Village Voice Bookshop – Book Tour

1
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Thank you ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, if I can say comrades and friends for coming.

2
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Thank you ma’am for that fantastically grudging and ungenerous terse introduction.

3
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I have to speak in English, not the dialect of bromance, rather more inflected with Saxon.

4
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And I never know when I’m doing this, and I never give the same speech twice because I think it’s rude, I have to try and
judge it by guessing from the look of the audience whether to begin at the ontological end of this or the, if you like, the political end.

5
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Of this thing, yeah.

6
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How’s that? How much of a screech are you getting?

7
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But I thought that because of recent developments I would actually begin more of the political than the ontological end, though I’ll get to the ontological point.

8
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Because we are meant at a time when if you just glance at the newspaper, what are you going to see?

9
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You’re going to see today, this week, and if you like, look at my little article in Newsweek, it’s on the cover this week, His Holiness the Pope receiving back into the bosom of the church a bunch of
neo-fascist crackpots who believe that genocide did not occur in the 20th century, but that deicide did occur 20 hundred years ago, and that in both cases the Jews are responsible for the misunderstanding.

10
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Think of the work, think of the crackpot work necessary just to put that together, then
think of being the Pope and thinking, our church isn’t complete until these people are back in it.

11
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And not only do they deny genocide and affirm the mad theory of deicide, but they blame
democracy and not theocracy for the great… I have a carrying voice, I don’t need this fucking mic.

12
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Why don’t I just shout?

13
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Can you hear if I yell?

14
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No, it’s better if I yell downstairs, it’s good.

15
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So what should we do?

16
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No, no, perfect.

17
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Should I start again?

18
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I’m worried you didn’t believe it. You have as your guest a practice demagogue actually. Very well. Yes, that democracy and not theocracy is responsible for the great assault on American civil society of September 11th 2001.

19
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So this is a very unpromising development in a church that claims to be the nurturing mother of European civilization.

20
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But if you look just a little further east to another schism that took place in the bosom of the same church, you will find that the other
schismatic force known as orthodoxy, instead of Catholicism, has just instated as its dictator, its spiritual and earthly representative Vladimir Putin.

21
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The Russian Orthodox Church has now become the official church of the Putin organization.

22
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No, no, no instatement of any police official, any military official, any government official of the Putin regime is complete without the kissing of the icons, the swinging of the incense, the affirmation of the ancient verities of the very church that since we’re
on the subject, managed to bring us all the way to Western Europe with incredible trouble, the forgery, actually the fabrication of the protocols of the elders of Zion, the church of Tsarism, the church of serfdom, the church of Russian imperialism, the church of tyranny and superstition.

23
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And now they’re producing new icons, not content with the old ones that baptized and confirmed serfdom, Tsarism, anti-semitism and fascism.

24
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New icons, you can see them easily found on the internet, which show in a prayerful attitude as the father of his people and as the holy protector of holy Russia, Joseph Stalin.

25
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Who, it’s true, was a very leading member of a seminary in Georgia under the name Joseph Vassarionovich Djigyashvili in his youth, and whose mother is supposed to have said to him when he
became chairman of the Central Committee of the Presidium of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, “You’re a stupid boy. If you’d stayed in that seminary, you could have been a bishop by now.

26
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” I believe the story anyway, even if what is said by the
mothers of gods isn’t always to be taken completely seriously.

27
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So that’s a very bad development, and believe you me, we will all live to see and regret what we’ve allowed to
happen, unnoticed the conversion of modern Russia into a heavily armed, aggressive, self-pitying, chauvinistic theocracy.

28
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This is not something that happens to people who live in benighted, bronze-age societies far from us like Afghanistan.

29
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However, and before I, I’ll just say for a second, when I go to the ontological,
I’ll say, however, that is where they start. It doesn’t mean that’s where they stop.

30
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Let’s just say one more practical case before I move to the ontological side of it.

31
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Even if, like me, you think that as a secular Jewish person, a secular partly Jewish person, that the probability is on secular grounds that Zionism was a very big mistake to begin with, and is a false messiah for the Jewish people whose main achievements have been in secular, diaspora
societies, even if you believe that the fact remains that there is a self-determined Jewish community in Palestine, that that is something to which I think the Jewish people do have a right, maybe not to a state, certainly not to an exclusive one, but to a diaspora derived, yeshuv, as it used to be called.

32
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It’s not right, in other words, to be in Palestine as any other historic community does.

33
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What’s gone wrong with the Israel-Palestine dispute? What’s most notably gone wrong?
Ask yourself, because this is going to come back to you very soon, and haunt you again.

34
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Well, there are two communities, one Arab and actually quite largely Christian but predominantly Muslim, one Jewish
and quite predominantly secular, both approximately the same size and number, with equally good claims to at least part of the land.

35
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The majority of Jewish people in the diaspora and in Israel have for a long time favoured a two-state solution to this problem.

36
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It’s a national question, it’s a land question.

37
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This is also the expressed view of the United States Congress, of American Jewry, of the
United Nations, of the European Union, of the really, and of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

38
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It’s what the majority of people involved in this view want.

39
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Why can’t they get what we all want? Why is it made impossible?

40
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Because in both communities, a veto is held by the party of God.

41
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In the first case by the messianic settlers, who think that by establishing fait accompli by violence and stealing
other people’s land in the name of the Jewish people and in the name of God, they can help to bring on the Messiah.

42
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If only they say we get all the Arabs out of this area and all the Jews in, gathered,
then the Messiah would come, finally, after such a long, sweaty wait for his arrival.

43
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On the Arab-Palestinian side, the veto is now held, the whip hand is now held
by a party who says, “You’re absolutely right that God decides matters in this territory.

44
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You’re completely right. Only he can award territory.

45
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He’s the king of real estate around here. It’s just you’ve got the wrong God.

46
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He says it only belongs to Muslims.

47
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Not just Arabs, but only Muslims. Not Christians, not secularists.

48
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Let them try and live their lives if they want in Gaza or the West Bank.

49
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They’ll have a hard time, a hard and hard time.

50
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So that the whole world is in danger of going to hell on a sled because of the parties
of God in Palestine and nuclear weapons have been introduced into this combat too.

51
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By the proxy intervention of other powers and by the Israeli theft of thermonuclear fissile.

52
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Material. And this doesn’t complete the picture at all, but just for a brief tour d’horizon, I would say by on or about August this year, the Iranian government will be able to announce that a nightmare we’ve long pondered and
tossed and turned around in our sleep, the coincidence of an apocalyptic regime with apocalyptic messianic weaponry will actually have occurred, will have been tested and demonstrated and that it won’t be used I think on Israel, it won’t be used on America.

53
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The mullahs are rather more crafty and worldly than that, but it will be used for nuclear blackmail, mainly against Sunni Arab neighboring Gulf states who will learn
to respect the local regional boss and we will then live in a world where we’ll have to be polite to the parties of God because they are facing us with weapons of mass destruction.

54
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So, how about that for an opening? And that’s just plucked as any fool, including myself, could have plucked it from the headlines.

55
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Okay, what’s wrong with that? Doesn’t need any underlining from me.

56
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What’s wrong with it ab initio, as they used to say in the Latin debate, what’s wrong with it from the beginning?

57
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Why do I say religion poisons everything in my subtitle?

58
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Well, some publishers want a sensational subtitle.

59
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Not so, my very discreet and tasteful French publishers. That’s not why it’s there, because I want it to be there.

60
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And people say, “Come on, everything? Does it poison tantric sex? Does it poison vegetarian cooking?

61
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Does it poison chess?” And so on. I say, “Yes, actually it does.

62
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” Because it offends humanity in its deepest dignity and most profound integrity.

63
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It says to us, you, ladies and gentlemen, brothers, sisters, comrades, friends, it says to us, we, you, would not know right from
wrong, could not perform a right action, could not make a right or just statement unless you had supernatural permission to do so.

64
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You wouldn’t have the idea unless it came from on high as a gift to you.

65
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You don’t have it innately. It’s not yours. It’s not part of your own decency.

66
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There couldn’t be, I don’t think, a more radical attack on the idea of the individual, of the
rights of the human being, or of the responsibilities as well as the rights of the human being.

67
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It’s an invitation to be a slave.

68
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You mentioned very kindly that I say, and I may as well get to it straight, because it’s
so closely related to the political opening I gave, the ontological question of the deity.

69
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Those who wish that there was an eternal, unchanging, unchangeable, irremovable father,
a father who never went away, are those who have discovered the origins of totalitarianism.

70
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They want a big brother. They want to be on their knees, “sueur genue,” in front of an authority figure who will not quit.

71
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Now, the great thing about a father, I am one, I can’t be the only one here, is that for my children’s sake, I’m willing to move over.

72
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If I was to say to my children, “You know what? I love you so much, I’m never going away.

73
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” Do you think their expressions would change?

74
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You don’t know my children.

75
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By analogy, do you suppose, they think, “Oh, cool. He’s never going away.

76
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” Or at least, “He says he’s never going away.

77
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” What are we to say if a religion says, “This boss never quits.

78
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” Not only that, this boss watches you while you sleep.

79
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This boss knows what you are thinking before you’ve even thought it.

80
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This boss, because this is the quintessential Orwellian point of 1984, the big brother.

81
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This boss can convict you of thought crime. He knows what you’re dreaming.

82
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And he can condemn you to an eternity of torment.

83
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Or, my definition of heaven, another eternity of torment.

84
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Where, instead of being tortured with red hot irons forever, you’re told to stay on your knees and praise and give thanks forever.

85
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I don’t know if I would rather pick the red hot fucking irons.

86
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I mean, I’ve been to all the actors of evil countries.

87
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North Korea and Iran and Iraq.

88
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I think I’m the only writer who has done this in the 20th century.

89
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And with North Korea, I now know what it would be like.

90
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I used to wonder when I was a child.

91
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I could picture hell alright. I could see that clearly.

92
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But they never gave me a very good picture of heaven. Not the Christians anyway.

93
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Except they said, “Well, it would be praising and thanking, as you should.

94
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” And constantly issuing further bulletins of praise and thanks.

