TONY JONES: Good evening and welcome to Q&A. Well, many people spend their lives considering big questions about the meaning of life and the existence of God. Well, tonight we've got less than an hour. But we do have a very good panel: one of Australia's leading Catholic intellectuals, Father Frank Brennan; renowned journalist and atheist, Christopher Hitchens, who is in Australia to deliver the opening address at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas; social commentator and founding editor of The Monthly, Sally Warhaft; and politics lecturer and former spokesman for the Islamic Council of Victoria, Waleed Aly; and Deputy director of the Sydney Institute, biographer and commentator, Anne Henderson. Please welcome our panel. Please welcome our panel.

Okay. Now, remember that Q&A is live from 9.30 Eastern Time, so join the Twitter conversation and send your questions by SMS to 197 55 222 or to our website at abc.net.au/qanda.

Well, as we go to air tonight, there are reports that thousands may have died in the earthquakes and tsunamis that ravaged our region in the last few days. Well, these sorts of tragedies inevitably raise questions, like our very first one, which comes from Ejder Memis.

EJDER MEMIS: Yes, thank you very much. I'd like to speak to Mr Hitchens. I've noticed that you are wearing the Kurdistan flag on your label.

TONY JONES: We might come to that later Ejder.

EJDER MEMIS: The Kurdish really thank you very much for that - for your solidarity to the Kurdish people. My question is that thousands of people dying from earthquakes - to the panel, question. Thousands of people dying from earthquakes can't be called 'god's punishment', why is it that a person being saved from under the rubble days later is almost invariable called a miracle? And, also why should God be credited for good act of a human being saving a fellow human being from under the rubble, while God being spared for the calamity that was brought up on the people?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Yes. Look, I promise you I did not have anything to do with planting this guy in the audience and giving me such a brilliant opening. He even recognises that I'm wearing, on my lapel, the flag of free Iraq. The Kurdish people like it. Perhaps you're Kurd yourself, I don't know.

EJDER MEMIS: Yes.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: But if not, even better. In England there are, I think, only three villages that don't have a war memorial from the First World War. One of them is called Upper Slaughter, by the way. It's in the Cotswolds. I think there are only three of our that don't - when I was a kid, I used to notice it. And, of course, anyone who has been to an ANZAC day event will feel the same way, this unbelievable horror show and culling of the young. Do you know what those villages are called by the Imperial War Graves Commission? They're called the Blessed Villages. What's blessed about being the only village in a war which was fought for God, king and country, which didn't have any casualties and what does it make all the villages that did lose dozens, or sometimes more than that, of young men and frequently ever male member of the family? Are they cursed because they did what the church and the king asked them to do? It's probably the stupidest thing the human race does, is to look for patterns in this way and say when a baby falls out of a high rise building and bounces on the grass below, that must be God. And when millions of children die every day from lack of pure drinking water and just die of diarrhoea in a banal manner, that's because God moves in a mysterious way or isn't involved at all. So I think we're off to a racing start, ladies and gentlemen. On the key question, anyway.

TONY JONES: Frank Brennan, let's hear from you. Do you have any thoughts on the role of an omnipotent God in natural disasters?

FRANK BRENNAN: Natural disasters happen and an omnipotent God lets them happen, for those of us who believe in God. It's not about God saying that we won't let nature take its course. Those of us who do have a religious faith, we equally, I think, are committed to science but, like Christopher says, we all look for patterns. We look for patterns in our daily lives. We look for patterns in our histories. We look for patterns in the world and, yes, some villages might be called blessed. Well, if they didn't lose anyone, they wouldn't call themselves cursed. And so what - how do they see themselves?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Only the people who call them blessed could do that, because it's the natural corollary. Now, several leaders of the Christian church, as you know, said about the last tsunami that it was a punishment. In Britain several of them said it was a punishment for homosexuality. It used to be said that earthquakes were punishment for sodomy. Since we're doing sodomy and the lash, I thought I might as well bring this up. Oddly enough, the San Francisco Earthquake only hit when San Francisco was famous for other things. When New Orleans got flooded, the only bits that didn't get flooded were the red light district. Okay? So anyone who says they know God's mind in this had better not mind looking a bit foolish or - which you obviously don't - or had better say take responsibility - take responsibility and say, yes, by letting it happen, God must in some way wish it to.

TONY JONES: Let me bring Waleed...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Why would he do that?

TONY JONES: Let me bring Waleed Aly into the discussion here. Do you have any thoughts on this?

WALEED ALY: Well...

TONY JONES: And does Islam have a concept of a God that allows disasters to happen?

WALEED ALY: Well, I think, by definition, if you believe in God, you would have to say that at the very least God allows this thing to happen because to say otherwise would be to presuppose that God lacks the power to stop it, which - I don't know of any religious traditions, certainly no monotheistic religious tradition that would say that. I do want to say something that I definitely agree with in what Christopher said, and that is that this sort of very simple dichotomised thinking about natural disasters - that they are punishment or reward and this is the prism through which we view them - I mean, this has to be some of the most rudimentary, unsophisticated thinking that religious people and, frankly, irreligious people, who perpetuate it even via criticism, have ever produced. I think it's a ridiculous assertion and I've not really encountered a serious religious thinker, as opposed to one who is too busy playing forms of identity politics or some other kind of rabble rousing - persecuting some rabble-rousing religiosity, who would argue that. The simple fact is that things happen in life that are, in our subjective experiences, grotesque and other things that are wonderful and our judgments, immediately, about whether they're grotesque and wonderful are, in a sense, beside the point. The question, I think, for religious people who are actually serious about being religious people and with all the introspection that that implies, is what do you do about it and what do you do with it? It's possible that by surviving the earthquake and moving on to behave in all sorts of ways, that you cast yourself into some kind of eternal destruction in religious terms. That's entirely possible, in which case you probably would have been better off to have been killed in the earthquake. It's entirely possible that by gathering all sorts of riches in life and having an easy life, that you are similarly deforming your character as a person, so I think the key question is not so much what is God doing - although that's a perfectly legitimate question - field of inquiry. But I think the more important question for people, particularly religious people, is: who am I in response to this? What am I doing? Each of these is a test, whether you're in the good side or the bad side of it, and what do you do with it? And I'm more interested in that, frankly.

TONY JONES: Let's hear from Anne Henderson.

