Saturday, May 12, 2007
(9:30 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
HITCHENS IS AWESOME-O
Apparently, God doesn't exist and religion is bad. From the sounds of the reviews, it sounds like this book may well be riddled with erroneous characterizations of religious belief -- for instance, the reviewer cites the claim that Jesus is supposed to die for our sins, but on the other hand didn't really die. They cleared up this confusion pretty early on, though I'm sure that orthodox Christians are glad to have in Hitchens an unwitting ally in the fight against Docetism.I'm starting to think that writers of polemical doctrinaire atheism actually put in the errors on purpose. The goal is to produce a dynamic in conversation about the book that I'd call the Atheist Two-Step:
- Someone points out that the particular religious belief disproven by the doctrinaire atheist is not really held by anyone as stated.
- The doctrinaire atheist then says that religion is so obviously stupid and pernicious that one can't be held accountable for detailed knowledge of it.
