I have every intention of reading the new book God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. This may seem odd to some since I am a both a Christian and a traditionally conservative man, but it needn't be so. I have long been an admirer of Hitchens as a writer and as a "public intellectual", though I loathe that term. I think he is one of the more unique voices out there and he is consistantly compelling.

He is controversial - a fact he no doubt admires - and he comes across as the type of person who is not just content with dealing a fatal blow in debate, but instead, likes to torture the subject first. He has the public image of a man who likes push needles into people just to see how they react and then uncomfortably continue to push, even though the initial joke has gotten old. He is the ultimate contrarian.

His new subject isn't really a new one at all for fans of his work: the existence of God and the practice of His worship. This is a lofty subject. He is right to pick at religion and I have no doubt that the rave reviews of the book are justified. If you are going to pick a fight with an ethos, there are few better targets than Christianity. It is a religion muddled with outright contradiction and downright questionable details. Christians are insufferably self-righteous and have done (and still do) some ethically atrocious things in the name of God. Miracles, Virgin Birth, naughty popes, inquisitions, crusades, and a countless number of lives ruined because of the psychological torture of Divine Guilt - all easy fodder for a book intent on criticizing the role of religion in our society.

We don't need religion to be a moral society - a fact I have long been willing to concede after befriending a fair share of very ethical non-believers. As a society, we don't need fear of a literal Hell to keep us in line to do the right thing. We have prison and the Patriot Act for that sort of thing. On this I am certain Hitchens is correct. It is not only his argument but also the plea of non-believers the world over, that the world is often better off without religion because religious people do horrible things in the name of their gods.

Yet there is a need in some people, in me in particular, that leads to faith in God regardless of this. Hitchens likely would say that it is a psychological type of God complex, following the famous theme of Freud's History of an Illusion, but this is a stagnant condescension. Faith isn't necessarily something that I want, for life would possibly be easier without it, but it is something I need to have. It is a begrudgingly Calvinistic faith - one that has never been "tambourine in the choir loft" enthusiastic or evangelical - but faith nonetheless. I may not be the most divine person, I still, for lack of a better term, buy the whole God thing.

This is why I want to read his book. Not to be converted to his religion of athiesm, but to go through a splendid intellectual exercise. His book is no threat to my faith because I am sure I have read a lot worse that has been said, possibly accurately, about my beliefs. I look forward to it because I love his writing, his logic, and his venom.

So why read the works of someone who hates your God? Because I respect his worldview even if he doesn't respect the foundational core of my belief in the Divine. I respect him because he's a boomer leftist who, unlike most of his generation, hasn't a relativist notion is his marrow. He is a moral person, intensely if you read his work and see him speak, and he doesn't accept the usual relativist garbage of "to each their own". There are many very intelligent people who play with the truth, banging it around a bit, and analyzing its semantics to death, without actually ever believing or affirming anything about it. Hitchens, like his hero George Orwell, is a man who passionately believes in notions of right and wrong even though those definitive judgments are extremely unpopular among lefties and in the academy. He actually believes in something - just not God.