# Hitchens Proof of God **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 16, 2010, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchens-proof-of-god/553965 "2010-09-16T13:59:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchens-proof-of-god/553965/41 "2010-09-17T07:08:55Z")
I once had a dream that I was Christopher Hitchens. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchens-proof-of-god/553965/42 "2010-09-17T13:08:44Z")
> [@yokan](#): > > > [@Marley23](#): > > > > No. But then, I don’t think you’ll find any other explanation convincing and I doubt you’ll be surprised if your question gets negative responses. > > I don’t believe in God or religion, but the fact that I find this spooky means I won’t find any explanation sans God convincing? How wrong and how patronizing. I reread this thread this morning and maybe I misunderstood you. But I’m very confused about your title and your choice of wording. Hitchens is one of the best known atheists in the world. He may consider himself part Jewish in terms of his ancestry but it certainly isn’t his religion. He doesn’t have one. So if he doesn’t consider if proof of god and you don’t consider it proof of god, why is “Proof of God” in the thread title? ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchens-proof-of-god/553965/43 "2010-09-17T13:25:08Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > So if he doesn’t consider if proof of god and you don’t consider it proof of god, why is “Proof of God” in the thread title? I think he was just doing that thing where posters try to make a thread title really provocative, you know? Like when a news headline screams, "Your Kids Are In Danger!’ but then you read the article and it’s about school lunches not having enough protein or something. ---
**Author:** ![palindromemordnilap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/db5fbb/32.png) [@palindromemordnilap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/palindromemordnilap)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchens-proof-of-god/553965/44 "2010-09-17T21:30:07Z")
How can someone belong to a religion and not know it? Does that mean I might be Zoroastrian and not know it? I realize that being Jewish is a cultural as well as religious distinction. But I fail to see how an accident of birth automatically makes a person a certain kind of worshiper. And if we are talking about Proof of God, then we are talking about religion. Wouldn’t it be great if Pat Robertson got to the gates of Heaven and St. Peter said: "Too bad, it says here you were a Jew your whole life and you just didn’t know it. It’s H-E-double-hockey-sticks for you, Pat!\* - OK, I recognize there are several things wrong with this scenario: 1) there is no Heaven or Hell; 2) If there was a Heaven, Robertson would have a snowball’s chance of getting near the place; 3)St. Peter was Jewish by birth. BUT STILL! ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchens-proof-of-god/553965/45 "2010-09-17T22:17:35Z")
Hey, Fate, Karma, Providence or whatever you are… are you listening? Good. (clears throat) Last night I had a dream that I had more money than Bill Gates. The night before I had a dream that Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson and Alexis Bledel were my fuckbuddies. (It was in black and white for some reason, except for some big yellow dude who showed up near the end) Just, you know, putting the thought out there. (checks watch, taps feet a little too impatiently) Oh I’m also gonna dream about winning a Nobel Prize tonight. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchens-proof-of-god/553965/46 "2010-09-18T06:51:55Z")
> [@palindromemordnilap](#): > > How can someone belong to a religion and not know it? Does that mean I might be Zoroastrian and not know it? > > I realize that being Jewish is a cultural as well as religious distinction. This is about ethnicity, not religion. Judaism straddles both and that makes for a lot of confusion in discussions like this. Hitchens obviously is not religiously Jewish and he wasn’t raised in Jewish culture, but he was saying he discovered he has some Jewish ancestry. Specifically, according to orthodoxy, his grandmother was Jewish, which means his mother was Jewish, which means he’s Jewish. > [@](#): > > - OK, I recognize there are several things wrong with this scenario: 1) there is no Heaven or Hell; 2) If there was a Heaven, Robertson would have a snowball’s chance of getting near the place; 3)St. Peter was Jewish by birth. BUT STILL! And Jews don’t believe in hell either. But whatever - if it confuses Pat Robertson I can support it. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchens-proof-of-god/553965/47 "2010-09-18T07:02:55Z")
