Posted by
Jason Cunningham on Thursday, June 14, 2007 4:20:14 PM
Part of me is burning to ridicule Christopher Hitchens right now, but I digress ...
In all seriousness, my educated guess is that Mr. Hitchens had a bad childhood (and since I've been reading John Eldredge lately, I'll say a bad father in particular), and that he feels that God seriously screwed him over in some way at some earlier point in his life (perhaps it was the parent thing). Which goes to a crucial point that C.S. Lewis once made about his own former atheistic belief: He believed that there was no God, yet he was mad at God. How can this be? It can't. And when Lewis realized this about his own life, it was one of the things that ultimately led him to faith in Christ. It is also something that seems to be common amongst atheists (at least, amongst the vocal ones): They preach that there is no God, yet they are enraged in such a way as to suggest that they DO believe in a God and that this God gave them the shaft sometime in their lives, so they're trying to get back at Him by denying His existence. The very idea of God makes their skin crawl. Why is this? If Hitchens et al. truly believe that there is no God, why can't they simply be content in their own belief and let it rest? For as we've seen, they don't let it rest; they don't even argue respectfully. They ridicule. Again, why do they do that? Why does the idea of God make their skin crawl? Because in their heart of hearts they know that there is a God, and that they're angry at Him for some reason and so want to both get back at Him AND escape His presence, so they choose an atheistic course in an attempt to "hurt Him back" and to convince themselves that He's NOT right there in front of them all the time, beckoning them to just give in and let Him heal them.
So ... Mr. Hitchens ... Will you be secure in your own belief and let everyone else live in peace under the "to each his own" philosophy? Or will you continue to be angry at a God whom you insist isn't there?
Or ... will you break down and admit that your very anger is proof that there IS a God -- a God with whom you at last need to wrestle?