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Is atheism necessary for religion? Rabbi Zusya would say yes.
The great Russian Hassidic Rabbi, who lived more than two hundred years ago, was one day teaching his students when he emphasized the necessity of atheism and agnosticism. His students were aghast. Had the master lost his mind? He proved his point. "Say you're walking down the street and you see a hungry man or a homeless woman. If you're certain there is a G-d you're reaction might be, 'I need do nothing because G-d will provide.' But if you don't believe in G-d, or if you doubt his existence, then there is only you who can provide.'"
Religion is the most powerful tool known to mankind. It is capable ofinspiring the artistic wonders of the Italian Renaissance and the reliefs ofMichelangelo, and it is capable of inspiring nineteen young men to flyairplanes into buildings. It can lend mankind a vision of a perfect world inwhich 'the wolf lies down with the lamb' and it can impart to the world avision of people needing to be burned at the stake as infidels.
Without intelligent and earnest critics of the faith the heavenlyvision of religion can easily spill over into the hell on earth. Hence, the necessityof atheism and agnosticism. I would argue that religion learns more aboutitself from its critics than it does about its admirers.
I have debated many atheists in my time, from Richard Dawkins toDaniel Dennett to Sam Harris to Christopher Hitchens. Of them all Hitchensstands alone. He has by far been the most formidable and the most interestingopponent, the one I have most loved and the one that has most gotten under myskin. Religious people have no real interest in Dawkins whom they find extreme,clinical, mechanical, and monolithic. But Hitchens is passionate, utterlyunpredictable, contrarian, and fluent. And while he has been, at times been, inmy opinion, highly unfair in his criticism of religion, he redeems it all bybeing all too human. It is his most likable quality. He is also supremelyentertaining.
I believe this is the reason that my upcoming debate with Hitchenson 16 September in New York City at the Cooper Union on 'Is there an afterlife'has generated such considerable interest, particularly among religious people.The news that Hitchens has esophageal cancer and may be terminally ill hasprovoked sadness all round, particularly among the faithful. When I told my friendsat the excellent Baron Herzog vineyards in California that Hitchens was ill, weall immediately decided to send him fine bottles of kosher wine so he and hisfriends could toast L'Chaim, to life, for his recovery. Religious prayer groupsfor Hitchens' healing have sprung up all over America.
Are the faithful praying for Hitchens recovery because they want tohave enough time to convert and win a great victory? Is it because they want amiracle in Hitchen's life to open his eyes to G-d's presence? I cannot say. Ican only speak for myself.
I have no interest in converting Christopher Hitchens to religion.His atheism has not stopped him from being a singular champion of human rightsthroughout the world and he can teach we religious people a thing or two aboutcourageously standing up to tyrants. I am not so naïve as to believe for amoment that Hitchens would be so intellectually dishonest as to suddenly nowchange his antipathy toward religion because of the possibility of impendingdeath. Only a coward would forsake his personal truth out of fear of death andone thing Hitchens certainly is not is a coward. I am not a believer inreligion-in-the-foxholes and deathbed confessions. Religion is too important tobe embraced out of fear or trepidation.
Rather, what I intend with our debate is to finally dismiss thisnotion that religious people invented the idea of an afterlife out of a senseof weakness and insecurity. We've heard it all before. Religion is the opiateof the masses. It's a drug that weak-minded people take to help them deal withthe meaninglessness of life. They invented the afterlife because they couldn'taccept the finality of death. Then they invented G-d to give purpose and designto a fundamentally chaotic and unjust world.
The afterlife in Judaism is none of these things. It is not anescape from the flaws of this world or a reward for the suffering endured here.Any religion that promises an eternal reward for living righteously is bettercharacterized as a business promoting celestial remuneration. Worship G-d sothat he'll pay you in the hereafter. Judaism certainly demands that we do theright because its right and never for the consideration of any external reward.
Most Jewish sages understand the World to Come as the worldthe way it will be when it reaches a state of perfection through human endeavorand G-d's finishing touches, what we call the messianic era. Judaism'sfocus is not on the heavens but on the earth, not on a disembodied existence inthe sky but on souls animating bodies and doing good deeds here on earth. Ourground zero is not G-d's celestial throne but the earth's sacred spaces.
I have no intention of converting Hitchens to my religious point ofview and do not believe I could do so even if I wished.
But I can convince Hitchens that his ideas about religious peopleare wrong. That we are strong rather than weak, focused on this life ratherthan the next, dedicated to healing the world rather than gaining entry intothe heavens, fundamentally opposed to fundamentalists, extremely suspicious ofany kind of extremists, and open to ideas - and criticism - from every quarter.
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