RICHMOND
As the apocryphal old Irishman woefully confessed, "I'm an atheist, God forgive me."
Atheism has been in the national news the past few years, propagated by the publication in 2004 of Sam Harris's "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason," followed in 2006 by "The God Delusion" by scientist Richard Dawkins and followed last year by trouble-maker Christopher Hitchens' "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." Atheism is nothing new on our planet. Its roots go back about 2,500 years and there have been as many variations on the theme as there have been religions to foster them.

I have told the story before about the Holy Cross College freshman I met at a party about a half century ago who was so enthusiastic about a course he had taken with a Catholic priest on comparative religion.

"And we proved," he stated proudly, "we proved that Roman Catholicism is the only true religion."

"Good for you," I told him.

When I read recently that Pope Benedict XVI had confirmed this, I nodded and said out loud, "Good for you, too."
The national debate has finally trickled down to the pages of this newspaper in a flush of letters intermingled with an op-ed piece by Dan Valenti. After I read Valenti's embarrassingly condescending attack on atheism, I nodded again and said, "Good for you, Dan."

...My favorite line in all literature is in the book "Finnegan's Wake" by James Joyce. In one of the chapters, Joyce recreates "The Last Supper" and in the middle of the Passover meal someone at table says thusly: "Pass the fish for Christ's sake."

You can take that anyway you want but all in all it encapsulates life as we know it.