95
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And I thought, well, maybe after the first hundred million years that would get a little tedious.

96
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In fact, maybe even painful.

97
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But who wants it? I mean, who wants to sit listening to it?

98
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Painful for them, surely, after the first.

99
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Once you’ve written one thank you letter, you’ve sort of written them all.

100
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But I’ve been in North Korea and now I know what it would be like.

101
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I’ve seen a country. I’ve seen what it would be like to be a human being.

102
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Tortured, without culture, without irony, without art, without a moment of privacy, without a
single fragment of respect for the human personality, forced from dawn till dusk to offer thanks.

103
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To a God who doesn’t care about them at all.

104
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Who’s laughing at how easy it is to make a living off the enforced credulity of such people.

105
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This is what totalitarianism means.

106
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This is what the real essence of unending slavery really consists of.

107
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So, I hope by looping around in that direction to knitted together the ontological and the political reasons why I thought it
was very important at this time to begin some kind of pushing back to the theocrats and the bullies and louts who are helping them.

108
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Whether it is the theft of land in Palestine, whether it is the construction out of a ruined society of nuclear weapons in Iran or North Korea,
whether it is Putinism, whether it is the attempt to stultify American children by teaching them pseudoscience in school with taxpayers’ money.

109
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Morning children, it’s chemistry in first period.

110
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After that, for equal time considerations, we’ll have the alchemy class.

111
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Your astronomy teacher is well known to you, but today your astrology teacher will be taking over after the break.

112
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I mean, really can you imagine this happening in the capital of the world’s first democratic secular republic?

113
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I say nothing against the proclamation of the French rights of man when I say this, because the separation bit didn’t quite take.

114
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Well, if you haven’t got my drift by now, I could talk for a lot longer and you still wouldn’t get it.

115
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But I’m going to trust you. There’s something about your honest faces that makes me do so.

116
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And I’ll say that I’m not in a hurry at all. I don’t have anywhere to go.

117
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And the Hitchens’ mission statement is I will never leave a bookstore until, well, two things have happened.

118
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One is that the management has offered me at least one free book to take my efforts.

119
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The other is that I won’t leave what anyone can say later.

120
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Well, I had a question for Hitchens, but he wouldn’t answer it. I won’t go where any of you can say that.

121
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So as long as you respect the cocktail and dinner hour, I will be true to this promise.

122
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And I’m fantastically grateful that you came and very flattered.

123
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And you having been my hostages, I look forward to being your prisoner. Thank you.

124
00:17:03,001 –> 00:17:12,000[Applause]

125
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In your whole book, you — okay, excuse me. Go ahead. Go ahead.

126
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If you want to say something first.

127
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Okay. Yeah.

128
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My only question. Everything you said was — Please,
please, for the people downstairs, you have to do this.

129
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Oh, my God, the screeching.

130
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Yeah.

131
00:17:28,001 –> 00:17:32,000[Laughter]

132
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Everything you said was brilliant and absolutely irrefutable.

133
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Correct.

134
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At least I feel that. And I think most of the people here would feel the same way.

135
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I have only one question, and this gets again into the political, and it’s the Israel-Palestine question.

136
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And it’s a question of primogeniture and real estate, because it’s not as though they
were stealing land that was never theirs, and it’s not as though the others were never there.

137
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It’s a question of all of them were there very, very far back, and then until the 7th
century they were not there, and then the dispossessed became the dispossessors.

138
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And it’s a rather complicated story, mostly with real estate and, as I said, primogeniture.

139
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Who came first? Was it the God of Abraham? Was it Muhammad? Was it Jesus?

140
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I think that that’s the complication.

141
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I don’t think that the wild cowboy madmen in the colonies and the settlements are anything typical.

142
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Of course, they’re atypical. But I don’t think that the question of Israel-Palestine starts there.

143
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I think it started way long ago.

144
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And of course the only solution is a two-state, as we all know, and we’re all on the same side.

145
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It was just that I wanted to bring up the point of the origin of the conflict.

146
00:18:50,001 –> 00:18:52,000
I don’t know if you agree.

147
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Well, it’s always good to be asked to begin by straightening out the Israel-Palestine question.

148
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Why don’t we get that out of the way?

149
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I think there’s a distinction you’re failing to make.

150
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And it’s actually, if I may say it, clarified a little.

151
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It’s called “Dear Népregrande,” available at fine bookstores everywhere, including in this Voisinage.

152
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Israeli archaeology, which I think is a very courageous and honest profession, in particular
Professor Finkelstein, the head of the department at the University of Turkey, has clarified it for us.

153
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The story of the exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the
Sinai, the conquest of Jericho, is all balls from beginning to end.

154
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It’s completely, fantastically made up.

155
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There isn’t a word of truth in it, and it’s just as well it isn’t true, because it involves, if it were true, it would involve
divine instruction for genocide and enslavement, as well as gentle mutilation and a lot of other things, without which we could well do.

156
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However, Israeli archaeology, many Jews say, “Come on, if none of it’s true,
all Moses’ things are all made up, can’t you give me anything to cling to? What?

157
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” Yes. If you go and dig in Palestine, the first thing that any archaeologist
will do going to a village would be dig in the midden, dig in the rubbish dump.

158
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Find what people threw away and when and in what order.

159
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It’s very, very interesting always.

160
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Well, in certain hill communities, way, way, way back, you will find that while all the other neighboring villages don’t
have any, do have, excuse me, do have pig bones in their middens and in their garbage, these villages don’t, no pigs.

161
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That’s not the only proof, but it’s one of many.

162
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There have been Jewish people in Palestine for a very long time.

163
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Their claim to have the right to live there is as good as anybody else’s and better than some.

164
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But, the question is this, and it was posed by many Jewish spokesmen
from the very beginning of the enterprise when Herzl first alluded it.

165
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Do you want a state for Jews in Palestine or do you want a Jewish state?

166
00:21:05,001 –> 00:21:07,000
Now, just ponder this for a second.

167
00:21:07,001 –> 00:21:12,000
Since I’m stuck with this, I may as well absolutely clarify it.

168
00:21:12,001 –> 00:21:14,000
Here’s what I mean by that distinction.

169
00:21:14,001 –> 00:21:20,000
Should Pakistan be what it was first claimed to be, a state for Muslims of India?

170
00:21:20,001 –> 00:21:22,000
So Muslims of India can feel safe in their own state.

171
00:21:22,001 –> 00:21:24,000
Or should it be a Muslim state?

172
00:21:24,001 –> 00:21:26,000
Where everyone has to follow a Muslim law.

173
00:21:26,001 –> 00:21:30,000
And what if you’re not a Muslim, you don’t really have any real rights.

174
00:21:30,001 –> 00:21:33,000
And that’s the difference that Zionism attempts to blur.

175
00:21:33,001 –> 00:21:36,000
And I think it would be better off unblurred.

176
00:21:36,001 –> 00:21:37,000
Agreed.

177
00:21:37,001 –> 00:21:38,000
There you go.

178
00:21:38,001 –> 00:21:45,000
But of course, I mean, and you can’t get, no one else’s religious claim to the land is any better.

179
00:21:45,001 –> 00:21:47,000
I mean, that goes with the pipe.

180
00:21:47,001 –> 00:21:48,000
Savasandir.

181
00:21:48,001 –> 00:21:54,000
Yes, he began by talking about Vladimir Putin and his religiosity.

182
00:21:54,001 –> 00:22:06,000
And it’s extraordinary to me that the man whose election, a re-election, you promoted,
saw the crucifix or the cross on Vladimir Putin’s neck and thought that that gave him credibility.

183
00:22:06,001 –> 00:22:09,000
Now, that kind of naive take to me would be extraordinary.

184
00:22:09,001 –> 00:22:11,000
And a man whose re-election you would promote.

185
00:22:11,001 –> 00:22:15,000
The other thing is, you came up and you said, oh, it’s a good thing we see Bertrand Russell.

186
00:22:15,001 –> 00:22:35,000
In a book by Robert Conquest, Ravages of the Twentieth Century, a book which you endorsed, he quotes Bertrand Russell as saying, if it could
be proven that the extermination of the Jews would conduce to humanity living happily ever after, I see no reason why the Jews should not be exterminated.

187
00:22:35,001 –> 00:22:43,000
The other thing, in one of your columns in the Atlantic, you referred to the soldiers fighting in Iraq as our boys.

188
00:22:43,001 –> 00:22:46,000
They’re not your boys, they’re the boys of their parents.

189
00:22:46,001 –> 00:22:49,000
And to me it’s an outrage that you would claim something like that.

190
00:22:49,001 –> 00:22:55,000
In the profile of you in The New Yorker, you said that you wrote for posterity.

191
00:22:55,001 –> 00:22:59,000
Now, that kind of self-immortalization to me is pathetic.

192
00:22:59,001 –> 00:23:22,000
Apparently you have ingratiated yourself with the wolf of it, and you said of this disgraced and discredited figure that
he’s a bleeding heart liberal and that he actually stays up at night and cries and thinks about the plight of the Palestinians.

193
00:23:22,001 –> 00:23:28,000
Well, to paraphrase you on Kissinger, any man who can suck like that need never dine alone.

194
00:23:28,001 –> 00:23:33,000[audience chatter]

195
00:23:33,001 –> 00:23:37,000
No, but this is why one travels in the first place, to meet admirers.

196
00:23:37,001 –> 00:23:39,000[audience laughter]

197
00:23:39,001 –> 00:23:45,000
I have to do it in… One’s ego must be constantly fed, you understand.

198
00:23:45,001 –> 00:23:48,000
I think I have to do it in reverse.

199
00:23:48,001 –> 00:23:53,000
Because the gentleman has read me closely. There’s no question about that.

200
00:23:53,001 –> 00:23:57,000
Except that I never said Wolfowitz cried. I know it to be true.

201
00:23:57,001 –> 00:24:00,000
He says he stays up at night worrying about it.

