Posted on 05/13/2007 3:36:20 AM PDT by YaYa123
Observers of the Christopher Hitchens phenomenon have been expecting a book about religion from him around now. But this impressive and enjoyable attack on everything so many people hold dear is not the book we were expecting.
First in London 30 or more years ago, then in New York and for the last couple of decades in Washington, Hitchens has established himself as a character. This character draws on such familiar sources as the novels of P. G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene; the leftist politics of the 1960s (British variant); and — of course — the person of George Orwell. (Others might throw in the flower-clutching Bunthorne from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Patience,” but that is probably not an intentional influence.) Hitchens is the bohemian and the swell, the dashing foreign correspondent, the painstaking literary critic and the intellectual engagé. He charms Washington hostesses but will set off a stink bomb in the salon if the opportunity arises.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I say all this not having read the book, so perhaps the fault is with the author of this piece, but Hitchens seems to have a basic lack of knowledge and understanding of Christianity (I say that from a Catholic perspective). He also compares apples and oranges (throw Christianity, ID, and the cult of mohammedism together as if they were comparable). “when supposedly he(Christ) also did not die at all?” Nonsense. I would ask Mr. Hitchens, how does one rise from the dead without dying?
“To him, it’s blindingly obvious: 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. “The human wish to credit good things as miraculous and to charge bad things to another account is apparently universal,” he remarks, unsympathetically.”
Well, Mr. Hitchens, even now we have only a best, slightly educated, guess as to the origins of life and the planet, so the argument that we now “know better” and thus have no “need” for God or religion, is an empty argument. Additionally, as you point out, it’s a human wish to attribute good and evil, and not necessarily an accurate understanding of God’s will, but an attempt to make sense of the fallen world we live in.
Sounds to me like his whole book is a self-absorbed “aren’t I smart” display without much substance.
Now you idiots can drop all your need for metaphysics and rest in the rational matrix.
A very erudite college philosophy professor once told me that even when atheists attacked religion they did so from a religious perspective, i.e. that the religion they were criticizing was not fulfilling religious values. Female genital mutilation is just one example.
That was 35 years ago and Hitchens once again proves her point.
The point about Christ dying for our sins demonstrates a profound lack of understanding regarding the nature of Christ. I haven’t read the book either, but this is the type of smirking snipe I hear often from non-believers.
It’s a very typical “that’ll shut you up” ploy.
I took it that way too, about Kinsley being an atheist, but I too am not 100% sure. A very amusing column, thanks for posting it.
However, I have to question this assertion “Religious leaders from all the major faiths, who disagree on some of the most fundamental questions, managed to put aside their differences to agree that Rushdie had it coming.”
I certainly do not recall anything like that. And it annoys me to have the, shall we say “excesses” of Mohammedism confabulated with other religions. Maybe some one can clarify.
Nothing reported in the NYT deserves any response.
Atheists generally lump all religions together. To an atheist it makes as much sense to worship Ra or Dispator as it does to worship Christ or Allah. It also tends to confound Religious types who will agree with the atheist, except when it comes to their own God.
The basic difference between an atheist and a religious person is that the God fearing person believes in one specific God and rejects all the rest, while the atheist simply rejects them all.
I know this is a horrible thing to say, but Hitch, I’d probably miss if he ended up going to the other place because he was an atheist.
Kinsley...not so much.
Nicely put.
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