The Faith of Christopher Hitchens: The Restless Soul of the World’s Most Notorious Atheist by Larry Alex Taunton My rating: 5 of 5 stars I won’t say much here because I am writing a review of this book for Books & Culture. But I can say that in the review I hope to use up …
An Appearance of Atheism
I saw on Facebook that Richard Dawkins had summarily dispatched the God of the Bible. Not only so, but he did it in under three minutes. I found out about this feat of legerdemain because Ken Ham’s answer to this elegant business showed up in my feed, and so then I went and checked it …
Atheism As an Epistemic Hoot
“On your account I am one set of complex chemical reactions secreting something that I falsely believe to be arguments to another set of complext chemical reactions who falsely believes that he is reading them . . . if you apply reason and self-criticism to an atheistic examination of ethics, you should discover within ten …
Atheism As Failure to Grasp the Implications
“If the two of us [an atheist and Christian] were looking at a new report of the latest atrocity, I would say that at some point in the future, in some fundamental way, that will be put right. You want to say, as an atheist, that it will not ever be put right. But you …
The Necessity of Atheistic Impotence
“You want to rage, but there is no object for your anger. There is no wall to punch. Because above you and them is ‘only sky.’ You want to rail against God, but He is not there. But that means He didn’t do it. So who did? There is no who. Only sky above us …
Atheism and the Magic Flashlight
“Dawkins’ lack of epistemological awareness is nowhere more evident than here. He is the enlightened one. We are the ones in darkness. He explains our darkness completely. But given his explanation, he is just as much in the very same darkness. And not only will he not explain where he got the magic flashlight, he …
Functional Atheism
INTRODUCTION:This psalm is a variation of the fourteenth psalm, and makes a point important enough to be repeated. And that point is that this psalm applies to the whole human race, and not just to the tiny minority willing to claim their atheism openly. This is a psalm, not about atheism proper, but about the …
Superstitious Atheism
In his next chapter, Peter Hitchens compares the respective gullibilities of the believing Christian and the “scientific” atheist. Atheists believe this to be one of their strong points, which Peter appears to recognize. “How the materialists like to jeer at the naive faith of the peasant, fooled by relics, faith healers, and the general hocus-pocus …
Atheistic Wrecking Balls and Bulldozers
The first half of Peter Hitchens’ book concludes with a short summary of how the Christian faith declined in England over the course of the last century or so. From here in the deep weeds of secularism, it is easy to forget that the two great industrial wars of the twentieth century were wars that …
If the Pope Were an Atheist
The current set of sex scandals afflicting the Roman Catholic church are located in Germany, Ireland, and Wisconsin, and it at least appears that the current pope was related in some way to some of the disciplinary failure involved. As time passes, there will be other scandals in other places. But, with issues of this …