In Hitchens’ chapter “The Metaphysical Claims of Religion Are False,” he does not really try to prove anything. It is just another chapter of Hitchens taking cheap shots at anything religious. It is all based on sweeping assumptions and not any actual evidence.
Hitchens looks at some of the people such as Aquinas or Augustine who are held up as intellectual giants. Hitchens claims we will never see intellectuals like that again as it is impossible to be both a rational and religious person today. He makes fun of these people of former generations as being scientifically stupid, not knowing even a portion of what children know today. And this is religion’s fault? Does he really think that non-religious people fifteen hundred years ago knew as much science as we know today? What about the impossibility of being a rational and religious person? I guess that depends on how you define rationality, which Hitchens never does. If you define rationality as rejecting religion as superstition, then of course Hitchens is correct. But if you define a rational person as an educated, logical, scientifically knowledgable and philosophically articulate person, then there are plenty of religious people like this. And is it true that scientists today are pretty much without religion? Hitchens does not offer any evidence for this aside from a few examples of atheist scientists. Could I offer a list of Christians who are accomplished scientists and then conclude that most scientists are Christian? Evidence please.
Hitchens’ cites Ockham’s razor as to why religion is irrational. For theists to say God created the universe, they are left with the question of who created the Creator. We are better off with the simpler explanation that there is no Creator. But are we? It is not enough to just say there is no Creator. You are still left with questions of how the universe began and why it seems fine-tuned for life. Is a universe without a beginning really a simpler universe? Is a multiverse who a vast array of parallel universes really a simpler explanation? Ockham’s razor cuts both ways.
