One of the best (no, scratch that, it was the best) books I read this summer is Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. I was thinking about writing a review of it, but as much as I can be fairly competent and eloquent on matters of technology, computers and programming languages, I have no illusions about my ability to review an essay about religion, philosophy, and politics like Hitch’s latest work.
So it was with delight that I saw the review written by another of those Uppity Atheists™, none other than Richard Dawkins at The Times Online and I will do no more than promptly point you to it, since I—obviously— couldn’t have said it better.
Speaking of Dawkins, I had previously read his own The God Delusion
. Dawkins’ book reads more like a reasoned, scientific discussion of why we can’t call ourselves theists without giving up a good share of our rational thinking, whereas Hitchens’ one is more like a collection of essays, witty and scathing. To each his own style, I guess, but I suggest you read both to have a good picture of what all this New Atheism is all about. Hint: it’s nothing more than good old atheism, but finally we are coming out of the closet and are stopping to pay undue reverence to religion’s supposed virtues and all that nonsense about non-overlapping magisteria.
It would be great, imo, to see atheism begin to shift gears along with religious/spiritual progressives to focus on what we have in common.
A deeply spiritual outlook on life is possible with or without belief - when the word “spiritual” is carefully defined to avoid the belief-connotations about a non-material spirit world that many find unacceptable. Such an outlook would include, for example, the passion for honesty and truth that lead many people to atheism.