202
00:24:00,001 –> 00:24:23,000
If there was anyone in the Bush administration who sat up late at night with his Arab Muslim girlfriend, who sponsored some of the most interesting meetings on
Palestinian rights that I’ve ever been to in Washington, Shahar Elie Rizal, whose work on Gaza is I think second to none in anyone in Washington, who’s been his long-time companion.

203
00:24:23,001 –> 00:24:34,000
I don’t know anyone but she and Paul who do do that to that extent, and I wouldn’t have
said such a thing without knowing what I was, well, hoping I knew what I was talking about.

204
00:24:34,001 –> 00:24:41,000
On the “our boys” question, I’m quite sure I can’t have used
the term “our boys” without irony, because it’s an old trope.

205
00:24:41,001 –> 00:24:44,000
But as to whose boys they are, I don’t think they belong to their parents.

206
00:24:44,001 –> 00:24:54,000
Unless you want to infantilize young Americans, are young Americans old enough to join the
army as a volunteer, because you can’t be conscripted into the United States armed forces?

207
00:24:54,001 –> 00:24:56,000
Is someone who’s old enough to take his own decision?

208
00:24:56,001 –> 00:25:18,000
Therefore, the idea that Casey Sheehan belongs is the property of his rather disordered mother, Cindy, seems to me an insult to him,
who didn’t ask for her permission to do this, to he who took the risk of volunteering and going to a very dangerous part of Iraq and losing his life.

209
00:25:18,001 –> 00:25:30,000
I think he did that on behalf of the United States of America, not on behalf of Mama, let alone
Papa, who has also said that he doesn’t like the way that the Mrs acts as if the son belongs to her.

210
00:25:30,001 –> 00:25:33,000
Let me see, there was another point.

211
00:25:33,001 –> 00:25:34,000
Bertrand Russell.

212
00:25:34,001 –> 00:25:38,000
Yes, Bertrand Russell was much more, on a bad day, could be much more shocking than that.

213
00:25:38,001 –> 00:25:55,000
He said that as far as he could see, there was absolutely nothing to regret at all in the destruction of the Native
American civilizations of North America before the arrival of the Europeans, that there was nothing to mourn there.

214
00:25:55,001 –> 00:26:04,000
The United States was quite clearly better off being run by, as it
were, people who look like me than Mr and Mrs Iroquois or Cherokee.

215
00:26:04,001 –> 00:26:09,000
Though I think he has a point there, there was something very definitely very callous about the way he put it.

216
00:26:09,001 –> 00:26:14,000
And Russell could, on his bad days, be a very extreme utilitarian.

217
00:26:14,001 –> 00:26:22,000
You have to remember with Russell, it’s actually a marvelous thing as
well as an occasionally worrying one, that his godfather was John Stuart Mill.

218
00:26:22,001 –> 00:26:27,000
So if you’d shaken hands with Bertrand Russell, you’d be shaking hands with someone who’s shaken hands with John Stuart Mill.

219
00:26:27,001 –> 00:26:28,000
Amazing.

220
00:26:28,001 –> 00:26:30,000
You’re avoiding the point.

221
00:26:30,001 –> 00:26:36,000
Wait, was I not shaking them in order?

222
00:26:36,001 –> 00:26:42,000
And now you’ll prompt me to what the first one was. Oh yes, the endorsement of… George Bush.

223
00:26:42,001 –> 00:26:45,000
Yes, but you had a special objection to that.

224
00:26:45,001 –> 00:26:46,000
Newton’s cross on the back.

225
00:26:46,001 –> 00:27:01,000
Yes, in a strong field of stupid things said by George Bush, I have said repeatedly in print, that I would still pick
him saying that I looked into Putin’s eyes and I looked at his crucifix, and I knew that this was a guy I could trust.

226
00:27:01,001 –> 00:27:08,000
I mean, I still think that must be the most fatuous thing said by an American president in the 21st century.

227
00:27:08,001 –> 00:27:10,000
So why would you promote him?

228
00:27:10,001 –> 00:27:13,000
It’s an extraordinary thing to have said.

229
00:27:13,001 –> 00:27:27,000
And I used to think that Putin had worn that crucifix just in order to impress George Bush and was
pinching himself at how easily it had worked, but the situation turns out to be a lot worse than I thought.

230
00:27:27,001 –> 00:27:30,000
It turns out that he’s determined.

231
00:27:30,001 –> 00:27:33,000
His alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church is his power base.

232
00:27:33,001 –> 00:27:57,000
And there isn’t anyone in the United States running on any ticket who’s willing to criticize the evolution of Russia into a theocracy, particularly not in the
preceding administration of Clinton and Gore, where Al Gore seemed to consider it his job to promote Vladimir Putin at all levels of American politics, business and diplomacy.

233
00:27:57,001 –> 00:28:08,000
But no, I will have to concede to you that I’ve never felt for a
minute sorry that Al Gore was not president of the United States.

234
00:28:08,001 –> 00:28:11,000
Or for a minute sorry that John Kerry wasn’t either.

235
00:28:11,001 –> 00:28:13,000
There it is. I’ve tried.

236
00:28:13,001 –> 00:28:14,000
Why?

237
00:28:14,001 –> 00:28:17,000
I just have tried, but I’m not sorry.

238
00:28:17,001 –> 00:28:18,000
Why aren’t you sorry?

239
00:28:18,001 –> 00:28:19,000
Why aren’t I sorry?

240
00:28:19,001 –> 00:28:22,000
I just wouldn’t trust him as far as I could kick them.

241
00:28:22,001 –> 00:28:24,000
But you wouldn’t trust Bush.

242
00:28:24,001 –> 00:28:27,000
Yes. Better. More so. Yeah, I would.

243
00:28:27,001 –> 00:28:28,000
You just wrote about it.

244
00:28:28,001 –> 00:28:34,000
And though Clinton and Gore both promised that they
would remove Saddam Hussein from power, they never did.

245
00:28:34,001 –> 00:28:43,000
And though they now say that they too would have fought bravely and
hard in Afghanistan, they were not absolutely sure that they would have done.

246
00:28:43,001 –> 00:28:59,000
Whereas President Bush managed to remove the Taliban, remove the Ba’ath Party, accept the subsequent
capitulation of Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya, who handed over his entire nuclear stock to the United States and to Britain.

247
00:28:59,001 –> 00:29:02,000
By the way, he didn’t go to Gueyeh al-Shroda.

248
00:29:02,001 –> 00:29:03,000
He didn’t go to Kofi Annan.

249
00:29:03,001 –> 00:29:05,000
He didn’t go to Jacques Chirac when he wanted to cave in.

250
00:29:05,001 –> 00:29:06,953
He went straight to Bush and said, “You have it all.

251
00:29:06,954 –> 00:29:23,000
” And from analyzing the stuff in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, we walked back the cat, as they say in my hometown of Washington, and discovered the A.Q.
Khan network in Pakistan and its tentacles extending all the way from North Korea through Iraq into Libya and shut that down to at least a lot of it.

252
00:29:23,001 –> 00:29:27,000
A.Q. Khan is where at least he should begin to be. He’s under house arrest.

253
00:29:27,001 –> 00:29:48,000
So as a nonproliferation regime, I think the Bush administration deserves a huge amount of credit, as it does, of course, for making, as we’ve just seen this week, Iraq
into a country where elections are now normal and where the police are looking for psychopaths rather than hiring them, which is one of my distinctions of that civilization.

254
00:29:48,001 –> 00:29:54,000
Believe me, I’m willing to go on about this if you want the
gentleman’s– if you think I haven’t answered the gentleman’s question.

255
00:29:54,001 –> 00:29:57,000
Another question over there. Please, back again.

256
00:29:57,001 –> 00:30:00,000
The mic because of people downstairs.

257
00:30:00,001 –> 00:30:02,000
Thank you. Yes.

258
00:30:02,001 –> 00:30:09,000[No response]

259
00:30:09,001 –> 00:30:14,000
Well, I’ll grant you that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, I mean a dirty dog, if you will.

260
00:30:14,001 –> 00:30:15,000
I didn’t say that.

261
00:30:15,001 –> 00:30:16,000
Okay, I’m saying that.

262
00:30:16,001 –> 00:30:18,000
If you say that, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

263
00:30:18,001 –> 00:30:20,000
Okay. Then my question.

264
00:30:20,001 –> 00:30:21,000
Yeah.

265
00:30:21,001 –> 00:30:30,000
Why was getting the world rid of Saddam Hussein more important than catching Osama bin Laden?

266
00:30:30,001 –> 00:30:32,000
Do you want to get the mic?

267
00:30:32,001 –> 00:30:42,000
I’m awfully sorry to be blunt and also inaudible.

268
00:30:42,001 –> 00:30:46,000[Laughter]

269
00:30:46,001 –> 00:30:48,000
Repeat the question for downstairs.

270
00:30:48,001 –> 00:30:59,000
Yes, I was asked on condition that I agree, which I don’t, that Saddam Hussein was
a bad guy, why it was more important to remove him than to catch Osama bin Laden.

271
00:30:59,001 –> 00:31:03,000
I apologize for being blunt, but that’s what they pay me for.

272
00:31:03,001 –> 00:31:08,000
Anyone who says, “Okay, Saddam Hussein was a bad
guy,” has just proved they don’t know what they’re talking about.

273
00:31:08,001 –> 00:31:11,000
Bad guy does not cover it.

274
00:31:11,001 –> 00:31:44,000
Iraq was the private property of a psychopathic crime family made up of the father and two even more hateful and criminal and sadistic sons who owned the entire treasury, all the oil industry, who had invaded two neighboring states with ultimate
violence, who committed genocide on their own soil, who broke the nonproliferation treaty several times by not just acquiring illegally, but using weapons of mass destruction, who ruled by torture and genocide and lies, and who intended to carry on being repeat offenders.

275
00:31:44,001 –> 00:31:46,000
That’s not being a bad guy.

276
00:31:46,001 –> 00:31:48,000
Tom Daschle’s a bad guy.

277
00:31:48,001 –> 00:31:49,000[Laughter]

278
00:31:49,001 –> 00:32:00,000
And it was high time that this appalling situation was brought to a close, and I’ll tell you why it
matters more to me than the existence of some Yemeni gangster in the mountains of Afghanistan.

