Christopher Hitchens is, alongside Richard Dawkins, one of the leading intellectual voices of the antireligious movement, dubbed "The New Atheism." Hitchens has compared religious education as child-abuse and has made it his goal to see that religion is done away with for good by rational thinking people everywhere.
What many people don't know is that his brother, Peter Hitchens, believes the polar opposite.
In a new interview by Zondervan, Peter Hitchens, author of "The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me To Faith", discusses his work as a journalist, his former atheism and his adversarial relationship with his brother.
Quotes from the video:
"If he [Christopher] wants to write about Henry Kissenger that's fine...but he doesn't know any more about God than I [Peter] do."
"This country [England]...ceased to be Christian after the first World War."
Comments
I thought what he said about Great Britain ceasing to be a Christian nation after WW1 was interesting. I hadn't heard that before, but it makes an awful lot of sense. Good interview, and beautifully shot as well.
I read an editorial by Peter Hitchens about a month ago that covers the same territory as this video (only in greater depth) and heard the same old apologetics I've heard so many times before. I find them no more convincing from him than I would if his brother Chris suddenly converted and espoused them. That is to say, I don't find them convincing on their own merits. My impression of Peter's conversion is that it is based on guilt and fear and that he justified it with apologetics afterwards. Not having had the same reaction to a painting (or anything else) that he had, I find them inadequate. Peter's right about one thing; the conversion would have to be a matter of the heart rather than the head; the tearing out of the eyes of reason; the triumph of the subjective over the objective. I am human and therefore maybe subject to such a... let's call it "a fall into grace" but while my eyes are still open and my reason unbroken to the reins, I cannot respect his reasons for taking the
(continued) I cannot respect his reasons for taking the plunge.
Simply stated there are angry individuals on both sides, and he seems to be simply angry- which of course allows one to feel "strongly" for one or the other side.
While I could and I am sure do have some "issues" with how I was raised it should be noted that I am in no way angry at the majority of those who practice anyone of the large varieties of religion that exist today!
Hugh, this is what sets you apart from the New Atheists, I believe. You have a level of tolerance that is sorely lacking among those whom you occasionally quote approvingly. If all atheists were like you, Hemant Mehta or Michael Ruse dialogues on faith would be much more enjoyable and effective...but probably not as exciting or media-worthy.
However, for every Peter Hitchens who comes to knowledge of truth through the initial gateway of subjective experience and later undergirds it with reason and rationale, there is a C.S. Lewis who comes through the door of reason and rationale and then later undergirds that with subjective experience.
If I’m not mistaken, C.S. Lewis also claimed to be an atheist, and later an apologist, and he was no more successful at proving God than Peter Hitchens. My problem is the fundamentalism on both sides. Christopher Hitchens is just as much a fundamentalist as most of the Christians. From where I sit, we neither prove God, or disprove it. We only know what we’ve been able to observe up to this point. In a Universe that’s constantly evolving, it’s possible that God is part of the processes. To me, the reasonable approach is to admit that we’re human, and that in the presence of this massive Universe, we’re still infants. Then, perhaps, we can take out words like “dogma,” and “truth,” and start talking about what we really know… which isn’t much.
Ben,
Lewis was pretty clear in his writings that he had no intention of 'proving' God's existence, nor that it was even possible. He always held that belief in God was a question that intelligent people on both sides would disagree on. This is something that honest proponents of theism and atheism alike acknowledge.
This is why the New Atheists are, as you pointed out, just as Fundamentalist as the Fundamentalists they ridicule.
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