Shmuley vs. Hitchens

June was apparently a very busy month for the Rabbi. For one thing, he debated Christopher Hitchens. Or, rather, he got mad at Hitchens' book and reminded himself of this one time they had a debate. Same thing, really. Most of Shmuley's irritation at Hitchens seems to come (surprise, surprise) from the utter disdain he holds religion in. For instance, in their debate, Hitchens commented that

Stephen Hawking had more wisdom in his tiny little finger than all the pages of the Bible combined.

Even the Apocrypha?

Well, as you might imagine, our old pal Shmuley wouldn't let that stand.

I responded that the great, wheelchair-bound physicist was fortunate that religion rather than evolution had influenced British morality...He is a very incapacitated man, and some evolutionary biologists maintain that a life like his should never have been preserved in the first place.

So there, Hitchens. If evolutionists were in charge, there wouldn't even BE a Stephen Hawking to compare to the Bible! Religion-one, Evolution-zero.

Whereas the Bible establishes the infinite value of every human life, healthy or diseased...

As long as you aren't black, Indian, Canaanite, or a woman...

...no less an authority than Francis Crick, Nobel laureate and co-discoverer of DNA, suggested that babies should be considered alive only two days after birth, during which time they could be examined for defects. If defects were found that were sufficiently deleterious, the infant could presumably be eliminated with impunity because it had not yet become alive.

Similarly, Crick proposed redefining death as occurring at a predetermined age such as 80 or 85, at which time the person would automatically be declared dead and all his property pass on to his heirs.

Wow, that's some pretty weird stuff there, Shmuley! Now tell me, when was Crick installed as Chief Pontiff of the Evolutionary Church? What's that you say? Hmm. It seems Shmuley's Crick is just a crock. By comparison, there are many religious institutions where whatever the nuts at the top say goes.

As Shmuley points out, without a divine source like the Bible, good and evil are just words, and morality is relative and determined by whoever shouts the loudest. Blah, blah, blah... predictable Hitler reference...

the whole point of the Ten Commandments is the establishment of absolute, divine morality. These are not laws legislated by man and subject, therefore, to human tampering. They are the absolute rules that dare never be changed - at any time, at any place, under any circumstances.

Except for things like "observe the Sabbath," which, through the power of eruvs, cholent, and this stupid thing, we seem perfectly content to tamper with.

Blah, blah, blah... another Hitler reference... Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot... oh, here we go:

The number of people killed by the secular atheist regimes of the 20th century dwarfs by far those killed in the name of religion since the beginning of recorded history.

And therefore everything about religion religion is good! Gotcha. Religion- two, Evolution/Secular Atheist Regimes- zero.

WITH ITS famous pronouncement that all humans are created in the image of God, the Bible establishes the absolute equality of all humankind, regardless of race, gender or ethnicity. Charles Darwin, however, thought differently, "The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world."

Hang on. You're using a throwaway comment by Darwin to discredit evolution? How about the countless quotes we could offer up by racist European Christians? Or Jews? (There's that great Maimonides comment about Cushites, after all.) Jesus H. Joshua, Shmuley, that's just lazy cherry-picking.

Shmuley concludes by reminding us that scientists really liked Hitler, and that the ONLY basis for believing that all human life is of equal value is the Bible. Good to know.