ANNE HENDERSON: Well, where I come from, I can't take too much of the God is a person or a thing or a human creation. I mean the idea of religion is a human creation. I grew up a Catholic and we had heaps of that little pictures of what God was. But God is meaning beyond meaning and the reason so many human beings have kept on believing in a God is because so much of ordinary material existence here doesn't explain things enough. And whether God had anything to do with natural disasters, I'm really not very interested. It's a question of when people can't understand something they give a force a place in their understanding which is usually something spiritual or beyond the material. And to me what God is is not so important but what God - that idea of God leads people to do. When the New Orleans tragedy happened, one of the most heroic acts was the way the Salvation Army was there on the spot the minute it happened. I spent three and a half years going to Villawood Detention Centre and got very much involved, as Frank did, with the so called illegal people that came to Australia without visas, and trying to get them visas. When I went to the yard, which was a very unpleasant place to be in every week, it wasn't the Fabian Society or the Pacifist Society that was there helping people but, invariably it was older nuns, people who had some connection with the Anglican Church. We sat down, people who believed in Islam, people who believed in Christ, people who believed in anything you could think of, and we were all kind of in the same boat together. But it was interesting how it was those that had some faith who had the time too, no doubt, who were there helping and to me it's, as Waleed...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Was this a private institution?

ANNE HENDERSON: Private what institution?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: The one you were visiting, was it a private institution?

ANNE HENDERSON: I was visiting a detention centre run by the government. People who came to - oh, still. It was a policy brought in by the Labor Government and continued under the Liberal Government and continues to this day. Now, we take people to Christmas Island, which is off the coast.

TONY JONES: Anne, I'm going to interrupt you, Anne, for a moment.

ANNE HENDERSON: And that was a government run thing.

TONY JONES: Sorry, to interrupt everyone just for a moment, because we actually have a question that's coming up that actually leads us in similar directions. But you're watching a special politician-free edition of Q&A, answering the big philosophical questions. The clock is ticking. Let's move to our very next question. It comes from Joel Brown.

JOEL BROWN: My question is to Mr Hitchens again. How do you account for the good work, specifically regarding the title of your book, Religion Poisons Everything, the good work done by religious aid organisations overseas in third world and developing countries, as well as locally on our own shores, and I'm sure in your country, with the homeless and needy?

TONY JONES: Actually, Christopher, can I interrupt? Before you answer that, think about your answer for a moment, because we haven't heard from Sally Warhaft. I'd like to bring her in and then go to you.

SALLY WARHAFT: I think this gets into the whole question of - the whole argument about whether or not, you know, God is great or not great and Christopher's argument, obviously, in his book. To me what's missing and I think what Waleed touched on, is that lived experience of people is much more varied and personal than the kind of things that you can pick out to make a case against God or that, you know, God is somehow missing from a great disaster or tragedy but he is there in a miracle. And I just think that, you know, the lived experience of people who are religious is - it's part of what it is to be human, it seems to be, for a great, great many people across time and I don't think it's something that's going to go away.

TONY JONES: Christopher?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: This was the tail of the last question. I asked the lady from the Sydney Institute whether these...

SALLY WARHAFT: Anne.

ANNE HENDERSON: I'm Anne.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Well, I don't know you well enough yet.

ANNE HENDERSON: I'll just introduce myself. I'm Anne.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Perhaps we'll be more bonded by the end of the...

ANNE HENDERSON: And some would say not much of a lady.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: We'll be more - we'll be more intimate by the end of the...

TONY JONES: None of us would say that.

ANNE HENDERSON: Well, I know people who would.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: It's just not the way I was brought up. Perhaps by the end of the show we'll be more intimate. Why I asked her about - because she wasn't content just to say religious people volunteer for charities, if that was news to anybody, but she had to couple it with a smear against Fabianism and social democracy. Now, as a matter of fact...

ANNE HENDERSON: Well, they weren't there, Christopher, that's all I was saying.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I'm sorry to say that without the....

ANNE HENDERSON: I didn't say it was a smear.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: No, the efforts of Fabianism is you...

ANNE HENDERSON: But you're good at smears.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: The efforts of Fabianism...

ANNE HENDERSON: What's wrong with a smear?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I'll get to the end of this sentence if it kills you, let alone me.

ANNE HENDERSON: We have to interrupt you, Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: The efforts of socialists and social democrats to make sure that things like education and health do not depend upon private charity given by rick people and religious institutions to the deserving poor are the reasons why a lot of it is taken care of because it's taken care of, because we would have welfare and...

ANNE HENDERSON: Hang on, I wasn't rich. But, just a minute, there's another smear. I wasn't a rich person giving charity where it wasn't got. You have to understand the problem...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I didn't say that you were.

ANNE HENDERSON: Well, it seemed to come across that way.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I didn't even imply that you were. No, the efforts of Fabianism and social democracy - socialism - were to make sure that these things didn't depend on the voluntary whim...

ANNE HENDERSON: Yeah, but they don't do that now.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: ...or the idea of the deserving poor. Now, that's the first point.

ANNE HENDERSON: I know about Fabianism.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: The second point - well, because it's so taken for granted now, I love to remind people. Actually this meant...

ANNE HENDERSON: But that was a long time ago.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: This meant social, political action, as you correctly say...

TONY JONES: Hang on for one second.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: As you quite correctly say, and I can help you out here by emphasising it, quite a while ago. That's why I said not to forget it. Now, to the point about religious activism. Isn't it true - haven't you all heard that Hamas does so well because it supplies social services? Are you going to say that the same is true for Hamas, an Islamic jihad? Never mind that they're religious. They distribute services where otherwise there'd only be secularism and corruption. Well, if you want to claim that, you can't just claim the charitable part of it, it seems to me. Mother Teresa endlessly praised for work that most of the time she actually never did. I went to watch her very closely in Calcutta. You don't mind that she thinks that what Bengal and Calcutta mainly needs is a campaign, a clerical campaign, against birth control and family planning. Has anyone here ever been to Bengal and concluded that's what it really needs? That's what she was really campaigning for, in case you are worried. But never mind. She gives a wonderful impression of being a charitable person. So what Indians need is more missionaries to cure poverty, when everybody knows there's only one cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women, which means giving them some control over their reproduction. You name me - you name me a Catholic or Muslim charity that goes into the fields determined to secure the empowerment of women...

TONY JONES: Okay, well, let's see...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: ...and you'll have the ghost of a point.

