Via Telic Thoughts a quote from Christopher Hitchens, which has to rank among the dumbest things ever uttered by an Atheist regarding Christianity:
“One of Lenin’s great achievements, in my opinion, is to create a secular Russia. The power of the Russian Orthodox Church, which was an absolute warren of backwardness and evil and superstition, is probably never going to recover from what he did to it.”
Wow. That’s wrong on so many many levels. He praises the gulag, the executions, and the Terror because it was hard on the Church! Does he praise also Hitler for killing 6 million Jews and ridding the world of more superstition!? Does he even realized they are equivalent?
I can think of absolutely nothing that Mr Lenin did that could be described as a good thing much less a “great acheivement”.
He also betrays a certain striking amount of ignorance regarding Orthdoxy as well. I guess he’s more comfortable with the Aquinan/Augustinian rational expressions over Byzantine mysticism.
Hitchens is kind of a buffoon, methinks.