Stanley Fish, whooften seems to take delight in being perverse,has an amused, amusing, and sympathetic reflection on Terry Eagleton's Reason, Faith and Revolution."When Christopher Hitchens declares that given the emergence of the telescope and the microscope religion no longer offers an explanation of anything important, Eagleton replies, But Christianity was never meant to be an explanation of anything in the first place. Its rather like saying that thanks to the electric toaster we can forget about Chekhov.Fishends thus: "He [Eagleton] is angry, I think, at having to expend so much mental and emotional energy refuting the shallow arguments of school-yard atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins. I know just how he feels."http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/god-talk/?ref=opinionPresumably Fish knows how Eagleton feels, but does Fish refute "Ditchkins," for other reasons? He doesn't say.Apologies to Matt Boudway; I posted without checking. Please add your comments to his post.

Margaret O’Brien Steinfels is a former editor of Commonweal. 

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