Einstein's thoughts on God

[bloodyminded]

I'm no fan of any of them. I don't really see the point in picking fights, or in pissing contests. I'm not an atheist to get back at anyone. My wife is a Catholic, so I've learned that you have to find some degree of accommodation. I think some folks on both sides of the debate are simply using it as a reason to be rude.

I, of course, am sufficiently arrogant, that I need no particular reason to be rude!

Yes, I get the feeling that Hitchens, for example, has an almost neurotic loathing for religion that is more a product of his polemical political beliefs than his expressed love for rationality. While I can roughly agree with many of his points, I don't much care for his style.

He's like an anti-abortionist screaming "baby-killers!" This is a guaranteed method to alienate people from your point of view. I don't even believe that people who use such rhetoric are genuinely in the business of persuasion: they love the battle too much to ever want it to end.

If the Pope renounced God, I think Hitchens would be disappointed; if the extremist Islamists changed their ways and made efforts for religious reform, I think he'd throw an outraged tantrum.

Edited September 19, 2010 by bloodyminded

[betsy]

Bumped.