279
00:32:00,001 –> 00:32:04,000
The Saddam Hussein crime family controlled a choke point of the world economy known as the Gulf.

280
00:32:04,001 –> 00:32:05,000
You’ve heard of it.

281
00:32:05,001 –> 00:32:10,000
When they were pushed out of Kuwait, they set fire to the oil fields rather than abandon them.

282
00:32:10,001 –> 00:32:14,000
They blotted out the sun.

283
00:32:14,001 –> 00:32:20,000
It was thought by the UN environmental organization
that it would take maybe ten years to put out those fires.

284
00:32:20,001 –> 00:32:31,000
They flooded the Gulf also with untreated oil, destroying all the wildlife and marine life in the area, just
to show that they couldn’t be pushed out, or if they were going, they would at least vandalize the area.

285
00:32:31,001 –> 00:32:43,000
They had us hostage like that for many, many years, and many American and other
administrations behaved to them with cowtowing and respect in a way that made me vomit to watch.

286
00:32:43,001 –> 00:32:45,000
That’s all over now.

287
00:32:45,001 –> 00:32:46,000
It’s very important.

288
00:32:46,001 –> 00:32:48,000
Iraq is also worth fighting for.

289
00:32:48,001 –> 00:32:50,000
Should I tell you why it’s worth fighting for?

290
00:32:50,001 –> 00:32:58,000
It has more oil than Iran, and maybe more oil than Saudi
Arabia, and it’s nicer oil and easier to get at near the surface.

291
00:32:58,001 –> 00:33:03,000
Unless you want to do without oil, you should care too who’s the government of Iraq.

292
00:33:03,001 –> 00:33:27,000
It would be nice if it was a multi-ethnic, multi-party democracy, which it now is, instead of a mobocracy that’s willing to set fire to the natural resources of the globe, as well as
give soccer and shelter to al-Qaeda, to Abu Nidal, the man who rolled, and to Abbas, the man who rolled the young cling-hopper off the deck of the Qura Laro, all of whom were welcome guests in Baghdad.

293
00:33:27,001 –> 00:33:41,000
I remember I wanted to meet Abu Nidal once after he’d blown up Rome Airport, which is one of his recreations, and I went to
Baghdad, and it wasn’t, I thought, maybe I’ll write the story about how I slipped down the alleyways to find the master terrorist.

294
00:33:41,001 –> 00:33:48,000
He was in the phone book. He had a government-issued car. He had a state apartment.

295
00:33:48,001 –> 00:33:55,000
When they arrested Abu Abbas, after he’d rolled the young
cling-hopper off the deck, remember the Italian police got him.

296
00:33:55,001 –> 00:33:58,000
The Italian Air Force forced down his plane, the Italian police had him.

297
00:33:58,001 –> 00:34:00,000
We’ve got him. We finally got one of these bastards.

298
00:34:00,001 –> 00:34:04,000
Next day he’s released. How can that be? Why is he released?

299
00:34:04,001 –> 00:34:08,000
Because he’s traveling on diplomatic passport, his diplomatic immunity.

300
00:34:08,001 –> 00:34:12,000
Oh really? What diplomatic? Iraqi diplomatic passport.

301
00:34:12,001 –> 00:34:14,000
How much of this are you willing to put up with?

302
00:34:14,001 –> 00:34:17,000
Assad bin Laden can’t hurt you like that.

303
00:34:17,001 –> 00:34:41,000
We’ll get to him too, and we did remove his host government, and we did crush the Taliban, and we have massacred the al-Qaeda forces, and given the real bloody nose, but the
critical, the keystone state in this, was and remains Iraq, and the fact that we watched an election this weekend in Iraq, and it hardly made the news. It’s considered normal for Iraqis to vote now.

304
00:34:41,001 –> 00:34:43,000
It’s something that makes me unbelievably proud.

305
00:34:43,001 –> 00:34:46,000
That’s why I wear this flag and my lapel.

306
00:34:46,001 –> 00:34:55,000
I’m extremely proud to have been a part of urging that to
happen, and supporting those supported about. In case you wondered.

307
00:34:55,001 –> 00:35:16,000
To come back to the book, you mentioned Freud in your book as saying that
unless people are not afraid of death, religion, or the religious impulse, will disappear.

308
00:35:16,001 –> 00:35:23,000
Since religion is everywhere and it’s coming back, how do you square the circle?

309
00:35:23,001 –> 00:35:30,000
Well there are things that Freud didn’t dream of, of course, which is
many religious people don’t fear death, or say they do. They love it.

310
00:35:30,001 –> 00:35:35,000
They say they make a cult of it. In particular, the Islamist suicide murderers.

311
00:35:35,001 –> 00:35:40,000
They say the reason they think they’ll win is that they love death more than we love life.

312
00:35:40,001 –> 00:35:47,000
It’s a big challenge. I think everyone should think to themselves,
culturally and intellectually, how am I going to prove them wrong on this point?

313
00:35:47,001 –> 00:35:51,000
A lot of effort should go in to thinking that way.

314
00:35:51,001 –> 00:35:58,000
There’s another objection to Freud and his concept of religion as wishful thinking as well.

315
00:35:58,001 –> 00:36:03,000
If we only thought wishfully or hedonistically, we might not have come up with the idea of hell.

316
00:36:03,001 –> 00:36:05,000
After all, it’s not what people would wish for.

317
00:36:05,001 –> 00:36:11,000
But it could be what they wish for other people, for example, or that they like to brood about.

318
00:36:11,001 –> 00:36:15,000
It’s not a completely one gear straight line concept.

319
00:36:15,001 –> 00:36:33,000
However, there’s no question that Freud is right on the main question, I think, in his brilliant essay, The Future of an Illusion,
which is that people are not, even if they hysterically affirm that they’re in love with death, that may betray an unease about the subject.

320
00:36:33,001 –> 00:36:46,000
After all, those who say they love death present also believe that it’s the gateway to another
life, where there’ll be somewhat more sex than there currently is in the mountains of Afghanistan.

321
00:36:46,001 –> 00:36:54,000
So they give away their hidden motive there as well.

322
00:36:54,001 –> 00:37:00,000
The fear of death will not leave us. I mean, nobody doesn’t have it sometimes.

323
00:37:00,001 –> 00:37:06,000
I’m not particularly afraid of it because I’m not going to
know I’m dead, so there will be nothing to be afraid of in that way.

324
00:37:06,001 –> 00:37:12,000
But the thought of not being here while you are pisses me off a bit.

325
00:37:12,001 –> 00:37:15,000
A party going on without me. No.

326
00:37:15,001 –> 00:37:19,000
However, I can think of a more repulsive thought, which is the one that I just gave to my children.

327
00:37:19,001 –> 00:37:23,931
What if I told you, “You’ve got to go on with this indefinitely.

328
00:37:23,932 –> 00:37:28,000
” There you feel there’s a really obscene, really disgusting idea.

329
00:37:28,001 –> 00:37:32,000
Oh, by the way, what happens to Muhammad Atta when he gets to the gates of progress?

330
00:37:32,001 –> 00:37:36,000
Since this is an American, Anglo-American way?

331
00:37:36,001 –> 00:37:41,907
He’s ushered in, said, “Welcome. Now let me see. Who don’t you know?

332
00:37:41,908 –> 00:37:47,000
” Here’s Mr. Thomas Jefferson, gravely shaped man.

333
00:37:47,001 –> 00:37:51,000
Here’s Mr. James Madison, gravely shaped man.

334
00:37:51,001 –> 00:37:53,000
Here’s Mr. George Mason, shaped man.

335
00:37:53,001 –> 00:37:59,892
At this point, he says, “Yeah, okay, fine, but what is all this? You wanted 72 Virginians.

336
00:37:59,893 –> 00:38:04,000
” [laughter]

337
00:38:04,001 –> 00:38:12,000[inaudible]

338
00:38:12,001 –> 00:38:14,000
Have you seen the Bill Maher movie?

339
00:38:14,001 –> 00:38:16,000
No.

340
00:38:16,001 –> 00:38:18,000
I think you’ll like it.

341
00:38:18,001 –> 00:38:27,000
But he does make the point there that he thinks Christian fundamentalists,
especially in the United States, are more dangerous than any other fundamental.

342
00:38:27,001 –> 00:38:29,000
Well, that’s why I’m not there.

343
00:38:29,001 –> 00:38:31,000
Oh, really? That’s interesting.

344
00:38:31,001 –> 00:38:35,000
Yeah, that’s exactly. I’ve been off the show enough to have heard all that stuff.

345
00:38:35,001 –> 00:38:36,000
Oh, yeah, okay.

346
00:38:36,001 –> 00:38:38,000
Frivolous. Frivolous to say.

347
00:38:38,001 –> 00:38:44,000
Are you optimistic concerning the success of your anti-theocratic mission?

348
00:38:44,001 –> 00:38:53,000
And whether or not you’re optimistic on the whole, can you point to any basis for optimism?

349
00:38:53,001 –> 00:38:57,000
And if not, why do you persevere?

350
00:38:57,001 –> 00:39:02,000[laughter]

351
00:39:02,001 –> 00:39:07,000
Well, again, to address the question in reverse, I persevere because I like doing this.

352
00:39:07,001 –> 00:39:10,000
And I like inflicting pain on the believers.

353
00:39:10,001 –> 00:39:14,000
And it’s amazing how thin-skinned that they are.

354
00:39:14,001 –> 00:39:16,000
And I also like debating with them.

355
00:39:16,001 –> 00:39:33,000
And I must say for the United States, I have a totally opposite view to that of Bill Maher, I’ve been welcomed with amazing
generosity into extraordinary houses of worship all across the South and asked to debate in Baptist mission halls and all over the joint.

356
00:39:33,001 –> 00:39:42,000
And asked for a long email exchange in the pages of Christianity Today, which is one of the most way out of the religious magazines.

357
00:39:42,001 –> 00:39:49,000
And in many synagogues and other places too, and many Catholic churches, where I keep on being able to put people right.

