Hitch is barely cold and already the ghouls are coming for the corpse. It’s the strangest approach, too — they’re all sounding like Mormons, trying to retroactively baptize him in their faith.

Case #1: Ross Douthat. But then you knew that Christian hack would do his best to turn an atheist’s death into a moral fable for his faith. He compares his literary gifts to G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis and thereby, by some strange rambling logic, claims him as a kindred spirit, actually cites Hitchens denying that he was going to abandon his lifelong and strongly held principles and convert on his deathbed, only to then concludes that Hitchens wouldn’t have given in to atheistic despair. It’s appalling, sleazy, and contemptible, and exposes Douche-hat as someone completely incapable of comprehending any other perspective than his god-bothering own.

Do go read Charles Pierces’s takedown. If the NY Times had any sense, they’d fire Douthat on the spot (because he’s a fucking dimwitted ghoul), and put Pierce in his place (because he actually has talent and perspicacity).

Case #2: Scott Stephens. Stephens is the religion editor at ABC Online, and he actually makes Douthat look good. Douthat at least is constrained by the Times in his length; Stephens has a kind of spirit-infused theological diarrhea that he pours onto the page. I swear, I blacked out several times trying to read the whole thing — I think he was trying a novel argument for the soul by doing his best to make mine sick to the point of pining for mortality.

His obit is a weird one that simultaneously tries to be generous in its praise while sinking to new depths. One of the running themes seems to be ‘Hitchens got fat’, with comments like “his increasingly corpulent body”, “overindulged jowls”, “bloated, hirsute complexion” (that last one is strange) — aha, I thought, so that’s what Conservapædia looks like dressed up with a clerical collar and a thesaurus.

But then, he tries to “distill the essence” of Hitchens, and concludes that he was, at heart, a Christian. He quotes Hitchens saying that the Pope was one of his three most deeply hated people in the world (the others being bin Laden and Kissinger), and then declares that Hitchens’ anti-totalitarianism was exactly like the Pope’s.

Yet, on the other hand, it was precisely the form of rigorously Christocentric humanism advocated by Pope Benedict and his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, that constituted the most powerful and persuasive critique of the totalitarian regimes of Eastern Europe. Moreover, it was from Christianity itself that Hitchens derived his keen sense of the illegitimacy, the idolatry of totalitarian power.

And then he quotes Hitchens acknowledging the contribution of Christianity.

The greatest contribution of Christianity in my life is the reminder of the complete ephemerality of human power, and indeed human existence – the transience of all states, empires, heroes, grandiose claims, and so forth. That’s always with me, and I daresay I could have got that from Einstein … and from Darwin. But the way I got it and the way it is implanted in me is certainly by Christianity.

That’s from a public conversation he had with his brother. But Stephens doesn’t bother to mention what Hitchens said further down:

If anything could prove what I so much believe, which is that we are not made by God and never were and could not have been, but that many, many gods have been made by men and women and it is precisely the other way around, the basic claim of materialism — if nothing else could persuade me of that obvious truth, the behavior of religion itself would be enough.

Hitchens was always blunt and plain-spoken about his opinion of religion. He would not ever deny that he was a product of a Western and English culture that had religion wrapped around its roots (like a parasitic fungus, I would say), he was also explicit in his denial of the validity of god-belief, and was frank in his accusations of the folly of faith. For a Christian to now try and put the mantle of Christianity on him is repulsive and disrespectful — it’s like witnessing the desecration of a corpse. The corpse may not mind anymore, but it’s still a distasteful spectacle and gives the lie to any pretense of appreciation of the person who once resided in that body.

But then, that’s what ghouls do.

It’s also such peculiar behavior. When popes die, you don’t find atheists lining up to write encomiums in which they claim that he was really an atheist, deep down, and that he lived as a humanist rather than a Catholic. When William Lane Craig dies, no one will speculate that he denied the gods on his deathbed; when Scott Stephens croaks, no one will winnow through his columns, straining occasional words and phrases out of context to suggest that maybe he really was sympathetic to atheism after all. They are who they are, deluded dunces who invoke no sense of envy in us at all.

And maybe that’s the explanation. Hitchens was a man of palpable talent and immense rhetorical skill, and maybe we should recognize it as flattery that these Christians desperately wish to appropriate him.

But there is one thing anyone who read his works could know: Hitchens was an atheist, without qualification.

Paul Wallace (who?) is declaring victory in the conflict between science and religion, with the most specious reasoning. His big general argument is that the New Atheists are old.

This year has marked, I believe, the beginning of the end of the war between science and religion. Creationism cannot last. The New Atheists are now old (or departed).

