Hitchens vs. Religion

Christopher Hitchens is a brilliant man. In most areas he is a clear thinker and has a mind like that of Michael Medved in that he seems to have thousands of facts at his instant recall. But, he has at least one giant logic flaw in his new best seller “god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.”

The biggest flaw in his logic is the assumption that because many people do bad things in the name of Religion that we therefore can paint with a broad brush that Religion is to blame. It is almost as bad as those illogical thinkers who profess that "poverty" is the cause of crimes. So....rich people don't commit crimes? How ridiculous! The rich also have their own challenges they must conquer. Morals are not a function of how much money you have.

What a horribly flawed statement Hitchens makes! It is like saying that people don’t have anything to do with what they perpetuate, it is the madness behind their thoughts that is to blame. The murderer is not to blame for his acts, it was the beers he drank, or the flawed childhood is to blame. No, we all have bad influences in our life and we still have to choose as to how we react to our challenges. How we respond to adversity is what defines us more than anything! When the “going gets tough, the tough get going.” But the choice is there to be made.

PEOPLE ACT THE WAY THEY ACT BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT REALLY MAKES THEM HAPPY! - FAR. If they don't like the way they are acting, they have the capacity to change. When I smoked, I liked smoking more than I liked to not smoke, even though I told myself that I didn't like the fact that I smoked. I was lying to myself! I wanted to smoke more than I wanted to quit! PERIOD!

The Devil doesn’t MAKE people do IT! God doesn’t make them do IT! They choose to do it because that is what animates them to “feel good!” To have purpose.

Let’s assume for a moment that his silly premise is on the right track. What if we could blame a particular type of thinking on the actions of men, (and women), for evil acts? I would then propose that it would be two things and possibly three that are above Religion on the "reason ladder."

First, and foremost, is "FORCE" and particularly when coupled with the drive to try to create a man made utopia on earth is at the 20,000 foot level, which is above Religion.

FORCE is evil, FREEDOM is good!

Mao, Pole Pot, Hitler, Stalin, the "people" running the Inquisition, the "people" trying to "force" Shira, the idea of any type of heaven on earth that is “forced” upon mankind is the driving ideology behind most evil, not religion. It is the men with their goals of making others better through their ideology instead of by doing it one person at a time….starting with themselves. Those who want to use their “idea” of a better world, by “forcing” it on others is the key to evil, whether it be Socialsm, Communism or Shria.

Second, the idea that a group is a victim of society as a whole, or a victim at the hands of some other group is the next big driving force behind evil acts.

The feeling of being a victim of some other group can “justify” all kinds of immoral acts as it is a way of having their “justice”, or by getting “even”, as they suppose.

And finally, it is "Rationalizations." If my memory of my study of human psychology is still in tact, the mind of a person who lives in his left hemisphere creates a reason to “rationalize” all acts.

The mind has three hemispheres, a right hemisphere that always tells the truth without a worldview filter based upon facts it has amassed. A left hemisphere that always says that your heart is always right, and the middle hemisphere that gathers information from the other two hemispheres to make a final decision.

Many people want to listen to the side that says, “if your heart says it is good, then it must be so!” This is the emotional side of the mind, that ALWAYS says your heart is right, and the other hemisphere is the “logical” side of the mind.

If you believe in God and Satan, then you can understand the statement that "Satan doesn't ALWAYS lie. If he did, he would be easy to discover. He tells us that both Good and Bad are alright. He says "Everything is alright!" Which makes him right in many cases.


More people do evil by listening to the emotional side and then “rationalizing” rather than listening to the “logical” side.

There you have it. Hitchens, you are so filled with your “emotional” dislike for Religion that you are listening to the wrong side of your mind and therefore your logic on this point is greatly flawed!

God has nothing to do with what “some” people do in the name of their ideology, whether it be “Socialism, Communism, Nazism, or any religion-ism, i.e., Catholism, etc. It is all about their methods of “imposing” their view on others. There are good Atheists, good Baptists, good Catholics, good Muslims, good Methodists, good Buddhists, etc., and there are bad ones as well. Their Religions/Ism's teachings stand on their own. It is the flawed humans that are the problem.

Since 90 percent of the planet believes in God, it is only natural that much evil is done by those who believe in God. It is not their belief in Religion that animates them, it is their belief in “forcing” their “better world” on humanity that drives them, which includes many Socialists, Communists, Secularists, etc.

God’s main theme for those who truly study him is the concept of “Free Will.” This has been stated by most religious people in the saying of “God will force no man to heaven.”

This is why God seldom directly interferes in our existence. The religious say that he is “all powerful”, but yet he doesn’t “force” us all to obey his commandments. He leaves it up to us to figure what is truly "right."

Religion is not flawed. People are flawed, and since they are, they cannot make a utopian world no matter how much they try to “force” it, (Socialism, Communism, Religion, etc,) on others.