the
PORTABLE ATHEIST
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
[Da Capo Press, 2007]
MANY PEOPLE HAVE NO RELIGION and recognise no god but, by default, they dub themselves 'atheist'. This is wierd (see On Being an Atheist). We are all not all sorts of things, but we don't have a string of 'A-' words to define ourselves. As Sam Harris pointed out at the recent Atheist Alliance International Convention (Nov. 2007), we who are not believers in astrology do not call ourselves ... er ... A-strologers. Vegetarians, footballers and druids call themselves after what they do, not what they don't. I don't call myself a non-vegetarian because my diet includes meat; I'm an omnivore. Because I don't kick balls around, I'm not a non-footballer; I just get on with a football-free life. Because I recognise that there is virtually no evidence of the druids' activities and choose not to sweep around the Celtic lands in a white gown, conflating snippets of unconnected ancient history and chanting among standing stones that have nothing to do with druids, I do not need to be an Adruid. It seems that only in the case of having no religious bent do we label ourselves negatively. I, for one, don't much like having to do that, but there are times when we are obliged by the existence of religion and the religious to state our case and then we have to have some sort of label. It is perhaps then that we recognise the value of The big red A. Despite its meaninglessness, we sometimes need that annoying word.
When I began my recent intensive learning journey into the worlds of religion-atheism and creation-evolution I had no idea how much reading I had ahead of me. [I am an excrutiatingly slow reader] Somehow I managed to ease my way in undiscouraged, starting at The God Delusion, God, The Devil and Darwin, Climbing Mount Improbable, On the Origin of Species and The Bible, following reference strings, accepting advice from those who knew more than I and routinely patronising Amazon, until I now have a substantial specialised library, many of the books read, a few part-read and some awaiting attention.
Fortunately for me, my time is my own, so I can choose how I spend it, and have done so, learning as much as I can and analysing what I understand by writing about it, sometimes for public consumption, sometimes private (or the bin). There are plenty of people who would like to engage on a similar journey, atheists who have yet to read about why other atheists are atheists, to assimilate the knowledge that would enable them to back up their convictions with informed authority. It is a time consuming process and, in our very busy culture, the barrier that routinely gets in our way is lack of time. I have been wondering if I can assist the budding atheist to gain that authority, but I need no longer fret about my relative incompetence, for Christopher Hitchens has devised the tool kit that should enable anybody to embark upon their own exploration through effective, selective reading.
THE PORTABLE ATHEIST is a selection from the best, concise writings on the topic: essays drawn from books. Once this wide-ranging collection has been read, the reader may then select the sequence of further reading that best suits his or her curiosity. It's an excellent route into the body of literature that deals with the, we feel, thanks to our upbringing, taboo subject of there actually being no god.
There are several really basic books one might tackle after The Portable Athiest (e.g. see above). Thanks to this new book, you can decide for yourself which to go for next and, perhaps, need only refer to the bibliography for additional guidance. One might be Philosophers Without Gods, a collection of essays edited by Louise M. Anthony (Oxford University Press, 2007).