Faith is hutchputch therefore so is atheism

It can be interesting to see the effect that a need to protect cherished beliefs can have on the health of a person’s thought processes. That need has a tendency to warp and distort the ability to 1) think clearly and 2) talk or write in a straightforward way.

Hitchens distances himself from the idea that he is a form of believer, claiming that his views are not beliefs like those of religious people but are based on reason. Thereby he privileges atheism and calls the result secular neutrality.

Note the sly implication that Hitchens is doing something illegitimate and probably elitist by ‘privileging’ non-theism. Note the faint implication of paranoia if not cowardice – Hitchens ‘distances himself’ from the (silly, bogus, defensive) idea that he is a believer, as opposed to disputing it or challenging it or saying it’s fraudulent and pathetic – as if he’s afraid of it, as if he thinks it has teeth and claws.

The point that Hitchens fails to understand is that faith is not simply about giving assent to the existence of a supernatural being. Faith is infinitely more comprehensive than this. Faith is a world view, an underlying narrative to people’s lives that helps them to answer profound questions to do with meaning, identity, purpose and the future. On this basis, atheism certainly is a faith and the version of it promoted by Christopher Hitchens is of the extreme fundamentalist sort.

Note first the nonsensical and grandiose redefinition, the brazen Humpty Dumptyism – faith is a world view. Then note the wild leap from that to the claim that atheism is a world view; note the complete non sequitur. On this basis? On what basis? You call that a basis? Faith is a world view, on this basis atheism is certainly a faith? Wo – try writing that out formally, dude; you’ll find it lacks a certain something. And that’s the point. Funny how the enemies of atheism keep doing that – keep making conspicuously bad arguments by way of defending their ‘faith’ or their ‘beliefs.’ An occupational hazard, it seems.

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