by Sara Yoheved Rigler with Rabbi Moshe Zeldman
A Jewish rebuttal to Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion
Columnist and psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple, writing in the prestigious "City Journal," discloses the origins of his atheism. He was nine years old and attending prayer assembly in his British school. The headmaster Mr. Clinton commanded the children to keep their eyes shut lest God depart the assembly hall. Young Theodore wanted to test the hypothesis, so he opened his eyes suddenly so as to catch a glimpse of the fleeing God. Instead he saw Mr. Clinton praying with one eye open in order to survey the children. "I quickly concluded," recounts Dalrymple, "that Mr. Clinton did not believe what he said about the need to keep our eyes shut. And if he did not believe that, why should I believe in his God? In such illogical leaps do our beliefs often originate, to be disciplined later in life by elaborate rationalization."
Over the last year and a half, such "elaborate rationalizations" of atheism have spawned a spate of books condemning God, religion, and religious believers. Christopher Hitchens's book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything reached #1 on the New York Times ...   more »