Even if God's existence could be proven, Niezsche writes in The Antichrist, we would still refuse to accept him. When I read atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, I don't get the impression that they are motivagted by mere unbelief. I don't believe in unicorns, but I don't go around writing books full of rejection and bile about unicorns. When I read The God Delusion and God Is Not Great, I see that their authors do not so much disbelieve in God as they hate Him.
Consequently, the arguments spelled out in these atheist books are out of sync with the actual vehemence of their authors.
Enter the French atheist Michel Onfray, whose Atheist Manifesto is a bestseller in Europe. Onfray comes out of a different tradition than Dawkins and Hitchens, one that he describes as stretching from the Baron d'Holbach to Nietzsche. This is Continental atheism, and it makes its case against God in an entirely different way than do the Anglo-Saxon atheists we encounter in the United States. Onfray, like Nietzsche, regards Anglo-Saxon atheists like Dawkins as representing a low, brutish type, widely found in England.
These themes will be developed in my forthcoming book What's So Great About Christianity. But here's one key difference between Anglo-Saxon atheism and Continental atheism. While Dawkins and Hitchens insist that we can be moral without God, Onfray with astonishing frankness concedes Nietzsche's point that the death of God also means the death of Western morality and Western values. So if God goes, that means that "equality" and "rights" go too. This is a possibility that Dawkins and Hitchens have not even considered. In many ways I think Onfray's atheism is more honest, more darkly appealing, and more dangerous than the atheism of Dawkins and Hitchens. My review of Onfray's book appears on the religious website Tothesource and you can read it here.
Reader Comments ( Page 110 of 110)
1636. 1628,
I am sorry. My brain's not terriblie connecting right right now. (Insult opportunity.) I think God exists as God because thats what He wanted to be. His purpose is to get things done and be cool. Here we humans are with all our potential. Why? Surely we could just all die or something if it was useless. But there's some wierd reason why its something like necessary.
Michelle at 12:23AM on Sep 15th 2007
1637. We DO all die, Michelle...
... just not all at once.
pboyfloyd at 12:26AM on Sep 15th 2007
1638. Yeah, but Pboy's 1630, that just doesnt jive with the fact that in all we have "chatted" about combined evolution and athiesm and their counterparts for like FIVE months. Other people pop in pop out, but you keep answering my questions. There has been no goodbye. All I was saying was to talk elsewhere because we keep talking and it really only has so much to do with this here blog thang. Or are you just a nice guy that feels bad and cant say goodbye to poor Michelle because she asks all these questions and you just have to answer them, da de da de da da da.
Michelle at 12:29AM on Sep 15th 2007
1639. 1632,
But its so wierd, Pboy. Its just so wierd.
Michelle at 12:31AM on Sep 15th 2007
1640. I don't know what else to say...
pboyfloyd at 12:32AM on Sep 15th 2007
1641. 1635, now we're getting somewhere. Cummon, fess. Im sorry. For some reason I just wanted a clear not casual end to the chat? A line in the sand dunes.
Michelle at 12:36AM on Sep 15th 2007
1642. Guess that is pretty much that... a silly God game...
... not much better that absolutely pointless.. is it... if you think about it.
pboyfloyd at 12:40AM on Sep 15th 2007
1643. Pboy 1637,
Sadly, thats what it seems like. BUT, if there is a hell, and its as HORRIBLE as it seems like it is, I DO NOT want to go there. You know it seems like it would have been pointless if there was ONLY a God. What would He have had to live for? Although pleasure in its highest form can be pretty dern awesome. But he could just die, you know. Getting bored. But he made hell. The devil rejected and was thrown. It just DOESNT seem utterly unbelievable.
Nyow, are we just going to keep talking?
Michelle at 12:54AM on Sep 15th 2007
1644. If 1637 was goodbye, then I need a Pboy decoder
Michelle at 1:03AM on Sep 15th 2007
1645. Wells, bye at least for this evenin, kid.
Michelle at 1:32AM on Sep 15th 2007
1646. unicorns have never caused wars. no one has ever died over their belief in unicorns, and there is no ex-nazi unicorn leader who presides over pedophiles who have abused little boys...
me at 10:27PM on Oct 26th 2007