"God is Not Great"
Christopher Hitchens, roughly half way into his antithetical opus had a very interesting statement to make which pretty much rounds up the intention of his book.
"Dear reader, if you have come this far and found your own faith undermined - as I hope - I am willing to say that to some extent I know what you are going through. There are days I miss my old convictions as if they were an amputated limb. But in general I feel better, and no less radical, and you will feel better too, I guarantee, once you have leave hold of the doctrinaire and allow your chainless mind to do its own thinking".
I know the feeling of missing that limb well. As for feeling better for liberating my consciousness, moving out from under the divine thumb of an overbearing father deity - certainly. Other days I miss the fire, the fury, the fervour, the sweet purpose of it all.
"The various forms of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people to be equally true, by the philosopher as equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful."
- Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
"Dear reader, if you have come this far and found your own faith undermined - as I hope - I am willing to say that to some extent I know what you are going through. There are days I miss my old convictions as if they were an amputated limb. But in general I feel better, and no less radical, and you will feel better too, I guarantee, once you have leave hold of the doctrinaire and allow your chainless mind to do its own thinking".
I know the feeling of missing that limb well. As for feeling better for liberating my consciousness, moving out from under the divine thumb of an overbearing father deity - certainly. Other days I miss the fire, the fury, the fervour, the sweet purpose of it all.
"The various forms of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people to be equally true, by the philosopher as equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful."
- Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire