The Four Horsemen - Segment 1

From left to right (on scren):
[Hitchens] Christopher Hitchens
[Dennett] Daniel Dennett
[Dawkins] Richard Dawkins
[Harris] Sam Harris

0'00.000	0'0.000 segment 1
0'01.008	[Dawkins] One of the things we've all met is the accusation that we are strident or
0'05.988	arrogant, or vitriolic, or shrill.
0'10.136	What do we think about that?
0'11.831	[Dennett] Yeah, well...
0'13.150	I am amused by it, because I went out of my way in my book
0'16.552	to adress reasonable religious people.
0'21.372	And I test-flew the draft with groups of students who were deeply religious.
0'26.555	And indeed the first draft incurred some real anguish.
0'31.718	And so I made adjustments and made adjustsments.
0'33.939	And it didn't do any good in the end because I still got hammered
0'37.153	for being rude and aggresive.
0'40.177	And I came to realize that it's
0'43.284	it's a no-win situation.
0'44.843	It's a...
0'45.484	It's a mug's game.
0'46.872	The religions have contrived to make it impossible to disagree with them critically without being rude.
0'56.752	You know, they...
0'57.613	they sort of play the "hurt feelings" card at every opportunity.
1'02.660	And you...
1'03.797	you are faced with a choice of, well...
1'06.635	am I gonna be rude?
1'08.448	or am I going to articulate this criticism?
1'12.487	I mean, am I going to articulate it, or am I just gonna button my lip?
1'17.430	[Harris] Well, that's what it is to trespass a taboo.
1'20.104	I think we're... we're all encountering the fact that...
1'22.380	that religion is held...
1'25.425	off the table of rational criticism in some kind of formal way even by,
1'30.268	we are discovering,
1'31.727	our fellow secularists and our fellow atheists.
1'33.747	You know, just to leave people to their own superstition,
1'37.756	even if it's abject and causing harm.
1'40.834	And don't look too closely at it.
1'42.681	[Dennett] Now, that was, of course, the point of the title of my book...
1'45.614	that there's this spell and we gotta break it.
1'48.115	[Hitchens] But if the charge of, um, offensiveness in general is to be allowed... in public discourse,
1'54.217	then, without self-pity, I think we should say that we too can be offended and insulted.
1'59.042	I mean, I...
2'00.379	I'm not just in disagreement when someone like Tariq Ramadan,
2'04.553	accepted now at the high tables of Oxford University as a spokesman,
2'09.268	says the most he'll demand,
2'10.913	when it comes to the stoning of women,
2'13.193	is a moratorium on it.
2'14.911	I find that profoundly...
2'17.737	much more than annoying...
2'19.255	[Harris] Right, yeah, but I think...
2'20.865	[Hitchens] um, Insulting...
2'21.484	not only insulting, but actually threatening.
2'23.562	[Harris] But you are not offended.
2'24.243	[Hitchens] No.
2'24.593	[Harris] This is a, ah...
2'25.267	You don't take any, um...
2'26.281	I don't see you take things personal.
2'27.854	You are alarmed by the liabilities of certain ways of thinking, as is in Ramadan's case.
2'32.475	Yes. But he would say, or people like him would say
2'35.883	that if I doubt the historicity of the prophet Muhammad, I've injured them in their deepest feelings.
2'41.052	[Harris] Right.
2'41.336	[Hitchens] What I've... um...
2'42.349	[Hitchens] I have in fact, mhm I think all people ought to be,
2'45.795	offended at least in their deepest integrity by, say,
2'47.996	the religious proposition that without a supernatural, celestial dictatorship, we wouldn't know right from wrong.
2'54.053	That we only... we only live by...
2'55.737	[Harris] Were you realy offended by that?
2'57.233	Doesn't it just seem wrong with you?
2'57.891	[Hitchens] No. I say only, Sam, that if...
2'59.747	if the offensiveness charge is to be allowed in general,
3'05.923	and arbitrated by the media,
3'07.940	then I think we're entitled to claim that much, without being self-pitying,
3'11.230	or representing ourselves as the press minority,
3'14.335	which I think is an opposite danger, I would admit.
3'16.985	I don't...  I'd say that...