Nothing in the dream tells him he’s Jewish. That’s just an interpretation tailored to fit a later revelation. The dream conveys no actual information to him at all. There are myriad reasons he could dream about being invited to join a prayer group, but we can’t know what it was without access to all his memories and entire psyche. Even if we want to force an interpretation that the dream was telling him he was Jewish, there are still numerous possibilities which are far more likely than magic. It is certainly possible, for instance, that he had received some kind of clue about it eariler in his life and forgotten it. Or perhaps his subconscious mind just wanted to know what it was like to be in a minyan. He’s a journalist. He’s inquisitive. The idea of being let in on something like that probably appealed to his idle, subconscious mind. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchens-proof-of-god/553965/48 "2010-09-18T19:50:23Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > > [@Marley23](#): > > > > I’m confused. How do his religious beliefs make it more likely he’d lie about this? > > His beliefs don’t make me more likely to believe that he’s lying, but the fact that he’s talking about divine experiences. > > Just as an example, if a person tells me that they believe in God, of course I don’t think that they’re lying. But if they tell me that they’ve seen angels (and I have been told this) I’d sooner think that they’re lying than crazy. Obviously that isn’t the same situation because he’s not claiming to have seen the impossible, he’s just recounting a dream that the had, but yeah. If I had to wager any amount of money I’d say he’s not lying and that this is confirmation bias or whatever. I’m just always surprised that in UFO/ghost/religious stories people seem reluctant to suggest that someone could just be making shit up and instead bend over backwards to provide other ways to explain things. You really don’t know who [Christopher Hitchens](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens) is? ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchens-proof-of-god/553965/49 "2010-09-18T22:11:18Z")
> [@74westy](#): > > > [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > > > His beliefs don’t make me more likely to believe that he’s lying, but the fact that he’s talking about divine experiences. > > > > Just as an example, if a person tells me that they believe in God, of course I don’t think that they’re lying. But if they tell me that they’ve seen angels (and I have been told this) I’d sooner think that they’re lying than crazy. Obviously that isn’t the same situation because he’s not claiming to have seen the impossible, he’s just recounting a dream that the had, but yeah. If I had to wager any amount of money I’d say he’s not lying and that this is confirmation bias or whatever. I’m just always surprised that in UFO/ghost/religious stories people seem reluctant to suggest that someone could just be making shit up and instead bend over backwards to provide other ways to explain things. > > You really don’t know who [Christopher Hitchens](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens) is? I do. I was thinking of his brother. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2010, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchens-proof-of-god/553965/50 "2010-09-21T00:34:29Z")
> [@yokan](#): > > Christopher Hitchens has recounted more than once a dream he had. In it, a Jew came over and asked him to join their minyan (prayer quorum which only Jews – and in Orthodox circles, only Jewish men – can join). Hitchens didn’t know he was Jewish then. How do you explain that? > > (I don’t believe in Judaism or religion of any kind, but it’s a pretty crazy story) “Proof of God” --?? WHY? I’m not a believer in reincarnation, but it strikes me that some of those who are would find “PROOF” of it in the story of his dream. And “God” is not required for a belief system that includes reincarnation. _ **- Jack** _ ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2010, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchens-proof-of-god/553965/51 "2010-09-21T14:55:50Z")
True story: I dreamed that Sonny Bono was killed in a skiing accident the day before it actually happened. Am I a psychic? Is this proof of the supernatural? _Proof of God?_ Absolutely not. Michael Kennedy (son of RFK) had died the same way less than a week earlier. It was a big news story and an unusual way to die, so it’s not surprising that it was in my head and turned up in a dream. The fact that my dream assigned the fate to some random celebrity is also not surprising. The fact that the random celebrity was Sonny Bono was a weird and unlikely coincidence, but it surely was just that – a coincidence. Given the number of people in the world having dreams every day, and the number of things that happen in the world every day, odds are there’s going to be some overlap. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchens-proof-of-god/553965.md?page=2)