Hitchens Vs. Boteach on Existence of God

If you care at all for Christopher Hitchens, please go buy his book God Is Not Great at once. Do it to save him from another embarrassing spectacle like last night's debate against Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on the existence of God.

The event, held at Manhattan's 92nd Street Y, was, by my count, the 9,321st stop on the press tour for God Is Not Great. Making the case for atheism, Hitchens was droll, erudite and withering, and had not only the mostly-Jewish crowd but also the moderator, himself a rabbi, eating out of his hand.

"I don't know how I'm going to fill up my 15 minutes," he said, referring to the length of time alloted for opening arguments. "After all, the burden of proof is not upon me."

Indeed. And Boteach -- best known for writing a book called Kosher Sex, hosting a cable TV program called Shalom in the Home, and cultivating friendships with the likes of Michael Jackson -- was not up to the task. Trying desperately to score touches, he accused atheists of promoting genocide (after all, Hitler was no friend of religion), called out microscopic missteps in Hitchens's writing (Einstein was offered the second presidency of Israel, not the first) and dropped names at a furious clip ("When I debated my dear friend Richard Dawkins at Oxford..."). By the time Boteach confidently asserted that Stephen Jay Gould had died having given up on evolution, it was clear he had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

So unequal were the two combatants, in fact, that I walked out thinking that Boteach was the true victor. Merely sharing a stage with Hitchens was a victory for him in the same way that having the "theory" of intelligent design taught in classrooms, however unfavorably it's compared to evolution, is a victory for its proponents.

Is Hitchens unable to find serious thinkers to challenge him, theologians who can argue for belief as devastatingly as Hitchens argues for unbelief? Or does he really need to sell books that badly?

CORRECTION: Ingrid Sischy was neither "ousted" nor "canned" from her position as Interview magazine editor, as I said earlier in the week. She resigned her post in connection with co-owner Sandra Brant's decision to sell her interest in Interview's parent company, Brant Publications. I regret the error.