Backward, atheist soldiers!

Books: Notable anti-religion and anti-Christian books of the past year—particularly Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great—make something out of, well, nothing.

Nineteenth-century novelist Gustave Flaubert used to joke about archaeologists discovering a stone tablet signed "God" and reading, "I do not exist." His punch line had an atheist then exclaiming, "See! I told you so!"

These days, nothing stops atheistic caissons from rolling along the bookstore aisles. Maybe that's because atheists on average have small families and lots of discretionary doubloons jingling in their pockets. Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation (Knopf), Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell (Penguin), and Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (Houghton Mifflin) all hit bestseller lists during 2006—and a new book, Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great (Twelve), has ascended this year.

Last year's trio emerged alongside anti-Christian books purportedly based on hard reporting. Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism (Norton) typified the genre's misreporting when she wrote that Christian pregnancy counseling centers "usually" present false or exaggerated information—but there's no indication that she visited even one center, let alone the 3,000 or so that exist throughout the country. (Here's some evidentiary trivia: In four pages about me she makes five clear factual errors, along with many questionable interpretations.)

This year it's the same: a new screed by Chris Hedges has as its title not "Mistaken People" or even "Lying Liars," but American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (Free Press). The genre is old, with new villains appearing as necessary. Ten years ago Frederick Clarkson's Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy stated that the sky was falling, with Promise Keepers as the spearhead of Christian dictatorship.

The ferocity of these books is sometimes astounding. Here, for example, is Dawkins' view of God: "arguably the most unpleasant character in fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

Even Publishers Weekly noted concerning The God Delusion, "For a scientist who criticizes religion for its intolerance, Dawkins has written a surprisingly intolerant book, full of scorn for religion and those who believe. . . . Even confirmed atheists who agree with his advocacy of science and vigorous rationalism may have trouble stomaching some of the rhetoric: 'The biblical Yahweh is "psychotic," Aquinas' proofs of God's existence are "fatuous" and religion generally is "nonsense."'

Happily, Alister and Joanna Collicutt McGrath have just come out with an effective response, The Dawkins Delusion? Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine (IVP). The McGraths note, "Until recently, Western atheism had waited patiently, believing that belief in God would simply die out. But now a whiff of panic is evident. Far from dying out, belief in God has rebounded."

The McGraths also point out the folly of believing that if religion were eliminated wars would cease: After all, conflicts often reflect human desires to declare some people as "in" and others as "out," sometimes on the basis of religion, but at other times on the basis of race, ethnicity, tribe, class, gender, or whatever.

Christianity is above all others the religion that seeks kindness to those in the out-group: Jesus told us to love our neighbors and even to love our enemies. When Christians fail to live up to His teachings it's because of sin, not Christianity—and scapegoating religion delays efforts to deal with the real problems of social division.

Scapegoating is also evident in the writing of Sam Harris, who frequently forgets to use reason and instead falls back on words like "preposterous." He asserts certainty about what he admits not knowing: "How the process of evolution got started is still a mystery, but that does not in the least suggest that a deity is likely to be lurking at the bottom of it all."

He complains not only about ignorance but about moral failings: "An average Christian, in an average church, listening to an average Sunday sermon has achieved a level of arrogance simply unimaginable in scientific discourse."

Yet Harris, for all his attacks on Intelligent Design, does not even understand the distinction between macro-evolution—one kind of creature changing into another—and micro-evolution. One of his proofs of theistic obtuseness is that "viruses like HIV, as well as a wide range of harmful bacteria, can be seen evolving right under our noses, developing resistance to antiviral and antibiotic drugs."

The one good aspect of Harris' work is his understanding that theology has consequences: "There is no escaping that fact that a person's religious beliefs uniquely determine what he thinks peace is good for, as well as what he means by a term like 'compassion.'" Harris at least understands that the biblical theology he hates makes obnoxious sense in a way that liberalism does not; given a suffering world, "liberal theology must stand revealed for what it is: the sheerest of mortal pretenses."

Harris also criticizes the niceties of political rhetoric concerning Islam: "The idea that Islam is a 'peaceful religion hijacked by extremists' is a fantasy." Too bad he and other atheistic authors are determined to believe that Christianity is inevitably hijacked by hate, and that they pick up support from reviewers like Natalie Angier, who wrote in The New York Times that "Harris writes what a sizeable number of us think, but few are willing to say."

