The Atheist’s Mistake

A few weeks ago the highly publicized atheist Christopher Hitchens wrote a letter to an annual convention of atheists justifying his position. Hitchens has based his career on being a gadfly, and he’s an articulate, combative one who is widely read and noticed. Along with many others, I wondered how he would respond to the anxiety of his diagnosis of esophageal cancer. He seems to be fighting a losing battle, sadly. Death-bed conversions, which used to be common, aren’t anymore, and Hitchens remains defiant in his beliefs. (more…)

The Bin Laden Case: Monsters and Shadows

Despite the enticement of showing a patriotic spectacle, the television networks seemed subdued when they showed cheering crowds wrapped in the American flag dancing on  the news of Osama bin Laden’s death. People didn’t dance in the streets when it was announced Hitler was dead. There was too much sorrow attached to his very existence and too high a price paid for ending it. Monsters make good nightmares, but moral shadows fall across every human endeavor. That’s true of Al-Qaeda as well as Nazism. Moral clarity exists when it comes to labeling evil for what it is, yet no such clarity exists over how to respond to evil.

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