God is not Great

I just saw the interview that Jon Stewart of the Daily Show did with Christopher Hitchens, author of God is not great. I expected more. Renowned atheists usually scare me until I hear them…

Once again Hitchens demonstrates that our hearts really guide our interpretations of the facts — and we humans have a tendency of making facts out of our interpretations. He listed the fact that every religion’s “God” comes into this world in a way that bypasses normal conception through sex and vaginal delivery. For instance, Jesus was born of a virgin and Buddha came out of his mother through a slit in her side, etc. This is true. The stories are different in significant ways, but, nevertheless, there is a similar motif.

Hitchens cites this fact and then interprets it, but he does not differentiate between his facts and his interpretations. He says that these similarities show a common hatred of sex among religious adherents. (At this point he mentions circumcision as another sign of hatred of sex). Religion’s hatred of sex is then presented as a case for its duplicity.

Now, not being religious himself, I wonder how Hitchens knows that stories of virgin births (and the like) are a sign of hatred of sex? I am a Christian and I do not hate sex! I do not see sex as being foundational to humanity’s problems. I interpret these facts as saying that there is something wrong with humanity from birth, therefore something different has to happen at birth to change the problem (ie. Jesus did not have a sinful human nature because of conception by the Spirit). Is it possible that this is the reason for the similarity and not hatred of sex? Maybe we hate the moral weakness displayed by normally born people (ourselves included).

Maybe sex being brought into the discussion at all has to do with Hitchens’ infatuation with sex, and not a religious man’s hatred of it.

I think of another British man (a former atheist) who also was plagued with confusion by the myths that echoed Christian truth. In fact, myth was one of his areas of expertise. It was C.S. Lewis. His interpretation of these mythical similarities was that God was allowing, though the ages, a vocabulary to be created for the truth that was to come in Christianity. In other words, according to Lewis, we would be ready to receive the real because of the myth. I see no compelling reason why Hitchens’ interpretation has any more validity than Lewis’.

I say all of this because Hitchens began the conversation by discussing the fact that he longs for the day when the man of faith will be disparaged in society instead of flattered. He wants people who are shaped only by the facts; and faith is belief without fact. What I am trying to show is there is no person shaped only by facts. We have hearts (inner desire and worldview)  that shape interpretations of those facts, and Hitchens displays fatuity and hubris in failing to acknowledge that fact — pun intended.