Christopher Hitchins at ISU

Gus, (A young man sitting next to me with a camera took this picture at the event. I add it to the entry today (Friday) and thank him for sending it to me.
Christopher Hitchins spoke to a packed Sun Room at the Iowa State Memorial Union this evening. I read his column regularly in Vanity Fair magazine so when I saw he was coming to speak I decided to take advantage of it and I went out.

Hitchins is the author of the book. God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

He spoke about mobilizing our society against the forces of theocracy. He asked us to see what the parties of God are doing to Iraq, to look at the way religions behave toward each other. He said that it (all religion) is poison giving theocracy power and that it wants our world to end. It is a cult of death. Religion wants a dictatorship of ignorance. He said that it attacks us in our core of integrity. It assumes that we could not tell the right activity without it as an ecclesiastical dictatorship. He says that Christianity is immoral; the barbarous childhood of our race.

He mentioned Iraqi Christians and how they have been attacked without one word said in their defense. He said that the "divine is a man-made construct" and it shows. He also spoke of the way Muslims destroyed ancient Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. He does not pull punches with any religion. At least two times he mentioned that man is 1/2 chromosome away from a chimpanzee.

He spoke for about 35 minutes and then took about an hour answering questions. There was one person there who was obviously religious. He (at one point) said he was happy because he had a relationship with Jesus Christ, that he had been praying for Hitchens and that Jesus loved him.

Hitchens was also taken to task for the 1/2 chromosome remark -the person mentioned that on that chromosome were countless genes which made us different from the chimpanzee.

In response to one question Hitchens said that his doubt is that anyone who has to tell you about his belief doesn't really believe in it himself. When asked about "life after death" Hitchens said that "you are not going to know your are dead." He also mentioned that the idea of sitting around all day long praising a God was not his idea of Heaven.

He spoke of how politicians use religion and mentioned how Putin had brought back the Russian Orthodox Church into the Russian life and was using it to further his political agenda.

Most of the audience was very supportive and there was spontaneous applause at several places. You could tell, however, that some of the audience was not in agreement with his views. To give him credit Hitchens was able to answer all of their questions from his perspective. All in all it was an interesting evening and it gave me a lot to think about.

Hitchens has a little motto he uses - "Mr. Jefferson, Build up this wall."

Refreshments were served following the lecture by the Atheists and Agnostics Club. I didn't have any but I am sure they were heavenly.

By the way. I print these postings off as they are posted and have been putting them in three ring binders. I have filled two 2-inch binders and have just started on the third one. Hope they will be of use to someone sometime. Hugs, j-bear