358
00:39:49,001 –> 00:39:54,000
No, no, no, the Immaculate Conception is not the same as the Virgin Birth. None of them know this.

359
00:39:54,001 –> 00:39:58,000
You can get $10 a Catholic from betting with them. You know that more than me.

360
00:39:58,001 –> 00:40:00,000
So that’s one thing.

361
00:40:00,001 –> 00:40:02,000
The second is why I’m not optimistic.

362
00:40:02,001 –> 00:40:08,000
I think that religion is an inter-radical part of our nature.

363
00:40:08,001 –> 00:40:12,000
It’s one of the proofs of evolution.

364
00:40:12,001 –> 00:40:25,000
If you want to be certain that we are a poorly evolved primate species who nearly didn’t make it, and
who are one half chromosome away from being chimpanzees, look at our faith-based arrangements.

365
00:40:25,001 –> 00:40:31,000
That and the genitalia should convince you that evolution is the only explanation for this.

366
00:40:31,001 –> 00:40:33,000
Partially formed species of ours.

367
00:40:33,001 –> 00:40:35,000
So there’s going to be no victory, no.

368
00:40:35,001 –> 00:40:44,000
But there’s no victory for theocracy either, because it’s an empty and sterile and self-refuting belief and system.

369
00:40:44,001 –> 00:40:46,000
And people in the end can’t put up with it.

370
00:40:46,001 –> 00:40:53,000
There’s no record of any society evolving, I use the word again, in any direction at all, until it’s overthrown its priests.

371
00:40:53,001 –> 00:40:56,000
Had some kind of confrontation with the priests.

372
00:40:56,001 –> 00:40:58,000
There was a very famous one in this city.

373
00:40:58,001 –> 00:41:02,000
There was another one in North American continent that was the chopping off of the king’s head in England.

374
00:41:02,001 –> 00:41:06,000
Every society that’s going to make it has to overthrow this.

375
00:41:06,001 –> 00:41:09,000
And you can count on humans to find this out for themselves.

376
00:41:09,001 –> 00:41:17,000
I would not have bet, I’m sure you wouldn’t, three years ago that the people of Iraq would just turn on Al Qaeda and say that’s enough of this.

377
00:41:17,001 –> 00:41:21,000
We can’t stand any more of this insane religious sadism.

378
00:41:21,001 –> 00:41:23,000
We won’t put up with it.

379
00:41:23,001 –> 00:41:26,000
We may not like the Shia, if we’re so weird, but we’re not.

380
00:41:26,001 –> 00:41:35,000
Or if they’re not our side of supporters, we may not like the Sunni, but we can’t put up with this ridiculous demagogue.

381
00:41:35,001 –> 00:41:41,000
And that they would stand in line in the hot sun to vote for secular parties.

382
00:41:41,001 –> 00:41:45,000
Actually, I knew it would happen one day, I didn’t think it would happen this soon.

383
00:41:45,001 –> 00:41:55,000
The next thing, the crucial thing, the thing that we’ll have to watch with
breathless interest, is to see if we can pull off something like this for the people of Iraq.

384
00:41:55,001 –> 00:41:57,000
Not just for their sake, but for ours.

385
00:41:57,001 –> 00:42:00,000
That’s going to be the big confrontation in the next few years.

386
00:42:00,001 –> 00:42:06,000
Or in Israel, if they can pull off turning on the Zionists and get rid of their fundamentalist problem.

387
00:42:06,001 –> 00:42:20,000
It would be nice if there was an Israeli coalition that didn’t depend on the religious parties, but I think even if the religious
parties could be kept out of the coalition building, the settler constituency that’s established itself is powerful without having to vote.

388
00:42:20,001 –> 00:42:29,000
Three quarters of a million armed property holders
squatting on other people’s land, willing to fight the Israeli army.

389
00:42:29,001 –> 00:42:32,000
This is why I say the parties of God have a veto.

390
00:42:32,001 –> 00:42:36,000
The parties of God have a veto on what the civilized world and civilized humanity wants.

391
00:42:36,001 –> 00:42:39,000
The parties of God are our main enemy.

392
00:42:39,001 –> 00:42:44,000
We should be demanding that the Israeli army picks a military confrontation with these settlers.

393
00:42:44,001 –> 00:42:46,000
They will, but it’s a civil war.

394
00:42:46,001 –> 00:42:50,000
That’s the best kind of war, the most terrifying kind.

395
00:42:50,001 –> 00:43:08,000
Is there any covenant in the world, I mean in our history, a government that was not contaminated
by religion, not just for a few years like it was during the French Revolution, but for a long time.

396
00:43:08,001 –> 00:43:10,000
Is there any example?

397
00:43:13,000 –> 00:43:28,000
Well, I think the longest example of a constitutional government with a regular
transition of power and a legally reviewed Congress is that of the United States of America.

398
00:43:28,001 –> 00:43:44,000
I wrote a letter of complaint to the children’s page of the Washington Post the other day, which I monitor closely because my children
might be reading it, which said all the good news about the inauguration and chatty stuff about previous inaugurals and so forth and so on.

399
00:43:44,001 –> 00:43:51,000
It said all the previous presidents’ ethnicity all but one English, which is true.

400
00:43:51,001 –> 00:43:56,000
I think Martin Van Buren was the only one, too, Mr. Obama, or Irish.

401
00:43:56,001 –> 00:43:59,000
And religion, it said all Christian, not so.

402
00:43:59,001 –> 00:44:01,000
Definitely not true of Mr. Jefferson.

403
00:44:01,001 –> 00:44:03,000
Certainly not true of Mr. Lincoln.

404
00:44:03,001 –> 00:44:07,000
I happen to think, by the way, not true of President Obama, but I can’t be certain of this.

405
00:44:07,001 –> 00:44:09,000
Should I tell you a story?

406
00:44:09,001 –> 00:44:11,000
Or should I point something out to you, rather?

407
00:44:11,001 –> 00:44:13,000
You will solve the inaugural.

408
00:44:13,001 –> 00:44:16,000
It was pretty good, I thought, at the end of the speech.

409
00:44:16,001 –> 00:44:20,000
It was actually a fantastic day to be in Washington, I will tell you.

410
00:44:20,001 –> 00:44:22,000
Was anyone here there?

411
00:44:22,001 –> 00:44:23,000
Oh, good.

412
00:44:23,001 –> 00:44:26,000
Did you think the Metro could have managed that?

413
00:44:26,001 –> 00:44:28,000
With no one even throwing a punch?

414
00:44:28,001 –> 00:44:33,000
No, not one punch thrown, not one purse snatched, not one mean look.

415
00:44:33,001 –> 00:44:34,000
No one was arrested on that.

416
00:44:34,001 –> 00:44:36,000
It’s wonderful in other ways, too.

417
00:44:36,001 –> 00:44:51,933
But towards the end of the speech, the President said, “Here’s what George Washington ordered to
be read to the people in the deep winter of Valley Forge, when it looked as if it was not going to work.

418
00:44:51,934 –> 00:45:03,000
” And he then quotes these brave statements of how the city and the people
came out to meet the danger in the darkest and most frigid moment of them.

419
00:45:03,001 –> 00:45:10,000
And I felt like a fool later, because I was actually able to watch it
from the top of the Canadian embassies at wonderful vantage points.

420
00:45:10,001 –> 00:45:12,000
I was doing some BBC work.

421
00:45:12,001 –> 00:45:20,928
And I was so, so excited, I didn’t think, “Why is he
saying Washington had this read out to the people?

422
00:45:20,929 –> 00:45:23,000
” Because if I’d asked myself, I would have known.

423
00:45:23,001 –> 00:45:27,000
There was only one time Washington ever had anything read to the people.

424
00:45:27,001 –> 00:45:28,000
Do you know what it was?

425
00:45:28,001 –> 00:45:30,000
Yes, you do.

426
00:45:30,001 –> 00:45:36,000
Actually, it’s in my strangely neglected little book on Thomas Paine.

427
00:45:36,001 –> 00:45:42,000
The crisis was read aloud to the troops, not the people, but to the troops of Valley Forge.

428
00:45:42,001 –> 00:45:46,000
And that’s what the words that the President closes by saying are from.

429
00:45:46,001 –> 00:45:48,000
So he ends by quoting Thomas Paine.

430
00:45:48,001 –> 00:45:54,000
Question, why does he claim to end by quoting George Washington?

431
00:45:54,001 –> 00:45:55,000
Interesting, huh?

432
00:45:55,001 –> 00:46:03,000
Because no one is more hated by the Christian right in the United States
than Thomas Paine, because of his contempt for the Bible and his rubbish.

433
00:46:03,001 –> 00:46:10,000
Which was written, the Age of Reason was written just down the road from the Luxembourg prison.

434
00:46:10,001 –> 00:46:11,000
Now, it’s fascinating to me.

435
00:46:11,001 –> 00:46:19,000
The President takes the risk of quoting Paine as his peroration,
and all he says is George Washington ordered these words read aloud.

436
00:46:19,001 –> 00:46:23,000
I think it could be an interesting presidency.

437
00:46:23,001 –> 00:46:33,000
But it’s a little hard to see from the… I mean, I’m supposed to be a
literary critic, and it took me two days before I… Thank you for sharing it with us.

438
00:46:33,001 –> 00:46:35,000
Oh, no, go into it.

439
00:46:35,001 –> 00:46:37,000
Read it again.

440
00:46:37,001 –> 00:46:39,000
I want to go back to the book for a minute.

441
00:46:39,001 –> 00:46:40,000
I read it.

442
00:46:40,001 –> 00:46:42,000
I liked it a lot.

443
00:46:42,001 –> 00:46:55,000
And what I gained from it was I had never realized the problems that religion has
caused in the world, I think because that’s something that’s not usually talked about.

444
00:46:55,001 –> 00:47:08,000
But the one thing I came away… I came away with appreciating the fact that I learned that, but I
didn’t come away, and I don’t know if it was your intent or not, with conviction that there was no God.

445
00:47:08,001 –> 00:47:22,000
What I do believe is that the gods that were described in all
religions are man-made, which I think you made that argument quite well.

