Why we need religion

"I WOULD ban religion completely," British pop-music star Elton John said in a much-noted interview last November. "It turns people into hateful lemmings, and it's not really compassionate."

It isn't exactly news that many people find religion odious, but what is being called the New Atheism has lately become a booming industry. A profusion of books, articles, and lectures extols secularism and derides faith in God as pernicious and absurd. Such antipathy to religion was once relegated to the edges of polite society. Today it shows up front and center.

A California congressman is cheered for announcing that he is an atheist. A New York Times Magazine cover story -- "Why Do We Believe?" -- considers "evolutionary adaptation" and "neurological accident" as explanations for religious belief, but not the possibility that God may actually exist. A forthcoming book by Christopher Hitchens, a noted journalist, is titled "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything."