Interesting to read a summary of what are essentially Socratic rhetorical techniques. To me the question is, why bother, and what is the conclusion of choosing an atheistic belief? I was a fan of Hitchens, and I took his atheism the same way I take an actor's belief in astrology, in that it is a part of who they are, but not what I find interesting about them.
There is a western tradition wherein atheists are considered untrustworthy men, as no matter how different or foreign someone is to you, if you can agree there exists a god (by whatever name) who rewards good and punishes evil, and that some intentions of this being have been revealed, this belief is a foundation for a basic level of trust that transcends language.
The whole atheist enterprise is premised on an "anti-" identity, where the "-ist" person evaluates their own identity against a perceived reflection of this divine straw-man. A recent pope described "hell" as being "the absence of God," I suspect atheist hell is the absence of someone to hector with tedious hypothetical arguments. The anti- identity is what we used to call being a punk, or someone who identifies as exempt from the scale of "good," because they perceive themselves as having been victimized by the bearers of that standard, and they look for others to seduce with a misery-loves-company sympathy. They're people you tolerate and have compassion for, but don't take as much risk to invest in. Whether or not one agrees with the morality of that, it's a summary of the very roots of what we call western civilization.
Edit: removed some snark.
There is a western tradition wherein atheists are considered untrustworthy men, as no matter how different or foreign someone is to you, if you can agree there exists a god (by whatever name) who rewards good and punishes evil, and that some intentions of this being have been revealed, this belief is a foundation for a basic level of trust that transcends language.
The whole atheist enterprise is premised on an "anti-" identity, where the "-ist" person evaluates their own identity against a perceived reflection of this divine straw-man. A recent pope described "hell" as being "the absence of God," I suspect atheist hell is the absence of someone to hector with tedious hypothetical arguments. The anti- identity is what we used to call being a punk, or someone who identifies as exempt from the scale of "good," because they perceive themselves as having been victimized by the bearers of that standard, and they look for others to seduce with a misery-loves-company sympathy. They're people you tolerate and have compassion for, but don't take as much risk to invest in. Whether or not one agrees with the morality of that, it's a summary of the very roots of what we call western civilization.
Edit: removed some snark.