446
00:47:22,001 –> 00:47:41,000
But I didn’t come away with the thought that possibly there wasn’t a God that man has yet to understand and who
perhaps remains completely apart from the world and we just don’t understand, maybe because that’s his intention.

447
00:47:41,001 –> 00:47:44,000
So I’d like your comment on that.

448
00:47:44,001 –> 00:47:46,000
Thank you.

449
00:47:46,001 –> 00:47:49,000
I thought you’d never ask.

450
00:47:49,001 –> 00:48:02,000
Well, look, Thomas Paine, for example, he went through the Quran and the Jewish books and
the Christian Bible like an avenging flame and showed what nonsense they were, was not an atheist.

451
00:48:02,001 –> 00:48:05,000
He was often an attachment being why he was a deist.

452
00:48:05,001 –> 00:48:11,000
He thought the world was too beautiful and orderly and the universe
showed so much signs of design that there must be at least a prime mover.

453
00:48:11,001 –> 00:48:20,000
And if you lived before Darwin and Einstein, as he did, it
would be very hard for that not to be your default position.

454
00:48:20,001 –> 00:48:27,000
And the atheist view is that there is no evidence for the existence of a god of any kind.

455
00:48:27,001 –> 00:48:32,000
But that doesn’t mean that you’ve shown that there can’t be one.

456
00:48:32,001 –> 00:48:43,000
I mean, I know some scientists, Victor Steno has written a very interesting book called “God, the Failed
Hypothesis,” who would now go as far as to say that physics can show there’s no such entity, can’t be one.

457
00:48:43,001 –> 00:48:46,000
That’s not been the atheist view up until now.

458
00:48:46,001 –> 00:48:51,000
But remember that to be a deist and atheist are incredibly different things.

459
00:48:51,001 –> 00:48:59,000
I mean, to say that there’s a god who may have set things in motion is to
have all your work in front of you if you want to be an advocate of religion.

460
00:48:59,001 –> 00:49:18,000
Because to advocate religion, you have to have a god who not just puts things in motion celestially, but who answers prayers, reads
your thoughts, cares who you sleep with, cares how you sleep with them, cares what you eat, what days of observance you do and do not.

461
00:49:18,001 –> 00:49:23,000
That could be true. There could be such a god.

462
00:49:23,001 –> 00:49:26,000
But no human could know that it was so.

463
00:49:26,001 –> 00:49:32,000
So a human who says, “I don’t just know there’s a
god, I know what god wants of you,” is an imposter.

464
00:49:32,001 –> 00:49:40,000
He’s trying to get divine authority for their own attempts to
bully you and even give you all their money. It’s an old trick.

465
00:49:40,001 –> 00:49:42,000
And it’s amazing how it keeps working.

466
00:49:42,001 –> 00:49:49,000
Now, I’m an atheist myself. I don’t think that there’s any evidence at all for a prime mover.

467
00:49:49,001 –> 00:49:53,000
I’m also an antitheist in that I don’t want there to be.

468
00:49:53,001 –> 00:50:02,000
I wouldn’t be glad if it came out to be the case that there was a
huge totalitarian, unalterable, unchallengeable authority figure.

469
00:50:02,001 –> 00:50:06,000
But it can’t be shown that such horrible things are not the case.

470
00:50:06,001 –> 00:50:09,000
It’s just that there’s absolutely no reason at all.

471
00:50:09,001 –> 00:50:11,000
And what a huge relief to think that they are.

472
00:50:11,001 –> 00:50:32,000
Leading scientists today, especially people who are dealing with the cosmos, the “puri” universes, I suppose you say, I don’t know,
they say that there is a mystery and that the further they go, the further those universes are expanding, expanding, expanding without any ending.

473
00:50:32,001 –> 00:50:37,000
They say that we will never explain anything and that there is a mystery.

474
00:50:37,001 –> 00:50:40,000
So could it be that God is the mystery?

475
00:50:40,001 –> 00:50:45,000
Well, of course it could be. You could call him anything you like.

476
00:50:45,001 –> 00:51:09,000
But as Mr. Laplace, the great scientist, said to Napoleon, again in this city, when he showed the emperor, as he then was, a working model of the solar system, seen as to
you from the outside, an orrery as it was called, and the emperor said, well that’s very fascinating, that’s how it works, but there doesn’t seem to be a God in this machine.

477
00:51:09,001 –> 00:51:12,000
And Laplace said, well it works without that assumption.

478
00:51:12,001 –> 00:51:20,000
There’s no, you could make the same point of William
O’clockham’s famous razor, the “Procedions of Logic”.

479
00:51:20,001 –> 00:51:34,000
If you find there are mysteries about black holes, for example, or white dwarves or red dwarves or any of the other things found
by the Hubble telescope, you don’t clarify them by saying, well this must have evolved as a result of a supernatural intervention.

480
00:51:34,001 –> 00:51:37,000
It gets you exactly nowhere to say that.

481
00:51:37,001 –> 00:51:52,000
Just like now we say, now we’ve shown DNA and we’ve sequenced it so that now the next time there’s a
flu virus we’ll know exactly how, we know for sure thing that evolution works and is correct and then how.

482
00:51:52,001 –> 00:51:55,000
And so I said, you will now collapse their opposition.

483
00:51:55,001 –> 00:51:57,000
They say, well okay, maybe it is all true.

484
00:51:57,001 –> 00:51:59,000
And I said, well, I suppose how ingenious God was after all.

485
00:51:59,001 –> 00:52:02,000
Well, why not? Tack it on if you like.

486
00:52:02,001 –> 00:52:06,000
I’m from Portsmouth, why am I telling you this?

487
00:52:06,001 –> 00:52:10,000
It’s a small town, but a very important town on the south coast.

488
00:52:10,001 –> 00:52:14,000
It’s the last place Admiral Nelson set foot on land for anyone here who’s French.

489
00:52:14,001 –> 00:52:16,000[laughter]

490
00:52:16,001 –> 00:52:23,000
And it’s the home port of the Royal Navy and people get examined there for their naval officer qualifications.

491
00:52:23,001 –> 00:52:27,000
They ask very tough questions, what would you do in this case?

492
00:52:27,001 –> 00:52:43,000
A young cadet who wants to be a captain is asked, your ship is dis-masted and it’s on a
starboard tack and the wind is driving it onto the rocks on a leeward tack and what are you going to do?

493
00:52:43,001 –> 00:52:50,000
And he says, I’ll cram on all the sail I can on the remaining masts and steer hard for a starboard.

494
00:52:50,001 –> 00:52:53,000
Okay, because I’ve actually got a bad answer.

495
00:52:53,001 –> 00:52:58,000
Well, but the wind is still driving you onto the rocks, what are you going to do now?

496
00:52:58,001 –> 00:53:03,000
I said, well, I’ll cram on some more sail on the remaining masts, really pulled out of the wheel for starboard.

497
00:53:03,001 –> 00:53:07,000
But you’re still heading for those rocks, what are you going to do next?

498
00:53:07,001 –> 00:53:14,000
Unprompted, he says, well, I’ll get all the extra sail I can and pull hard for starboard.

499
00:53:14,001 –> 00:53:18,000
I said, may I just ask you, sir, where are you getting all this extra sail from?

500
00:53:18,001 –> 00:53:22,000
And you said, well, sir, the same place you’re getting all that extra wind from.

501
00:53:22,001 –> 00:53:34,000
So if you say, now I understand the Hubble telescope, it shows God is even more
majestic than I thought, you absolutely added nothing to the conversation, whatever.

502
00:53:34,001 –> 00:53:42,000
Whereas the study of DNA of the Hubble telescope and of evolution
does have explanatory power and things we didn’t used to know about.

503
00:53:42,001 –> 00:53:46,000
We do and two crucial points that make it different.

504
00:53:46,001 –> 00:53:57,000
They can say as Einstein did, if my theory is true, then you will see this eclipse
at that time, at that part of West Africa, and I’ll stand or fall by whether I’m right.

505
00:53:57,001 –> 00:53:58,000
And he was right.

506
00:53:58,001 –> 00:54:02,000
And he also said in advance, what would refute your theory?

507
00:54:02,001 –> 00:54:06,000
What was his name? The scientist.

508
00:54:06,001 –> 00:54:07,000
Haldane.

509
00:54:07,001 –> 00:54:11,000
Well, what would disprove your belief in the biological layer of evolution?

510
00:54:11,001 –> 00:54:17,000
So easy, find me some rabbit’s bones in the Jurassic layer.

511
00:54:17,001 –> 00:54:20,000
Then I’ll climb down.

512
00:54:20,001 –> 00:54:23,000
I’ll tell you in advance what would disprove it.

513
00:54:23,001 –> 00:54:28,000
No religious person can possibly say what it would be in advance that would disprove them.

514
00:54:28,001 –> 00:54:33,000
They won’t submit in any way at all to an argument from evidence or an argument from reason.

515
00:54:33,001 –> 00:54:36,000
They just say it is and it should be a matter of faith.

516
00:54:36,001 –> 00:54:38,000
Well, come on.

517
00:54:38,001 –> 00:54:41,000
Josephine.

518
00:54:41,001 –> 00:54:44,000
Yes, a very short one.

519
00:54:44,001 –> 00:54:50,000
I’m a French citizen, of course I can be French, so definitely not American.

520
00:54:50,001 –> 00:54:53,000
No, I’m not passing any judgment on any national.

521
00:54:53,001 –> 00:54:55,000
I have a short question.

522
00:54:55,001 –> 00:55:05,000
I haven’t read your book and I don’t apologize, but I think you said that
one of your favorite periods of British history is the Cromwellian Protectorate.

523
00:55:05,001 –> 00:55:07,000
Am I mistaken or?

524
00:55:07,001 –> 00:55:08,000
No.

525
00:55:08,001 –> 00:55:09,000
No? Okay.

526
00:55:09,001 –> 00:55:36,000
So how do you account for your own personal stance regarding what you call atheism or atheism and the belief regarding
Cromwell and his attachment to divine providence and his fight against daimism and his belief in eternal torment after death?

