An Atheist Responds
14th July 2007
Christopher Hitchens responds to Michael Gerson.
However, it is his own supposedly kindly religion that prevents him from seeing how insulting is the latent suggestion of his position: the appalling insinuation that I would not know right from wrong if I was not supernaturally guided by a celestial dictatorship, which could read and condemn my thoughts and which could also consign me to eternal worshipful bliss (a somewhat hellish idea) or to an actual hell.
Well, unfortunately, that’s not what Gerson said.
Atheists can be good people; they just have no objective way to judge the conduct of those who are not.
Hitchens is a trained and experienced polemicist, so perhaps this particular subroutine kicks in automatically, but it is still unsatisfactory when a sniper shoots a bystander rather than the bad guy.