I don't care too much about the personalities involved, the important thing in a debate is the arguments made.

Sharpton lost this debate by miles, and Hitchens didn't even do that well. This was best illustrated by Sharpton's inability to answer the two excellent questions posed by the last audience member to ask. I was wondering myself why he chose Christianity if he had a personal experience when he doesn't necessarily agree with the dogma that is said to be the word of god. Because Christianity just happened to be there? And the best he could do the rest of the debate was to try to put the burden of proof on the other side to prove that god does not exist, insisting that the existence of god was what the debate was about. Well, if that is what the debate is about, please Mr. Sharpton offer some evidence, because the burden of proof is on you. You can't. No one ever has.

Hitchens missed driving home a central point--not just that we can come up with our own morality, but that pretty much every religious person does it all the time. Who do you know that follows religious texts (the word of god) to the letter? Anyone? If not, then how did they decide that, (one example among many) that stoning people to death for working on the sabbath was immoral? Did god deliver an amendment? To whom?

So, to summarize the general belief in the popular western religions:

1. Humans need an absolute moral code, because humans can't think for themselves.

2. The best absolute moral code that we know of were created when everyone believed the earth was flat. It must be accurate because it was cobbled together years after god's messenger came to earth from contradictory accounts.

3. The moral code comes from god, magical figure who we haven't been able to prove exists.

4. Many things that happened in the stories contained in this religious text have been proven to be impossible. In our lifetimes we have never seen these things happen. But the central message must be correct.

5. We don't actually follow all the rules. But you should follow all the rules because they are correct.

6. Killing is not o.k. according to our religious text. Except when it is.

These things aren't pointed out to be clever, but because people who question the existence of god see death, see killing, and want it to stop. It might sound condescending but we care about the species and would like the killing to stop. For that to happen people need to question everything, and put humanism and compassion before everything.

In context, Al Sharpton did attack the Mormon faith. It is quite simple:

1. Hitchens points out how the Mormon faith officially believed in racial segregation up until fairly recently. Romney is a member of that faith. Hitchen said nothing about Romney specifically.

2. Sharpton says "don't worry about that, people who believe in God will defeat him anyway". Since nothing was asserted about Romney specifically other than his connection to the Mormon faith, then Sharpton is attacking Mormons.

However, I think if we get beyond words we will look at who Sharpton is and who Romney is we will see that Sharpton had forgotten exactly how Hitchens had framed it and was thinking of Romney merely as a Republican who he has problems with. An easy mistake to make, and of course the MSM is jumping on it. I haven't seen any coverage, but I imagine they haven't covered Hitchen's arguments very well, or that it has really spawned any debates on the existence of God. They don't want to touch that for fear of offending the religious, and because those who assert the existence of "God" will always lose.

Of course it is understandable that they would fear a backlash. I can also understand why Chinese, Japanese or other Asians would fear a backlash, just for looking "Asian" (the killer in the news spent a lot of time labeled as just "Asian").

After 9/11 there were attacks against Muslims, and I remember at least one Sikh who was shot and killed at a gas station, just because he is Sikh and wears a turban. (Sikhism being an entirely different religion than Islam, and, if anything, often themselves actually have racist attitudes towards Muslims).

Having said this-I think that maybe the safest place might actually be on campus and not nearby at a random gas station.

JUDAS!

Anonymous--good point but powercuts have been going on long before the recent "uptick" in high tech gadgetry. It is called inefficiency and corruption. Here are other potential gadgets that should be introduced on an Indian phone:

-button than can provide clean drinking water for poor

-help for farmers who commit suicide because they can't afford to feed their families

-one click will free you from the lifetime bondage of caste

-a button to make that garbage you just threw on the ground disappear

Point being (like Andrew pointed out) that India has advanced in many ways but the reality of day to day life for most people (still mostly rural) is corruption, living on $1 a day, dead disgusting rivers and a staggering amount of garbage on the streets.

Expat living in India (who actually loves India--just a little truth today)

Fourth

Quite clearly this was a setup by Iran, I was thinking this myself as I watched them eat their healthy meals--not subtle exactly. Very sad that the Americans made it such an easy setup-- not exactly difficult to make a contrast with naked human pyramids, attack dogs and forced mimicking of sexual acts.

Just for the record--I don't believe it. Stories about Critical Mass similar to this have been posted before and they turn out to be blown way out of proportion, if not outright lies once investigated. Same thing happened in Seattle and was debunked.