TONY JONES: Let's see if Frank Brennan...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Up till now you don't.

TONY JONES: Let's see if Frank Brennan can address that point.

FRANK BRENNAN: Well, let's take it. I mean, people like (indistinct) have argued very strongly and persuasively, like yourself Christopher, that empowerment of women is the key to the development of peoples. Now, why don't we just drop the bagging and smearing and saying, all right, anyone who is out there, let's judge them by their fruits? Whether they're atheists or whether they're Catholics or whatever, let's drop the bagging and smearing. Let's say, right, we agree. What we've got to be working for is the empowerment of women. And there are people of religious dispositions who are passionately committed to that and, yes, there will be mistakes made in terms of policies and in terms of moral theories, but that's where I think, in a pluralist society like Australia, we can have the respectful dialogue and we can work those things through, as we do this evening.

TONY JONES: Waleed Aly?

WALEED ALY: I'm just trying to figure out which aspect to take. I think...

TONY JONES: I guess that the argument being made in that question is religion doesn't poison everything because there are people who do good works.

WALEED ALY: I think there's a real call that needs to be made for some honesty here on the part of religious people. And that is that, yes, lots of religious people do lots of very good things and there was research published, I think, two years ago looking at generation Y Australians that found that those who were more religiously committed were more socially aware, they were more committed to the social good and all that sort of thing, and you can point to those studies and you can say, "That's wonderful." But, in a sense, I think you get caught in a reactionary argument, which is with all these people lining up saying, "Look how horrible religion is," you get a religious response that says, "No. No. No. No. We're good. Look at these charities," turning a blind eye to not only some of the points that Christopher raises, but also the fact that there are religious charities that do a lot of that religious work for their own ends that, in my judgment, are actually quite nefarious at times. Religions can be used as a cover and a pretext for violence and evil and all sorts of things. It can be instrumentalised in that way. It can also be instrumentalised in the opposite way. And so I kind of echo what Father Frank Brennan has said here and that is that if you actually look to the substance of what people are doing, rather than asking the first question, is this a religious organisation or is this not, and then trying to make some judgment about their conduct and their motives on the basis of that, then I think you get further down the track of making some kind of assessment. I think we get caught in these petty games about, well, you know, are religious people good or bad. Just get on with being good or being bad and let people make up their own mind.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: That's excellent. I really think that's brilliantly phrased but there is one more thing we have to say, just to do with the logical inference. If Catholic charities were better than I say they were, or Muslim ones, it still wouldn't have anything to do with the truth or otherwise of their preachments any more than a group like MÃ©decins Sans FrontiÃ¨res, for example, which would be my favourite medical charity, or Amnesty International, which is completely secular, proves that there is not God. I mean, it's purely coincidental.

WALEED ALY: That's an entirely separate argument. But if the question...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Well, yeah, but it's part of the premise that needs to be...

WALEED ALY: No but if the question is about...

ANNE HENDERSON: No, but...

TONY JONES: Okay. No, I'm going to interrupt you all because there is a questioner and Christopher Hitchens obviously has got a lot of attention from our audience and here's a question aimed directly at him.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Oh, dear.

TONY JONES: From Jessica Langrell.

JESSICA LANGRELL: Just another one to Mr Hitchens. You typically stereotype religious people as dogmatic and fundamentalist.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: (Indistinct)

JESSICA LANGRELL: How is this, when people who listen to you feel as if you are the one being dogmatic and fundamentalist in your evangelical pursuit to convert the world to atheism?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Well, I have to - I would have expected more applause for a cheap point like that. That's more like it. Now, that's more like what I call applause. I will have to, Tony, put myself in the safe keeping of your audience, both tonight here physically and those who are watching, and ask them if they really think that's what I do or what I'm like, and the reason the questions have come to me, all of them so far, is not just because of my sexual charisma. But if it was - this description of me as dogmatic and my only description of others as being dogmatic was true, the I wouldn't be able to correct it in the time of this show.

TONY JONES: Christopher, just getting to the point of why religion still resonates. Here's a quote from your book for you to reflect on: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature; the heart of a heartless world. It is the spirit of a spiritless situation."

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Yes. "It is the opiate of the people," the quotation goes on. And it goes on even more beautifully to say that - no, it's not from me. It's not from me. It goes on to say that, "Criticism of religion has plucked the flowers from the chain, not so that men and women may wear the chain without consolation but so that they may break the chain and cull the living flower." It's from Karl Marx. It's the opening of his critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. It's the most misrepresented quotation probably of the 19th century. It's the one where he doesn't say religion is the opium of the people.

TONY JONES: But he does...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: It's the one that shows that atheists are not dogmatists.

TONY JONES: But he does understand, essentially, in making that point why religion still resonates today.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Yes. He understands why religion is ineradicable; why it's part of the human makeup and personality; and why it's the most interesting argument that we have, because it was our first attempt at philosophy, just as it was our first attempt at health care, cosmology, astronomy and so on. It's the argument that never goes stale.

FRANK BRENNAN: But I think one of the strengths of your book is that you do concede that religion is ineradicable, so given that reality, I mean, I come back to the point. Why not drop the bagging and smearing and let's say the solvent is respectful, public discourse. We judge things by their fruits and if there be arguments which are put which are misconceived, then we talk that out.

TONY JONES: Okay.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Well, Father...

TONY JONES: Hang on, I'm just going - I'm going to interrupt once again...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: ...you're the soul of charity but, I mean, who has been bagging and smearing, and you've said that twice now, as if you're sitting there, our only protection against a wave of smearing and battering. As long as we have a civil conversation, we don't have to keep on saying that that's what we're doing.

TONY JONES: Okay. In this civil conversation we have an audience. We've got a gentleman up there with his hand up, and I'm going to come to you.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: This question is for Chris and for Waleed. You - Frank, sorry. Frank and Waleed. You said that we live in a pluralistic society where - duality society. What is your views on gay marriage and why is it there seems to be such opposition from the Christian and Muslim societies against it?

TONY JONES: Okay, we'll take a quick answer from Frank and Waleed on that.

