I truly enjoy reading Christopher Hitchens; I agree with him on most of his political points; and even when he opines on the theologic points with which I disagree, his writing style is always entertaining.
I do not see anything remarkable about the non-sighted salamander. I do not see it to be either a proof of intelligent design, or a refutation of evolution, to point out that when a living creature loses the need for a particular organ, that organ atrophies and dies. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that God at least put in motion the process by which a salamader developed sighted eyes. One family of that species, after that eye had well developed, decides to live above-ground; a second family of that species, for reasons unknown, choses to live below-ground, where there is no light. In that second family, the need for an eye goes away; the eyes in the underground salamanders begins to atrophy; and, over the course of several million generations, goes away completely.
This proves nothing. How does this atrophy AFTER development show that there was no intelligent design IN THE COURSE OF development. In other words, because one family of species decides to live in an environment where an eye is not needed, that says nothing about the process that developed that eye before it was needed no longer. It neither supports or refutes Hitchens' point; viz., that no intelligence was needed to design the eye.
As to his point about the universe hurtling to destruction . . . physics posits that there will NEVER be NOTHING. Matter can neither be created OR DESTROYED. Einstein showed that there was a relationship between matter and energy in the universe. That there is matter in the universe cannot be denied. If matter can never be destroyed, it follows that this matter cannot be destroyed - interglactic collisions will simply change matter into energy. Again, I fail to see how this is relevent to Hitchens' point that there was no God involved in the creation of the universe.
Think about it this way. Matter and/or energy can neither be created or destroyed. Yet, matter and energy exist. How can matter and energy exist if neither can be created? That is what I think the creation momemt was . . . the creation of this matter and this energy that makes up our universe. After that creation event, the matter and energy in the universe were constant, for all time. You can argue about how God was involved after that . . . but how else can you explain the existence of matter and energy without a Creator?
