Rigor Mortis Online

By Jared Mercer

Christopher Hitchens

Ahhhh Atheism, what a touchy subject especially for the press.  Enter Christopher Hitchens, Bill Maher, and Richard Dawkins, three guys who are not afraid to say out loud what they think about organized religion.  That is a pretty scary thing to even in this day and age, what with fatwas and fundamentalism of all kinds having somewhat of a resurgence on planet earth, a planet that may or may not have been divinely created by a creator who himself was not created but just exists.  Everyone wonders what there was before the earth was as we know it now and some answer that question with god, but then what was it like before god or what was he up to before?  I am going to take a quick look at these three guys who ask such questions and in public places, beginning with Christopher Hitchens.

Hitchens is the kind of guy who likes to stir up controversy, and I like that.  He is from Portsmouth, England in 1949 but has been living in the United States since 1981 I believe and I have to say I am starting to respect the UK more and more for its fearless speakers.  England seems to have the most writers who are unafraid to speak out against religion, not just one religion for they are not biased or bigoted, but pretty much all religions and their superstitions.  Hitchens’ books’ titles just stand out to me as very in-your-face such as the book I will discuss here God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and his 1995 work The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.  To say a quick thing about the latter book, I have to say that as a kid I always thought Mother Teresa was this awe inspiring saint, but the more I learn about her she is a crazy, right winged, female hating Christian who I cannot help but lose respect for little by little.  Shocking I know.  Hitchens was hired to be The Devil’s Advocate and argue in favor against Teresa becoming a Saint.  Strong position.  Hitchens has become one of the world’s most prominent atheists and because of that is loved and hated by everyone, but very few sit on the bench.  Like the picture I have used of him here, many doubters point to his lifestyle of incessant smoking and drinking to say that everything he believes should be null and void.  Well let me tell you…

I have heard many things about this guy, from television interviews to his work in with the magazine Vanity Fair and I cannot defend nor comment on them all for I am unaware as to how much is truth.  His detractors have claimed many things, but all I can say is I have read his book God is not Great and I agree completely.  He does not take an offensive stand on anything, the title may be deceiving in that aspect, he just makes cases against religion from a personal and historical stand-point.  In the book, Hitchens contends that religion is “violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children.” Hitchens supports his position with a mixture of personal stories, documented historical anecdotes and critical analysis of religious texts. His commentary focuses mainly on the Abrahamic religions, although he also touches on other religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism.  His stance is that of a journalist, it is personal and appeals to the heart of someone longing for greater understanding.  This differs a bit from the writing of Richard Dawkins, who is an English scientist not a journalist and discredits god in a more scientific manner rather than personal, not to say he doesn’t have a personal point of view in his writing.  If you look up the book God is not Great by Hitchens on the internet, as well as The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins on wikipedia for example, you will find details breakdowns of each chapter.

Richard Dawkins

So who is this Richard Dawkins that I speak of?  He was born in Nairobi, Kenya (which was part of the British Empire at the time) in 1941 to British parents and now resides in Oxford where he is a professor.  I read his book The God Delusion immediately following the completion of God is not Great to compare the two writers.  Although I prefer Hitchens’ writing style because Dawkins delves into science quite a bit and lost me a couple of times, I really think that The God Delusion and any of his other works are becoming the “Bible” for atheists.  That is a funny point because Dawkins makes the point that there are large groups of atheists or just non-believers in general throughout the planet but they have no power because trying to herd them together has been about as successful as herding cats.  They all think too freely to join a group and therefor don’t have any political power in the same way Muslims, Christians, and Jews do.  Once again, refer to the wikipedia pages on both of these books to get proper breakdowns, because I am writing this using Wordpress I cannot make my posts too long or they just delete themselves. Annoying I know.  One thing that is impressive however is despite all the flak that Hitchens and Dawkins have received for their book, both have cracked best sellers lists all over the world and their works have been translated into many languages.  In the God Delusion, Dawkins’ arguments are so strong that there is no way to truly debate him as he will prove you wrong on a scientific and psychological level.  Basically the only argument left is “just believe because you have faith” but even that is argued into the ground.  Such as the idea that if you believe in god but are wrong you lose nothing, but if you don’t believe in god and are wrong you lose everything.  That is a false concept because no one can fake belief, you can feign it and attend church and do  your best to fool everyone that you do believe, but if you don’t you don’t.  Not to mention you could have had a good time doing other things than feeling guilty about yourself as this “god” has given us a bunch of needs we are not allowed to fulfill.  Why give humans such a sex drive when sex is frowned upon.  Living a life of sexual repression only to go to heaven and have 72 virgins just seems hypocritical.  Perhaps a life of abstinence means an afterlife of eternal fucking.

