Why does God make Britons so furious?

David Quinn Notebook
what explains the terrible anger of the British atheist? To books by Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling we can now add one by Christopher Hitchens. From the writings of these three one coufd be forgiven for imagining that Britain is in the grip of a new religious fanaticism. But as we scan the English landscape we can ftnd no such thing, not among Christians at any rate.
In fact, with regard to matters of religion and politics England historically has been among the mildest and most benign of places. There have been outbreaks of fanaticism now and then, especially after the Reformation, but nothing on the scale found elsewhere in Europe where both religion and politics have frequently incited people to bloodshed.
We might imagine that the anger of the triple-headed hydra of Dawkins-GraylingHitchens is prompted by the rise of radical Islamism in England , but this doesn't really explain it either because most of their anger is directed at Christianity. So again, what explains it? Sometimes the threat Evangelical Christians pose to the teaching of evolution in the classroom is cited, as is Christian opposition to embryo stem cell research. This doesn't really cut it, however, because there is no realistic threat in Britain to the teaching of evolution, and if these atheists are really concerned about ideological opposition to particular kinds of research, then most of their anger should be directed at the animal rights movement which has threatened. and forced into hiding, scientists engaged in medical research on animals.
So we must put their anger down to prejudice because reason certainly has nothing to do with it. Take Hitchens. He blames religion for fanaticism. But he must know that fanaticism can take on virtually any form and that there have been many secular forms of fanaticism, including fanatical persecutions of religion launched by atheists.
He must also know that over the last two centuries many secular thinkers have concluded that if the perfect world formed by reason in their minds is to become a reality, they must kill or destroy anyone or anything that stands in their way.
Hitchens is a man of the Left. He must know that countless people have died because of the egalitarian fantasies of leftists like himself. Maybe it is secularism that poisons everything?
Atheists often accuse religious believers of trying to monopolise morality. But atheists almost invariably try to monopolise reason despite the evidence of history that "reasonable" men have committed terrible atrocities in its name.
Of course, our modern antidote to fanaticism is to put religion in a box having failed to eliminate it through force and to do the same to all potential mass movements like nationalism, Communism, fascism (all three secular ideas. take note).
The second part of the remedy is to emphasise individual freedom, to let people decide for themselves what is right and wrong, true or false and to choose their own lifecourse.
However, even individualism can become fanatical. True, it doesn't lead to war, but in the name of personal freedom terrible deeds are committed. In its name we sacrifice children in their millions. We abort them. We abandon them. We fail to commit to them in the first place.
Religion doesn't poison everything as Hitchens would have it. Nor does secularism. We poison everything. We are capable of corrupting anything we touch. That's part of the human condition. But we can also heal because that's part of the human condition as well, and religion has often been a greater healer.
What a pity this new breed of atheist will never admit such a thing. They are too deep in their prejudice, too blind to reason, ever to admit that religion is not the malignant force they imagine it to be.