billions of people who grow up in China in absence of religion but they choose to do moral things. So how is religion connected to morality?

Comment by John on 9/15/08 at 4:00 am

Tee Heee! Idiocy.

Comment by Bleh on 9/19/08 at 10:51 pm

If God exists, then worshipping it is not ethical or moral, it’s an act of self-preservation.

If God doesn’t exist, then worshipping it is not ethical or moral, it’s silly.

If God used to exist but doesn’t any longer, then worshipping it is not ethical or moral, it’s nostalgia.

Hitchens did not create a paradox, he simply stated as near to a fact as we can get when dealing with bogey men and tooth fairies. As morality is not the exclusive property of the religious/credulous, it’s not possible for a religious person to do something moral or ethical that a athiest cannot do. The corollary of this was of course to name something wicked that a believer *has* done in the name of religion, which is easy to do.

Could it be that religion has no benefits for believers other than “Do unto others as you see fit, then blame it on demons if you’re caught”?

Comment by Koshchei on 11/03/08 at 5:47 pm

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