{"id":8239,"date":"2020-08-07T21:14:05","date_gmt":"2020-08-07T21:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/?p=8239"},"modified":"2022-01-12T17:23:56","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T17:23:56","slug":"the-poison-of-religion-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/?p=8239","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cPoison\u201d of Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Views: 1<\/p><p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">[<strong>Note<\/strong><strong>:\u00a0 <\/strong>This MS is available in larger font on our <strong>Brief Articles 2<\/strong>\u00a0 page.]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">Christopher Hitchens, renowned British atheist, titled his 2007 book, <em>God Is Not Great <\/em>(subtitled, <em>How Religion Poisons Everything<\/em>). Both are solid thwacks at the mazards of believers. He knows how to get our attention. Hitchens is one of a few \u201cnew wave\u201d atheists who have recently begun preaching their ungospel of unbelief to every creature. What shall we make of such efforts?<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>First<\/strong>, the bold and sudden spurt of their rantings seems to reflect a panic mode. Has the rise of the \u201cintelligent design\u201d concept unnerved them? Did Anthony Flew\u2019s 2004 defection from his almost lifelong atheism rattle their cages? Has desperation set in?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>Second<\/strong>, Hitchens and his colluders, unlike the \u201cold guard\u201d of their genre, are not content merely to be atheists; they must convert those silly believers to infidelity. They not only do not believe in God and His Son (in spite of abundant evidence); their evangelistic campaign is bent on destroying the faith of everyone possible (especially the younger set).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>Third<\/strong>, Hitchens\u2019 title lays bare the arrogance and snarling defiance of his kind regarding the very idea of God as revealed both in His creation and in His Word. His title implies, \u201cEven if I should concede the existence of the God of you blinkered Christians, he\u2019s not much to write home about. He ruins everything he touches.\u201d If we are all merely complex chemical reactions (as atheist scientists allege), why should he be so indignant at our faith? He may as well rail against a hurricane or an Irish potato.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>Fourth<\/strong>, Hitchens (as his kin) champions logic and reason. (He will get no argument on this score from knowledgeable Christians. God gave us our minds, gave us the Bible which appeals to our reasoning abilities, and told us to use our minds in our service to Him [Mat. 22:37].) However, before one reaches the title page, Hitchens\u2019 subtitle abuses reason: It asserts an unprovable universal generalization that \u201creligion poisons everything.\u201d Everything? If he wishes to affirm that <strong>some <\/strong>religions poison <strong>some <\/strong>things, we will give him a hearty \u201cAmen.\u201d But he avers far more than any wise mortal would aver, and his book falls far short of proving it.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">Hitchens and his sort have a long and storied ancestry. His forebears were denying God\u2019s existence at least a millennium before the Word became flesh, and David accurately identified them as corrupt fools (Psa. 14:1; cf. Rom. 1:19\u201325). Contrary to Hitchens, God is, and He is great; Christianity Improves Everything\u2014A provable generalization, we are confident.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\">[<strong>Note:<\/strong> I wrote this article for and it appeared in the <em>Denton Record-Chronicle, <\/em>Denton, TX, June 12, 2009].<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino, serif;\"><strong>Attribution:<\/strong> From <em>thescripturecache.com<\/em>; Dub McClish, owner and administrator<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Views: 1[Note:\u00a0 This MS is available in larger font on our Brief Articles 2\u00a0 page.] Christopher Hitchens, renowned British atheist, titled his 2007 book, God Is Not Great (subtitled, How Religion Poisons Everything). Both are solid thwacks at the mazards of believers. He knows how&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"easywp-readmore\"><a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/?p=8239\">Continue Reading&#8230;<span class=\"easywp-sr-only\">  The \u201cPoison\u201d of Religion<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,130,193,115,503,336,504,311],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism","category-creation","category-god-2","category-god","category-infidelity","category-intelligent-design","category-logic-and-reason","category-word-of-god","wpcat-91-id","wpcat-130-id","wpcat-193-id","wpcat-115-id","wpcat-503-id","wpcat-336-id","wpcat-504-id","wpcat-311-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8239"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17466,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8239\/revisions\/17466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thescripturecache.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}