The God question
Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett
What each actually argued, how believers answer them, and the two lines worth knowing verbatim.
For many Christians and Latter-day Saints these names are already coded as hostile, and quoting them reads as tribal. Use the arguments in your own words. The two exceptions worth saying verbatim: Hitchens on vicarious redemption, and Dawkins's "one god further." Both land because they are short and they reframe rather than attack.
Christopher Hitchens
The most useful of the four in live conversation, because his arguments are moral rather than technical.
The razor: "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."
Vicarious redemption, his sharpest: if I could take on your debts, that would be charity. If I could serve your prison sentence, that is not justice, it is the abolition of responsibility. Atonement asks us to call that the highest moral act. "I find something repulsive about the idea of vicarious redemption."
The challenge: name one ethical action performed by a believer that could not have been performed by a nonbeliever. Then reverse it: name a wicked action performed specifically because of religious belief. The asymmetry is the argument.
The Intelligence Squared debate, 2009
Hitchens and Stephen Fry debated whether the Catholic Church is a force for good. The audience voted before and after. It remains the largest swing in the series’ history.
| Position | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| For the motion | 678 | 268 |
| Against the motion | 1,002 | 1,876 |
Source: Intelligence Squared
They will answer: the moral challenge misses the point, which is not whether atheists can act well but what grounds morality. And atonement is not imposed on an unwilling third party; it is self-given by the party wronged. Both are fair replies worth acknowledging.
Richard Dawkins
The Ultimate 747 gambit: a designer capable of creating a complex universe must be at least as complex, so invoking one does not explain improbability, it relocates it. His own essay
One god further: "We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
On children: "There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents." Useful with someone raised in a faith, because it separates inheritance from conviction.
They will answer: the 747 gambit conflates a necessary, simple, non-contingent being with a complex contingent one. Classical theism defines God as metaphysically simple. This reply has real force; know it before you use the argument.
Sam Harris
The core point: "You don't get anything worth getting by pretending to know things you don't know."
And: "Faith is a declaration of immunity to the powers of conversation." Once someone says "I know by faith," argument has no purchase, which is precisely the problem.
They will answer: religious moderation is empirically the most effective de-radicalizing force within its own tradition, and his attempt to ground morality in science has an is-ought problem raised by philosophers across the spectrum, not just theists. Both are real points.
Daniel Dennett
The least quotable, the most useful concept.
"Belief in belief": many people who call themselves believers do not actually hold the metaphysical claims. What they hold is the conviction that believing is good, independent of whether it is true. This explains a great deal: people defending the practice of faith rather than the content of it.
"Deepity": a statement with two readings, one trivially true and one profound-sounding but false. "Love is just a word." Once you have the concept you hear deepities constantly in religious conversation.
They will answer: "belief in belief" is unfalsifiable, since protesting that you really do believe is exactly what the theory predicts. Fair. Use the concept to understand what you are hearing, not as an accusation.