[Vision2020] It's the thought that counts

[Kenneth Marcy]

On 12/15/2012 12:24 PM, Tom Hansen wrote:

<[snip]>

Alternatively, one might choose any of the fine volumes by Christopher 
Hitchens, especially those published more recently. Of those, one is 
titled Mortality, which contains the following couple of quotes:

 From page 15:

"He (referring to Rabbi David Wolpe) has been a debating partner of 
mine, as have several Protestant evangelical conservatives like Pastor 
Douglas Wilson of the New Saint Andrews College and Larry Taunton of the 
Fixed Point Foundation in Birmingham, Alabama. Both wrote to say that 
their assemblies were praying for me. And it was to them that it first 
occurred to me to write back, asking: Praying for what?"

and, from page 25, the last page of chapter II, (which contains page 15):

"In these circumstances, the emptiness of prayer is almost the least of 
it. Beyond that minor futility, the religion which treats its flock as a 
credulous plaything offers one of the cruelest spectacles that can be 
imagined: a human being in fear and doubt who is openly exploited to 
believe in the impossible. In the argument over prayer, then, please do 
not be shocked if it is we atheists who wear the pitying look as any 
moment of moral crisis threatens to draw near."

More of Christopher Hitchens' writings are available in bookstores both 
local and beyond.


Ken