FRANK BRENNAN: I've just finished a national human rights inquiry. We've heard about this constantly around the country. I would approach the issue of gay marriage, distinguishing two things. One, people of a religious disposition may have a view about what they call the sacramentality of marriage. I would see that as a separate question from the civil institution of marriage. Now, in terms of the civil institution of marriage, I think one of the welcome developments in Australia is we've got to the stage of saying that discrimination against people on the grounds of their sexuality should be wiped out completely and that we're a better society for that being the case. In terms of the next step, whether or not in civil law there should be a recognition of the bond between two men or two women as being the same as marriage as it's presently understood, the real issue, I think, is whether or not that decision is best made by our elected politicians or whether it's made by our elected judges. And I think at the moment, in Australia, the view has been that that should be a decision of our elected politicians. My own view is, moving around the country, I think that younger Australians, they don't see it as a problem. It's not an issue. I think for a lot of older Australians it's still an issue and, guess what, a lot of them happen to be married. So in terms of a free and democratic society, for those who are civilly married, then we've got to bring them with us as we look at any change on that issue.

TONY JONES: All right. Before I go to anyone else on that, you're watching Q&A. We actually have a video question that's going to, I think, continue this discussion. We're watching Q&A. Remember you can send your web or video questions to our website - the address is on the screen - like this video from Joseph Bromely of Malmsbury, Victoria.

JOSEPH BROMELY: Hello Comrades. Can we ever hope to live in a truly secular society when the religious maintain their ability to affect political discourse and decision making on issues such as voluntary euthanasia, same-sex unions, abortion and discrimination in employment?

TONY JONES: Christopher, this won't mean anything to you but I was a bit distracted by that because he looks enormously like a young Malcolm Turnbull. I'll just repeat his question.

WALEED ALY: I was thinking Syd Barrett, actually.

TONY JONES: Can we ever hope to live in a truly secular society when the religions maintain their ability to affect political discourse and decision making on issues like voluntary euthanasia, same-sex marriage, abortion and discrimination in employment? Waleed Aly?

WALEED ALY: I frankly don't understand the question. Well, I do literally understand the question but there are assumptions embedded within it that I think need to be examined. I actually think a secular society implies the ability of religious arguments to enter the discourse. The idea of secularism, the reason for it coming into existence, was to open the public discourse to a range of views: religious; irreligious; and otherwise. It's about the separation of church and state. That is, it's about removing the levers of government, the levers of power, from a religious institution like the church. That's a different thing from saying that arguments that have their grounding in some kind of religious commitment cannot be aired. That, to me, is actually an anti-secular position, because what it's doing is its saying, "Here are the approved modes of discourse. Here are the approved arguments." The idea of a secular society is to say: "You want to come from a socialist perspective? You want to come from a Christian perspective, an Islamic perspective, a Hindu perspective or some other perspective that, as yet, has not been conceived, fine. And we'll sort that out in the political process." I think to say on euthanasia religious people are not allowed to comment as religious people is ridiculous and anti-secular and anti-liberal.

TONY JONES: Okay. Sally Warhaft?

SALLY WARHAFT: I agree with everything Waleed said. If what the question was meant to ask was, you know, as meaning a society without religion then I'd say you want to be careful what you wish for and...

TONY JONES: Perhaps he's talking about a society without politicians who are expressly religious and therefore...

SALLY WARHAFT: Well, then maybe we should all be praying very hard for that. I'm not sure. But, you know, I mean, you imagine...

TONY JONES: Or voting very hard for it.

SALLY WARHAFT: That's right. I mean and what Waleed said is absolutely true. Secularism means everybody can get involved and, I mean, it's a great thing about a country like this. But, you know, you imagine back in time. I don't want to imagine a world that never had Mozart or Bach in it. You know, you have to be careful what you ask for.

TONY JONES: You're not religious though. Why do you value religion?

SALLY WARHAFT: Because I think that I'm interested in what drives human beings, in what makes human beings human. And I think there is obviously - whether you're religious or not, there is something in human beings that passions and faith override reason in just about everything we do. From we get up in the morning and we choose what to wear or, you know, there's a lot that's going on in human behaviour that is not that well thought out and, in fact, a lot of our reason is in analysis. It's after the fact and I think that...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: None the worse for that, though. I mean...

SALLY WARHAFT: Well, you need both, you know.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Though it's true, there aren't many secular gothic cathedrals, for example.

SALLY WARHAFT: But...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Verdi could write a beautiful requiem.

TONY JONES: What do you call the Kremlin?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Well, it's the - Verdi could write a very good requiem without actually being a believer, but I don't think that John Donne could have written his sacred poetry not - thinking I don't really believe any of this. I mean it's quite clear that there's an instinct in all of us for the numinous and the transcendent, you might say. I think you can have it without the supernatural. In fact, I think you have to. Well, again, I couldn't agree more, with - if I may call you - may I call you Waleed?

WALEED ALY: Waleed, you may.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: But that's what secular means. But in that case I think it behoves the religious to say what they genuinely mean. Now, Frank just talked about homosexuality as if the church had never condemned it as a mortal sin.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes. Yes. Yes.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I mean, it's extraordinary. I would not know that you were a member of the Society of Jesus, except that it was a very Jesuitical point you were making and concealed your main one.

TONY JONES: I'd like to...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: And I'm sorry, Waleed, it's the same. Islam says the same. You cannot be a good Muslim and publicly be a homosexual. Why don't you...

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Absolutely.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: ...given the wonderful freedom of a secular conversation, when no one is going to say anything about your right to say it, why don't you say what you actually think? How about that?

ANNE HENDERSON: Can I say something?

TONY JONES: Okay, yes. Yes, Anne, and then I'd like to hear from Frank.

ANNE HENDERSON: Can I just say that what I find interesting about your book, Christopher, is that everyone's the same and yet we're all violently different and if you are a cultural Catholic, as I am, I don't listen to what the Pope says every day and take my guide from him. My mother, who is 84, says she had a Vatican bypass 30 years ago. You know, it isn't like you see it. Maybe because you're not a believer, you don't understand that within...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Sounds like progress of a kind.

ANNE HENDERSON: No, but she converted from a completely non-believing family when she was about 20. But the thing is that religion is so manifestly pluralist, as well. I mean, there's so many different ways in which people see God and even within the Catholic Church there's violently different ways in which people practice their faith. And the idea...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Did you say violently?

ANNE HENDERSON: Pardon? I missed that.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: You did say violently?

ANNE HENDERSON: Well, violently, as well.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I know you didn't mean to.

ANNE HENDERSON: I agree with you. I agree with you on all that that you say about violence among religion. And that's the point. I like the old Greeks and the Romans. You had a god of war and a god of peace and, you know, you had different kind of gods. I like that. But the idea that we're all following the Pope, I think, is a bit misguided.

