Dan,

Just to get in first, I haven't read the Telegraph since I was a kid in the fifties.

As an atheist, I've never believed in a god or goddess. There is no pre-given purpose to life. While religion provides a comfortable illusion that there is one, I would respectfully suggest that the human task is to develop a sense of purpose, a moral framework, based on concern and compassion for our fellow human beings and to do what we can to leave this earth (and leave it totally, once and for all: that's the horrifying reality of life) better than we found it.

There is no heaven, no after-life, no Great Father in the sky, only a brief flash of eternity for each of us. What we do with it is what counts. We make our lives, as we will, with all manner of constraints, for the short time we are here. Do I like it that way ? Of course not, I would love to believe that I and all of the people that I love will somehow live forever. But it ain't so and I would also respectfully suggest that this viewpoint takes both courage and faith in our fellow human beings.

Joe

I should have known you were a smartarse - how silly of me.

Our best thinkers strive for clarity, and they usually use punctuation to help them. Try it if you want to exchange ideas.

And the old Chinamen asked his God to let him live. And the God said ‘Yes’.

A few generations after the old Chinamen asked his God to let him die.

Whatever for? The God queried.

Too boring, people do not learn.

Joe I cannot add to anything you have said in your E-mail here, I agree with everything you have stated, I can never ever understand how most men and women can believe in fairy tales. We all get here by chance, mainly by being good swimmers, we could have also ended up on the shower floor, a so called God and his ilk have nothing to do with any of this. As you state when life is over there will be nothing, no wings sprouting and harps playing, or being put in rather overcrowded rooms by now, I knew nothing before I came and will know nothing after I have gone.

Christopher Hitchens is one of the very few conservatives (in fact can't think of any others) who can walk, talk and chew gum at the same time.

He is the only conservative I have read who can articulate his position with logic, consideration and thought. Way too classy for the westie tele.

Andrew Bolt, Janet Albrechtsen and Brendan O'Neill amongst others would qualify though.

I always read Hitchens with interest. No one builds a stronger argument. I don't always agree with him, but I can't think of an instance in which he has pandered to anyone's ideology, deferred to authority, or given voice to cliché. He's provocative in the best sense of the word. I'll buy the book ... he's someone worth learning from.