More thoughts on Hitchens from Father Ted

The question "what is religion?" draws many answers. The only solid one to me is that it is about those beliefs which bind us back - the Latin root means this and it is a useful thought. This means in turn that it is not necessarily about God.

The books we've been reviewing in the thread write mainly about those binding beliefs which involve God somehow. Better I think to write about belief.

As a pastor it was very clear to me that everyone had their own set of binding beliefs - expressed in the comment that there are five Gospels: The Gospels of SS Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and "the Gospel according to me".

Trouble begins when this fifth Gospel begins to over-shadow or replace the others, and especially when it is imposed in a thorough-going manner or is drawn into a political system.

What I've seen of Dawkins and Hitchens two books suggests that they base themselves on rather cheap jibes about the excesses of religion, which must surely vitiate to some degree their arguments by basing them on bad evidence.

Nonetheless, the books seem to have made us all sit up and think!

Pity about the titles and the book covers!