The Rage Against God

Last updated

The Rage Against God
Rage Against God Cover .JPG
Front cover of the UK edition
Author Peter Hitchens
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
SubjectReligion, autobiography
GenreApologetics
Publisher Continuum (UK); Zondervan (US)
Publication date
15 March 2010 (UK); 1 May 2010 (US)
Pages256
ISBN 1-4411-0572-7 (UK); 0310320313 (US)
Preceded by The Broken Compass  
Followed by The War We Never Fought  

The Rage Against God (subtitle in US editions: How Atheism Led Me to Faith) is the fifth book by Peter Hitchens, first published in 2010. The book describes Hitchens's journey from atheism, far-left politics, and bohemianism to Christianity and conservatism, detailing the influences on him that led to his conversion. The book is partly intended as a response to God Is Not Great , a book written by his brother Christopher Hitchens in 2007.

Contents

Peter Hitchens, with particular reference to events which occurred in the Soviet Union, argues that his brother's verdict on religion is misguided, and that faith in God is both a safeguard against the collapse of civilisation into moral chaos and the best antidote to what he views as the dangerous idea of earthly perfection through utopianism.

Background

In May 2009 The Rage Against God was anticipated by Michael Gove, who wrote in The Times :

I long to see [Peter Hitchens] take the next stage in his writer's journey and examine, with his unsparing honesty, the rich human reality of the division he believes is now more important than the split between Left and Right—the deeper gulf between the restless progressive and the Christian pessimist. This division, the difference between Prometheus and St Paul, the chasm that divides Shelley from T. S. Eliot, Lloyd George from Lord Salisbury, is nowhere better encapsulated than in the contrast between Hitchens major and minor. [1]

Hitchens first referred to The Rage Against God in August 2009, in one of his weekly columns: "Above all, I seek to counter the assertion, central to my brother's case ... that the Soviet regime was in fact religious in character. This profound misunderstanding of the nature of the USSR is the key to finding another significant flaw in what is in general his circular argument". [2] [ deprecated source ] Then, a week before the book's publication, Hitchens wrote: "...it is obvious much of what I say [in The Rage Against God] arises out of my attempt to debate religion with him [Christopher Hitchens], it would be absurd to pretend that much of what I say here is not intended to counter or undermine arguments he presented in his book, God Is Not Great...". [3] [ deprecated source ]

Synopsis

Part One: A Personal Journey Through Atheism

In the book Hitchens describes how the painting The Last Judgement played a significant part in his conversion to Christianity. Rogier van der Weyden 001.jpg
In the book Hitchens describes how the painting The Last Judgement played a significant part in his conversion to Christianity.

In Chapter 1, Hitchens describes abandoning religion in his youth, and promoting "cruel revolutionary rubbish" as a Trotskyist activist. [4] He claims his generation had become intellectually aloof from religion, rebellious and disillusioned [5] and in Chapter 2 explores further reasons for this disillusion, including the Suez Crisis and the Profumo affair. [6] In Chapter 3, Hitchens recounts how he embraced scientific inquiry and adopted liberal positions on issues such as marriage, abortion, homosexuality, and patriotism. [7] Chapter 4 is a lament for the "noble austerity" [8] of his childhood in Britain. Chapter 5 explores what Hitchens views as the pseudo-religion surrounding Churchill and World War II heroes – a "great cult of noble, patriotic death" [9] whose only equivalent, he claims, was in the Soviet Union. [10] Hitchens then asserts that, "The Christian Church has been powerfully damaged by letting itself be confused with love of country and the making of great wars". [11]

In Chapter 6, Hitchens recalls being a foreign correspondent in the Soviet Union and a trip to Mogadishu, and how these experiences convinced him that, "his own civilisation was infinitely precious and utterly vulnerable". [12] In Chapter 7, Hitchens charts his return to Christianity, and makes particular reference to the experience of seeing the Rogier van der Weyden painting The Last Judgement : [4] "I gaped, my mouth actually hanging open. These people did not appear remote or from the ancient past; they were my own generation ... I had absolutely no doubt I was among the damned". [4] In Chapter 8, Hitchens examines the diminishing of Christianity in Britain and its potential causes. [13] [14]

Part Two: Addressing Atheism: Three Failed Arguments

In the book Hitchens cites atrocities committed under the Khmer Rouge as an example of crimes against humanity perpetrated by atheist states (skulls of victims shown). Choeungek2.JPG
In the book Hitchens cites atrocities committed under the Khmer Rouge as an example of crimes against humanity perpetrated by atheist states (skulls of victims shown).

