Alterman & Lilla lovefest

[Luke Weiger]

Jim Farmelant wrote:
"Also, while Bloom wrote respectfully concerning religious piety,
a careful reading of his text suggests that he was in fact an
atheist, who considered the religious virtues to be distinctly
inferior to the philosophical ones."

He was indeed an atheist, which is made abundantly clear in Bellow's
Ravelstein.  Christopher Hithcens criticized Bellow for intimating that
Bloom babbled about eternal awards in his dying dies by saying something to
the effect of whatever one may think about the Straussians, they are not
wimps in need of the crutch of religion.

-- Luke