Harris' work has also engendered several Christian responses this year. Doug Wilson's Letter from a Christian Citizen (American Vision) points out that Harris uses morally loaded words like "should" and "ought"; Wilson rightly asks Harris, "What is the difference between an imposed morality, an imposed religion, or an imposed secular ought? Why is your imposition to be preferred to any other?"

Wilson notes Harris' fondness for Eastern religions, and in particular the "utter non-violence" of the Jains in India. Letter from a Christian Citizen correctly notes that "Devout Jains will wear a mask to avoid breathing in and thereby killing any insect," and then asks whether Harris would commend evangelicals who "forsook the use of antibiotics because of the genocidal devastation it was causing to the microbes within."

Wilson also points out that the litany of religious folks fighting each other that Harris recites "is beside the point. We don't believe that religion is the answer. We believe Christ is the answer." Harris' list of religious messes merely confirms "one of the basic tents of the Christian faith, which is that the human race is all screwed up."

And what about this year's champion screed, offered by Christopher Hitchens? His scorn—"monotheistic religion is a plagiarism of a plagiarism of a hearsay of a hearsay, of an illusion of an illusion, extending all the way back to a fabrication of a few nonevents"—oozes off every page of God Is Not Great, with its extraordinary subtitle, How Religion Poisons Everything.

"Everything"? That sounds improbable. Are 1.3 billion Muslims all murderers? Might Christianity have produced 50 percent evil and 50 percent good? If not, how about 40 percent good? Thirty percent? Twenty percent? Ten percent? Will not Hitchens relent from his anger if we can find 5 percent that's good?

God Is Not Great has received extraordinary publicity, including an adulatory review in The New York Times, so it's worth going page by page to see what Hitchens is selling and many atheists are buying:

*On Page 4 he writes that religion produces a "maximum of servility." Islam, maybe, but were Abraham, Moses, and Job servile when they argued with God?

*On Page 5 he writes, "No statistic will ever find that without [religious] blandishments and threats [atheists] commit more crimes of greed or violence than the faithful." Prison Fellowship and other organizations can show that prisoners who go through evangelical programs have much lower recidivism—committing new crimes after release from prison, leading to new sentences—than others.

*On Page 7 he writes, "Religion spoke its last intelligible or noble or inspiring words a long time ago." Leaving aside the inspiration millions get from daily Bible reading, what about Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches, with all their biblical imagery? Or Pope John Paul II, whose words inspired many people to rise up against Communism in Eastern Europe?

*On Page 17 he writes that religion "does not have the confidence in its own various preachings even to allow coexistence between different faiths." At the annual March for Life in Washington tens of thousands of Catholics and Protestants walk side by side along with individuals from Jews for Life, Buddhists for Life, and so on.

*n Page 32 he writes, "The nineteen suicide murderers of New York and Washington and Pennsylvania were beyond any doubt the most sincere believers on those planes." Todd Beamer, the man who said "Let's roll" on United Flight 93, and made sure it didn't crash into the U.S. Capitol, was a strong Christian believer. So were others who died, stopping the terrorists, when Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania.

Hitchens of course thinks the Bible is nonsense (see also "The world according to Hitch," June 3, 2006). On Page 102 he writes, "It goes without saying that none of the gruesome, disordered events described in Exodus ever took place." Without saying. A slam dunk. On Page 103: "All the Mosaic myths can be safely and easily discarded." On Page 104: All five books of Moses are "an ill-carpentered fiction."

Such pronouncements were repeatedly made in the 19th century, but again and again biblical accounts considered mythical back then have gained new archeological support. For example, scholars at one point said that the Hittites described in the Bible did not exist, nor did rulers such as Belshazzar of Babylon or Sargon of Assyria. Archeologists now have records of all those civilizations and reigns.

Many brilliant people have spent lifetimes studying these writings that Hitchens so blithely dismisses. Princeton's Robert Wilson, who knew 26 ancient languages and dialects and so could read just about all that remains from the ancient Near East, was impressed with the accuracy of those accounts that Hitchens wishes to discard.

