Hitchens vs. Hitchens
The "new atheists" of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and company continue to have high visibility across the media. (The Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, posted this picture of strategic book stickering on God Is Not Great.) I was interested to come across this article in The Daily Mail by Christopher Hitchens's brother, Peter, who in many ways is a polar opposite of his famous atheist brother. He writes:
Christopher is an atheist. I am a believer. He once said in public: "The real difference between Peter and myself is the belief in the supernatural. I’m a materialist and he attributes his presence here to a divine plan. I can’t stand anyone who believes in God, who invokes the divinity or who is a person of faith."
I don’t feel the same way. I like atheists and enjoy their company, because they agree with me that religion is important. I liked and enjoyed this book, and recommend it to anybody who is interested in the subject. Like everything Christopher writes, it is often elegant, frequently witty and never stupid or boring.
I also think it is wrong, mostly in the way that it blames faith for so many bad things and gives it no credit for any of the good it may have done. I think it misunderstands religious people and their aims and desires. And I think it asserts a number of things as true and obvious that are nothing of the sort.
For more, see the article here.
Posted by Al Hsu
at August 20, 2007 8:28 AM
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