3'19.030	that I agree with Daniel that there is no way in which
3'22.568	the charge against us can be completely avoided,
3'26.622	because what we say does offend the core...
3'29.432	very core of any serious religious person. (???)
3'32.184	We deny the divinity of Jesus, for example, that maybe they'll be terrifically shocked, impossibly hurt.
3'38.298	It's just too bad.
3'39.745	[Dawkins] I am fascinated by the contrast between the amount of offence that's taken by religion
3'44.742	and the amount of offense that people take against
3'47.748	many, anything else, like artistic taste.
3'49.842	Your taste in music, your taste in art.
3'51.784	Ah, your politics.
3'52.635	You could be...
3'54.302	not exactly as rude as you'd like,
3'55.517	but you could be far, far more rude about such things.
3'59.227	And I quite like to try to quantify that.
4'01.018	There's been research about it actually.
4'02.928	It tests people with statements about their favorite football team,
4'06.577	or their favorite piece of music or something.
4'09.239	And see how far you can go, before they take offense,
4'12.356	compared to...
4'13.294	well, is there anything else, apart from say, 
4'15.859	how ugly your face is, that gives such...
4'19.318	[Hitchens] Or your husband's or wife's...
4'20.419	[unintelligible]
4'22.757	[Hitchens] It's interesting that you say that,
4'23.966	because I regularly debate with a chap called John Donahue, of the Catholic Defense League.
4'28.884	And he actually is righteously upset by certain transient modern art,
4'33.479	which tends to draw attention to itself by blasphemy.
4'37.274	For example Sorranos,
4'38.408	Sorranos' "Piss Christ",
4'39.411	or the elephant dung on the virgin, and so on.
4'41.389	And indeed, I think it's quite important that we share,
4'45.292	uh, with Sophocles and other pre-monotheists,
4'48.016	a revulsion to desecration or to profanity,
4'51.240	that we don't want to see,
4'53.446	um... churches... uh... desecreted,
4'56.836	or religious icons trashed or so forth.
4'57.218	[Dawkins] No, indeed not.
5'00.142	[Hitchens] We, we share an admiration for at least some of the aesthetic achivements of religion.
5'07.056	[Harris] I think this whole notion of...
5'08.942	I think our criticism is...
5'11.173	is actually more barbed than that, in the sense that we're not...
5'14.552	We are offending people, but we are also telling them
5'17.229	that they are wrong to be offended.
5'18.742	I mean this is...
5'20.261	Physicists don't...
5'21.649	or aren't offended when their view of physics is disproved or challenged.
5'27.161	I mean, this is just not the way rational minds operate when they're really trying to get at what's truth in the world.
5'33.334	And religions purport to be representing reality.
5'37.338	And yet there is this peevish and,
5'39.749	and tribal, and ultimately dangerous, reflective response to having these ideas challenged.
5'46.066	I think we are pointing to a total liability of that.
5'50.691	[Dennett] Well, and too...
5'52.509	[Dennett] There is no polite way to say to somebody...
5'56.062	[Harris] You've wasted your life.
5'56.909	[Dennett] do you realize you've wasted your life?
5'59.126	Um...
5'59.682	Do you realize that you've just devoted all your efforts and all your goods
6'03.948	to the... a glorification of something which is just a myth?
6'09.152	Ah... or have you ever considered...
6'11.610	even if you say,
6'12.837	have you even considered the possibility that maybe you've wasted your life on this?
6'17.285	There is no...
6'17.786	there is no inoffensive way of saying that.
6'19.529	Well, we do have to say it,
6'20.856	because they should jolly well consider it.
6'23.400	Same as we do about our own lives.
6'25.005	[Harris] Oh, absolutely.
6'26.079	[Dawkins] Dan Barker is making a collection of clergymen who've lost their faith but don't dare say so, because it's their only living.
6'32.342	It's the only thing they know what to do.
6'34.234	[Harris] I've heard from one of them, at least.
6'35.693	[Dawkins] Have you? Yes.
6'36.940	[Hitchens] I used to have this when I was young, doing arguments with members of the communist party.
6'40.879	They sort of knew that it was all up with the Soviet Union.
