Again, Patrick graciously channeled Christopher Hitchins, someone who’s been requested by many of you for a long time now. I’m taking off MLK Day with the family, so I’m keeping this intro short!
2 reader-of-my-website questions. Mr. Hitchens showed right up.
Q: I’ve read your international bestseller God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Although you didn’t believe religion poisoned literally everything, you believed that religion could offer no positives to our world, at least not any positives that a secular view couldn’t offer. Do you still view religion as the giant roadblock to human progress as you once believed when you roamed the Earth as human?
CH: No. Religion is humanity’s way of explaining hope without in-your-face support, cause and effect. Like feeling the sharp pain of being smacked in the face without ever seeing anyone or anything that hit you.
No Earth, no religion. It isn’t what religion is, it’s what humans do with it. That’s my new view.
Q: You believed that scientific work was the only road that could lead humanity to direct knowledge of itself, the Earth, and the cosmos. Moreover, you rejected the ideas of extrasensory perception, reincarnation, the soul, the afterlife, ghosts, and spirits because they could not be scientifically verifiable. Given where you are right now, do you still hold these beliefs?
CH: Science can’t investigate its limits, because the human scientific process requires proof from evidence inside the limits. The challenge is to accept the limits as but a border or frontier, and that beyond lies something unseen from the human side. Human scientific process has always required an effect within perception – this is fine – but mistakenly assumes the cause and explanation ALSO have to be entirely within the limitations.
The speed of light is a good example. To say interplanetary travel across many light years requires not two decades but less than two hours, means the limit to the speed of light, isn’t. Prove it. Ha ha, cannot. See?
No, I don’t hold those beliefs now. They were human ideas I developed from dislike of religion’s application of its authority. It told – tells – people the souls of their dead friends and relatives pass on, then asks for money to operate the institution. Religion doesn’t offer contact to match the memory, and to those expecting it, this amounts to false hope. We’re not going to see our dead relatives while still on Earth, period, and this is part of the deal. We take on this trait, characteristic and quality when we choose to incarnate and live on Earth. Religions too often take command of groups, taking advantage of beliefs and hopes, without offering anything else.
My dislike of religion was this aspect of it; that it built a hierarchy around beliefs that did little for the membership and everything for the leaders.
I now see the bigger picture. As do you!
Take good and regular care with your prayers, my best wishes, Christopher….
=======================================================
Questioner reaction to these two Qs & As
Ah, man. Awesome responses by Mr. Hitchens. Such a huge fan of The Hitch. His wit, writing skills, and power of oratory are unmatched. I would constantly criticize my family members for reading their Bibles, believing the Bible served no useful purpose. One day, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I watched my sister, from afar, reading her Bible, and I could just FEEL the Bible giving her tremendous amounts of strength. She had been going through some difficulties at the time. I knew, then, that criticizing others for their religious beliefs was just wrong. Who am I to criticize what gives hope to others? Reading and watching videos of atheist rhetoric was one of the reasons I would criticize others. I knew a lot of Hitchens’ criticisms of religion were valid, but I also needed to learn that people’s hopes and connection to a religion were valid and important as well. Hitchens, in this channeling, perfectly lays out that while religion does have some things it needs to work on, it can also be a powerful means for people to feel and express hope. I find the prayer comment at the end HILARIOUS (LOL) because I was really debating with myself about sneaking in a third question about prayer in schools. I withdrew my question at the last moment. It was still answered, LOL !!