In Chapter 9, Hitchens contends that the claim that religion is a source of conflict is a "cruel factual misunderstanding", [15] and that a number of conflicts, including The Troubles and the Arab–Israeli conflict, were not motivated by religion but tribal in nature and disputes over territory. [16] Chapter 10 discusses whether morality can be determined without the concept of God. Hitchens asserts that atheists "have a fundamental inability to concede that to be effectively absolute, a moral code needs to be beyond human power to alter". [17] He also describes as flawed his brother's assertion in God is Not Great that "the order to love thy neighbour 'as thyself' is too extreme and too strenuous to be obeyed". [6] [18] Hitchens ends the chapter by stating, "in all my experience in life, I have seldom seen a more powerful argument for the fallen nature of man, and his inability to achieve perfection, than those countries in which man sets himself up to replace God with the State". [19]

Hitchens begins Chapter 11 by asserting, "those who reject God's absolute authority, preferring their own, are far more ready to persecute than Christians have been ... Each revolutionary generation reliably repeats the savagery". [20] He cites as examples the French revolutionary terror; the Bolshevik revolution; the Holodomor and the Soviet famine of 1932–33; the barbarity surrounding Joseph Stalin's five-year plans, repeated in the Great Leap Forward in China; atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge; and human rights abuses in Cuba under Fidel Castro. Hitchens then quotes a number of prominent communist thinkers' pronouncements on morality, including George Lukacs stating, "Communist ethics make it the highest duty to accept the necessity of acting wickedly. This is the greatest sacrifice the revolution asks from us", and Leon Trotsky's claiming that "morality, more than any other form of ideology, has a class character". [21] [22]

Part Three: The League of the Militant Godless

Demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. In the book Hitchens details various attempts by the Bolshevik regime to expunge religion from Soviet society. Christ saviour explosion.jpg
Demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. In the book Hitchens details various attempts by the Bolshevik regime to expunge religion from Soviet society.

Hitchens writes "the biggest fake miracle staged in human history was the claim that the Soviet Union was a new civilisation of equality, peace, love, truth, science and progress. Everyone knows that it was a prison, a slum, a return to primitive barbarism, a kingdom of lies where scientists and doctors feared offending the secret police, and that its elite were corrupt and lived in secret luxury". [23] He then cites Walter Duranty's denying the existence of the great Ukrainian famine, [24] and Sidney and Beatrice Webb's acceptance that the 1937 Moscow show trials were "genuine criminal prosecutions". [24] Hitchens then examines Lenin's suppression of religion in the Soviet Union, which included making the teaching of religion to children punishable by the death penalty and the creation of an antireligious organisation of Soviet workers. Hitchens begins Chapter 13 by quoting William Henry Chamberlin: "In Russia, the world is witnessing the first effort to destroy completely any belief in supernatural interpretation of life", [25] [26] and then examines some consequences of this, including intolerance of religion, terror, and the persecution of priests and bishops at the Solovetsky concentration camp. Hitchens asserts that in the Soviet Union "the regime's institutional loathing for the teaching of religion, and its desire to eradicate it, survived every doctrinal detour and swerve". [27]

In the final chapter, Hitchens analyses a number of his brother's arguments, and contends that "the coincidence in instinct, taste, and thought between my brother and the Bolsheviks and their sympathisers is striking and undeniable". [28] He then records how his brother nominated the "apostle of revolutionary terror" [28] Leon Trotsky for an edition of the BBC radio series Great Lives ; [29] praised Trotsky for his "moral courage"; [28] [30] and declared that one of Lenin's great achievements was "to create a secular Russia". [28] [31] Hitchens speculates that his brother remained sympathetic towards Bolshevism and is still hostile towards the things it extirpated, including monarchy, tradition, and faith. [32] He ends the chapter by claiming a form of militant secularism is becoming established in Britain, and that "The Rage Against God is loose". [33]