TONY JONES: Okay, I want to...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: You're either Roman Catholic or you're not, but you can be tonnes of kinds of Catholic.

ANNE HENDERSON: Oh, you'd be surprised, Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: There are several - there are five popes I know about. There's a (indistinct) pope, there's an eastern pope...

ANNE HENDERSON: No, all right. Well, I'm talking about the one in Rome.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Most - not accepting the authority of the Holy Father, I leave it to this father. But I mean, I think that's not...

ANNE HENDERSON: I think since about 1969 there hasn't been.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: People who take their faith a la carte and cafeteria style don't impress me very much on the points of principal and conviction that we're supposed to be talking about.

ANNE HENDERSON: Look, if Catholics were following the pope, they'd all have 10 children. They don't.

TONY JONES: Frank Brennan, can I...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Well, that's a start, too.

TONY JONES: Can I hear Frank Brennan on...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Progress of a kind.

TONY JONES: ...the fundamental point that Christopher Hitchens made, which is how can you say something which is clearly against the teachings of your church, clearly against the teachings of the Pope?

FRANK BRENNAN: I haven't said anything clearly against the teaching of my church or against my pope. I have drawn a distinction between...

TONY JONES: So but hang on a sec...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: You haven't said what the teaching was.

TONY JONES: ...is homosexuality a sin or otherwise and if it is a sin, is it the sort of sin that would see you go to hell, according to Roman Catholicism?

FRANK BRENNAN: No, homosexuality is not a sin. It's a disposition. If you want to argue - if you want to argue about whether particular homosexual acts are appropriate for an individual in a moral context, that would require a pastoral discussion with that individual. What we were discussing previously was what should be the law in a civil society such as Australia where you have people of different religious convictions and the question was whether or not there should be same-sex marriage. Now, that is not an issue which is resolved by determining what the Catholic Church says to its own members it regards as moral or immoral. They're quite distinct questions.

TONY JONES: Waleed Aly, you on the same question, if you like. Is homosexuality a sin in Islam?

WALEED ALY: I'll get to that. The thing I want to say - no, no. But there's an important distinction here and I get often frustrated with this discourse of lumping the Islamic tradition in with the Christian tradition, particularly the Catholic tradition, because they're structurally so fundamentally different. The Catholic tradition has a church which has a kind of divine imprimatur and authority. The Islamic tradition is a far more anarchic tradition in a sense. There is no centralised authority, especially in the Sunni tradition. So to say the Islamic teaching on anything is X is a position that immediately becomes contestable. You can try to verify it statistically or otherwise but the point is that, at the very least in theory, if not in practice, any position that you take is a position that you take that may or may not - that may be fallible and is open to being contested by other Islamic theologians or other Muslims and so on. So on any question, whether it be homosexuality or it be anything, you will find a position that the majority take. And on the question of homosexuality, undoubtedly, if you took a poll in the Muslim world, you would find that most people would consider it sinful behaviour. But if you took...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Dodging it. It's not what Muslims think, it's what Islam teaches we asked you about.

WALEED ALY: Yeah, but - okay. But my question is - my question is, what exactly...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Dodging it.

WALEED ALY: ...is your repository of a list of Islamic conclusions? There is not book called Islamic Law. There is no Islamic body that says, "This is what Islam teaches." It has, for 1400 years, been an ongoing conversation. So and what was...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Ongoing conversation is very good.

WALEED ALY: Yeah, and - but that's my point. If - if there is a criticism I would make of the Muslim world it is this: it is that particularly in the post-colonial era, as religion has become an identity movement, rather than something that's actually anything to do with spirituality and faith, in my view, particularly in the post colonial world, that religiosity, Islam has become instrumentalised as a list of conclusions, as a political ideology, as though there is some manifesto you can just download from a computer and install into a society. It doesn't work that way, certainly not in the classical tradition. The classical tradition was one of constant debate. That's why it was very difficult to get something like an inquisition going. We managed it at some point but it was not terribly successful and it ultimately crumbled because you can't ultimately centralise authority to make definitive statements on behalf of God in the Islamic tradition. That's an act of policyism to do that in (indistinct).

TONY JONES: All right, I'm just going to interrupt the flow for a minute, because we have another question tonight. It comes from Heidi Crieghton.

HEIDI CRIEGHTON: Yes, my question is for Christopher Hitchens. With many voters using our politicians religious persuasions to influence their vote, do you expect to see, in your lifetime, an openly atheist politician be appointed to the head of government, for example for Australia, Britain or the United States?

TONY JONES: I'm not going to let Christopher answer this immediately. I'd rather throw it round the panel first. Frank Brennan?

FRANK BRENNAN: I think undoubtedly. I mean, perhaps not so readily in the United States or if in the United States the presidential candidate were atheist he or she would probably still proclaim some religious conviction in that that's part of the United States. But I think here in Australia whether or not one of our political leaders, I would think, was an atheist or of a religious persuasion, I think is almost an irrelevance to the Australian community.

TONY JONES: Okay, let's hear from Anne Henderson on that. I mean I can't think of any atheist prime ministers - Australian prime ministers to day.

ANNE HENDERSON: Atheist? Well...

TONY JONES: You might know some. Certainly not openly atheist.

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Bob Hawke.

ANNE HENDERSON: Did Gough openly complain he was a believer? It's not so much...

TONY JONES: Not Bob Hawke.

ANNE HENDERSON: It's not so much whether you're an atheist or agnostic or a believer, it's what you say to the people you are. I find it interesting at the moment, and I wouldn't have thought it would have happened in the 1980s, that all leaders of countries in the west seem to want to go to church every Sunday, Christian churches. It was interesting that Tony Blair wouldn't take on being a Catholic. I think is he considering it now?

SALLY WARHAFT: He's done it.

ANNE HENDERSON: He became a Catholic now after he left his position as prime minister. The problem with democratic politics is - and spin and 24 hour news and whatever, the person who inevitably comes to lead the country, and I think that questioner had it right, is going to have to reflect the strength of belief in the country itself. So if you went around, like Christopher, bagging all the churches and anyone who believed, I think it will be a long time before that happens and I would be very surprised if it ever did happen. You could be an atheist, but I don't think you'd go around telling everyone that you thought everyone that was a believer was an idiot.

