Secularism, Social Justice, and Deresiewicz

William Deresiewicz doesn't believe in God. He thinks "religion is a lie" -- not a weakness, not a mistake, but a lie, which is a pretty bold statement: "The philosophes saw through the falsehood of faith in the seventeen hundreds; I saw through it, one day in yeshiva high school in the midst of my Orthodox Jewish upbringing, at the age of fifteen. I'm frankly surprised that we're still even talking about it." (Deresiewicz is responding to a Ross Douthat column from almost a year ago now -- "Can the Meritocracy Find God?" -- in which Douthat hopes for but at the same time disbelieves in the possibility of a religious revival among the elite.)