In Peter's first full chapter he tells of his conversion to atheism. He covers the usual sense of superiority, of belonging with other sophisticated and knowing minds, the rush of feeling truly free, the thrill of being virtuous without being obligated and the warm trust in human reason and science and human progress as well as the feeling of contempt or even hostility towards believers. It really isn't much different than Christopher's account of his own conversion in his first chapter, except that it is told in past tense - as a phase he eventually grew out of, which Christopher obviously did not. They both have a very British reticence about opening up too much about personal events and feelings. Something that, as an American, in a culture where we open up very easily about both, I find refreshing.
A few striking quotations from the chapter:
"And then there were the things I thought and wrote and said, the high, jeering tone of my conversation, the cruel revolutionary rubbish I promoted, sometimes all too successfully, with such conviction that I persuaded some others to swallow the same poison. I have more or less recovered. I am not sure they all did. Once you have convinced a fellow-creature of the rightness of a cause, he takes his own direction and lives his own life. It is quite likely that even if you change your mind, he will not change his. Yet you remain at least partly responsible for what he does. Those who write where many read, and speak where many listen, had best be careful what they say. Someone is bound to take them seriously, and it is really no good pretending that you don't know this."
...............
"During a short spell at a cathedral choir school...I...experienced the intense beauty of the ancient, Anglican chants, spiraling up into chilly stone vaults at Evensong. This sunset ceremony is the very heart of English Christianity. The prehistoric, mysterious poetry of the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis, perhaps a melancholy evening hymn, and the cold, ancient laments and curses of the Psalms, as the unique slow dusk of England gathers outside and inside the echoing, haunted, impossibly old building are extraordinarily potent. If you welcome them, they have an astonishing power to reassure and comfort. If you suspect or mistrust them, they will alarm and repel you like strong and unwanted magic, something to flee before it takes hold."
................
"I had spotted the dry, disillusioned, and apparently disinterested atheism of so many intellectuals, artists, and leaders of our age. I liked their crooked smiles, their knowing worldliness, and their air of finding human credulity amusing. I envied their confidence that we lived in a place where there was no darkness, where death was the end, the dead were gone, and there would be no judgment. It did not cross my mind that they, like religious apologists, might have any personal reasons for holding to this disbelief."
Again, the initial contrast I sense between the two brothers is this. Peter is introspective of the non-rational foundations of his beliefs. Christopher has an almost naïve lack of awareness of the psychological springs of his own attitudes. He is less in touch with his heart and with his depths. Note, I'm not saying he is unemotional. If anything, he is more passionate and emotional in his argumentation than his brother. He is simply less introspective, less in touch with his heart and his depth.
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