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February 13, 2012
Binyamin Rose: Back to the Bunker: How a life-risking act by a Christian family during the Holocaust saved a family and built a thriving community a world away
Menachem Wecker: Business Schools Teach Real Estate Despite Troubled Housing Market
February 10, 2012
Lisa M. Krieger: Man with defibrillator demands access to his own heart's information
David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
February 9, 2012
Laura McMullen: 10 Least Expensive Public Schools for Out-of-State Students
Kimberly Palmer: How to actually enjoy -- relaxing, financially -- your vacation
February 8, 2012
Warren Richey: Why momentous Prop. 8 ruling might not satisfy gay-rights groups
Menachem Wecker: Though Controversial, LL.M.'s Can Lead to Specialized Legal Jobs
The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
February 7, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Caught off-guard? President's Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer gives those who need a reason not to vote for him, a darn good one
Suzanne Bohan: Leaping lizards! Tiny reptiles advancing robot design
February 6, 2012
Jonathan Tobin: Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the New York Times Doesn't Hear It
Jeffrey Fleishman: In newly democratic Egypt, tens of democracy activists jailed, to stand trial; their groups are 'threatening the stability of the homeland'
Julie Deardorff : Researchers say antioxidants may not be that effective and could do more harm than good
Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
August 18, 2010
8 Elul, 5770
The New Dance on a Pinhead
By
Suzanne Fields
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It's been a long time since Nietzsche announced that G0d is dead. But debates over the existence of G0d have taken on an urgency in the 21st century, mainly argued by atheists eager to take on those long-dead monks who counted the angels dancing on the head of a pin. Theology is not a popular subject at the dinner parties of urban political sophisticates; a host who says grace before a meal could curdle the gazpacho. But atheism is a fashionable topic in Washington.
Some atheist tomes become best sellers, but all taken together cannot remotely compete with sales of the Bible. No hotel guest reaches into the drawer of a bedside table for the "50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists," nor are any of these volumes ever likely to find a sponsor like the Gideons, who have distributed more than a billion Bibles, translated into 80 languages. The Bible has even made the top 10 highest grossing book apps for the iPad. Atheists think of themselves as nonconformists, but the catechism of unbelief is as old as the doctrines against the mythical Greek and Roman G0ds. A modern atheist is likely to quote Lucretius, the Roman poet who in the first century B.C. famously wrote: "To such heights of evil are men driven by religion." Who can dispute that? Or that "to such heights of evil are men driven by disbelief"?
Modern atheist intellectuals (and those who only imagine they're intellectuals) are more likely to mock believers as rubes, rascals and rednecks. Religious men and women -- descendants of those who endowed our great universities and medical centers -- have throughout history shown great acts of courage and sacrifice, like the medical missionaries slain in Afghanistan. But atheists are unwilling to celebrate the belief behind such generosity and goodness. Satan remains a more colorful figure than a benevolent G0d. Marlowe, Milton and Goethe knew that. Shakespeare understood that "the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones."
I've spent several long summer afternoons reading the books of the New Atheists, looking for original illumination on behalf of godlessness, but finding instead smug, shallow and arrogant assertions. Atheists by definition believe in nothing, and anyone would find it hard to make something of nothing.
The most rigorous criticism of the atheist authors comes from David B. Hart, cultural critic in "First Things," who says atheists make him melancholy because they lack the moral intelligence and courage of their forefathers in faithlessness, and thus purchase their atheism cheaply. Hart likens their pretensions to those of a man who considers himself a great lover because he has the price of admission to a brothel: "So long as one can choose one's conquests in advance, taking always the paths of least resistance, one can always imagine oneself a Napoleon or a Casanova … one without a Waterloo, the other without the clap."
The latest into the fray are the brothers Hitchens, Christopher and Peter, both former Marxists who are the Cain and Abel of the contemporary duelists over G0d. Christopher, author of "G0d Is Not Great," wins arguments with wit and drollery. He speculates that the title of his book might be one word too long. But his writing on atheism is short on sophistication. "With all this continual prayer," he asks with the air of an adolescent, "why no result?" But since he's been diagnosed with cancer, he seems to appreciate not only his physicians but the "astonishing number of prayer groups" working on his behalf.
His brother Peter is less concerned with proving the existence of G0d, which he thinks is better done with poetry, than with showing the damage done to society by zealous atheists like those he and his brother once celebrated. More prosaic than Christopher, he is more successful in exposing the viciousness of the secular Leninists, Trotskyites and Stalinists.
In "The Rage Against G0d: How Atheism Led Me to Faith," Peter criticizes the culture of the 1960s, when adults, without a fight, surrendered their children to the adolescent rebellion where many of them still reside. He's tough on the double standard of leftists who boast of their contempt for the Judeo-Christian tradition and give Muslims, whose treatment of women, homosexuals and traditions of freedom of speech atheists say they abhor, a pass. The left's hostility toward Christianity is specific "because Christianity is the religion of their own homes and homeland." Even so, the leftists get no ticket to Utopia.
"The concepts of sin, of conscience, of eternal life and divine justice under an unalterable law, are the ultimate defense against the Utopian's belief that ends justify means and that morality is relative," he writes. These are the safeguards against the worship of human power. Believe it or not.
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Suzanne Fields Archives
© 2006, Creators Syndicate, Suzanne Fields
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