I notice that several of the panelists have praised Christopher Hitchens's writing, if not his conviction. And to be sure, the current question, which borrows his phrasing, seems to have inspired some of the most interesting theological reflection I've yet seen from the esteemed panel.
But like Bishop Wright, I too have a problem with the use of the term "man-made" (aside from its being a rather antique, gendered locution). As Wright writes, in this context it does sound "somewhat sneering." Hitchens means to use it as a perjorative... religion is, as he says, phony, un-divine because there is no divine. But to speak of human creativity implies no single value: it may result in the utilitarian (i.e., the plumbing under my sink), the abominable (Auschwitz) or the exhalted (anything by Beethoven).
Speaking of the latter, as I sit here, I'm four or five mouse clicks away from hearing the "Ode to Joy." (The benefits of the "man-made" twice over.) There, I've got it playing as I write. I find it sublime. Now, if I were a certain kind of specialist, I could tell you how many notes it contains, perhaps how long it took to write. But what would that mean? How would that compare with the experience of hearing the music itself?
Problem with the term "man-made" is it implies a thing can be quantified, its boundaries located and charted. That will do just fine for the aforementioned sink pipes, but it will tell us relatively little about how some things come to be (think art, think ideas, and, yes, think religious ideas) and the diverse ways in which they affect individuals. (Again, several of the panelists admire Hitchens's felicity with the language, but I suspect in differing ways.)
In other words, "man-made" tells us nothing about inspiration, a faculty that individuals possess in very different capacities and that they appreciate to equally differing degrees. The truly inspiring is that to which we return again and again. Which should explain the hold--the experiential hold--that the works of art, music, literature, philosophy and religion have for so many.
To seek a little common ground here, let's say that believers and atheists alike should admire Shakespeare, not least the words he put in Hamlet's mouth:
"What a piece of work is man!
How noble in reason!
How infinite in faculty!
In form and moving,
How express and admirable!
In action, how like an angel!
In apprehension how like a god!"
As for the question at hand, I'm content simply to quote another great writer, in this case, Emerson: "Faith makes us, and not we it, and faith makes its own forms."
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