God is back in fashion among intellectuals

"The ostracised believer – stronger than all!" This was the title of a speech held in the Stuttgarter Literaturhaus and subsequently reprinted in a German newspaper. Its author was Feridun Zaimoglu, a German writer of Turkish origin, 40 years old and recently distinguished with the Chamisso Prize. Zaimoglu calls the species of non-believers who have been condemned to downfall by their proper name: the Enlightened. "The Enlightened pull angry faces when they hear that there's a higher power influencing the plight of mankind or the world's cycles. But God, declared for dead, considered a trap for those dumb enough to believe in the thereafter, survives every trial and every renewal. Maybe it's time to do a little reversal, to consider the Enlightenment as the opium of the bourgeois and thereby devalue every object that was and is not a ware."...more here