527
00:55:36,001 –> 00:55:45,000
It’s not unlike some of the origins of the American
Revolution, which are rooted in the same Puritan experience.

528
00:55:45,001 –> 00:55:50,000
It’s still a huge step up from the divine right of kings.

529
00:55:50,001 –> 00:55:56,000
I mean the question of where human rights come from has never been decided.

530
00:55:56,001 –> 00:56:07,000
The American Declaration says they come from the creator, unsatisfactory,
and that they’re inalienable or unalienable as George Bush once said.

531
00:56:07,001 –> 00:56:11,000
I actually think it’s not the case. I think it comes from negation.

532
00:56:11,001 –> 00:56:13,000
I’m a dialectician. I’m a Marxist really.

533
00:56:13,001 –> 00:56:24,948
I mean once it was said that God had given kings rights, some clever
peasant was going to say, “Well, if he’s giving out rights, why don’t I have them too?

534
00:56:24,949 –> 00:56:28,000
” And once that question has been asked the first time, you can’t stop it.

535
00:56:28,001 –> 00:56:42,000
And because there was only one book that everyone had read or at least not read but could understand or knew, but very few of them could read
it but they knew it, the question was first put in the English Peasants’ Revolt, which was, as you probably know, if you don’t, I’ll tell you.

536
00:56:42,001 –> 00:56:48,000
You know, but I’ll tell you when Adam delved and Eve spanned, who was then the gentleman?

537
00:56:48,001 –> 00:56:51,000
Now the priests and the kings and the barons had no answer to that question.

538
00:56:51,001 –> 00:56:54,000
Who was boss in Garden of Eden? They didn’t know.

539
00:56:54,001 –> 00:56:57,000
Who was the feudal lord? Who was the king? Apparently it wasn’t one.

540
00:56:57,001 –> 00:57:01,000
Word spread around the presentry. It was a close-run thing.

541
00:57:01,001 –> 00:57:06,000
They nearly overthrew. And that was 300 years before they chopped off King Charles’ head.

542
00:57:06,001 –> 00:57:22,000
It took a while. But once that’s been done, and once Thomas Paine as a little boy has been told about it by his father at a Quaker school
in Norfolk and once he decides to go to the United States and join the Anti-Slavery Society, you know, this is how things actually happen.

543
00:57:22,001 –> 00:57:30,000
It’s add-on, it’s evolution, but the idea of right, it was silly, it was stupid of the monarchs to say that they had rights.

544
00:57:30,001 –> 00:57:34,000
It was really stupid for them to mention the word.

545
00:57:34,001 –> 00:57:42,000
And so the Puritan Revolution I think is a general plus for suffering humanity.

546
00:57:42,001 –> 00:57:46,000
Oh, and the other thing I like about it is that they banned Christmas.

547
00:57:46,001 –> 00:57:54,000
In Massachusetts, too, everywhere they could, they said this is a
profane and disgusting pagan celebration and they were dead right.

548
00:57:54,001 –> 00:57:57,000
Yeah, and I think Cromwell initiated the so-called civil marriage.

549
00:57:57,001 –> 00:57:58,000
Yes.

550
00:57:58,001 –> 00:57:59,000
I think he did.

551
00:57:59,001 –> 00:58:04,000
Yeah, and he sent ships all the way up the Tiber to threaten the Pope as well.

552
00:58:04,001 –> 00:58:08,000
So if you’re going to have a navy, why not use it for that?

553
00:58:08,001 –> 00:58:09,000
Thank you.

554
00:58:09,001 –> 00:58:12,000
The lady over there.

555
00:58:12,001 –> 00:58:17,000
I’m not sure whether these are really questions or just things I’d appreciate if you could comment.

556
00:58:17,001 –> 00:58:18,000
Comtuber.

557
00:58:18,001 –> 00:58:25,000
One is why religion should be worse than other ideologies.

558
00:58:25,001 –> 00:58:27,000
For instance, you mentioned Stalin.

559
00:58:27,001 –> 00:58:37,000
Aren’t people in power always going to find some ideology of some sort to use in order to justify their exploitation of others?

560
00:58:37,001 –> 00:58:44,000
And then the second part is the consolation of religion.

561
00:58:44,001 –> 00:58:55,000
You talked about it being an illusion and so forth, but the friends that I have who are
believers, and this is something that’s always amazed me, do seem to find true consolation in religion.

562
00:58:55,001 –> 00:59:13,000
And I see them experience life events, terrible deaths, accidents, horrific things, and manage
to survive them with a huge amount of fortitude and energy where a lot of other people fall apart.

563
00:59:13,001 –> 00:59:20,000
And what are you going to replace that kind of belief with to help people?

564
00:59:20,001 –> 00:59:26,000
Well, to answer your question in reverse again, it’s just the way my mind works.

565
00:59:26,001 –> 00:59:36,000
William James says in The Varieties of Religious Experience that these things are true
to the people who believe them, but they are subjective. They can’t make it true for you.

566
00:59:36,001 –> 00:59:43,088
So if I was to lose a child and someone was to come up to
me and say, “Well, she’s in a better place now,” you know what?

567
00:59:43,089 –> 00:59:46,000
You wouldn’t cheer me on.

568
00:59:46,001 –> 00:59:49,000
You would make me very sick and very angry if anyone tried that on me.

569
00:59:49,001 –> 00:59:51,000
But if they want to try it on themselves, that’s absolutely fine.

570
00:59:51,001 –> 00:59:55,000
But don’t let them have it taught in any school by public money.

571
00:59:55,001 –> 01:00:00,000
Don’t let them have it taught to my children. Don’t let them have it read out at the opening of Congress.

572
01:00:00,001 –> 01:00:07,000
Nothing like that. If it works for you, fine, but I don’t want to hear about it.

573
01:00:07,001 –> 01:00:15,000
And by the way, my experience has been somewhat different from yours. I have found that it’s precisely a moment of bereavement and disaster.

574
01:00:15,001 –> 01:00:23,000
So many people find out how utterly hollow and banal and disappointing and second rate and man-made religious services really are.

575
01:00:23,001 –> 01:00:28,000
But that’s a subjective impression too, so I can’t claim any authority for it.

576
01:00:28,001 –> 01:00:33,000
As to the difference between secular and theocratic dictatorships, I don’t think there is one.

577
01:00:33,001 –> 01:00:39,000
Serious totalitarian dictatorships are theocratic. George Orwell was right in pointing that out.

578
01:00:39,001 –> 01:00:44,000
It is not the case that fascism and Nazism were secular by any means.

579
01:00:44,001 –> 01:00:59,000
Just to start with that, I mean, if you take the history of the 1920s and ’30s, any decent modern history of that period, and
you cut out the word “fascism” or “fascist” and you insert the word “Catholic right wing,” you don’t have to change a thing.

580
01:00:59,001 –> 01:01:10,000
Whether it’s Portugal or Spain or Croatia or Poland or Hungary,
these are right wing extremist parties in political alliance with the Vatican.

581
01:01:10,001 –> 01:01:16,000
In some cases, like Slovakia, the actual leader of the head of the state, Father Tisa, is an ordained minister.

582
01:01:16,001 –> 01:01:21,000
In all cases, the cement of the regime is the Catholic Church. That’s what fascism is.

583
01:01:21,001 –> 01:01:30,000
It’s just been reconfirmed by this moon-faced Bavarian peasant,
Ratzinger, and I can’t wait to get these people back in the show.

584
01:01:30,001 –> 01:01:44,000
And it was confirmed after the war in South America, when every single fascist regime, after fascism had been defeated in
Europe, was endorsed by the Vatican, and every wanted Nazi in Europe was found under Vatican protection in Argentina.

585
01:01:44,001 –> 01:01:49,000
And believe it, it’s a story anyone can read. This is not secularism.

586
01:01:49,001 –> 01:01:58,000
National socialism in Germany, I shouldn’t go on about this too much, but it is a very
crucial question, is slightly different. Like Mussolini, Hitler’s first treaty is with the Vatican.

587
01:01:58,001 –> 01:02:02,000
It’s the very first treaty he makes, and sticks to.

588
01:02:02,001 –> 01:02:09,000
In exchange for the Catholic Central Party being dissolved, he gives the German Catholic Church complete control over education.

589
01:02:09,001 –> 01:02:13,000
That’s what they wanted, that’s what they got. Not a bad bargain.

590
01:02:13,001 –> 01:02:17,000
They have in common, of course, anti-communism and anti-Semitism already.

591
01:02:17,001 –> 01:02:27,000
By an order of the Vatican, Hitler’s birthday is celebrated from the pulpit of every church, every year until 1945.

592
01:02:27,001 –> 01:02:31,000
This is not my image of a secular political system.

593
01:02:31,001 –> 01:02:37,000
By the way, they’ve never denied this, but they’ve never exactly apologized for it either.

594
01:02:37,001 –> 01:02:48,000
Nazism does contain some pagan elements, some Nordic, cultic, Valkyrie worshiping, Odean fancying, garbage of that sort too.

595
01:02:48,001 –> 01:02:50,000
That’s not secularism either.

596
01:02:50,001 –> 01:02:55,000
So, I mean, I just resent and reject the entire idea that this is the case.

597
01:02:55,001 –> 01:03:01,000
Now, with communism, can I take a minute? Because I know this question’s got to come up.

598
01:03:01,001 –> 01:03:04,000
And I do have it in my book, available at fine bookstores everywhere.

599
01:03:04,001 –> 01:03:09,000
At a very reasonable price. And I’ll sign anyone who’ll give me a receipt for it.

600
01:03:09,001 –> 01:03:15,000
Could a fairer offer be made? I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, for all the concessions.

601
01:03:15,001 –> 01:03:24,000
In Russia, until 1917, for several hundred years, sorry, several hundreds of years, the peasantry has been torqued.

602
01:03:24,001 –> 01:03:28,000
The Tsar is a person slightly higher than a human and slightly less than a god.

603
01:03:28,001 –> 01:03:30,000
He’s the head of the church as well as the head of the state.

604
01:03:30,001 –> 01:03:34,000
He’s called the little father, the holy father.

