christopher hitchens: don't keep the faith

in his message to american atheists:

'dear fellow-unbelievers,

nothing would have kept me from joining you except the loss of my voice (at least my speaking voice) which in turn is due to a long argument i am currently having with the specter of death. nobody ever wins this argument, though there are some solid points to be made while the discussion goes on. i have found, as the enemy becomes more familiar, that all the special pleading for salvation, redemption and supernatural deliverance appears even more hollow and artificial to me than it did before. i hope to help defend and pass on the lessons of this for many years to come, but for now i have found my trust better placed in two things: the skill and principle of advanced medical science, and the comradeship of innumerable friends and family, all of them immune to the false consolations of religion. it is these forces among others which will speed the day when humanity emancipates itself from the mind-forged manacles of servility and superstitition. it is our innate solidarity, and not some despotism of the sky, which is the source of our morality and our sense of decency.'

read on...