Collision: Is Christianity Good for the World? - My Thoughts

I’ve recently watched the DVD starring Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson called Collision: Is Christianity Good for the World? and I must say that I didn’t like it much.

I really disliked the formating of the whole DVD because instead of showing the entirety of one discussion they’d show bits and pieces of one discussion and then cut to another discussion on another topic and jump back again to the previous discussion later on. This took place throughout the DVD and was very annoying and made it hard to follow what was being discussed. There were mostly discussions about morality, biblical prophesy and epistemology and little else. Mostly you saw Wilson erecting that done to death strawman by so many theists who continue arguing that an atheist is unable to ground their moral decisions. It annoyed me when Wilson would continually use that argument - even after it was answered by Hitchens - as if it’s a new card he hadn’t dealt before. I hate it when christians simply ignore your reasonable and evidence based arguments and simply trot out the same stuff over and over again. I feel like telling them to shut the hell up because I already answered that and you’re completely ignoring my answer! I think I could consider Wilson the poster child for my blog posts called Christian Apologists Just Don't Understand Morality.

Another gripe I had was the sound track. The hip hop and rap I felt did not fit the setting of this debate or the two men in general. I kept waiting to see if Hitchens and Wilson were going to all of a sudden come out behind a curtain wearing gold chains and parachute pants while wearing baseball caps backwards.

At one point they show a piece of one of their debates where they are discussing morality and Wilson accuses Hitchens of having to borrow the moral standards of christianity in order to make the moral claims he does. Hitchens counters this by arguing that morality is innate and that even before christianity people lived in societies just fine, and even societies that have never heard of christianity often do just fine as well. Wilson goes completely around the argument and says that, ‘See, Hitchens’ claim that religion poisons everything is false since christianity didn’t ruin the innate morality we have and various societies.’ What?! He didn’t even answer the argument! Personally, I would have responded with the fact that, yes it has ruined morality because religion often causes people to go against our innate instinct to not kill one another and despite this they still kill others because of their religious beliefs.

In another clip of one of their debates Wilson says that it was OK to kill the Malacites because god ordered it, and Hitchens objected to this view of “morality” and Wilson counters by claiming that Hitchens also doesn’t care if the Malacites are killed because the “universe doesn’t care.”

This is the kind of nonsense that just makes me want to bang my head against a wall when I listen to christians. I could answer Wilson’s claim in one of two ways. One, I could say that we humans are what make the moral decisions in this world so why in the world are you mentioning the universe? Two, I could argue that the universe does care because we humans are made out of “star stuff,” the same components as the universe, therefore the universe cares. We are simply conscious and autonomous pieces of the universe (in most respects; we still must obey the laws of physics, etc.).

In the next clip Wilson references Freud’s belief that god is simply the projection of a father figure and how the opposite holds true with “atheism as fatherlessness,” which is a completely bogus claim, as I’ve shown in my book review of The Making of an Atheist.

They showed clips of both Hitchens and Wilson at Barnes and Noble (one of my favorite places by the way) signing their book Is Christianity Good for the World? and discussing their own religious views and upbringing.

Near the end of the DVD when they were having a discussion about morality in a tavern Wilson says something that I feel was very immoral. In fact, I think he is a complete asshole for saying it. Hitchens was asking the crowd whether or not they would feel repulsed if they saw a man kicking a pregnant woman in the stomach. Wilson remarked that Planned Parenthood wouldn’t object to the man kicking her. That made me very mad. Of course Planned Parenthood would object, you uncaring son of a bitch! They help women who become pregnant by mistake and only if the woman wants her pregnancy aborted! That’s the damn point! It all relates back to Prime. It also shows you just how naive many (if not most) christians are about these issues.

From the clips I’ve seen of Wilson’s arguments he is a horrible debater and is wholly illogical. In most cases I saw him simply go around Hitchen’s arguments and not even debate the issue at hand. I felt Hitchens made many good arguments and pointed out many flaws with Wilson’s arguments and his general view of the world.

I’ve seen the DVD so maybe I will get their book? It’s only a couple of bucks at Amazon.com so maybe I’ll pick it up. Or I’ll just view what I can at Google Books and save my money since most of these arguments I’ve participated in and have heard just about every argument there is.

Overall, I felt the DVD was very poorly done and Wilson is a piss poor debater and ignorant as hell about a lot of the topics he discussed with Hitchens...but that’s my opinion about all apologists. They don’t care about evidence or rationality, only defending a view of the world they came to believe because of illogical thinking and emotional reasons - just like most christians.