Epilogue

In the epilogue, Hitchens describes how after a 2008 debate with his brother Christopher that "the longest quarrel of my life seemed to be unexpectedly over" [34] and that he held no hope of converting his brother, who had "bricked himself up high in his atheist tower, with slits instead of windows from which to shoot arrows at the faithful". [35]

Critical reception

In The Daily Telegraph Christopher Howse concentrated on the moral arguments in the book, and agreed with Hitchens that "to determine what is right and what is wrong without God, is difficult". [36] Also in The Daily Telegraph, Charles Moore wrote that the book "tries to do two things at once. One is to bash up modern militant atheism with all the author's polemical skill. The other is to give an autobiographical account of how, in our time, an intelligent man's faith may recover". [37] In a positive review in Standpoint magazine, Michael Nazir Ali wrote, "One of the abiding canards nailed by Peter Hitchens is that religion causes conflict. He does this by showing that so-called "religious" wars had many other elements to them, such as greed for territory, political ambition and nationalism. His repeated references to Soviet brutality reveal that secular ideologies have caused more suffering in recent times than any conflict associated with religion." [38] In a more critical review in the New Statesman Sholto Byrnes wrote, "Hitchens presents his arguments with force, passion, and intelligence". However, he criticized the statement that 'Atheism is a license for cruelty and attracts the cruel,' stating that 'People given to cruelty can always find a justification for it.' As an example, he mentioned that 'Many of the most fervent supporters of Marshal Pétain's collaborationist Vichy state, for example, were right-wing Catholics,' but he pointed out that blaming Catholicism for this would not be fair. [39] Byrnes also reviewed the book in The Independent , where he questioned the validity of a number of Hitchens's conclusions, including that "atheists 'actively wish for disorder and meaninglessness'". [40]

In a sympathetic review in The Guardian , Rupert Shortt wrote, "Hitchens does not seek to mount a comprehensive defence of Christianity. He is wise to avoid deeper philosophical and theological waters, because his strengths lie elsewhere. His more manageable aim is to expose what he holds to be three major fallacies underlying God Is Not Great: that conflict fought in the name of religion is really always about faith; that "it is ultimately possible to know with confidence what is right and what is wrong without acknowledging the existence of God"; and that "atheist states are not actually atheist". [41] In The Spectator , Quentin Letts reviewed the book very positively, describing it as "a magnificent, sustained cry against the aggressive secularism taking control of our weakened culture". [42]

Reviews of the book in North American publications subsequent to its stateside release were more mixed.

In The New York Times , Mark Oppenheimer commented, "American readers will notice a lack of enthusiasm in Peter's Christian apologetics. He proceeds largely from historical, rather than personal, evidence: here are the fruits of Christianity, and here is what one finds in its absence". [43] In a negative review in the Winnipeg Free Press , Ted St. Godard wrote, "What Hitchens can't seem to appreciate is that, even if 'Soviet Communism is organically linked to atheism, something his brother and others argue against (if somewhat feebly), and even if one accepts that Soviet tyranny was horrible, this says little about the existence of God". [44] In a Washington Times review entitled "Cain and Abel: The sequel?", Jeremy Lott wrote, "Hitchens refuses to make a full-throated case for faith. He explains that 'those who choose to argue in prose... are unlikely to be receptive to a case that is most effectively couched in poetry' ... Peter does hope that Christopher might one day arrive at some sort of acceptance that belief in God is not necessarily a character fault—and that religion does not poison everything". [45]

One mix of the two audiences is the British writer, Theodore Dalrymple, reviewing The Rage Against God and Christopher Hitchens' Hitch-22 for the American journal First Things . Dalrymple writes, Peter Hitchens "has discovered that it is he, and not just the world, that was and is imperfect and that therefore humility is a virtue, even if one does not always live up to it. The first sentence of his first chapter reads, "I set fire to my Bible on the playing fields of my Cambridge boarding school one bright, windy spring afternoon in 1967". One senses the deep—and, in my view, healthy—feeling of self-disgust with which he wrote this, for indeed it describes an act of wickedness. Peter's memoir...is more personally searching." [46]

Release details

The book was first published in the UK on 15 March 2010 by Continuum Publishing Corporation, and was released in the US in June 2010 by Zondervan, with the additional subtitle How Atheism Led Me to Faith.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Hitchens</span> British author and journalist (1949–2011)

