http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1932066/posts
What the New Atheists Don't See, To regret religion is to regret
Western civilization
cerc ^ | 2007 | THEODORE DALRYMPLE
Posted on 11/28/2007 7:54:23 PM PST by Coleus
The British parliament's first avowedly atheist member, Charles
Bradlaugh, would stride into public meetings in the 1880s, take out
his pocket watch, and challenge God to strike him dead in 60 seconds.
God bided his time, but got Bradlaugh in the end. A slightly later
atheist, Bertrand Russell, was once asked what he would do if it
proved that he was mistaken and if he met his maker in the hereafter.
He would demand to know, Russell replied with all the high-pitched
fervor of his pedantry, why God had not made the evidence of his
existence plainer and more irrefutable. And Jean-Paul Sartre came up
with a memorable line: "God doesn't exist -- the bastard!"
Sartre's wonderful outburst of disappointed rage suggests that it is
not as easy as one might suppose to rid oneself of the notion of God.
(Perhaps this is the time to declare that I am not myself a believer...