TONY JONES: Sally Warhaft?

SALLY WARHAFT: I think there is - there is just no way the United States...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Again, scant applause for a cheap point. That's encouraging.

SALLY WARHAFT: ...I think that there is no way the United States would elect a president who was not a practicing Christian of some sort in my lifetime. I just cannot see it. I mean, interestingly, they're ready to elect a woman and I think they would have if there hadn't of been an Obama there, but there is just no way - in fact, I think that's probably going backwards in American culture at the moment. Australia, I don't think people could care less.

TONY JONES: Christopher?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Well, my only point would be - I'll make a quick point about the United States. It's a good thing that atheists are not banned from holding the office, because we would have missed Mr Lincoln, for example. And, in my opinion, Mr Jefferson and one or two other people probably worth having. But as late as...

SALLY WARHAFT: (Indistinct)

ANNE HENDERSON: ...as late as the - in England the life of James Stewart Mill, in America the life of Benjamin Franklin, they were quite well known publicly, you would think, secure, confident professional thinkers who didn't say - didn't think it was advisable to let people know what they thought in public because that's how dangerous it could be in a pious regime and it seems that and all people of faith can apparently congratulate themselves upon it, that faith still demands - professions of faith by people who don't hold it that are, by definition, hypocritical. So congratulations to religious opinion for bringing that beautiful thing about in what's supposed to be a secular democracy.

TONY JONES: Okay. No doubt we'll come - we're going to come back to religious questions shortly but you're watching Q&A, the unpredictable program where you get to ask the questions. If you'd like to ask a question in person, go to our website, register to join the studio audience. We'll change subjects now or a while. Our next question comes from William Mackenzie.

WILLIAM MACKENZIE: Is great talent an excuse paedophilia? What are the panel's opinions on the Roman Polanski situation in Switzerland and America at the moment?

TONY JONES: Waleed?

WALEED ALY: Can someone explain to me why - I actually don't understand the argument that he shouldn't be brought before a - I just don't understand it. I'm happy for someone to convince me.

TONY JONES: Well, there's an argument in France that he's very talented so he shouldn't, therefore, face trial.

ANNE HENDERSON: No, but have you caught up with the news? It's all changed. It's changed today, which was interesting. The French have backed off. Hilary Clinton has said it's a legal matter. The Polish leader, I think, has backed off, even though he's married to someone who is supporting Polanski. And a Hollywood serious communicator has a blog or something where the anti-Polanski responses are running 100 to one and the New York Times has come out and argued against him, which is an interesting phenomenon. So maybe it's changing.

WALEED ALY: Can I say there's a...

SALLY WARHAFT: I don't know why it wouldn't - would be interesting. I mean, I just can't believe that they wouldn't argue that he should be tried. I was reading his autobiography last night and Polanski's account of, you know, making love to this young woman on Jack Nicholson's couch, it was just a - you know...

TONY JONES: So why has it taken so long?

SALLY WARHAFT: Because he ran away.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: That's where the talent comes in.

TONY JONES: Yeah.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: (Indistinct) they say in Latin. You touch the point of a needle. He's already had the rewards of being talented. 30 years on the lam after, I'll say it directly, fornicating with and sodomising a 13-year-old to whom he had given narcotics to lull her.

ANNE HENDERSON: And to which he pled guilty.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Now, excuse me. You know, we do have our standards, even those of us who don't believe we are being supernaturally supervised.

SALLY WARHAFT: Although the really sad thing is that this woman has come out and said that the trial by media that she's going to have to endure in this is, she believes, worse than the actual crime, which is - it's a really sad and terrible tale this.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: But that's his fault too.

ANNE HENDERSON: Yes, it is.

SALLY WARHAFT: That's absolutely it is. And he still needs to be tried but it's awful that she's going to have to suffer so - she doesn't want it to define her whole life.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: For discussing this - - -

SALLY WARHAFT: And yet he has to be tried. He has to be (indistinct).

ANNE HENDERSON: But it was his lawyers that brought this back into the arena and so, in a sense, this has been all brought about because late last year his lawyers tried to get through a loophole in the law to have his charges dropped and, of course, that then set the prosecution out and running.

TONY JONES: Can I...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: For discussing...

TONY JONES: Can I make a point and a sort of admission here, and I'm almost surprised...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Oh, I want to hear the admission.

TONY JONES: I'm almost surprised by the admission, which is that...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Bring on the admission.

TONY JONES: Well, it's a simple one really, that I've actually been to see several of his films in that period. I've watched others on DVD and when you think about it carefully, is that somehow supporting him?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: You mean, we'd have been deprived of the films if he'd been nabbed in the first place?

TONY JONES: Not at all. I'm simply saying I wonder why I didn't think about this at the time.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Well, because we're all capable of keeping two sets of books. I mean, that's part of our nature. Well, I can see that I'm not the only one.

ANNE HENDERSON: Yeah, we're all sinners.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Just for discussing this subject, a couple of years ago, my magazine, Vanity Fair, was sued by Mr Polanski from Paris in London. Not in America where he thought the jurisdiction would be easier on him. He didn't even have to appear in person, because he thought that might be risky. He made a video deposition. We claimed he had no reputation to defend. He walked away with a lot of our money on a libel judgment saying this couldn't be discussed. So I would say screw him and I would add - and I would add screw him for a change.

TONY JONES: Frank Brennan?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: It's his turn.

FRANK BRENNAN: Going back to the question, I mean what about the 13-year-old girl? I mean...

ANNE HENDERSON: Well, she's saying no.

FRANK BRENNAN: But go back to then and, I mean, to speak of, you know, the talent of the one who is the perpetrator - what about the talent and what's happened to the victim and what the law has got to be about is protecting the victim, whether or not she's talented. And if the perpetrator be talented, well, it counts for nothing. That's what justice, according to law, has to be about.

SALLY WARHAFT: Although, sadly, you know, the stuff up of this means that it hasn't protected her at all. It's gone on for 35 years and it could have all been over.

WALEED ALY: Can I just...

TONY JONES: Yeah.

WALEED ALY: There's a broader point, as well, that's not about the Polanski case, and this is where I get in my lawyer mode. It's about the integrity of the justice system. You cannot, I think, as a justice system, tolerate or reward someone just because they managed to get away with it for 30 years and say, "Oh, that was a long time ago." Well, no, there is a reason that the criminal of law doesn't have a statute of limitations that applies to it, by and large. And that is because we deem crime to be of such significant import that it must be punished irrespective of how - what time has elapsed between the commission of the offence and the finding of the offender. There is...