6'45.115	Many of them have suffered a lot, and sacrificed a great deal.
6'48.297	And struggled manfully to keep what they thought was the great ideal life.
6'54.483	Their mainspring had broken, but they couldn't give it up,
6'57.053	because it would involve a similar concession.
6'59.692	But certainly, if anyone says to me,
7'01.799	"how could you say that to them about the Soviet Union?"
7'03.728	"Didn't you know you were going to really make them cry and hurt their feelings"
7'06.104	I'll say, "don't be ridiculous!"
7'08.650	"Don't be obsurd!"
7'09.452	But it's...
7'10.533	I find it's...
7'11.751	in many cases almost the exact analogous argument.
7'14.597	[Dennett] When people tell me I am being rude and vicious and terribly aggresive in the way that I chat...
7'20.577	So, if I were saying these things about the pharmaceutical industry or the oil interests, ah,
7'28.672	would it be rude? Would it be off-limits?
7'30.916	[Dawkins] No, of course it wouldn't.
7'32.080	[Dennett] Well, I want religion to be treated just the way we treat the pharmaceuticals and the oil industry.
7'38.587	I am not against pharmaceutical companies.
7'40.541	I am against some of the things they do.
7'42.430	But I just want to put religions on the same page with them.
7'44.606	[Hitchens] Including denying them tax excemption.
7'47.222	[Dawkins and Dennet] Yes.
7'47.945	[Hitchens] And, or in this case, state subsidy.
7'51.326	[Dawkins] I am curious how religion acquired this charm status that it has, compared to any of these other things.
7'57.163	And somehow we've all bought into it whether we're religious or not.
8'00.424	And, there's some historical process that has lead to this immunization of religion against
8'07.726	this hyper-offense taking that religion is allowed to take.
8'13.153	[Dennett] And what's particular amusing to me finally
8'17.264	(first it infuriated me, but now I am amused)
8'20.471	is... they've managed to enlist legions of non-religious people who take offense on their behalf.
8'30.301	[Dawkins] And how?
8'30.930	[Dennett] In fact, the most vicious reviews of my book...
8'35.093	had been by Hugh Hooduck (???), himself not (???) religious.
8'37.483	But they are terribly afraid of hurting the feelings of the people who are religious.
8'41.209	And they chastise me worse than anybody who is deeply religious.
8'45.196	[Dawkins] Exactly my experience.
8'46.054	[Harris] And I think...
8'46.607	[Harris] So one of you pointed out how condescending that view is.
8'49.878	[Dawkins] Yes, yes.
8'51.072	[Harris] It's as if though...
8'52.382	It's like the idea of penitenciaries.
8'54.388	I mean, they're...
8'55.310	"Other people need them"
8'56.580	You know, that we must keep these people safely in their myth.
9'02.436	I think there is one answer to that question which may illuminate a difference that...
9'07.867	that I have, I think, maybe with all three of you.
9'12.683	There's something about...
9'15.027	um, I still use words like "spiritual" and "mystical" without furrowing my brow too much,
9'20.634	and I admit, to the consternation of many atheists.
9'24.018	I think there is a range of experience that is rare,
9'27.473	and that is only talked about without obvious qualms in religious discourse.
9'33.229	And because it is only talked about in religious discourse,
9'35.512	it is just riddled with superstition.
9'38.636	And it is used to cash out various metaphysical schemes which it can't resonably do.
9'44.797	But clearly people have extraordinary experiences.
9'48.180	Whether they have them on LSD, or they have them because they were alone in a cave for a year.
9'53.121	Or they have them because just happen to have a neurology that is particularly labile that allows for it.
9'59.717	But people have self-transcending experiences.
10'02.860	And people have the best day of their life where everything seemed...
10'06.458	you know, they seemed at one with nature.
10'08.284	And for that, it...
10'10.322	Because religion seems to be the only game in town in talking about those experiences and dignifying them,
10'16.827	everyone...
10'17.723	That's one reason why I think it seems to be taboo to cristicize it,
10'21.765	because you are talking about the most imporments of people's lives and trashing them...
10'25.867	at least from their view.