Christopher Eric Hitchens was a British author and journalist who is widely regarded as one of the most influential atheists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Author of 18 books on faith, culture, politics, and literature, he was born and educated in Britain, graduating in the 1970s from Oxford with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. In the early 1980s, he emigrated to the United States and wrote for The Nation and Vanity Fair. Known as "one of the 'four horsemen'" of New Atheism, he gained prominence as a columnist and speaker. His epistemological razor, which states that "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence", is still of mark in philosophy and law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Hitchens</span> English journalist and author (born 1951)

Peter Jonathan Hitchens is an English conservative author, broadcaster, journalist, and commentator. He writes for The Mail on Sunday and was a foreign correspondent reporting from both Moscow and Washington, D.C. Peter Hitchens has contributed to The Spectator, The American Conservative, The Guardian, First Things, Prospect, and the New Statesman. He has published numerous books, including The Abolition of Britain, The Rage Against God, The War We Never Fought and The Phoney Victory.

Antitheism, also spelled anti-theism, is the philosophical position that theism should be opposed. The term has had a range of applications. In secular contexts, it typically refers to direct opposition to the belief in any deity.

Atheism is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities and any statements to the contrary are false ones. The English term 'atheist' was used at least as early as the sixteenth century and atheistic ideas and their influence have a longer history.

Antireligion is opposition to religion. It involves opposition to organized religion, religious practices or religious institutions. The term antireligion has also been used to describe opposition to specific forms of supernatural worship or practice, whether organized or not. The Soviet Union adopted the political ideology of Marxism–Leninism and by extension the policy of state atheism which opposed the growth of religions.

Criticism of atheism is criticism of the concepts, validity, or impact of atheism, including associated political and social implications. Criticisms include positions based on the history of science, philosophical and logical criticisms, findings in both the natural and social sciences, theistic apologetic arguments, arguments pertaining to ethics and morality, the effects of atheism on the individual, or the assumptions that underpin atheism.

<i>The God Delusion</i> Book by Richard Dawkins

The God Delusion is a 2006 book by British evolutionary biologist and ethologist Richard Dawkins. In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator, God, almost certainly does not exist, and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. He is sympathetic to Robert Pirsig's statement in Lila (1991) that "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion." In the book, Dawkins explores the relationship between religion and morality, providing examples that discuss the possibility of morality existing independently of religion and suggesting alternative explanations for the origins of both religion and morality.

<i>God Is Not Great</i> 2007 book by Christopher Hitchens

God Is Not Great is a 2007 book by British-American author and journalist Christopher Hitchens, in which he makes a case against organized religion. It was originally published in the United Kingdom by Atlantic Books as God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion and in the United States by Twelve as God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, but was republished by Atlantic Books in 2017 with no subtitle.

Christian atheism is a form of atheism that adopts the teachings, narratives, symbols, practices, or communities associated with Christianity without accepting the literal existence of God.

<i>The Portable Atheist</i> 2007 anthology

The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever (2007) is an anthology of atheist and agnostic thought edited by Christopher Hitchens.

Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Lennox</span> Northern Irish mathematician and philosopher of science

John Carson Lennox is an Irish mathematician, bioethicist, and Christian philosopher. He has written many books on religion, ethics, the relationship between science and God, and has had public debates with atheists including Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

The term New Atheism was coined by the American journalist Gary Wolf in 2006 to describe the positions of some atheist academics, writers, scientists, and philosophers of the 21st century. New Atheism advocates the view that superstition, religion, and irrationalism should not simply be tolerated. Instead, they should be criticised, countered, examined, and challenged by rational argument, especially when they exert strong influence on the broader society, such as in government, education, and politics. Major figures of New Atheism include Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett, collectively referred to as the "four horsemen" of the movement, as well as Ayaan Hirsi Ali until her conversion to Christianity in 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Turek</span> Christian author

Frank Turek is an American apologist, author, public speaker, and radio host. He is best known as the founder and president of Christian apologetics ministry CrossExamined.org. Turek co-authored two books with Christian philosopher Norman Geisler. In addition, Turek has authored two of his own books.

Hitchens's razor is an epistemological razor that serves as a general rule for rejecting certain knowledge claims. It states "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." The razor was created by and named after author and journalist Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011). It implies that the burden of proof regarding the truthfulness of a claim lies with the one who makes the claim; if this burden is not met, then the claim is unfounded, and its opponents need not argue further in order to dismiss it. Hitchens used this phrase specifically in the context of refuting religious belief.