605
01:03:34,001 –> 01:03:40,000
Serfdom is all based on this idea of being a supervising, semi-divine authority.

606
01:03:40,001 –> 01:03:55,000
If you are Joseph Stalin, and you’ve already been in a seminary, and you’re not smart enough to take
advantage of this huge reservoir of servility and credulity, then you shouldn’t be in the dictatorship business to begin with.

607
01:03:55,001 –> 01:03:58,000
It’s there waiting for you. People are already trained.

608
01:03:58,001 –> 01:04:03,000
They’ve been lashed and chained into this kind of obedience.

609
01:04:03,001 –> 01:04:07,000
They’re already wondering who’s going to be the new Tsar.

610
01:04:07,001 –> 01:04:13,000
Well, what happens? There’s an inquisition, for one thing, the show trials.

611
01:04:13,001 –> 01:04:20,000
There’s miraculous harvests. Three harvests a year with new grains that have never been seen before.

612
01:04:20,001 –> 01:04:26,000
So everyone will eat as they’ve never happened. Miracles are proclaimed.

613
01:04:26,001 –> 01:04:33,000
It is said that everything comes from the divine one, from the
head, from the one who must be worshipped and thanked at all times.

614
01:04:33,001 –> 01:04:42,000
All blessings proceed from him, as do all punishments, in case any
heresties should be found out, which they regularly are. What is this?

615
01:04:42,001 –> 01:04:45,000
Is this a secular society? In no way is it a secular society.

616
01:04:45,001 –> 01:04:49,000
Does the Russian Orthodox Church desert? It does not.

617
01:04:49,001 –> 01:04:53,000
The Russian Orthodox Church then as now counted Stalin as one of its saints.

618
01:04:53,001 –> 01:04:56,000
Now it’s even more flaming. They’re printing these icons of him.

619
01:04:56,001 –> 01:05:00,000
But then they carried on onside the entire time.

620
01:05:00,001 –> 01:05:08,000
He was very careful to always maintain a state church, and because
it always had been a state church, a state patrician, the same applies.

621
01:05:08,001 –> 01:05:13,000
So I rest my case. The original form of totalitarianism is theocracy.

622
01:05:13,001 –> 01:05:17,000
You will never find a really totalitarian system that isn’t religious.

623
01:05:17,001 –> 01:05:19,000
Okay, do I really mean that? Yes.

624
01:05:19,001 –> 01:05:23,000
Apartheid. Apartheid is the doctrine of the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa.

625
01:05:23,001 –> 01:05:26,000
The black and white people are different species.

626
01:05:26,001 –> 01:05:29,000
That’s the definition of apartheid. It’s not racism.

627
01:05:29,001 –> 01:05:33,000
It’s not a civil rights question. It’s a theocratic decision.

628
01:05:33,001 –> 01:05:35,000
We have the right to rule. It was given to us in the Bible.

629
01:05:35,001 –> 01:05:38,000
The others are the sons of Ham. They toil.

630
01:05:38,001 –> 01:05:40,000
They do the hewing of wood and the drawing of water.

631
01:05:40,001 –> 01:05:42,000
That’s apartheid. It’s a completely religious thing.

632
01:05:42,001 –> 01:05:53,000
The theocracy in Iran is based entirely, well, you know, it’s on the
Veliyat-e-Frakhir, a very violent reading of the Shia gospels, and so on and so forth.

633
01:05:53,001 –> 01:05:59,000
It’s not for those of us who defend the… Have I run out of this?

634
01:05:59,001 –> 01:06:02,000
I knew this would happen.

635
01:06:02,001 –> 01:06:15,000
In order, in other words, for the critique, well, it’s not really a critique, for the cheap objections,
like I get everywhere I go, “Well, what about secular…” I don’t mean that your question was cheap.

636
01:06:15,001 –> 01:06:19,000
I mean, it’s sometimes asked in a cheap way, an opportunist way.

637
01:06:19,001 –> 01:06:53,000
In order for there to be a fair test on a level playing field, you’d have to say, “Right, once there was a society that stopped paying taxes to any churches, that stopped opening its parliamentary meetings with
prayers, that wouldn’t let God be taught to children in the schools, that taught people instead the work of Lucretius about the origin of the natural order, and Galileo, and Spinnaker, and Darwin, and Jefferson, and Paine, and Voltaire.

638
01:06:53,001 –> 01:07:04,000
Once there was a country that tried all this, and then it fell into
slavery, famine, show trials, I don’t think that will be found to have occurred.

639
01:07:04,001 –> 01:07:07,000
I don’t think it would occur if that’s what we all did.

640
01:07:07,001 –> 01:07:13,000
That’s what it would take to make a fair comparison,
and that’s what… because they know that that’s true.

641
01:07:13,001 –> 01:07:18,000
That the people who don’t want it to be true suggest this false analogy instead.

642
01:07:18,001 –> 01:07:22,000
One question here, yes?

643
01:07:22,001 –> 01:07:27,000
I just had a question.

644
01:07:27,001 –> 01:07:30,000
I haven’t read your book yet, which I apologize for.

645
01:07:30,001 –> 01:07:31,000
We’ll do very soon.

646
01:07:31,001 –> 01:07:32,000
No, we can remedy all that.

647
01:07:32,001 –> 01:07:35,000
Absolutely, absolutely. I’ll bring out receive for my signature.

648
01:07:35,001 –> 01:07:59,000
But I just wanted to know, I think it was Eric Fromm that put up the theory in a really small book I read years ago about how any advanced civilization or advanced
culture goes through different phases of religious theory in order to have a certain order, and that the ultimate order that we would find in society is beyond God.

649
01:07:59,001 –> 01:08:13,000
He kind of compares social development to psychological development because there’s psychologists that we went… that we
had a pagan, and then that was, you know, a motherly God and then a fatherly God, which is the phase we’re coming out of now.

650
01:08:13,001 –> 01:08:18,000
Do you think that we will eventually grow into a self-sufficient society?

651
01:08:18,001 –> 01:08:23,000
He used analysis to a certain degree as an answer to that.

652
01:08:23,001 –> 01:08:25,000
I don’t know if analysis is the answer.

653
01:08:25,001 –> 01:08:30,000
Or just human beings becoming non-dependent on religion.

654
01:08:30,001 –> 01:08:45,000
And do you think that we can come in eventually into that kind of society, and if we’re developing towards
that, and then I guess the second part of my question would be, how easy is it to fall back into this old pattern?

655
01:08:45,001 –> 01:08:47,000
Yeah.

656
01:08:47,001 –> 01:09:18,000
Well, the falling back, I think I’ve already… maybe I’m not sure when you came in, but I don’t think there’s ever a final victory over superstition because as long as the fear of death and disaster
persists, and as long as we are poorly evolved, primates whose prefrontal lobes are too small and adrenaline glands are too big and whose genitals were designed by a committee, there will be superstition, trust me.

657
01:09:18,001 –> 01:09:21,000
But it can be held at bay at least.

658
01:09:21,001 –> 01:09:33,000
I would rather say, I think, that the victory would be one person at a time rather than one society at a time,
because there’s something that makes me uneasy about trying to mandate secularism or atheism for a country.

659
01:09:33,001 –> 01:09:37,000
You can separate the church and the state, but that’s probably the best you can do.

660
01:09:37,001 –> 01:09:46,000
Individuals can and do realize… By the way, was the
From book called Ye Shall Be as Gods that you read?

661
01:09:46,001 –> 01:09:48,000
That’s his best book.

662
01:09:48,001 –> 01:10:04,000
Okay. He’s very well worth reading, and it’s true, of course, that people make different gods for
themselves, and all it shows is that they evolve them, and all that shows is, well, opening verse of St. John is not true.

663
01:10:04,001 –> 01:10:10,000
In the beginning was the deed, not the word, and God did not make man his own image.

664
01:10:10,001 –> 01:10:13,000
Man made God his own image, or his and her own image.

665
01:10:13,001 –> 01:10:18,000
That’s the only way you can explain how many gods
there are, and how incompatible they are, and how eccentric.

666
01:10:18,001 –> 01:10:20,000
Well, it’s pretty easy.

667
01:10:20,001 –> 01:10:24,000
Either they’re all true, or none of them are, or only one of them is.

668
01:10:24,001 –> 01:10:34,000
And so the last conclusion would be an intensely narcissistic one for the one who held it,
because it would be their own creation they were worshiping, being part of their own essence.

669
01:10:34,001 –> 01:10:39,000
So I’ve always regarded that as sort of the easiest way of demolishing the thing.

670
01:10:39,001 –> 01:10:48,000
And as I may have said earlier, there’s no religious person you
know who isn’t an atheist, in respect to someone else’s religion.

671
01:10:48,001 –> 01:10:53,000
You ask the next Catholic friend you meet if he believes in Shiva.

672
01:10:53,001 –> 01:10:55,000
Of course not.

673
01:10:55,001 –> 01:11:06,000
Indeed, the word atheist, I think I believe I’m right about this, actually Gottlieb’s
book seems to suggest it, is originally a Greek word to denounce Christianity.

674
01:11:06,001 –> 01:11:10,000
Here come this sect who don’t believe in the gods.

675
01:11:10,001 –> 01:11:14,000
They’ve broken down the temples, they’ve dispersed the pantheon.

676
01:11:14,001 –> 01:11:18,000
They’re atheists, they’re godless, they don’t believe in the gods.

677
01:11:18,001 –> 01:11:29,000
So everyone is an atheist in respect to other people’s religions, and
“adists” like me, atheists full out, I don’t believe in any of them at all.

678
01:11:29,001 –> 01:11:39,000
Seems a lot easier, and in some ways more logical, and less selfish, and less
solipsistic, and less inclined to think that one’s own position has divine support.

679
01:11:39,001 –> 01:11:48,948
So Peter De Vries does the reverse evolution of Eric Fromm and says,
“People used to be polytheists, and believe in many, many, many gods.

680
01:11:48,949 –> 01:12:03,001
” And then as time went by they started to become monotheists and
believe in only one, and they’re getting nearer to the true figure all the time.