10'27.368	[Dawkins] Well, I don't have to agree with you, Sam, in order to say that it's a very good thing you're saying that sort of thing,
10'33.194	because it shows that, as you said, religion is not the only game in town when it comes to being spiritual.
10'39.965	It's like... it's a good idea to have somebody from the political right who isn't an atheist,
10'46.038	because otherwise there is a confusion of values which doesn't help us.
10'52.278	It's much better to have this diversity in other areas.
10'57.770	I think I sort of do agree with you.
10'59.655	Ah, but even if I didn't, I think it's valuable to have that.
11'03.433	[Hitchens] If one could make one change, and only one,
11'07.758	Mine would be, to distinguish the numinous from the supernatural.
11'10.973	[Dawkins] Yes
11'11.564	[Harris] Right
11'12.868	[Hitchens] You have a marvelous quotation from Francis Collins, the genome man,
11'17.208	who said while mountaineering one day, he was so overcome by the landscape,
11'21.680	and then went down on his knees and accepted Jesus Christ.
11'24.893	A complete non sequitur
11'26.157	[everyone agreeing]
11'26.451	[Hitchens] It's never even been suggested that Jesus Christ created that landscape
11'29.791	[Harris] A frozen waterfall in three parts which reminded him of the Trinity.
11'34.082	[Hitchens] Well, absolutely. We are all tri-units one way or another.
11'37.401	We are programmed for that. That's very clear.
11'39.965	Um, it wouldn't ever have been if for, had it? God.
11'43.599	[laughter]
11'44.828	[Hitchens] You know that from experience.
11'46.592	But that would be the normal suctinction(???) to make.
11'48.666	And I think it would clear up a lot of people's confusion that what we have in our emotions are the surplus(???) values of our personalities,
11'56.417	... aren't particular useful for our evolution, well, that we can't prove of...
12'01.086	but that do belong to us all the same...
12'02.823	don't belong to the supernatural and are not to be conscripted or annexed by any priesthood.
12'08.467	[Dennett] Yes, it's a sad fact that people, in a sense, won't trust their own valuing of their numinous experiences.
12'19.207	They think, "it isn't really as good as it seems, unless it's... unless it's from God... unless it's in some kind of a proof of religion."
12'26.550	Now, it's just as wonderful as it seems. It's just as important. It is the best moment in your life.
12'31.873	And it's the moment when you forget yourself and become better than you ever thought you could be in some way.
12'38.145	And see, in all humbleness, the wonderfulness of nature.
12'43.066	That's... that's it! And that's wonderful.
12'45.471	But, it doesn't add anything to say, "Golly, that has to have been given to me by somebody even more wonderful
12'53.379	[Dawkins] It's been hijacked, hasn't it.
12'54.954	[Hitchens] But it's also...
12'56.939	I think it's a...
12'58.344	[Hitchens] I think it's a deformity or shortcoming in human personality, frankly,
13'03.622	because religion keeps stressing how humble it is... how meek it is... how accepting...
13'11.543	almost to the point of self-abnegationist.
13'13.721	But actually it makes extraordinarily arrogant claims.
13'15.893	[intelligible]
13'17.164	"I suddenly realize that the universe is all about me."
13'19.336	[Harris] Yeah.
13'19.809	[Dawkins] Yes.
13'20.530	[Hitchens] I would've felt terrifically humble about it, come on!
13'22.208	You know, we can laugh people out of that, I believe.
13'24.723	[everyone agreeing]
13'27.545	[Dannett] I am so tired of the, um,
13'31.138	"if only professor Dennett had the humility to blah, blah, blah..."
13'34.844	humility, humility...
13'36.008	and this... from people of breath-taking arrogance.
13'40.246	And I think...
13'41.782	[Hitchens - unclear sentence] We shovel it aside, saying "is it just a did my me amo and I then I forgot"
13'45.572	[everyone agreeing]
13'46.723	[Hitchens] And what is that?
13'47.800	[Harris] This is the point, I think, we should return to this notion of the arrogance of science.
13'51.180	because there is no discourse which enforces humility more rigorously.
13'56.722	Scientis, in my experience, are the first peole to say they don't know.
