My Response to Hitchens, Maher, and Other Gadflys

I think I once thought I was an atheist. I never thought I was a free agent independent of religion, or that I had heroically created my own moral system or had surmounted a corrupt and dated ideology. And I never believed it was my duty to raze anyone else's creed or venerated beliefs (probably why I was so bemused by Sinead O'Conner's misguided attempt to single-handedly assail the faith of one billion Catholics). Most of all, I was often dismayed when my sense of reality was invalidated by those of faith - their world view did not allow the possibility of mine. It never occurred to me that my refusal to believe somehow abrogated anyone else's belief; they were free to pursue the potential of their reality uninhibited by my reasoning, and I, like them, had the right to be incorrect ultimately.
Now, years later, I listen to liberal intellectuals assail the concept of religion, as if they stand alone, above it, beyond it, better than it, and unobliged to it. I find this postulation akin to what I call the "Howard Stern Conjecture" - i.e., people like Howard Stern prove that a free nation is great by his very existence. As if an entity is great only if it is assailed for no redeeming purpose other than to assail it. So, once a nation or faith establishes itself, it is only actualized when it is attacked and it survives. And the attacker, like the effete artist who disdains the majority unartistic, fails to realize the provenance of his own right to defile and defame. But to what purpose do we maim and injure consecrated faith?
Perhaps, as all those who build and knock over straw men know, the fun is simply being smarter than, righter than everyone else. They deny this vanity, pointing instead to the abstracted excesses of human interpretation of divine auspices meant to provide inner peace not manifested offence. They can overlook eons of time and multitudes of humans living divinely guided lives, finding purpose and peace acquiescing their own desires and motives (not their intellect)to a larger, connected consciousness.
But the narcissism of these critics feeds on the proposition that the larger the belief, the more the adherents, the holier the cow, the greater their victory against it, and consequently, the greater their amour propre. I think they believe they are pioneers - brave patriots suffering the prosecution of a petty society, like those who marched in Alabama, or who stood in front of tanks in Tiananman Square. In reality, they are not enlightened or brave, just having a good time that only a impudent teenager can, feeding off and aspersing his parents pretending he owes nothing and is free of their influence. Whether or not they mature to return to the fountainhead and become their parents, they cannot logically dismiss the influence of their upbringing, nor can they claim they have independently become anything.
So either they evolve and surpass the rest of us, or they have simply created themselves, replacing our God with their existence. And since they probably wouldn't care to be deities who deny and defile deities, they most likely relent to the former proposition - they have become enlightened, and have freed themselves from the oppressive shackles of our realities standing alone, reified owing nothing to anyone but their own inception, their own sense of virtue. Standing alone at the center of their universe, wanting then to displace our epicenters as well.
Most importantly, they reject morals or ethics that find their genesis in religion, once again citing the preposterous deformities mankind has made in the name of faith. Any reference to the reverently lived life of the faithful is dismissed pedantically over cocktails and the incestuous prattle of enamoured minions dancing about their feet. The universe is explored daily, gaily without the benefit of any design or destination other than the fruit of whim, or some temporal goal reflecting a base desire. Relativity replaces religion, as it is more fun, and far less constricting, leaving no trail to be examined or confronted.
They would tell us that we need to create our own reality our own human ethics and values. What they don't say is that if we do, they will still be smarter than us, and therefore still able to correct and humiliate us. For once we reject that which is part of us, we are one step closer to accepting that which is of them.
But my fundamental issue with these Illuminati is that they need to deny my inner sense of purpose, my inner sense to submit to a higher purpose that is free of my human desires and will, something with a virtuous valence. I can trust this path as it is contrary to those things I know to be weak in myself. I cant trust this path as it is independent of the cultural pragmatism individuals build as they congregate. I can also independently confront the apparitions others construct on their paths knowing that their construction is theirs, not of my creator. My faith is mine, it comforts me, guides me, and challenges me. I do not care to replace it with the capricious twaddle of bored, phrenic prophets who worship at the the alter of their own cynicism.