Oriana Fallaci may not have believed, but she understood the importance of Christian belief to civilization:
I see a hymn to Reason, a revival of clear thinking…choice…the rediscovery of freedom. The redemption of liberty…an idea that nobody had ever had…. Life always resurrects, Life is eternal. And, together with the discourse on Reason, on Freedom, this is the point that mostly convinces me…the refusal of Death, the apotheosis of Life…its alternative is Nothingness. And let’s face it: such is the principle which leads and feeds our civilization.
What constantly amuses me is the irrational atheist’s assertion that the Good exists without God. I don’t think “Christian Atheist” is a useful term, but it’s an important concept that I think more agnostics and atheists should contemplate before they unthinkingly cast their lot in with the nihilists.
Morality is not the Golden Rule, and its clear that those who think Buddhism or Hinduism feature moralities significantly akin to Christianity don’t know much about the practice of those religions or the history of the fatalistic cultures wherein variants of those religions were dominant. As a Westerner, one of the funnier aspects of “The Tale of Genji” is the constant fear of Buddhist monks descending in force from their mountain monasteries and pillaging the villagers and travellors below.