Coming to the present, Hitchens on Page 160 calls "the whole racket of American evangelism . . . a heartless con." Hmm. WORLD for two decades has reported stories around this country of compassionate evangelicals who must be dumb, because they've spent their lives in a racket that's yielded them almost no money. They've adopted hard-to-place children, built AIDs orphanages in Africa, helped addicts and alcoholics to turn their lives around, transformed the lives of teens who were heading into drugs and crime, and much besides.

In responding to Hitchens and mini-Hitchenses, it's also worth noting the leadership of Christians over the centuries in setting up hospitals and schools. Historians such as Jonathan Hill of Oxford, Alvin Schmidt of Illinois College, and Rodney Stark of Baylor have described the long-term effect of Jesus telling his followers to love their neighbors as themselves.

The evangelical tendency to help others, not poison them, has even attracted the attention of New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who calls America's evangelicals "the newest internationalists" for fighting sexual trafficking in Eastern Europe and slavery in Sudan. As Jewish leader Michael Horowitz has put it, evangelicals "led the way in taking on the slavery issue of our time—the annual trafficking of millions of women and children into lives of sexual bondage . . . led the way in organizing a campaign to end a growing epidemic of prison rape."

Horowitz concluded his message to evangelicals this way: "As you define your human rights successes as central to who you are and what you've done, it will no longer be possible for those who fear your faith to crudely caricature you or to ignore the virtue that Christian activism brings to American life and the world at large." Spoken too soon, because authors like Harris, Dennett, Dawkins, and especially Hitchens, despite all the evidence, still proclaim that religion, or Christianity in particular, poisons everything.

I’ve been told Atheism is not a religion. If that’s true, we can ban these people from talking...

You and what army?

Careful, Tzimisce . . . Coyoteman has objective external rights conferred upon him by the random, meaningless, self-existent universe (as every "critical thinker" knows, this is "self-evident"), and any violation of said rights would cause the Earth Mother and the Universe immense grief and pain. Now you don't wanna do that . . . do you?

Now, if you'd gotten ahold of Coyoteman's ancestors back before they had evolved human intelligence, you could have killed 'em all and it wouldn't have meant a thing. But the random, meaningless, self-existent universe, you see, actually began acquiring meaning when mankind became rational. And just wait till we reach the Omega Point--it'll have even more meaning by then! Why, when the other creatures evolve human-like intelligence, the objective rights and morality the meaningless universe has so far imposed on the human race alone will be imposed on them as well! So step on that bug while you still can!

This is a legitimate gripe by Hitchen's. A few Buddhists and Jews marching with some Christians at a pro-life rally was probably done for political expedience rather than an agreement on theology.

Red herring. Of COURSE they don't agree on theology, where was it ever represented that they do? But they do agree on pro-life and such rallies are about that common ground, not about theology.

It doesn't change the fact that even the most loving and generous of my evangelical friends maintain that if you don't believe in Jesus divinity, you are going to Hell.

And therefore what?

They probably also believe that if you keep driving toward a cliff, you'll fall to your death. Would you not want them to warn you about that either? Even if they turned out to be wrong, the fact is they're actually trying to look out for you. But you somehow see it as them giving you the finger. I don't get it.

So how does G-d "guide" evolution without "guiding" it?

I don't know.

Thank you for your honesty. Would you consider it theoretically possible that G-d either "guides" it or does not? I hope evolutionists will cease attacking "Divine guidance of evolution" while then loudly insisting that maybe G-d does actually guide it. Is this the type of thinking Voltaire taught you???

But according to some homeschooling creationists, I am an ignorant monkey-worshipping idolater because I seek to understand paleontology and evolution by studying empirical evidence.

1)It isn't fun being called "ignorant," is it? Do you think you and some of your allies might pause for a second before calling the people of Kansas "savages" after experiencing what it feels like?

2)Since according to anti-ID evolutionists, there is basically no difference between literalist creationism (me) and Divinely-guided evolution, perhaps anti-ID evolutionists should stop claiming that evolution "rightly understood" does not exclude G-d? Unless your "gxd" is Thomas Jefferson's, that is.

I have always found it strange that if one doesn't accepts Jesus' message of love and accept him as the savior, one is condemned to eternal torture. It makes Jesus appear as a narcissist and sadist of the first order.

