DesertFox
10-07-2007, 02:48 PM
Lee Siegel
Los Angeles Times
7 Oct 07
Voltaire famously quipped that if God didn't exist, he would have to be invented. American publishers would enthusiastically agree because God, it turns out, is a consistent moneymaker -- especially, these days, for those who want to attack him.
In the last few years, so many books have rolled off the presses challenging God, belief and religion itself (by Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Victor Stenger and Christopher Hitchens, among others) that a visitor from another planet might think America was in the iron throes of priestly repression. You'd never know that we live in the age of Paris Hilton, HBO, Internet porn and flip-flops. The 17th century Catholic Church proscribed Galileo -- just imagine what it would have done with the creators of "Entourage."
Nor would anyone know from reading the latest rash of anti-God books that promiscuous sex and polymorphous sexuality are taken for granted in modern-day America (let's see a conservative Supreme Court try to roll that back); that the separation of church and state is inscribed in our Constitution; that no priest, minister or rabbi holds any top position in the federal government; and that even the state board of education in Kansas recently forbade the teaching of creationism. The Catholic Church imprisoned Galileo and hounded Voltaire and his fellow philosophers; Harris & Co., meanwhile, are dining out on their self-styled iconoclasm in every corner of the media.
More (http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-siegel7oct07,0,5131722.story?coll=la-news-comment)
Los Angeles Times
7 Oct 07
Voltaire famously quipped that if God didn't exist, he would have to be invented. American publishers would enthusiastically agree because God, it turns out, is a consistent moneymaker -- especially, these days, for those who want to attack him.
In the last few years, so many books have rolled off the presses challenging God, belief and religion itself (by Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Victor Stenger and Christopher Hitchens, among others) that a visitor from another planet might think America was in the iron throes of priestly repression. You'd never know that we live in the age of Paris Hilton, HBO, Internet porn and flip-flops. The 17th century Catholic Church proscribed Galileo -- just imagine what it would have done with the creators of "Entourage."
Nor would anyone know from reading the latest rash of anti-God books that promiscuous sex and polymorphous sexuality are taken for granted in modern-day America (let's see a conservative Supreme Court try to roll that back); that the separation of church and state is inscribed in our Constitution; that no priest, minister or rabbi holds any top position in the federal government; and that even the state board of education in Kansas recently forbade the teaching of creationism. The Catholic Church imprisoned Galileo and hounded Voltaire and his fellow philosophers; Harris & Co., meanwhile, are dining out on their self-styled iconoclasm in every corner of the media.
More (http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-siegel7oct07,0,5131722.story?coll=la-news-comment)