More Religion Bashing

And while we are at it, I mean religion bashing, here is a delightful article on the talk that Christopher Hitchens (one of the fiercest critics of religion, perhaps second only to Dawkins) had with Martin Amis. Amis and Hitchens are having a discussion on "The Passion of Christ" and the writer notes:

Building on The Passion and Jesus, Hitchens then launched a full-scale attack on religion. He unequivocally informed the audience that religion equals totalitarianism; that religion is simply a “Disneyfied fraud,” a denial of responsibility and a slavery of the mind. There is absolutely no excuse for being religious, and the human race simply must “outgrow the collective human yearning for God to exist.” “How long will it take us,” he demanded, to get away from “peasant religious belief?” We must “dump the priests, rabbis and mullahs.” Little evidence and no explanation were offered, and it had begun to feel as though Christopher Hitchens was demanding that we take everything he said “on faith.”

If there were any lingering uncertainties as to Hitchens’ ability to formulate a moderate opinion, those were likely dispelled when he tap-danced through his “Mother Teresa is a Slut” number.

I don't think Hitchens ever called Mother Teresa a "slut" but he did use the word "prostituting"; in a metaphorical way of course and wrote a book on her entitled, rather suggestively, "The Missionary Position". Here is an interview of Hitchens on the topic and a letter by Hitchens to New York Review of Books. And don't miss the article that Hitchens wrote on the occasion of Mother Teresa's beatification.

Reading the papers or glancing at the television, one could have got the impression that His Holiness the Pope was the accepted moral tutor for the entire world, instead of the leader of a traditionalist sect that calls its ostensibly celibate and virginal officials by parental names like "Father" and "Mother" and opposes almost every kind of sexual expression while making allowances and excuses for adult-infant penetration.

The whole stuff here.