The Portable Atheist

Title: The Portable Atheist – Essential Readings for the Non-Believer

Editor: Christopher Hitchens

Publisher: Da Capo Press, 2007 (First)

ISBN: 9780306816086

Pages: 499

Religion has been a cause of strife ever since it had claimed divine revelation and moral monopoly over the acts of men. After watching base acts of terror beginning with crusades, Inquisition and witch hunts, we have now reached the level of suicidal jihadi violence. It is refreshing to welcome skeptics into our fold, so that a critical evaluation of cherished ideas take place, to free our future generations from the shackles of blind obedience to whims and fancies of a few mentally deranged men who lived centuries ago. This book is a collection of 47 essays of rationalist thought expressed over two millennia. As the byline says, this book constitutes essential reading for non-believers.

The saga of irreligious writing is set in motion by a fitting introduction by Hitchens that lays the foundation for what is to follow. His style is subtly irreverent, while many atheistic writers are prepared to extend a bit of courtesy and respect to age-old ideas, however flawed. Hitchens attacks them with tooth and nail. In one breath, he compares and equates the value systems propounded by St. Augustine, Martin Luther, Calvin and Osama bin Laden. Stout believers would recoil in horror at the simile of religions becoming a free market of ideas in the modern world. True to his character, Hitchens likens religion to be man’s oldest enemy. Besides the introductory chapter, he had the selection of authors and essays that form the main text. He states the rationale for including the specific author in many of the chapters. But of course, eminent thinkers like Russell, Sagan and Dawkins don’t need any introduction at all. One glaring drawback is that a piece by Hitchens himself doesn’t find a place in the book! Readers are thus denied a very good opportunity to enjoy the razor sharp logic of the book’s editor.

Readers get a delectable treat of essays written by eminent philosophers from all walks of literary spectrum including poets like Shelley, popularizers of science like Richard Dawkins, ancient thinkers like Lucretius, modern thinkers like Spinoza, men of science like Albert Einstein and Martin Gardener and others. Shelley’s scientific temper astonishes modern readers where poets usually divorce their thinking mind from the path of reason as if it does not concern them. Similarly, any doubt on Einstein’s personal belief in god is dispelled by his remark that he believed in ‘Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists, not in a god who concerns himself with the fate and actions of men” (p.164). Russell’s essay is very enlightening on the futility of race and the generalizations based on it. Scholars demolish the false accusation of believers that atheists repent of their sins on deathbed and believe in god. We read about a staunch thinker who heartily discussed about his firm convictions on atheism till moments before his death.          

Science’s hallmark is its curiosity. Constantly aware of what they still don’t know, scientists strive to elicit knowledge from all spheres of intellectual activity. This is in marked contrast to the ways of spiritual masters as St. Augustine, who comments that “there is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity. It is this which drives us to try and discover the secrets of nature which are beyond our understanding, which can avail us nothing, and which man should not wish to learn” (p.363)!

The most serious accusation conjectured by believers against an atheist society is that it would be without morals. This argument assumes that mankind adheres to moral principles out of fear of retribution in the form of eternal damnation in hell. This idea runs very old. Dostoyevsky once said that ‘if god is dead, then everything is permitted”. The fountainhead of morality is presumed to be god and his religion. This very concept is flawed, whose farcical precept is evident from even a cursory look at the proposition. The ideals which led man and his society were evolved very long ago, even before religions began to take hold. If you covet something in your neighbour’s possession, and are ready to go to any extreme to obtain it, the society in which both are members will be riddled with internecine conflicts, making it an easy prey for rival tribes. So, suppression of obviously selfish motives was accepted by all societies in their initial stages of development itself. Besides, if the only thing that prevents you from committing a heinous crime is the fear of divine retaliation on Judgment Day, what kind of a morality is that?

The book includes two chapters by Ibn Warraq on the Koran and the ‘totalitarian nature of Islam’, which may offend fanatical Muslims. This content might be enough to obtain a ban on many Middle Eastern countries and lapidation for the possessor. A former Muslim and writing under the pseudonym Ibn Warraq, the author critically analyzes the devout contention that the Koran is divinely ordained and finds faults and shortcomings in it. The basic premise of the argument is that the holy book was finalized in its present form only around the 9^th century CE. By this time, the traditions of the prophet (hadith) and the consensus among scholars (ijma) became hardened so as not to allow further accretions. This forced Islam to the cul-de-sac of intellectual mortification and caused it unable to adjust to modern conditions. Ibn Warraq hints that Islam is not relevant in the present day. A curious point to note is that the author even attacks Islam’s strict monotheism, which makes it unique among the comity of modern religions. When multiple gods were removed from popular imagination by the diktat of the new religion of Arabia, lesser gods were said to have been co-opted as jinn, shaitan, ifrit and marid. Isn’t belief in the existence of these supernatural beings accountable as polytheism? However, Ibn Warraq’s arguments cannot be termed as undoubted truths. In many pages, he simply quotes from prominent thinkers as if their opinion is enough to carry conviction.

India is home to fundamentalists of all hues. The mind-numbing cruelty exhibited by Muslim invaders in conquering the country in the Middle Ages has been a recurring theme among them. Leftist historians usually evade the issue altogether, and try to gloss over the details. It would be heartening to note that western thinkers share the perception of nationalist historians. Arthur Schopenhauer, the renowned German philosopher, notes that “the ever-deplorable, wanton and ruthless destruction and disfigurement of ancient temples and images reveal to us even to this day traces of the monotheistic fury of the Muhammadans which was pursued from Mahmud of Ghazni of accursed memory down to Aurangzeb the fratricide” (p.401).

The book is a real assortment of chapters having no link of continuity or style among them. Readers find it difficult to constantly adjust to the tone of various authors in quick succession. Usually, it takes a few chapters to adapt to a writer’s peculiar mode of expressing his opinion. Many chapters are examples of scintillating logic and lucid idea, while a few of them are very harsh on readers, J. L. Mackie’s contribution is one such. The essay is usually only a chapter from an author’s book. This precludes the readers from getting an idea of the background topics already discussed in the earlier chapters of the book. Chapman Cohen’s piece is riddled with references to monism, without explaining for once what it is. The book sports a good index to easily look up references.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star