ANNE HENDERSON: And imagine what we would say if it was a bishop.

WALEED ALY: Well, of course. But I just cannot, just for the life of me...

ANNE HENDERSON: Well, that's right.

TONY JONES: Probably what everyone on the panel actually has been saying. You're watching Q&A, the live and interactive forum where you ask the questions. Our next question comes from Basak Yildiz.

BASAK YILDIZ: Why is it that the Islamic country, Iran, is the threat to the peace in the world and not the Zionist? Is it America's support of Israel, while hundreds of people are getting killed in Gaza and West Bank, everyday with the support of America. The Israel and Palestinian war has been going on for 61 years and we are not actually looking at what is actually happening and we're fearing about what is not happening? We're fearing about something that hasn't happened.

TONY JONES: Okay. Sally Warhaft, do you want to pick that up? And I might add, by the way, we had a number of questions asking why Iran's nuclear program and not Israel's is the illegal one.

SALLY WARHAFT: Mm. Look, this is - it's a tragedy. I think Israel and Palestine, it's something where it almost takes half an hour to sort out what has to happen. You know, the Palestinians need a state. Israelis need to feel secure. But it feels like that's - it's just so far away. I think that part of the problem is obviously the delicacy of the Israeli coalition. I mean, I don't know, beyond what I've just said, that - it's simple what has to happen but how you make it happen and how you make people want peace more than they want other things is beyond me.

TONY JONES: Christopher Hitchens?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: It's become a familiar thing. I should perhaps preface this by saying that with Edward Said, the late professor Edward Said, I wrote a book about the rights of Palestinians and the way in which these have been negated by Israeli policy. But I know a lot of people in the Arab and Muslim world who are fed up with having the subject changed to Israel whenever human rights for them comes up. A very good example of this just last week in Tehran, where the government has an official Al-Quds Day, as it's called, the day of Jerusalem, where school children and others are paraded. It's a more or less compulsory demonstration to say they'll give their blood and their lives for Palestine and hundreds of thousands of Iranians turned up to say, no, we'll only give our blood for Iran, thanks. We're fed up with being told by the regime that they represent the oppressed of Palestine. That we can't talk, and they are having to shed their blood because the regime keeps on killing them for wanting to have a say in their own internal affairs. And a regime that does this and has just pulled off a blood stained military coup. It's overturned the results even of an already pre-determinedly fraudulent election that says that a woman's voice is worth that of only - sorry, it takes three women in a court against one man; that uses torture and rape as policies in prison and so forth. If you want a regime like that to have nuclear weapons, you're welcome, but you should say that's what you don't mind. Are you going to say that? Are you going to say you've no objection? That the real problem is the Jewish state? Come on, be serious.

BASAK YILDIZ: Sir - sir, you're - sir, the Jewish state doesn't have nuclear weapons. Is that - is that what you're saying?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Well, now, I appeal again to the fair mindedness and intelligence of the audience. Did I say that?

AUDIENCE: No.

BASAK YILDIZ: No, but you say...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Did I by - in any way imply it?

BASAK YILDIZ: No, but...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: No. Did I not begin with a throat clearing, which I'll amplify if you like, about my long record of work about this, my defence of the Israeli dissidents who publish the news about Israel's illegal program and have gone to jail for it. I can refer you to all that, if you like.

BASAK YILDIZ: What...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: My point was directed specifically to you.

TONY JONES: Yeah, okay.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I said, "Does this, in your mind, make the destruction of human rights in Islamic countries okay or not?"

BASAK YILDIZ: No.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Good.

BASAK YILDIZ: No, it's not.

TONY JONES: Okay. Let's hear from Waleed Aly.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Well, that's progress of a kind.

WALEED ALY: This is - I think highlights the really difficult, I think, personally intractable situation that now confronts the world in dealing with Iran's apparent nuclear weapons' regime and I hear today that the UN is still not developing weapons. But whatever you think about that, there is a problem because you do get questions like this. Whether or not you agree with Christopher there's a lack of moral seriousness about that question, you're always going to get that question. The minute the conversation turns to Iran, it is going to be deflected towards Israel. And so the problem is that if you're interested in disarming Iran or somehow reigning in that regime, it's very hard to do that in isolation without also engaging in some kind of agreement that's going to bring Israel into the mix and, of course, the US, who also have nuclear weapons. I'm encouraged by the fact that President Obama is talking about a nuclear free world and that when he headed the UN - presided over the UN Security Council this week, which I think is the first time an American president has ever done that, the vote to rid the world of nuclear weapons was unanimous. That's all good. But now the really, really tough politics stars, and that is the politics of dealing with an Iranian regime that frankly probably sees very little incentive, if any, to try to disarm or to become less evil. It's got every reason to remain as evil and perhaps even become even more evil than it is. And Israel is going to have to be part of that discussion, whether they like it or not, whether the US likes it or not, because without that I just can't see how there's a way forward.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Tony, sorry, I simply must say this. I'm really sorry. Implied in both what Waleed has said and the lady questioner, is the idea that Iran is perfectly entitled to have nuclear weapons. At least if Israel is, it is.

BASAK YILDIZ: No. No. That's...

WALEED ALY: No. No. That's not what I implied at all.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Well, the Iranian government, don't let's forget, says it doesn't want them and isn't planning to have them. And so if it turns out they are, it's not a problem to do with Israel, it's to do with them breaking every undertaking they've ever made at the United Nations; every undertaking they've ever made to the International Atomic Energy Authority; every undertaking they've ever made to the European Union negotiators. It means that international law is completely meaningless and, yet, when Mr Ahmadinejad tests missiles, he says, "This is part of our nuclear program." How is that part of a peaceful (indistinct)?

WALEED ALY: Yeah, can I just say...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Their party - their proxy party Hasbullah - I've been to its rallies in Beirut. Do you know what the symbol of the party now it? What they've put on the flag? A mushroom cloud with a threat to the Jews written underneath it.

WALEED ALY: Can I just...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Now, actually, when you go to meetings of the American Jewish Committee, you don't quite get that (indistinct).

TONY JONES: Christopher, hold on. We're just going to hear from Waleed.

WALEED ALY: Yeah.

TONY JONES: And then I'm going to go to another question, which is related.

