"God ain't a great co-pilot"

Christopher Hitchens and his godless views attracted only a dozen cadets from the Air Force Academy recently, probably because the get-together, which took place at a Colorado Springs restaurant, was forbidden on campus. An Academy spokesman said Hitchens was not welcome because he’d made comments that were “degrading to others,” reports the Colorado Springs Independent. Hitchens, of course, is nothing if not confrontational; in his book, God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, he railed against religious belief as irrational, old-fashioned and unnecessary. During his conversation with the students who were curious enough to show up, the British-born atheist warned them about the military’s top chaplain in Afghanistan: “Good people are going to get killed because of his stupidity,” Hitchens said. A video of the chaplain has been widely seen on the Web; in it, he advises U.S. soldiers to “hunt people for Jesus” by converting Muslims to Christianity. Hitchens, who paid his own expenses, spent more than two hours talking to the cadets. He concluded with this advice: “Don’t keep the faith. And don’t fly too close to the sun.”