Now you see it ...

I have just watched on youtube the late Christopher Hitchins, not long before his death, being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman. And I would have to say that I was both moved and impressed; essentially because of Hitchens' consistent honesty in the face of an all too certain future - what there was of it. And indeed even the interviewer, sometimes the barracuda of the BBC, showed a touching gentleness throughout the thirty minutes or so of the programme.

Hitchens was something of a barracuda himself when it came to religion - just about any kind of religion, but especially Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  According to him, they were not just untrue, they were actually extremely harmful and dangerous, and as to the latter qualities, you can see why he wasn't entirely wrong.

Paxman tempted him with Pascal's Wager: if there is no God there is no problem, but then again there might be, so wouldn't it be wiser to be religiously observant - just in case?  To his great credit Hitchens said that if indeed there was a God, and if this God was of any moral worth, he would surely prefer truth to self-serving deceit, thus reminding me at least of Christ's witness to Pilate when all the chips were down, "For truth I came into the world."
 
Hitchens was not too keen on being described as an atheist in case anyone thought there were a God in whom he could disbelieve.  But what he could believe in however, was rational thought based on a completely materialist understanding of the world, itself based upon empirical observation.  And I must say, I wonder how he or anyone could manage that.

What is there to observe?  All atoms are 99.9999% empty space.  And the infintesimally minute fraction which remains can best be described as a quantum fuzz.  Not for nothing has one Professor Sussman in California suggested that the universe is really a hologram!  Observation until the recent past was obviously an illusion.  We would have regarded what we now believe about the atom to have been mere nonsense.  99.9999% empty space indeed!

Hitchens, rather to my surprise, was not completely dismissive of the idea of God.  What he really objected to was the certainty of many people's ideas about God, and the often disastrous consequences of that certainty. Micah's injunction to walk humbly with our God surely includes a theological dimension as well, and I wonder if the new atheism is a necessary reminder of that, just as the nature of the atom should be giving Christopher Hitchens' continuing supporters pause.

[Originally published on my now-defunct blog Speculations and Certainties]