14'01.112	I mean you get... if you get a scientist to start talking off his area of specialization,
14'07.542	he or she immediately starts hedging his bet, saying,
14'12.261	 "you know, I am out here, but I am sure there's someone in the room who knows more about this than me...
14'15.420	and, of course, so you know, all the data is not in."
14'18.427	This is the mode of discourse in which we are most candid about the scope of our ignorance.
14'24.091	[Hitchens] I actually know of academics, come up with that kind of false modesty.
14'27.619	But I do know what you mean.
14'29.062	Many of these stories says, "no, I yield..."
14'31.833	[Dawkins] No, but any academic should do that
14'33.494	[Hitchens] Yes, they should.
14'34.320	[Dawkins] The thing about religious people is that they recite the Nicene Creed every week,
14'38.488	which says precisely what they believe.
14'40.501	There are three gods, not one.
14'42.449	The virgin Mary.
14'43.729	Mhm, Jesus died... went to the... what is it... down for three days, and then came up again? In precise detail.
14'50.528	And yet, they have the goad(???) to accuse us of being overconfident.
14'54.522	And... and not knowing what it is to doubt.
14'59.225	[Dennett] I don't think many of them ever let themselves contemplate the question which, I think, scientists ask themselves all the time:
15'07.820	"what if I'm wrong?"
15'09.962	"What if I'm wrong?"
15'13.017	It's... just not part of their repertoire.
15'16.202	[Hitchens] Would you mind if I disagree with you about that?
15'17.770	I mean... a lot of talk that makes religious people hard to...
15'24.224	ah, not hard to beat, but hard to argue with, is precisely that they'll say that they are in a permanent process of fail(???)
15'30.398	But is indeed the prayer, "Lord I believe; help Thou my unbelif."
15'33.701	Grant Green(???) says the great thing about being a Catholic was that it was a challenge to his unbelief.
15'39.655	A lot of people live by keeping two sets of books.
15'41.971	In fact, it's my impression... my impression that a majority of people I know who call themselves believers of people of faith do that all the time.
15'50.407	I wouldn't say it was schizophrenia.
15'52.396	That would be... that would be rude.
15'53.718	But they are quite aware of the impossibility... of what they say.
15'57.822	They joe-jacked(???) on it when they go to the doctor, or when they travel, or anything of its kind.
16'02.816	In some sense they couldn't be without it.
16'04.104	But they are quite respectful of the idea of doubt.
16'08.108	In fact they make a... they try to build it in when they can.
16'11.034	[Dawkins] Well, that's interesting then...
16'12.236	So when they are reciting the Creed, with its... total, sort of, apparent conviction...
16'17.869	Is this like a kind of mantra which is forcing themselves to overcome doubt, by saying...
16'22.334	"Yes, I do believe, I do believe, I do believe! ... ah... because really I don't..."
16'26.687	And of course, like the secular compose(???), they are glad other people believe it.
16'31.392	It's an affirmation. They wouldn't want other people not to be making.
16'34.403	[Harris] Well, also, there's this... this curious bootstrapping move which I tried to point out in this recent On Faith piece.
16'41.654	This, this idea that you start with the premise that "believe withot evidence is especially noble".
16'46.639	I mean, this is the doctrine of faith.
16'48.264	This is the parable of Doubting Thomas.
16'50.520	And so you start with that, and then you add this notion which has come to me through various debates that...
16'56.841	that the fact that people can believe without evidence is itself a subtle form of evidence.
17'01.818	What kind of wired...
17'03.338	Actually Francis Collins, you mentioned, brings it up in this book.
17'06.563	The fact that we have this intuition of God is itself some subtle form of evidence.
17'11.580	And it's this kind of kindling phenomenon where once you say, "it's good to start without evidence..."
17'16.436	they fact that you can, is a subtle form of evidence.
17'19.533	And then, the demand for any more evidence is itself a kind of corruption of the intellect, or a temptation, or something to be guarded against.
17'26.646	And you get a kind of perpetual motion machine of self deception, where you can get this thing up and running.
17'32.279	[Hitchens] Well, they... they like the idea that it can't be demonstrate.
17'35.431	or then, there would be nothing to be faithful about.
17'37.555	[Harris] Right, that's the point of faith.
