Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Religon* (for Religion, etc.)

Found 44 times in OhioLINK, our typo of the day is Religon. Christopher Hitchens finds religion to be a relic, which he relishes ragging on relentlessly in an effort to relegate it to the dustbin of history. From Mother Theresa, whom he memorably once dubbed "the ghoul of Calcutta," to Gandhi (with a legacy he deems "dubious"), the Dalai Lama (whom he regards as a Hollywood groupie), and Mohammed (whose teachings he says are such a "hodgepodge" that they barely qualify as religion at all), Hitchens is an ecumenical disbeliever. His latest book title has a whiff of the jejune about it, as well as the pugilistic. "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" leaves little room for rebuttal or for dancing around the issue. Nevertheless, New York Times reporter Chris Hedges (with whom he could scarcely be confused, despite the similarity of their names) has responded to this salvo with a so-there book of his own, I Don't Believe in Atheists. Hedges calls Hitchens a "fundamentalist" and, while Hitch does seem to beg the question a bit, he has a lot of fun while doing it. (Picture of Hitchens from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

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