Charles Lewis: Dear Atheists ..... Similar to My Experiences Here

Charles Lewis writes in the National Post....


"Dear atheists: can’t we all just get along or whatever?
Charles Lewis December 16, 2010 – 11:13 am


Earlier this month I wrote a column for Holy Post about the endless debates between atheists and the religious. I called it: “Dear Atheists: most of us don’t care what you think.” I have been a journalist for close to three decades but nothing I have ever written before came close to the kind of negative reaction that this piece called forth.


Most of the 800 or so responses on the blog were either incredulous or hostile.


One professor wrote on his own blog that I was a “dishonest bigot” and my story “was an appalling piece of dreck.” I wrote back to him to wish him a Merry Christmas; he wrote back to say I was passive aggressive. I also wanted to know why he called me a bigot. We will not be going on holidays together in the near future or ever.


Yet another respondent called the story “linguistic genocide” — an ingenious term that I wish I had come up with myself. Another wrote that he did not put his faith in an invisible god but in “mankind.” I wrote back to ask what part of mankind he puts his faith in: the religious, the non-religious, everyone ….? He did not get back to me.


The thesis of my story was this: that debates between the religious and atheists are useless because most atheists do not understand religion, particularly the idea of religious faith.


[Editor: I have found that they often have a childish idea and understanding of the Judaeo-Christian God. Then they use that perception to argue against "religion"]


I made particular reference to journalist and author Hitchens, who has made millions of dollars off of being a professional atheist. Saying bad things about Hitchens, it turns out, is a very bad thing to do. Apparently he is the only atheist “born without sin.”


It was finally made clear to me that I should no more insult Hitchens than someone should insult the Blessed Virgin Mary or Jesus — something no atheist would ever dream of doing.


One reader called me a coward for not wanting to debate Christopher Hitchens — which is funny because I have never been asked to debate him. And perhaps if I was offered the kind of fees that people like Hitchens receive I might find it in my heart to take part in a debate and ditch my “no-debate” argument. Hitchens recently received $15,000 for a single talk at an American university. Not bad for an hour.


I also went on to say that former British prime minister Tony Blair should not have bothered to debate Hitchens at a recent event in Toronto.


I wrote: “Blair probably should not have even bothered and instead should have gone to mass that night or spent an evening helping out at a shelter or visiting someone who was lonely and sick in a hospital. That would have said a lot more about his faith than wasting a lot of words on a pompous ass whose main intellectual arsenal is sneering and using sarcasm.” [Editor: Even his brother Peter thinks so.] 


I am not a big fan of Blair because he is too wishy-washy and likes to talk about vague issues of faith rather than the tough teachings of his adopted Roman Catholic Church.


I do not like Hitchens’ ideas about religion but I actually have more respect for him than I have for Blair because at least he is not tepid. Hitchens is also one of the great political writers of our time so he is warrior with words.


But when he said during the debate that Pope Benedict believes “condoms are more evil than AIDS” (the Pope said condoms are not the answer to the AIDS crisis, a much different, more subtle statement) and that any charity performed by churches is simply penance for all the evil they have done in the name of faith, I wanted to throw up.


I do support debates about religion in the public square. There are many people who ask, for example, whether religions should get tax breaks — particularly when every press release from certain denominations has to do with global warming or some other political issue. And I think that is completely valid. When a school starts handing out Bibles in the classroom, that must be debated because a line has been crossed.


But faith is different. It is private. It touches on a different reality that either you get or you do not. Faith is like love and how do you debate love? Faith has driven untold millions, billions, of people through history and cannot be dismissed so easily.


I have read Hitchens’ God Is Not Great and I have heard him speak about religion and there is nothing that is reasonable in his argument that can be debated. He believes religion poisons everything. What could I or anyone really say to that?


I am not a bigot. I do not hate anyone except maybe Hitler and Stalin. I do not hate atheists and nor do I hate the chief atheist, St. Christopher. Long may he write and speak.


But when he calls me stupid for my beliefs, when he calls what I hold dear “poison,” then he and other like him have crossed a line into supreme arrogance. They begin to sound exactly like the things they say they hate about religion. And I just have no time for it."


National Post
clewis@nationalpost.com


Posted in: Holy Post Tags: Atheism, Christopher Hitchens, Tony Blair


Read more: http://life.nationalpost.com/2010/12/16/dear-atheists-cant-we-all-just-get-along-or-whatever/#ixzz18Qm8cO3V