Christopher Hitchens and Jay Richards debated "Atheism vs Theism and the Scientific Evidence of Intelligent Design" recently at Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Stanford U.
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Intelligent design" isn't a term Hitchens acknowledges.
In order for intelligence to "design" it has to be exercised, and this in the minds of some demonstrates the hand of God at work. That nature has inherent design features doesn't of necessity "prove" the existence of a deity.
Hitchens made the very good point that centuries of "barbarism, misery, ignorance, slavery and early death" hardly leads one to believe in a beneficent designer God.
Richards responded by describing God as the "definition of goodness and love". However his all-loving deity for some reason turned a blind eye to the holocaust and the other epic atrocities that scar human history. His argument from science was equally unconvincing.
Hitchens pointedly asked Richards if he believed that Jesus was born of a virgin and if he also believed that Jesus resurrected from the dead. Richards replied "yes" on both counts, to which Hitchens responded :
"I rest my case ... this is an honest guy, who has just made it very clear [that] science has nothing to do with his world view."
And that's the crux of it. How can people like Richards try to enlist science in their quest to "prove" God, when they also believe biblical fairy tales? It makes it appear that they are only using science as a partisan tool, reducing it pretty much to a pseudo-science.
There were a number of other fallacies in Richards' argument. He described God as "a transcendent, eternal, personal being." The problem with this glorious picture, is that the
God of the bible was in fact more like a mean spirited psychopath, than anything approximating Richards' description. The biblical deity described himself as "a jealous God" and routinely called for the slaughter of those he deemed unworthy. It wasn't enough to slaughter the fighting men - the women, children and livestock had to be wiped out also to satisfy his craven lust for vengeance.
Although Hitchens made a strong showing, he won by default. The glaring flaws and contradictions in Richards' argument guaranteed it. Attempting to prove "God" verges on silly. Hitchens summed it up rather nicely when he said :
"The world as we know it works as the world might be expected to work if it did not have a designer. We can finally grow up if we resign ourselves to this increasingly inescapable truth."
