Most of the 800 or so responses on the blog were outright hostile. One university professor wrote on his own blog that my story “was an appalling piece of dreck.” He also called me a “dishonest bigot.”

I wrote back to wish him a Merry Christmas; he wrote back to say I was passive aggressive. We will not be going on holidays together in the near future or ever.

Yet another respondent called the story “linguistic genocide” — an ingenious term that I wish I had come up with. Another told me that he does not put his faith in invisible gods but in “mankind.” I wrote back to ask what part of mankind he puts his faith in: the religious, the non-religious, everyone ....? He did not get back to me.

The thesis of my story was this: that debates between the religious and atheists are useless because most atheists do not understand religion, particularly religious faith. I made particular reference to journalist and author Christopher Hitchens, who has made millions of dollars by being a professional atheist. Saying bad things about Hitchens, it turns out, is a very bad thing to do. Apparently he is the only atheist “born without sin.”

It was finally made clear to me that I should no more insult Hitchens than someone should insult the Blessed Virgin Mary or Jesus — something no atheist would ever dream of doing.

I also went on to say that Catholic convert and former British prime minister Tony Blair should have skipped a recent debate in Toronto with Hitchens. I wrote: “Blair probably should not have even bothered and instead should have gone to Mass that night or spent an evening helping out at a shelter or visiting someone who was lonely and sick in a hospital. That would have said a lot more about his faith than wasting a lot of words on a pompous ass whose main intellectual arsenal is sneering and using sarcasm.”

I am not a big fan of Blair. He is too wishy-washy and likes to talk about vague issues of faith rather than the tough teachings of his adopted Roman Catholic Church.

I do not like Hitchens’ ideas about religion but I actually have more respect for him than I have for Blair because Hitchens is not tepid. He is also one of the great political writers of our time and I very much admire his work.

One reader called me a coward for not wanting to debate Hitchens — which is funny because I have never been asked to debate him. And perhaps if I was offered the kind of fees that people like Hitchens and Blair attract I might suddenly find it in my heart to take part in a debate and ditch my no-debate argument.

What I was trying to say is that a debate about faith, rather than the place of religious groups in society, is a waste of time.

I support debates about religion in the public square. There are many people who ask, for example, whether religions should get tax breaks — particularly when every press release has to do with global warming or some other political issue.

But faith is a different order of magnitude. It is too private. It touches on a different reality that either you get or you do not. Faith is like love so how do you debate that?

I have read Hitchens’ God Is Not Great and I have heard him speak about religion and there is nothing that is reasonable in his argument that can be debated. He believes religion poisons everything. What could I or anyone really say to that?

My beliefs about the Trinity, the Eucharist, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the saints, the angels and all that surrounds us and sustains us are not up for grabs.

So to Hitchens and his touchy followers: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. And I still do not care what you think about my faith.