WALEED ALY: I think that's a bit of a gross misreading of what I was - and I'm certainly not implying that. But what I am saying is the real politic of dealing with this situation is that for the Iranian regime - if you put yourself in the position of the Iranian regime that has now become such a grotesque, deformed regime that in a sense it has to perpetuated that deformity in order to survive. That's kind of the logic of those sorts of regimes. The minute you do that - they are now in a position where it's just going to be very hard to create the political environment for them to change course without dragging Israel in. Now, whether or not you want to say that Israel's acquiring nuclear weapons is equivalent to Iran's, worse, better - that, to me, is not the point as far as real politics is concerned. How are you going to get that change to occur without incorporating Israel into the conversation. That's the point.

TONY JONES: Christopher, I'd like to sort of put a line under this but I just want to ask you one question and a brief answer if you could.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: You mean I'm incapable of a brief answer? I can be terse if I have to be.

TONY JONES: Okay, well, answer this tersely.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Try me.

TONY JONES: Israel, of course, did try and stop Iraq acquiring nuclear weapons by bombing a reactor. Would it be justified, in your opinion, for them to do the same in Iran?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: What Israel did the Osirak reactor was what the Iranians had tried to do - everyone forgets this - with their own air force a couple of months before. The Iranians had a huge sigh of relief when the Israelis pulled off a raid they couldn't bring off themselves and disarmed Saddam Hussein. There were a lot of people in the Sunni Arab world, believe you me, who hope that the Israeli's take out the Iranian one in turn, but they can't say so in public, anymore than the Iranians could before. My own view is that Israel both cannot and should not attempt such an attack.

TONY JONES: Okay. Well, we're going to move on again. Actually, look, you've had your hand up for a while. I'm going to take your question.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you.

TONY JONES: The lady in the front there.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Look, my one question is basically - or my one comment or passing comment is that so many times you've brought up women and Islam. I'd just like to correct that I've read the Qur'an and all Muslim scholars would agree with me that Islam gives women a lot of rights. We over and over give Islam women - in Islam, through the Qur'an, I may not say it through individuals who preach the religion but Islam, through the Qur'an, gives women a lot of rights and I need that to be heard. I need to have everyone to understand and hear that. I mean, I am a young Muslim woman myself. I sit before you. I have a voice and I can speak to you and I can look you in the eye and I do have my rights. And when I go to Iran - I'm actually Iranian, as well. So when I go to Iran I also have my rights. I need it to be heard that the Qur'an - the Qur'an, Allah, (indistinct) Allah, gives us our rights. People - individuals in countries and people who represent our religion may not and they may do the wrong thing to sort of stand in front and show us religion and preach us religion, but Islam does.

TONY JONES: All right. We're going to take that as a comment.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you.

TONY JONES: And a very passionate one. Okay.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Oh, no. Oh, no we're not. No, we're not going to take that as a comment. I can see your face. I can see your hair and I can you sitting there in the audience with young gentlemen. Don't you tell me you can do any of that in Iran.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I can, though.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: No, you can't.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, I can.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: No, you cannot.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I can. In Iran - in Iran - in the Islamic Republic of Iran, where I have been...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: You - you wouldn't - I couldn't see your hair.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: ...my hair would be out. My hair would be out because my veil would be little. My hair would be - it may be covered a little bit. But just like in the Bible...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Oh, come on.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: ...in the Letter to the Corinthians...

TONY JONES: Okay. Okay.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: ...it says to cover your head to be modest. My modesty would be there.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: It's a shame she spoiled what could have been a perfectly good statement.

TONY JONES: All right. Okay. I'm sorry.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My modesty would be there. I mean, you've been talking about these cheap jokes and things throughout this whole conversation, but you're the only one making the cheap comments.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: If you say you have - if you say that - you insult - you insult - you insult your sisters in Tehran who are being beaten...

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Indistinct)

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: ...who are being and raped every day when you say that they have their rights in the Islamic republic.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I do not insult my Islam sisters. I do not insult my...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: It's an insult to the women of Iran.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I do not (indistinct).

TONY JONES: Okay. Okay. We're nearly out of time. You're watching Q&A live. If you'd like to join the audience, register on our website. The address is on your screen: abc.net.au/qanda. We have one last question. It comes from Pam Collocott.

PAM COLLOCOTT: Many non-believers facing death change their minds about religion. Is that fear or comfort?

TONY JONES: Okay, we're going to have to have quick answers from everybody. Frank Brennan?

FRANK BRENNAN: It's often both.

ANNE HENDERSON: I would have said the same.

TONY JONES: Anne Henderson?

ANNE HENDERSON: I would say exactly the same. It's, again, what I said before. Where there is no meaning, people find God and that's their comfort. There's even supposed to be a God gene, I think someone's thought of. And I don't understand it totally and some part of me does so, you know, I would say I agree with Frank. It's fear and comfort.

TONY JONES: Waleed Aly?

WALEED ALY: Well, let's not ignore it's a perfectly rational decision to make at that point. I mean, you're on your death bed. There's absolutely no point not believing in God at that point.

ANNE HENDERSON: Because you might be right.

WALEED ALY: You may as well jump on a team that, if it's wrong, okay, you know?

TONY JONES: Sally?

SALLY WARHAFT: I would say God knows. I mean, unless you're from a team that, you know, dies repeatedly.

TONY JONES: Christopher, could you...

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: When Voltaire was dying the priest came and said, "You should renounce the devil," and he said, "This is not time to be making enemies." It's a religious falsification that people like myself scream for a priest at the end. David Hume very famously didn't and was witnessed by James Boswell not doing so. Most of us go to our ends with dignity. If we don't and if it is the wish for fear or comfort, then both of these things are equally delusory, as religion is itself.

TONY JONES: And I think what we've - thank you. We've proven, I think, tonight, that this kind of discussion is worth having but that is all we have time for. I'm sorry to those people who have still got their hands up. Please thank our panelists: Frank Brennan; Christopher Hitchens; Sally Warhaft; Waleed Aly; and Anne Henderson.

All right. Next week - next week another iconoclastic panel, including the feminist author with dangerous ideas, Germaine Greer; Gruen Transfer ad man, Todd Samson; the Labour Party's Belinda Neal; and the Liberal Party Backbench rebel Corey Bernardi. That's all we have at the moment. We'll have one more by then. So join us next Thursday for another great Q&A. Good night.