More people I love...

Largely as a result of this weeks issue from those lovable misanthropes at The Friday Thing I'm here to declare my love for Christopher Hitchens and Timothy Shortell. Not wishing to sound like a great big leftist Guardian-reading poofter but I think I want to marry them and have their little God-hating babies (I appreciate that biology and other issues make this plan somewhat impractical).

First up we have Christopher Hitchens with:

I can't stand anyone who believes in God, who invokes the divinity or who is a person of faith. I mean, that to me is horrible repulsive thing.

And then (from a few years back) we have Timothy Shortell with:

On a personal level, religiosity is merely annoying - like pop music or reality television. This immaturity represents a significant social problem, however, because religious adherents fail to recognize their limitations. So, in the name of their faith, these moral retards are running around pointing fingers and doing real harm to others. One only has to read the newspaper to see the results of their handiwork. They discriminate, exclude and belittle. They make a virtue of closed-mindedness and virulent ignorance. They are an ugly, violent lot.

Some of Tim's (as I hope he doesn't mind me calling him) colleagues at the City University of New York were so keen on finger-pointing, discriminating, excluding and belittling that he felt unable to take up the position as head of the sociology department. Here's his response to the whole situation.

It's nice to know I'm not alone in my dislike of religion and the religious. (Incidentally, if you follow the link to the Guradian article with Christopher Hitchens you'll have a chance to read his exchange with a woman who didn't like the fact that he was allowed to smoke on stage, while she wasn't allowed to smoke in the audience. Very amusing.)