<i>The Faith of Christopher Hitchens</i>

The Faith of Christopher Hitchens: The Restless Soul of the World’s Most Notorious Atheist is a 2016 book by American author and evangelist Larry Taunton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seth Andrews</span> Author and activist

Seth Andrews is an American activist, author, and speaker on the subject of atheism. He is the creator and host of The Thinking Atheist online community, podcast, and YouTube channel, as well as the author of four self-published books. Prior to his atheist activism, he was a fundamentalist Christian and had a ten-year career as a Christian radio host.

This is a bibliography of literature treating the topic of criticism of Christianity, sorted by source publication and the author's last name.

References

  1. ↑ Gove, Michael (5 May 2009). "Dazzling divisions of the Hitchens brothers". The Times. Retrieved 30 March 2010.
  2. ↑ Hitchens, Peter (14 August 2009). "The Rage Against God". The Mail On Sunday . Retrieved 13 May 2010.
  3. ↑ Hitchens, Peter (11 March 2010). "How I found God and peace with my atheist brother". The Mail On Sunday. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
  4. 1 2 3 Hitchens 2010 , p. 75
  5. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 8
  6. 1 2 Hitchens 2010 , p. 24
  7. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 35
  8. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 37
  9. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 49
  10. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 54
  11. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 56
  12. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 71
  13. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 86
  14. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 88
  15. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 93
  16. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 94
  17. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 103
  18. ↑ Hitchens 2007 , p. 213
  19. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 111
  20. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 114
  21. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 116
  22. ↑ The New International, Volume IV No. 6, June 1938, pp. 163–73. (New International was a magazine of Marxist theory published by the Socialist Workers Party of the United States between 1934 and 1940)
  23. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 123
  24. 1 2 Hitchens 2010 , p. 124
  25. ↑ Chamberlin 2007 , p. 311
  26. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 133
  27. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 141
  28. 1 2 3 4 Hitchens 2010 , p. 143
  29. ↑ Parris, Matthew (8 August 2006). "Great Lives Leon Trotsky". Great Lives . Retrieved 28 August 2010.
  30. ↑ Robinson, Peter (3 August 2009). "Trotsky with Hitchens and Service". National Review online. Retrieved 28 August 2010.
  31. ↑ "Heaven on Earth, Christopher Hitchens, Journalist". Heaven on Earth . 2005. Archived from the original on 12 June 2006. Retrieved 28 August 2010.
  32. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 144
  33. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 158
  34. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 161
  35. ↑ Hitchens 2010 , p. 160
  36. ↑ Howse, Christopher (19 March 2010). "Sacred Mysteries: Taking the God out of good". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 22 March 2010.
  37. ↑ Moore, Charles (29 March 2010). "Can faith bring back the Prodigal Brother?". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 30 March 2010.
  38. ↑ Nazir Ali, Michael (April 2010). "Prodigal Brother". Standpoint . Retrieved 27 March 2010.
  39. ↑ Byrnes, Sholto (2 April 2010). "Demonising atheism is a bad way to defend faith". New Statesman. Retrieved 3 April 2010.
  40. ↑ Byrnes, Sholto (7 May 2010). "The Rage Against God, By Peter Hitchens". The Independent. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
  41. ↑ Shortt, Rupert (17 April 2010). "The Rage Against God by Peter Hitchens". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 April 2010.
  42. ↑ Letts, Quentin (21 April 2010). "No earthly good". The Spectator. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  43. ↑ Oppenheimer, Mark (30 July 2010). "Hitchens Brothers' Rift Starts With Religion". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 August 2010.
  44. ↑ St. Godard, Ted (21 August 2010). "There's a big illogical fly in former atheist's ointment". Winnipeg Free Press . Retrieved 4 September 2010.
  45. ↑ Lott, Jeremy (21 July 2010). "Cain and Abel: The sequel?". The Washington Times. Retrieved 28 August 2010.
  46. ↑ [Dalrymple, Theodore (June–July 2010). "The Brothers Grim". First Things. Archived from the original on 25 August 2011. Retrieved 25 December 2013.]

Bibliography

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.