Archive for May, 2007

Am I the only one who has lost patience with the atheists? Apart from the fact that the abolition of theism would leave them without a worldview, most of them spend their time carping from the sidelines but refuse to put together a credo for examination.

In the New York Times’ review of Christopher Hitchens’ book, ‘God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything’, the reviewer makes the following astonishing point:

And all the logical sallies don’t exactly add up to a sustained argument, because Hitchens thinks a sustained argument shouldn’t even be necessary and yet wouldn’t be sufficient. To him, it’s blindingly obvious:

Of course, when Christopher Hitchens thinks that a debate doesn’t require “sustained argument” because “it’s blindingly obvious” then the NYT describes the book as “serious and deeply felt”. The review continues:

 … the great religions all began at a time when we knew a tiny fraction of what we know today about the origins of Earth and human life. It’s understandable that early humans would develop stories about gods or God to salve their ignorance. But people today have no such excuse. If they continue to believe in the unbelievable, or say they do, they are morons or lunatics or liars.

Well I guess that settles it. The apotheosis of two thousand years of human experience is the acknowledgement of our prior ignorance and an embrace of our new enlightenment.

Destruction is certainly part of the creative process but at some point I wish the high priests of atheism would assemble and thrash out a manifesto. That way the rest of us can comment. And write witty, engaging books without regard for reason and substance.