That little dig about “departed” atheists is, clearly enough, a rather nasty reference to Christopher Hitchens, and the link goes to a religious argument about whether he’s in hell or not. It is revealing that these Christians can’t even try to make a rational argument without playing ghoul. But it’s also wrong; as an activist in the atheist movement for about 15+ years, what has been most notable to me is how much younger the movement gets every year. As has been pointed out many times, the fastest growing segment of the religious question is the Nones, who reject the whole mess.

After that little falsehood, Wallace’s arguments disintegrate rapidly. His sole tactic is to list 10 people, marginal or tangential to the whole movement on either side, and point and say, “Look! They don’t hate religion! Therefore, we’re winning.” It’s a pathetic and irrational effort. Here is his list of the Big 10 reconciling science and religion.

10. Karl Giberson, science & religion writer and former physicist, for reminding evangelicals that science is not the enemy

Right. The Karl Giberson who was squeezed out of the website he cofounded, as Biologos cozies up to fundagelical literalists? It seems to me that the real lesson here is that the evangelicals are reminding Giberson that science is the enemy.

9. Jon Huntsman, U.S. Ambassador to China, former Governor of Utah, candidate for the 2012 Republican nomination for president, for decoupling conservative politics and creationism

Huntsman was the only Republican candidate for president to speak out for the scientific views on evolution and global warming. He also doesn’t stand a prayer of getting the nomination. His position is a confirmation that the Christian majority hates science. And mormons.

8. Jon Stewart, political satirist, for shining light on American Atheists’ frivolous lawsuit against the inclusion of the Ground Zero cross in the 9/11 memorial museum

I wasn’t that enthusiastic myself, but I don’t think it was frivolous. I think the “ground zero cross” highlights the stupidity of Christianity — to think, they found two metal bars that had been welded at right angles to one another in some wreckage!

7. Nidhal Guessoum, astrophysicist, for reminding us that, in the minds of nearly 1.6 billion people, “science and religion” does not mean “science and Christianity”

Somehow, the fact that they found a guy who favors good science, and is also a member of a religion that has discouraged science to the point that only 10-20% of its members accept evolution (which Wallace comes right out and admits), is regarded as a victory for religion? So to some people, “science and religion” means “science and Islam”, and the overwhelming majority of them detest science.

6. Jack Templeton, surgeon, president and chairman of the John Templeton Foundation, for bringing science into the church

Hmmm. Reactionary fundamentalist Christian who donates substantial sums of money to defeat gay marriage initiatives and also strains to coopt science to support his religious beliefs is supposed to be an example of religion and science finding a middle ground? It looks more like moral and scientific bankruptcy to me. He’s a guy trying to bring the church into science, not vice versa.

5. Chris Stedman, interfaith activist and super-swell atheist guy, for decoupling atheism from science, and for being the face of a kinder, gentler atheism

Fuck “kinder, gentler atheism”. Finding one smiley apologist for faith who is too craven to confront the real lies of religion does not convince me that the New Atheism is in decline at all. These pandering compromisers will always be popular with the subset of the population that dreads rocking the boat…and they’ll always be the ones fighting against change and for the status quo.

4. Rachel Held Evans, author, speaker, blogger, for making science & religion her thing, but not her main thing

Who? Wallace seems impressed that Evans is not a biblical literalist. So? That’s been common for quite some time.

3. All Those People Who Are Not Backing the Ark Park, for keeping the sure-to-be-divisive Ark Encounter from its scheduled August groundbreaking

What? The majority of Christians in Kentucky are in favor of the nonsensical giant ark, and somehow this tells Wallace that religion and science are reconciled?

2. Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, for reminding us that being ethical does not depend on belief in a personal God—nor, particularly, on science

I have never been sympathetic to the Dalai Lama. Sure, he smiles a lot — that seems to be the sole criterion for thinking he’s a hero of religion — but he represents a misogynistic, theocratic tyranny that wants to get back in power in the homeland of Tibet. Charismatic tyrants may be one kind of religious ideal, but not mine.

1. Terrence Malick, filmmaker, for reminding us that art may be the most compelling way to reconcile science & religion

Haven’t seen his movie. Not really interested in seeing it, either. I don’t think an art-house movie represents the state of religion in this country, and especially since Wallace mainly seems to like it for its biblical roots, it’s not exactly a slice of scientific thought, either.

That’s it. That’s Wallace’s great groundswell of pro-religious, pro-science belief that is sweeping the country — 10 marginal characters who meet Wallace’s criterion of being nice and non-confrontational. I’m sorry, but cherry-picking the population for the wimpiest set of useless apologists (or twisting their positions to hide their actual agendas) is not very impressive.

Although I did think it entirely appropriate to see Stedman and Templeton on the same list. Both are playing exactly the same game from different sides of the playing field.

(I am not alone in finding Wallace risible. Greg Laden has commented, and Ian Cromwell tears him a new one. Expect more of the freethought to rise to point and laugh at Wallace in the near future.)

And now…Ophelia makes the interesting point that the apologists are actually divisive and increase the combativeness.