Is God a Dictator? | Analysing Christopher Hitchens

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Is God nothing more than a "celestial dictator"? Christopher Hitchens thought so, and was relentless in exclaiming so. God is an all-knowing supervisor, who judges your thoughts and demands praise and obedience. But does this make him a tyrant?

I wanted to spend some time responding to Hitchens' famous argument, and see how it might be responded to.

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0:00 The Celestial North Korea
1:08 Introduction
3:46 What's Wrong With Dictatorship?
11:45 What About Freedom?
19:50 Bishop Robert Barron
23:26 Outro

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[interneda]

But Hitchens isn’t talking about a deistic omniscient God, he is indeed very much talking about a theistic God such as the one of the Old Testament, who is very much human and dictator-like. He even says “he would require me to worship him..” etc that should tell you he’s obviously referring to theistic rituals. Him referring to hell as a more literal torture also tells you the specific texts he was talking about…

Hitchens never delved too deep into philosophical arguments for a deistic God (at least not that I’m aware of), he mostly focused on things he felt were unjust, the holy texts being one of these things, because of how corruptly they’ve been used and what an unjust world it would be if they were true.

Nevertheless, using Hitchens as a jumping-off point to talk about the argument for an all-loving God, who is like a dictator who wants to best for you is a very interesting thought experiment!

[walmin]

Well, about your friend making poor choices or the smoker. You're actually helping them by suggesting better behaviors or restricting their choices. That's correct as long as you're not the guy who created the conditions that give them misery. But if you did indeed create those conditions, then you are just a sadistic voyeur, the mafia boss that helps you avoiding the trouble he's going to make if you don't follow the rules he himself made up.

[AntonAchondoa]

Speaking as someone from a Catholic background here: your ability to steelman a worldview different from your own and consider its various intricacies really prove to me that you are one of the most important thinkers and youtubers of our generation.

[entertainingideas]

You've earned a lot of credibility for taking on our favorite thinkers. No one is above criticism. It is dangerous to become a fan (fanatic) for anyone.

[MoovySoundtrax]

Even if God is telling us what to do because he knows what's best for us, he would still be the one responsible for making us that way. That is, for making human beings such that we *had* to love him, and *had* to glorify him, or else be damned, annihilated, or what have you. And that does strike me as the behavior, not just of a dictator, but of a tyrant.

[johnb]

I feel like you're a better advocate for theism than other theists.

[glharlor]

I miss this man as if he were my real friend. He is inspiring and eloquent in his speech. He is over the top, yes; but steeped in wisdom.

[patrickkeyes]

I’m struck by how fair minded this is. You take others’ views seriously and work to understand them rather than belittle ideas that aren’t quickly your own.

[robelhailu]

I am an agnostic from Ethiopia and I love watching your video. I hope my country will escape from the chains of religion and everyone will be able to fully criticize religion without getting labeled of anything . With regard to your point in the video Even if there is no hell I don't want god telling me how to behave every step of the way and I would like to make my own mistake and learn from them more over the existence of a superior being monitoring on how we should behave is compulsion because we know for a fact doing anything other than what he ordered is abominable even if there is no hell.

[ozgun]

this then would raise the question: "why would an omniscient being who created everything and us, who doesn't need us or our devotion etc. passionately want what's good for us?".

[samforsyth]

16:50 I totally under stand the "in a sort of hell" part. Telling your friend how to avoid feeling so bad.

But it's only really analogous if start with the assumptions that you (in this metaphor) are the one created your friend knowing beforehand that he would suffer that depressive fate, and then Never introducing yourself, then sending someone else to deliver your message that only YOUR advice can save him.

[anthonypc]

Nice try at apologetics Alex ;)
But if we're considering the typical version of a god generally imagined by our most popular religions, then I think the celestial dictator criticism applies very well.

Especially when we include the factor that this god chose to design the entire perilous universe of both real and spiritual threats which he so wants to save his chosen people from.

[ThomistReview]

This kind kind of content is why Alex is my favorite atheist. Just one of the best out there right now

[esc]

Sorry Alex, but your analysis is off-base. It is truly just mental gymnastics to assume "a perfectly benevolent dictator exists" (regardless of the fact that every example, perhaps save Marcus Aurelius, comes up far short of such a being) and assume "the God of Christians" is such a being (although his purported scriptures state flatly the opposite) so that you can argue against Hitchens' infinitely more likely (based on past observation and scriptures) hypothesis. Even for someone who I believe is a philosophy and religion (or something in that vein) student, that's just making shit up for the sake of arguing.

[jumpingglitter]

I’m writing a book at the moment about my journey out of Christianity and it was this exact point that woke me up. I realised I was exhausted by the constant need to analyse myself, belittle myself, every church service was a heavy emotional slog of ‘what is wrong with me this week’. It felt like I’d realised I was in an abusive relationship and I woke up and needed to escape. But being in that constricted mind set since childhood, it was extremely difficult to re-wire my brain to think for itself, because I never had. I never questioned anything, I obeyed to the point of self sacrifice and it had left me a shell of a person.

[ievasiaurusaityte]

I think what Christopher Hitchens meant is the inability to question 'authority". You could never question it, just obey the rules, and if you didn't - you'd be punished. It's the inability to ask the hard questions. This is the same in religion AND in dictatorship. In my opinion, it's quite a good analogy.

[entertainingideas]

FINALLY! I missed you Alex! But it was definitely worth the wait:)

[michaelduguay]

I believe the critique is more applicable to Christianity specifically. Within Christianity, humans are inherently unable to live up to God's standard (only Jesus is perfect), so the constant surveillance and judgement is much scarier, especially if an interpretation of a literal hell is also applied. This would be a potentially terrifying existence. I think he did use it in a number of debates on "does God exist", which may be an inappropriate application of the critique/analogy for that philosophical question.

[Encounterpart]

I suppose we could pretend (change the colloquial meaning) that a dictator can be noble and benevolent, and we can pretend that hell is something romantic. But could we not also pretend there were an existence in which no matter what I chose to do with my life would be exactly the most worthwile path for me? I could partake in things that are 'harmful' without giving consent for harm to occur. Is this any harder to imagine than a celestial dictator? I think not. In which case an existance that includes the dictator would be less preferable.

[psyekl]

Oh, how I miss Hitchens. In this conversation, I try to think about how Hitchens would have responded to this video himself by looking at examples of his other conversations: While the points brought forth by Cosmic Skeptic about a "perfect benevolent dictator" are indeed valid, what we must realize is that we are not dealing with such a thing, and it is merely a fantasy: we are dealing with a church that has a history of being far from perfect and people that are all too willing to serve as its mindless pawns. The reality is that the philosophical ideal of the "perfect situation that may be acceptable" is not the reality, nor what we need to be distracting ourselves with fanciful pondering. The reality is that religion has created an environment where people are willingly placing themselves into the roles of permanent and irredeemable servitude to very real entities of social and political power where indeed, "the gates are locked from the inside."