There are those who say to God "thy will be done" and those to whom God finally and reluctantly says "okay, thy will be done".

If you reject the creator and maintainer of the entire universe and the source of all good, how can you expect to be out of his presence and still reap the benefits of his presence?

How can you walk away from a campfire in the dead of winter and then complain about freezing to death?

Red herring. Of COURSE

Jeez, is everything a "red herring" or "straw man" when you ask legitimate questions about faith? Hitchens was pointing to the fact that the same Christians that were marching with Jews and Buddhists also believe those Jews and Buddhists are going to Hell if they don't accept Jesus. Olasky's example proves nothing.

Even if they turned out to be wrong, the fact is they're actually trying to look out for you. But you somehow see it as them giving you the finger.

They're looking out for me by telling me that I have to believe as they do or I'm going to fry in Hell? That's got to be the worst sales pitch I've ever heard. Thanks but no thanks.

I don't get it.

If condemning 3 billion people in Asia to eternal damnation because they haven't converted to your religion makes sense to you, then I'm sure you never will get it.

Children who are brainwashed at a very young age to believe that they are the creations of mythical skygods who exist only in the scribblings of ancient scrolls and are thousands of years past due for their miraculous return tend to cling on to these false hopes for life.

Unless, they get their hands on a real science book and learn some truth.

Since only G-d can determine Objective Morality, in His absence the superiority of "truth" over "falsehood" is illusory and constitutes an unnecessary making of outdated "rules."

As I understand it, Galileo suffered a great deal to prove that we and our planet are completely insignificant specks in an indifferent universe. If you truly believe this, why do you give a flying frick what anybody's children learn? Aren't you acting as if human life has some sort of metaphysical significance when you start demanding that "children be taught the truth?"

Before I close, please understand this. I am not a chr*stian and I'm not waiting for their "messiah" to come back (HaShem has never gone anywhere). Unlike those people who define "anti-Semitism" as ethnic bigotry, I define it as opposition to or ridicule of actual Jewish religious beliefs. If you ever reidicule the Jewish G-d or His Torah I can assure you I will request your expulsion from this forum as an anti-Semite. And I mean it.

Then what would you have us say about atheism, that it's wonderful? Especially in light of the quotes from atheist authors above? No sarcasm, I'm serious -- what in your view is the right way for us to respond?

No sarcasm, I'm serious: turn the other cheek.

Hmmm. What if you don't believe in J*sus? What if you only believe in that horrible, homophobic, genocidal Hebrew G-d of the "old testament?" How should such a person respond to these attacks?

Please don't ignore me because you don't know how to handle non-chr*stians. Thank you.

Allow me to point out something that I said to you earlier but which you, for whatever reason, have chosen to ignore.

The existence of the Biblical G-d does not rise or fall with the truth of Evangelical Protestantism. For you to base your entire argument on the fact that "those evangelicals believe I'm going to hell!" is simply silly and has nothing to do with the issues. Now, I happen to know that their theology requires them to believe the same about me (and I know; I used to be one of them), but unlike you, this doesn't bother me. Why does it bother you? Are you perhaps afraid they are right?

The Biblical G-d was ordering the extermination of Canaanites and `Amaleqites for centuries before the first chr*stian missionary even existed. Now you may or may not like that (though since morality is determined entirely by Divine Decree you have no grounds to reject it for offending your "moral sensibilities"), but please stop the evangelical bashing and deal with the issue of whether or not the Biblical G-d exists. What evangelicals believe about where you're going has nothing to do with the argument pro or con.

Jews have certain laws given to them, non-Jews have certain laws given to them, and at the end of life we'll be judged

Sounds like just another variant on "all who do not choose our way are going to be dealt with harshly." Even you acknowledge that a non-Jew can indeed choose, even if you ascribe no obligation to it.

My remarks on atheists being anti-Christian were not meant to leave out Jewish people, most of us are not anti-Jew, either. It's just that I usually get into tussles with Christians (or, Chr*stians, if you prefer--I don't know what you folks think you're accomplishing by leaving out letters in words) on this forum.

The existence of the Biblical G-d does not rise or fall with the truth of Evangelical Protestantism.

You are correct, I never said anything different.

Why does it bother you? Are you perhaps afraid they are right?

