With the "world's largest" gathering of atheists this weekend in Washington, D.C., the National Post's graphics department takes a look at how the world's religions break down. The God issue: New science of religion. (Image: Richard Wilkinson) Can't live with him, can't live without him.
In a special series of articles we lay out a new vision that resets the terms of the debate In our enlightened world, god is still everywhere. In the UK, arguments rage over "militant atheism" and the place of religion in public life. In the US, religion is again taking centre stage in the presidential election. Perhaps that is because we have been looking at god the wrong way. Like it or not, religious belief is ingrained into human nature. Viewing religion this way opens up new territory in the battle between science and religion, not least that religion is much more likely to persist than science.
Of course, the truth or otherwise of religion is not a closed book to science: the existence of a deity can be treated as a scientific hypothesis. Meanwhile, society is gradually learning to live without religion by replicating its success at binding people together. Reading Christopher. From the start Christopher Hitchens had it—the voice, the distinctive voice that is the hallmark of a real writer and a bottom line for a columnist, which he was for The Nation, under the title “Minority Report,” from 1985 to October 14, 2002.
His style, of course, was the man. It was a dry like good champagne, sharp, ironic, sometimes disheveled (as he might be on a hungover morning), occasionally opaque, cliché-avoiding, easily colloquial yet lightly erudite. He would occasionally, almost absent-mindedly, drop in a mild Britishism—a “whilst” here, a “racialism” there—which I altered to conform to Nation style. But that was about all I, anyway, ever did to his prose. We Recommend Long-time Nation contributor, columnist and friend Christopher Hitchens passed away last night at 62.
Preview: The Four Horsemen of New Atheism reunited. Christopher Hitchens: tributes and reactions. Tributes, memories and paeans of praise for the late Christopher Hitchens poured in this morning, bringing home with force the sheer reach and power of the great polemicist – the "finest orator of our time" and a "valiant fighter against all tyrants including God", according to his fellow atheist Richard Dawkins.
"I shall miss him terribly and so will everybody who values the life of the intellect, of rationality of reason," Dawkins told the BBC. Ian McEwan, part of Hitchens' close circle of literary friends which also included Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes, James Fenton and Martin Amis, spoke movingly on the Today programme this morning of how the author kept writing until the last. "Right at the very end, when he was at his most feeble as this cancer began to overwhelm him, he insisted on a desk by the window - away from his bed in the ICU," he said. Rushdie took to Twitter to mourn his loss, tweeting this morning: "Goodbye, my beloved friend. A great voice falls silent. Remembering Hitchens.
Although we obviously had our differences, I was pleased to see that the vast majority of the well-deserved establishment kudos that our friend Christopher Hitchens received after he died were not inconsistent with Christopher Buckley’s assessment that Hitchens was “the greatest living essayist in the English language.”
About the Author Victor Navasky Victor Navasky, publisher emeritus of The Nation, was the magazine's editor from 1978 to 1995 and publisher and... Also by the Author For decades, first at Pantheon and then at the New Press, he was a lion of progressive publishing. How did Lillian Hellman become the archetype of hypocrisy? In the shadow of the above, and lest I be accused of obituary sentimentality, forgive me for quoting what I wrote about Christopher and The Nation some years ago in my book A Matter of Opinion: I came to The Nation in 1978, and in those years we couldn’t afford to import overseas talent, but we could try something else.
Christopher Hitchens on Forced Merriment, the True Spirit of Christmas. Christopher Hitchens’s Best Zingers: From Sarah Palin to Barack Obama. Come with me through 117 pages of euphemisms, bureaucracy, and mayhem.
Oops, April 15th… Why do they call it a tax “return”? The cable company doesn’t call its bill a “waste-of-time return.” Or is the IRS saying that, since government prints the money, we’re supposed to return it to where it came from? Anyway… Got up bright and early this morning—by freelance-writer standards—around 10:30 AM. Freelance Writer, Let Me Point Out Some Further IRS Abuses of the English Language… I have a file cabinet. At least no tipping is expected. Googled “File Income Tax”… Found a lot of ads offering to do this for free. Scrolled Down… Until I came to irs.gov/Filing, which I take to be the real thing. Clicked… And got a page with the IRS logo. I’m easily distracted when doing my taxes, aren’t you? Page with Crest Was Titled… “Do I Need to File a Tax Return?” Had thought there was a law about that.
The IRS wanted me to answer some questions. Clicked Some More… Got “Your Rights as a Taxpayer.” Address Is Requested…