In this quote, Sally and Jon identify a classic example of the way in which Christopher Hitchens’s approach to religion goes far beyond atheism and is really better understood as anti-theism.

While atheism is the lack of belief in any god, anti-theism means actively seeking out the worst aspects of faith in god and portraying them as representative of all religion. Anti-theism seeks to shame and embarrass people away from religion, browbeating them about the stupidity of belief in a bellicose god.

Anti-theists are often brilliant scientific thinkers. The ones I know tend to be passionately ethical in their personal lives. And as in the case of Hitchens, they can be ferociously eloquent. So why hasn’t anti-theism ever gained any real political or social power?

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As a Humanist, I believe in this life, before death. It will be over too soon; then I will be dust and ashes, my consciousness nothing more than a memory in the hearts and minds of those whom I have touched and been touched by. Meanwhile, however, I live with an imperfect passion to love life, improve this world, and relate decently to all those with whom I come into contact.

It is unfair that we each will die without the universe granting an instant’s consideration to our appeals for more life. The universe is not fair. If there is to be any justice in existence, we and only we must put it there. And working for justice is just too hard to do alone: we need each other. But it will not help us to rely on wishful visions of a supernatural world whose existence can be asserted, and even intuited, but will never be substantiated.

Still, even we Humanists and atheists would do well to ask: why it is so excruciatingly tempting to hold on to those we have loved after they are gone?

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