God is not Great......
A fascinating Book that has just arrived on the shelves by the erudite Christopher Hitchens called ‘God is not great’’, ‘How religion poisons everything’. Can I just say what a breath of fresh air this book was.
Having been brought up in a Christian household, surrounded at times by what I considered pious religious attitudes. I wont vilify my parents for this, because their personalities and attitudes to a secular world were very obvious in hindsight. The trouble was that it drove a wedge between me and them, because, like Hitch I too decided at an early age that God was a nonsense. I dabbled again at the age of 16 for a couple of years in a more fundamentalist church. Having looked back at repulsion to this youthful folly at times, I’m now rather glad I did, as it finally nailed my antipathy to the subject once and for all. I also realise that in hindsight I used it as a method to both rebel and be accepted at once by my parents. But this is an aside point.
The idea of ‘God’ is of course the fear of death. Religious people will always remark that this is nonsense, that it is born out of a love for Him (God). At its worst (fundamentalist), characters will issue their own divine power over their flock, be they mullahs, reverends or rabbis. It seems to me that reason and science offer all the wonderment and enlightenment that we need. The idea of a God that oversees our every move and desire, frightening at best and totalitarian at worst. As Hitchens goes on to say, ‘to be carried with us throughout eternity’.
Of course Hitchens has seemingly come to terms with the idea of death, that it is inevitable. I think agnosticism remains because the facts don’t confirm a God, but offer them the hope that it may do one day.
Whether you decide on atheism or agnosticism. Atheism will always prove to be the harder if one cannot accept death as inevitable. This may or may not be true of agnosticism but its certainly true of atheism.
Anyway I recommend this book as an excellent read, thought provoking and possibly militant in intent, you decide.
To all Freedomainers. this blog was written before my FDR moment...
Comments
It's nice to see a well-worded personal belief blog. I enjoy debating on religion, and I believe that it's important not to trash a person's belief's, but since I've joined the blogging community I've found so many evangilizing windbags that I'm starting to become put-off by the whole thing. Yours was the first that I legitimately enjoyed and found interesting.