Covington's major objection to the book, repeated over and over again, is that criticizing religion is an insult to the good intentions, deeds, and memories of the stubbornly religious, who as far as I can tell were those things in spite of rather than because of religion. Most of all he argues, we mustn't denigrate martyrs.
When Hitchens praises Martin Luther King for effecting real changes in this world (rather than the kabuki of saving souls for the next), and for being a real human being with real weaknesses (rather than a supernatural saint), Covington really gets bent out of shape:
To praise King's accomplishments while ridiculing his witness is one thing, but it's quite another to ignore or dismiss the faith of the thousands of believers who packed the churches in Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma; who worshipped long into the night with King and sang and prayed and marched straight into prison like their Christian brethern did for 2,000 years before them -- that cloud of witnesses who were sawn asusnder and crucified upside down and fed to wild animals because of their faith.
Have you ever read a more bizarre characterization of the civil rights movement than this fantastical and violent tale of religious persecution? Is it not enough to acknowledge the genuine struggle without layering on these sadistic images? More importantly, why is it so hard to see that these were (like the Abolitionists before them) religious people fighting for a secular cause with real political and civic consequences. King was fighting for basic democratic principles and used poetry and rhetoric to sway others to the cause. Like the founding fathers, he upheld freedom and democratic ideals in the face of tyranny, injustice and institutionalized despotism.
He represented civil disobedience not religious obeisance.
And as for non-believers, well you can imagine where Covington thinks they are coming from:
[One] might conclude that the millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and others gassed by Hitler's fascist thugs; the 30 million dead in Stalin's secular paradise; and the 50 million dead during Mao's "cultural revolution" might suggest scientific materialism - through its grotesque stepchild, totalitarianism - as the greatest threat.
Yes, and never mind that Nationalism steeped in Social Darwinism, militarism, and deep-seeded religious and ethnic hatreds have nothing to do with scientific materialism, as long as you can trot out these tired examples you don't have to acknowledge the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Salem Witch Trials, Al Qaeda, or any of the other atrocities committed in the name of God. Nor do you have to own up to the fact that the Nazis did not invent antisemitism, they simply amplified the preexisting Christian hatreds.
So in Covington we have the usual, "I know you are, but what am I" apologetics. A response, in fact, that could have been written by anyone. One needn't have actually even read the book, and I'm now wondering if that isn't the case here.
Today in Slate, we have excerpts from Hitchens which gives us a much fuller picture of what he is actually arguing. For instance, here is his thesis, something that goes unmentioned in the Paste review:
There are four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum of servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking.
The basic argument could not be stated more clearly, and I am certain that Hitchens has not lifted it from the writings of Hitler, Stalin, or Mao. Nor is he accusing believers of stupidity. Religion is an error. A simple error that has metastasized into a multitude of competing doctrines all intent in doing harm to those who disagree. It is, as Hitchens concludes, a poison.
If you want to argue about that, then please, begin with his thesis and start reading. That's what I plan to do.
