Now I see an aggrieved academic has ripped into Chris Hitchens for his 'I Hate God' polemic accusing him of selective reasoning and bad reasoning at that, phony scholarship, ersatz philosophic musings etc etc called to arms like a rebellious mob against the ramparts of religion and the pious practitioners barracks behind etc etc
I don't have much to say for or against Hitchens since I be not nearly learned enough to adequately defend or refute [I mean one can sound as absurd tearing down God as propping the old bastard up] - and besides, I kind of like Oxfordian styled screeds regardless of what they have to say-
But does it not seem increasingly that defenders of religion and adjunct godheads use response to arguments hurled against them as proof in and of themselves of what they defend? Intelligent design seems a perfect example of this: we can't really refute evolution so in arguing against we'll create a different set of criteria to support our claims - in other words, we don't really need to refute evolution, just sound like we have a plausible counter argument to reassure the faithful. Same goes with the decline of strict dogma and rise of universalism, a trans-confessional episcopaliansim - because you know in a world of loose individualism and appeals to limpid ironic poses and sloppy pandering to the senses it's really hard to stay rigid and not be laughed at.
A return to Roman pagan cults then? Now that would be ironic - and so conveniently modern. Given how unstable they are people remain quite predictable, no?