Not in the least. But for argument's sake, let's say the evangelicals are right. If I am in hell, I will be there with the rest of humanity that didn't believe in Christ's divinity, and I'll roast gladly with them. Think of it as sitting in solidarity with the downtrodden, while we stand in protest to the elistist country clubbers in heaven who's membership policy requires you to think exactly as they do or fry.

I guess the reason it bothers me is the apparent ease that they seem to have with 3-4 billion people being eternally condemned according to their theology. It seems irrational, and I don't like to see my friends become irrational people.

Sounds like just another variant on "all who do not choose our way are going to be dealt with harshly." Even you acknowledge that a non-Jew can indeed choose, even if you ascribe no obligation to it.

You misunderstand. Non-Jews are not in the least obligated to convert to Judaism (in fact, they are discouraged from doing so). However, they are obligated to observe the Noachide Laws, the first of which, against idolatry, obliges a belief in HaShem, the True G-d. This applies to you too. No "salvation" is offered. You are merely statutorily obligated as a Noachide to obey these laws (and everyone in the entire human race either Jewish or Noachide).

I fail to see why you object to the threat of punishment to the unbelievers/disobedient. Life is full of the threat of punishment. Perhaps you are offended by G-d doing the punishing? Who had you rather do it?

I leave out the letters to avoid spelling out the names of false "gxds." If you have ever read your Bible, you know that HaShem is a Jealous G-d. J*sus was a hippie wimp.

It is unfortunate that chr*stians think that all arguments for the existence of the Biblical G-d must be arguments for chr*stianity, but they are not alone at fault. When atheists attack G-d, even the Jewish G-d, they always hold chr*stianity responsible. Personally, I resent this.

My experience has been that atheists like to pose as the great defenders of the Jewish People even as they attack Jewish ideas and misattribute them to chr*stianity. Again, I resent this. If you are opposed to belief in G-d, then don't pick on some people while loudly defending the same religous beliefs in others.

My point is not to debate Jewish theology with you, I'm sure you are more than well versed in it. I just look at the whole thing and say, "Wow, that's a really legalistic way to view a deity."

Another thing, I'm no "great defender" of the Jewish people. I have them as neighbors, and I wish to get along with them. I also trust Israel far more than I trust her Arab neighbors.

I consider religion like politics, we all have the right and ability to either stay with what our parents raised us with, or we can make our own decisions if we want to. And as an American first, I honor that document that expresses our rights to make those religious and political choices.

First, since morality is determined by Divine Decree and by nothing else (it certainly doesn't come from science!), you'll have nothing to protest. Second, atheists are as bad as anyone else at wanting everyone else to think like them. Perhaps you failed to read the quotations of the prominent atheists in the article at the top of this thread? Why is it any worse for an evangelical to want you to believe as he does than it is for Dawkins or Hitchens to want evangelicals to believe as they do? Perhaps you haven't noticed this, but you atheists are veritable fonts of hypocrisy on this issue. You think it unreasonable and tyrannical for religionists to say that "error has no rights," yet the entire exclusion of G-d from the science classroom is based on this: creation (or ID) is an error, and error has no rights. Perhaps this is another one of those "self-evident truths" your allegedly hyper-critical, independent minds have latched onto?

I am bothered by the apparent ease with which your mind holds so many contradictions: an insignificant, meaningless universe in which an objective moral code external to the mind of man somehow exists (and in which it is so important that we "know the truth" about everything); a belief in "self-evident truths" while celebrating "critical thinking;" religious suppression of other opinions is tyranny and oppression while science's suppression of other opinions cannot be because it is "the truth," etc., etc., etc.

So you were saying?

Unlike those people who define "anti-Semitism" as ethnic bigotry, I define it as opposition to or ridicule of actual Jewish religious beliefs. If you ever reidicule the Jewish G-d or His Torah I can assure you I will request your expulsion from this forum as an anti-Semite. And I mean it.

I leave out the letters to avoid spelling out the names of false "gxds." If you have ever read your Bible, you know that HaShem is a Jealous G-d. J*sus was a hippie wimp.

1) You haven't checked out His unequivocal denunciations of the ruling Pharisees, apparently.

2) And would you please give me those ground rules for ridicule again? Do you exercise voluntary self-expulsion whenever you practice a double standard?

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