Christopher Hitchens, contrarian atheist and slayer of all beasts fascistic and theocratic, will be in Madison, Wisconsin, this fall to present the keynote address at the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s fall conference. Anyone who is familiar with Hitchens’ substance and style will expect a speech that is irreverent and uncompromising and totally worth the price of admission.
Predictably, faster than a fart can make a tent full of Cub Scouts giggle, letters to the editor and op-ed pieces appeared bemoaning Hitchens’ upcoming visit and calling him a boorish bigot for his willingness to describe the emperor’s nakedness in all its scabious and purulent magisterial arrogance.
Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are not bigots. They are an unholy trinity of bestselling atheist authors who are fed up with having to tap dance around people of faith whose religious beliefs are as irrational as they are ubiquitous, and as potentially deadly as they are personally cathartic.
This unholy trinity is the rising voice of over ten percent of Americans who identify themselves as atheists (closeted or otherwise) who are mad as heck—we don’t believe in hell—and who aren’t going to take it anymore. What else can account for the phenomenal sales of the unholy trinity’s recent books?
Think of it, at least ten of your hundred closest friends are the “pissed off faithless” . . . a sizable cabal at any backyard barbecue, or polling station for that matter.
If the faithful would just keep their religious beliefs in their own pocket and out of public school classrooms and bedrooms and women’s wombs, I doubt much would ever be heard from the unholy trinity or the POF. What would be the point?
But in kissing up to the religious right . . . or religious center . . . or religious left, it’s gotten so that politicians, both elephant and ass, will not open their mouths without first crossing themselves or testifying. For the POF, it’s particularly nauseating every election cycle as candidates yammer on about their walk with the Lord while they trample all over the truth to cut each other’s throats.
In preparation for the 2008 “holy war,” Hillary hired an evangelical Baptist who has put together her faith steering committee and sends out a weekly wrap-up sheet, Faith, Family and Values. Can you say “focus on the family” values? Rest assured, both John and Barack have their faith-based mojo working overtime as well.
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