[Sly Fox]

Credit goes to our 'Unlikely Disciple' friend Kevin Roose for spotting this ...

Faith No More
What I've learned from debating religious people around the world.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Oct. 26, 2009, at 11:21 AM ET

This week sees the opening on various cinema marquees of the film Collision: a buddy-and-road movie featuring last year's debates between Pastor Douglas Wilson, who is a senior fellow at New St. Andrew's College, and your humble servant. (If I may be forgiven, it's also available on DVD, and you can buy our little book of exchanges, Is Christianity Good for the World?)

Here's the part that catches our eye ...

I haven't yet run into an argument that has made me want to change my mind. After all, a believing religious person, however brilliant or however good in debate, is compelled to stick fairly closely to a "script" that is known in advance, and known to me, too. However, I have discovered that the so-called Christian right is much less monolithic, and very much more polite and hospitable, than I would once have thought, or than most liberals believe. I haven't been asked to Bob Jones University yet, but I have been invited to Jerry Falwell's old Liberty University campus in Virginia, even though we haven't yet agreed on the terms.

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So do you think he'll speak in convo or will this be a debate with Caner or Habermas?

[ALUmnus]

Hopefully not with Caner. From what I've read, he's not the best debate person, too aggressive and arrogant towards the opponent and not possessing the greatest of arguments. I could be wrong, that's just what I read about his debate with the Calvinist not too long ago.

[rueful]

yeah but the same thing could be said about the majority of students who would be in attendance. Thats what Id be most worried about

[kiltsareitchy07]

I know this post is WAAAAAAAAY late to the discussion, but I just want to say that I really hurt for Christopher Hitchins. I mean, the man is a determinist-based atheist, possibly the coldest and most austere philosophical system known to man. Although I agree with him that biological evolution is a scientific fact, unlike me he doesn't see God working at all in the world or through the laws of nature. I don't understand how he could look at the universe and the complexity of existence and not be floored by the handiwork of an omnipotent creator. And when I talk about a creator, I'm not even talking about the Deist divine clockmaker that was a product of the Enlightenment, but a radical, active, and self-sacrificing god who loves his creations and wants to restore an intimate relationship with them.

But then again, I don't think that debates are all that productive. Faith in Christ is a matter of God turning your heart towards himself. It's a matter of the heart, not of the head, of feeling more than than logic or thinking. Faith is irrational, and that's OK, but not to someone of Hitchins' mindset, who values reason and logic over feeling and emotion. Suppression of the metaphysical parts in us must lead to despair or something akin to incompleteness, like the John Mayer song "Something's Missing." I don't understand this mindset, and am just thankful that God has given me the gift of faith and called me to him, even though I didn't deserve it in the least. Perhaps God will also call Hitchins out of sin and death one of these days.