17'38.848	[Hitchens] If everyone has seen the resurrection,
17'41.203	and we all knew that we've been saved by,
17'45.327	then we would be living in an unalterable system of belief.
17'49.643	And then we wouldn't have to be policed.
17'51.229	Mhm... and it would actually be...
17'53.954	(those of us who don't believe it are very glad it's not true, because we think it would be horrible)
17'57.286	Those who do believe it don't want it to be absolutely proven so there can't be any doubt about it,
18'01.750	because then, there is no wrestling with functions. There no doubt match the soul.
18'05.777	[Harris] It was a review of one of our books.
18'07.940	I don't remember which, but it was exactly that point.
18'11.013	"What a crass expectation on the part of atheists that there should be total evidence for this."
18'17.509	"There would be much less magic..."
18'20.034	"If everyone is compelled to believe by too much evidence..."
18'23.848	Actually, this was Francis Collins. I am sorry. This was Francis Collins.
18'26.247	A friend of mine named Canon Fanton(??) of the Fogs...umetry(???) 
18'29.922	said that if the Church validated
18'34.784	the Harley Sharp Kureen(???), he personally would leave.
18'37.289	[laughter]
18'38.488	[Hitchens] Because if they were doing things like that, he didn't want any part of it.
18'42.506	Ah... I didn't expect when I started off my book tour...
18'46.519	to be as lucky as I was.
18'48.568	Jerry Falwell died... my first week on the road. That was amazing.
18'52.205	[Harris] Yeah, that was amazing.
18'53.638	[Hitchens] Um, I didn't expect Mother Teresa to come out as an atheist.
18'56.865	[agreeing]
18'58.994	[Hitchens] But, reading her letters, which I now have, is rather interesting.
19'02.598	She writes, "I can't bring myself to believe any of these".
19'04.957	She tells all of her confessors or her superior, "I can't hear a voice. I can't feel the presence, even in the mass, even in the sacrus(???)"... no small thing.
19'12.537	But they write back to her saying, "that's good. That's great. Your suffering... it gives you a share in the crucifixion. It makes you part of Calvary."
19'21.079	You can't beat... an argument like that.
19'23.880	[Harris] Right.
19'24.374	[Hitchens] The less you believe it, the more your demonstration of faith.
19'26.309	[Harris] The more you proove it to be true.
19'27.815	[Hitchens] Yes, and the struggle, the dark night of the soul, is the prove in itself.
19'32.739	So, we just have to realize, that these really are non-overlapping magisteria.
19'37.886	We can't... we can't hope to argue with a mentality of this kind.
19'42.304	[Harris] Well, actually, I disagree here...
19'43.534	[Dennett] No, but we can do just what you're doing now.
19'46.512	And that is, we can say, "look at this interesting bag of tricks that'd been bought."
19'52.012	"Notice that they are circular... that they are self-sustaining... that they don't have any... that they could be about anything."
19'58.760	And, then you don't argue with them.
20'01.453	You simply point out that these are not valid ways of thinking about anything,
20'10.015	because you can use the very same tricks to sustain something which is manifestly fraudulent.
20'17.603	And in fact, what fascinates me is that a lot of the tricks have their counterparts with con artists.
20'23.586	They use the very same forms of non-argument... the very same non sequiturs.
20'29.373	And, they make, for instance, a virtue out of trust.
20'33.861	And as soon as you start exhibiting any suspicion of the con man who is about...
20'39.562	he gets all hurt on you...
20'41.463	and plays her feelings card.
20'45.403	And remind you how wonderful taking it on faith is.
20'52.955	I mean, there aren't any new tricks...
20'56.726	these tricks have evolved over thousands of years.
20'58.619	[Hitchens] And you want to go and put it out of the production of bogus special effects as well...
21'01.970	one of the things that completely convict religion of being fraudulent, the believe on the miraculous.
21'07.926	The same people will say, "well Einstein felt a spiritual force of the universe, when he said, the whole point about it is, there are no miracles."
21'16.593	There are no changes in the natural order. That's the miraculous thing.
21'23.058	They are completely cynical about flaming him.
21'26.069	Marker 387
23'57.000	23'57.000 segment 2