All the fighting is nothing more than saying, "My imaginary friend is better than your imaginary friend."

Think about the consequences of such a stupid idea.

People do evil things in the name of some God therefore the notion of a spiritual life is evil or delusional. People do evil things in the name of love, money and country too. We should toss all those in the trash.

Actually, I just finished reading a good chunk of Hitchen's new book and beyond religion being a waste of time, he refers to it as poison. Religious leaders are always trying to demonize people who 'believe in nothing' as shallow and amoral, all the while the true believers are killing each other all over the world, or at least making life miserable for everyone around them. As for me, I try to live my life based on the available facts and refuse to believe in anything beyond what's for lunch.

Who asserted that for the sceptic no amount of proof is sufficient and for the faithful no amount of proof is necessary. Hitchens takes a utilitarian view of faith in that he asserts, where it serves no obvious utilitarian good it must be a complete waste of time. Which is a little like asking Jeremy Bentham what the value of a butterfly is. Now if one takes the somewhat narrow view that relgion isn't evil, just its followers are, then one could the same thing as the Marxists and Communists that Hitchens followed in his youth. So what's left? Nihilism? Believe in nothing so as not to be smeared with the ethics of dangerous beliefs? Seems shallow to me. Anyway, never mind, I'm the evil one around here. Please carry on.

...just what makes you think Hitchens might get religion tomorrow?

Because when a guy who once called Henry Kissinger a war criminal now supports a war that dwarfs anything Henry Kissinger ever did, then you have to wonder what he's going to do next after he supports atheism. Is he really for atheism or is he planning to make his eventual switch even more startling?

(Yes, I'm talking to myself, but what the hell.)

...I, for one, will not be surprised. In fact, I will surprised if he doesn't.

He's just that kind of guy.

A truly excellent observation -- while this was originally directed at religion and "blind faith", it is equally relevant to the Iraq debacle and Hitchens evidently "blind faith" in the justification for this war.

It makes me wonder how someone like Hitchens can assert with such clarity that religion is a delusion, but cannot see that his own declared certainty about Iraq and WMDs is equally deluded, since it's based on no evidence (and in fact is contradicted by whatever evidence DOES exist).

Kind of brings to mind the Biblical injunction about motes in your brother's eye and beams in your own, doesn't it?

(Matthew 7:5) And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam [is] in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Whatever you may think about Hitchens' positions on Iraq, consider his now-famous quote about blind faith:

"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

Source: http://slate.com/id/2090083

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I think that is one of the better moments of clarity standing out in today's debate about religion/superstition (which are essentially interchangeable.)

...For the right message. Religion is a poison, with the modest benefits it occasionally confers on society far outweighed by its long history of murder and destruction. Unfortunately, a glib, self-righteous prick like Hitchens is the worst person to communicate this.

...wouldn't it be refreshing to get through a single day without having to hear: "god", "Jesus", "faith", "Christian", "Islam", "Sunni", Shiite"...and throw in Santa, too.

I don't know what comes after this life, but whatever it is and wherever it is I'm sure Jesus is watching us saying, "Elvis, what did we do to deserve this?"

"'Reverand' is something people should be more considered living down than with living up?"

Funny, I always thought that's you Hitchens felt about being called a writer.