I am keeping my personal feelings mostly to myself in this article as I am saving them for a post of my own where I will speak on how I personally feel about all of this.  In the meantime I am doing my best to create an introduction to three fine and distinguished gentlemen.  As I need to move things along I will go ahead and get to Bill Maher.

Bill Maher

Bill Maher was the one who got me into this in the first place, the one who made it ok for me not to join a cult *ahem, religion.  He is the first one that I saw on TV preaching truth and investigation instead of god and succumbing to religion.  Not to say that he changed me for I have felt the way I felt for many years now, but I guess I felt less ashamed of not belonging to a group when I saw that there were other people out there like me.  Now Bill is a New Yorker, born in 1956 he is the youngest of these non-believers and the only one that is American.  The United States being the most religious of all the first world countries, as well as the most violent, most poorly educated, and overall backwards as well.  Maher would be the first to admit it.  I had been watching his show Politically Incorrect from a young age but then it was canceled, and people debate the reasons why.  Well now my man Bill is back on the air, this time with HBO so he has more freedom to do as he pleases on his show Real Time with Bill Maher.  Bill started off as a comedian before becoming the political talk show host that he is now, but I like that aspect to him because even while discussing important issues he in unrelentingly funny.  Not in a John Stewart/Stephen Colbert way (I love them too) who most of you should be aware of, for it is not a comedy show, he just cracks me up.  When I heard he had a documentary out called Religulous last year I had to go and see it.  I wasn’t entirely sure what it was about but when I heard that Bill Maher was behind it I knew it would be good.  This documentary is basically about Bill traveling the U.S. and Europe and talking to people about religion.  He asks the questions people are afraid to ask, and most of them do not have answers.  Everyone eventually has to say that they just have faith because he digs far enough that no one can truly defend the idea of a man in the sky anymore.  And all of this is done in a hilarious fashion as I could not stop laughing throughout most of the film.  The ending speech Bill delivers to the camera to close the film is the most powerful thing I have ever heard, not only because I agree with his standpoint but because who else has the balls to say the things he does without fearing backlash from those who belong to any relligion.

The two main things that I have noticed throughout all of this are the ideas going through god’s head and the ideas of his believers.  First of all, those who get so upset by non-believers that they attempt to kill atheists makes no sense to me because isn’t god supposed to be doing the judging? Second of all what is god actually thinking if he/she actually exists.  Why is it all such a mystery and why is believing in him/her the most important thing? Shouldn’t his existence be obvious and then we could argue about the teachings?  And if an atheist stands in front of god after his death will god punish him for not believing knowing full well that he gave no evidence of his existence? Wouldn’t god be more concerned with how we act rather than what he think of him, because if he was so concerned with our thoughts about him that would make him the most vain being in existence and god is not supposed to have human characteristics, even though we’re apparently in his image.  I don’t think he gives two shits about what I do and say personally because why should he? Who am I to him? A speck of dust.  Witnessing all the upheaval about these three guys and their beliefs has just gotten ridiculous, and has urged me to feel this way even more.  Read their books, watch the movie/TV show and judge for yourself.  This was a short introduction but I need to cut it off before I lose it, which tends to happen with this program.  So does religion poison everything? Tough to say for certain, because only religious people claim to have the answers to everything and I am not one of them.  I think it may but I have a lot more living to do and discovering to do.  I think that just sitting back and saying everything is god blah blah is just lazy, one should continuously seek out truths, and these truths do not lay in an large organization of people who claim to know everything including what happens after you die.  If you choose to be individually spiritual, I suppose that could be a better path than joining a group that contains too many lunatics.  You would not be part of a club with members like that, so why give your mind to a religious group?  Tough call, especially if you were raised religious, I think after reading these books you would have a lot of decision making to do.  I am always up for a debate though as I find them eternally interesting (and I got off track and starting saying how I feel in this article) because debating is what we should do.  Being offended and acting in blind aggression is not.

Check out these videos that will help introduce you to Bill Maher, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.  They’ll help you get to know them a bit int heir own words, which is probably way more useful than any of the crap I wrote here on a whim.

Religulous Trailer (now on DVD)

Larry King interviewing Bill Maher

Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Christopher Hitchens on The Hour

Because I like George so much, here he is interviewing Richard Dawkins

The End.

You don’t know what comes next.