The two world-famous debaters faced each other, grinning nervously. Both consider themselves progressives. The date was November 26, the place the Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto. Outside the hall the temperature was sub zero; inside excitement was building up as patrons started to trickle in. The event was a sell-out with tickets changing hands on the internet at 500 Canadian dollars (€375). The draft resolution submitted to the two debaters was: Be it resolved, religion is a force for good in the world.
Tony Blair, defending the motion, was clearly nervous behind the masked smile. He felt at a disadvantage because he carried a heavy political baggage and the audience had already shown lack of sympathy towards him in the pre-debate vote. The war in Iraq and the issue of weapons of mass destruction weighed heavily on him.
His opponent, Christopher Hitchens, had been voted as the world’s fifth top public intellectual in a Prospect/Foreign Policy poll. There was a lot of sympathy towards him in the audience. He is the author of the 2007 book on atheism, God Is Not Great. The effects of aggressive chemotherapy to treat his advanced cancer were plain for all to see on his gaunt face and bent body.
Mr Hitchens went into the attack immediately. “Religion forces nice people to do unkind things and also stupid things,” he blurted.
Mr Blair did not linger on the reply. “It is undoubtedly true there are people who have committed horrific and stupid acts in the name of religion,” he said, “but there are also religious people who do good things. Christians and progressive secularists joined to abolish slavery, for example.”
Mr Hitchens moved on unimpressed. He gave as an example the situation in Palestine where Mr Blair is directly involved as the international community’s representative to try to secure peace in the region.
“Everyone in the civilised world has roughly agreed, including the majority of Arabs and Jews and the international community, there should be enough room for two states, for two peoples in the same land. I think we have a rough agreement on that. Why can’t we get it, the UN, the US, the Quartet, the PLO? The Israeli Parliament can’t get it, why not? Because the parties of God have a veto on it, and everybody knows this is true, because of the divine promises made about this territory, there will never be peace or compromise. There will instead be misery, shame and tyranny and people will kill each others’ children for ancient books, caves and relics and who is going to say this is good for the world? That is the example nearest at hand.”
Mr Blair was prepared for this kind of argumentation. “Imagine a world without religious faith, not just no place of worship, no prayer or scripture, but no men or women who, because of their faith, dedicate their lives to others, showing forgiveness where otherwise they wouldn’t, believing through their faith that even the weakest and most powerless have rights and they have a duty to defend them. And, yes, I agree, in a world without religion, the religious fanatics may be gone but, I ask you, would fanaticism be gone?
“And then realise that such an imagined vision without a religion is not in fact new. The 20th century was a century scarred by visions that had precisely that imagining in their vision, and at their heart, and it gave us Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot. In this vision, obedience to God was for the weak; it was the will of man that dominated. So I do not deny that religion can be a force for evil but I claim that, were it is, it is based on a perversion of faith and I assert that, at least, religion can also be a force for good, and where it is, that it’s true to what I believe is the essence of faith and I say that a world without religious faith would be spiritually, morally and emotionally diminished.”
Already the pre-debate vote showed 57 per cent for those against and 22 per cent for those in favour. Post-debate, the vote went 68 per cent for those opposing the resolution and 32 per cent for those supporting it. These figures showed that Mr Hitchens had won the argument handsomely.
But what does one expect in today’s world? In his keynote speech at Westminster Hall in London during his visit to Great Britain last September, Pope Benedict warned that religion, and Christianity in particular, was being marginalised around the world. These concerns were recently repeated by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey.
The Pope ended his speech by saying: “Religion is not a problem but a vital contributor to the national conversation”. As with Mr Blair, he quoted as a primary example of the positive role of religion in the lives of peoples the abolition in Britain of the slave trade some 200 years ago.