>>> next, curtis argues that authors christopher hitchens are misguided in their fate that science will eventually provide all the answers we have regarding the nature of human beings and the physical world. he says the religion verses scions debate left out the role that philosophy, art and culture have played in shaping the way that we understand the world. during this event hosted by immelt phill house mr. white is a conversation with lewis, former editor of harper's magazine and current at the turn of the quarterly. this is an hour. >> i am a long time at meijer on the editorial advisory board and the quarterly. i turned to him for wisdom which often comes over me and i'm going to let him begin by explaining. we want them to talk as much as possible. and so, if you can set up the premise of the book and then i have a few questions the last few if the silence falls. >> well, from what i can tell so far, one of the things the people what their current leaders, journalists want to know why i decided to write this book a seeing eye and a novelist and not a science writer. the answer to

. >> there have been a whole genre of books on the is and, richard dawkins, christopher hitchens, two of the guests that we have done in the season in london and justin webb of the bbc described american religious thought in many ways is a stone age believe and then. why is it that europe has gone this way especially when there are so many historical churches and so much history of the church. >> i have about 50 answer to that. let me give you two of them one of them as sociological but the united states religion is voluntary, it's part of the people organize themselves you do arrive somewhere and go to the church and expect to support your own church when you've got one. you write a check to pay the minister's salary. in europe the historic churches have been a part of the infrastructure society and like the dreams and the electric light that is somebody else's responsibility to provide. once the big cultural changes, once the church had been kind of wrong footed about and people fell in out of the habit of going, they also lost any sense that they might have to do anything about mai

the commercial success of these works led by richard dawkins, christopher hitchens "god is not great" rosenberg the atheist guide to reality and of course bill maher's lethal dose the movie religious is a phenomenon in the book world trade in any case it is clear that the story these writers have to tell this one from a powerful part of our culture once told an emphatically so. more recently a separate series of extraordinarily successful books lectures and articles have appeared concerning the advancement of scientific knowledge about the human brain, howard or somehow it possesses capacities that until now we have called consciousness and creativity. i will be focusing on three science writers, science journalist jonah lehrer and neuroscientist tony adovasio and sebastian soon. these writers are typical representatives of the field that their work is just a sliver of the total output. between the neuroscientist and their allies among the literature explaining the brain's wiring is fast and technically intimidating. unlike those scientists and critics at war with religion it is much

. >>> next, curtis argues that authors christopher hitchens are misguided in their fate that science will eventually provide all the answers we have regarding the nature of human beings and the physical world. he says the religion verses scions debate left out the role that philosophy, art and culture have played in shaping the way that we understand the world. during this event hosted by immelt phill house mr. white is a conversation with lewis, former editor of harper's magazine and current at the turn of the quarterly. this is an hour. >> i am a long time at meijer on the editorial advisory board and

to bring the brutal waterboarding interrogation practice to light that any fair journalist christopher hitchens subjected himself to real live water boards already boarding session hoping that his experience would help americans understand the human cost of our government's harsh tactics where the release of the hitchens video the majority of americans didn't know how inhumane and torturous waterboarding really was but after hitchens video had gone viral and the pain and agony he endured was visible to the american public the nation's collective consciousness began to change. take a look and a warning that the video contains graphic images that may be disturbing to some viewers. see. and while the practice of waterboarding may officially have been stopped by the u.s. government another just as inhumane and torturous practice takes place in guantanamo bay now and once again our corporate media is white washington since february of this year inmates and want on a moby have been hunger striking to protest against their ongoing detention most of the prisoners have never even been charged with a cri