More Hitchens

In my previous blog entry I talked about the views of Christopher Hitchens and his book 'God is not Great'. My main criticism of his position was that he did not provide a complete argument. There are four main possibilities. Good that is done because of religion, bad that is done because of religion, good that is done without religion, bad that is done without religion. Hitchens makes a very good argument that the doing of good by the religious does not require a god to do it (all the goods could be carried out equally well by the atheists). He also recognizes but skims over that bad things are also done by atheists (an equally impressive list of killers and tyrants).

So the book, as I have said is imbalanced. But the arguments and the way they are put forward are extremely convincing and it got me thinking again. While I can see the argument I make seems viable I could not pin down the why. Why does he appear to present such an imbalance. Then I realized. He discusses 'religion' not as an evil corporation and separates (or fails to recognize) that religions are run by humans.

If religion is bad and his views are that the religions have no real divine foundation but are creations of man then to have religion removed would not solve the issue. For it is clear that the creations and running of organizations which are then use their power to corrupt, enrich and empower themselves over others is not just a religious issue.

Where there is any form of society there will be a hierarchy and therefore power and money to be had. Whether it be in a corporation, our politicians, capitalism or religion there will always be an opportunity for bad people to take advantage and do everything they can to perpetuate that position.

To pick on religion alone is not a useful argument to have today. It clearly provides a case study of how the worst of mankind can manipulate and do bad it is not alone. If we focus on the outcome Hitchens would like we see that his goals (a world without religion) would not remove the ills he places at the feet of religions. It would simply move the problem to other areas. Religion is a symptom of the problem not the cause.