1. In the name of the Father

Comment #51508 by Mario07 on June 23, 2007 at 7:16 am

"First, he redefines in his own terms what it is to be a Christian."

Guess I missed it, but did the good Bishop offer a definition of a "Christian"? If Hitchens is wrong, shouldn't there be a rebuttal here?

"Second, Hitchens dismisses most of the great intellectual believers of the past on the grounds that their cosmology was outdated."

I believe the Bishop has completely missed the point here. Hitchens does not "dismiss" good ideas or ethics because they were discussed by our ancestors. He dismisses cruelty, bigotry, and superstition that was (is) based on ignorance. Me thinks the Bishop is torturing this one in order to find something to criticize.

"Third, he refuses to consider any modern writing that queries his relentless onslaught. Take just one example, his fifth-form argument that religion is the cause of war."

Apparently, only pub atheists see any real relationship between religion and violent conflict in the world. Guess we've just had it all wrong. The Bishop is surely right - religion has played no signficant role in fostering hatred between peoples. Uh.....wait......no, it has. Repeatedly and with great suffering. The Bishop seems to think that if he can find other causes, religion can be exonerated. No such luck. We need to work on all of them.

"all people of wisdom need to cooperate, whatever the springs of their moral outlook."

I look forward to sitting down with our fundamentalist Muslim friend in the hills of Pakistan to collaborate on how we can best achieve world peace. Clearly, their "springs of morality" will only help speed along a solution.

What crap. I hope Hitchens writes another book very soon so the Bishop can make an ass of himself for my reading entertainment.

Peace.