j a m e s f o r s y t h ✡ n e t

Melbourne (Australia, where we live) has a Greek precinct on Lonsdale Street between Swanston and Russell Streets. There are Greek restaurants, cafes, souvenir shops, travel agents and a baptism/wedding clothes shop.

The food is great, both the main meals and the cakes. And the coffee can be either cappucino, latte or “Greek” coffee (like a short black - originally from Turkey?).

Over the years the strip has shrunken a great deal. It’s been whittled away by the older shop owners gradually moving out and an increasingly Asian demographic in the area. Chinatown is only one block away.

Is this bad? How can it be a bad thing if most Greek young people themselves aren’t even interested in reviving the area? I can’t help feeling, however, that Greek Orthodox culture has some links to my own Evangelical Christian culture, however remote that may be, and I’d rather the strip wasn’t shrunken any further.

I might add that there are quite a few Greeks at my Church. These aren’t Greek Orthodox, but are Evangelicals. Maybe it’s ironic in the light of my yearning for the Greek precinct to stay as it is for religious reasons, but I’ve known of Evangelical Greeks going back to Greece to share the Gospel with Orthodox.

Now if THAT’S necessary (which it is, because Greek Orthodox have no idea of the Gospel at all) then I’d have mixed feelings about the value of the strip on the basis of any remaining Christian heritage.

As a committed Christian I decided it was time to honour an opponent of Christianity simply in order to be a good sport.

There are plenty of atheists out there who are equally good candidates so the issue arose as to how to judge between them. It was decided that the award should go to the bravest atheist, for ease of judging purposes. I decided against other criteria, such as most supportive of communist regimes, biggest champion of political correctness or scientific achievements which are only to be disproved in the next scientific revolution.

Ibn Warraq doesn’t win the prize, as he writes under a pen name. Sure, using a nom de plume is warranted when writing polemic material against Islam, but it disallows us from giving Mr Warraq the award.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the clear winner. She qualifies for the award because she is an atheist by belief. She is eloquent, likable, knowledgable, softly spoken and has the background to actually know what she is talking about. Her need for bodyguards to protect her from fatwas doesn’t disqualify her in the least. See the English language version of her site.

Some may be reminded of Irshad Manji when they think of Hirsi Ali, someone who also comes from an Islamic background and speaks out against its excesses. Manji, however, immediately disqualifies herself from the prize because she still refers to herself as a Muslim. She completely ignores the teachings of her prophet Mohammed and doesn’t seem to suffer from any kind of cognitive dissonance at all! Dhimmiwatch has a good critique of her views, which she refused to respond to, which is another reason why she doesn’t win the atheist bravery award.

The losers are Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, and Christopher Hitchen, author of God is not Good, as they have written populist books, appealing to the chatterati, masquerading as controversial and underdoggish.