Hitchens has too much baggage from the Illegal War he supported.
Professor Cole,
I know Sam Harris would willingly engaged with you in an intellectual conversation on the matter if you feel you have arguments that nobody else they have debated has posed to them. I highly recommend his new book "The Moral Landscape." He gave a talk at tedtalk and you can find him on booktv.
Religion CAN be a force of good, but at what cost?
How many moral acts does the Catholic Church need to perform to repent for the systematic rape and torture of children that has been going on for centuries?
How many good deeds need to be performed to repent for the Africans who die each year from HIV because missionaries preach condoms are bad.
How about denying equality for homosexuals?
How about the denial of global warming?
I'm sorry but I don't think morals can come from religion and if any passage that comes from religious texts can be seen as providing moral guidance, its by accident.
"And, Hitchens does not have a good response to the enormity of the evil done by secular leaders such as Stalin or Mao."
Stalin and Mao were evil people indeed. The only thing wrong with this is that their evil deeds were not done in the name of secularism. They did not use secularism as a justification. Anyone can learn the beliefs of Atheists in 3 seconds. Non Belief. It ends there. He would be the first to admit there are evil secularists as well.
Hitchens has too much baggage from the Illegal War he supported.
Professor Cole,
I know Sam Harris would willingly engaged with you in an intellectual conversation on the matter if you feel you have arguments that nobody else they have debated has posed to them. I highly recommend his new book "The Moral Landscape." He gave a talk at tedtalk and you can find him on booktv.
Religion CAN be a force of good, but at what cost?
How many moral acts does the Catholic Church need to perform to repent for the systematic rape and torture of children that has been going on for centuries?
How many good deeds need to be performed to repent for the Africans who die each year from HIV because missionaries preach condoms are bad.
How about denying equality for homosexuals?
How about the denial of global warming?
I'm sorry but I don't think morals can come from religion and if any passage that comes from religious texts can be seen as providing moral guidance, its by accident.
"And, Hitchens does not have a good response to the enormity of the evil done by secular leaders such as Stalin or Mao."
Stalin and Mao were evil people indeed. The only thing wrong with this is that their evil deeds were not done in the name of secularism. They did not use secularism as a justification. Anyone can learn the beliefs of Atheists in 3 seconds. Non Belief. It ends there. He would be the first to admit there are evil secularists as well.