Hitchens' Comment on Slavery and Racism
Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything , has been interviewed by FrontPage Magazine in an article entitled (appropriately enough) god is Not Great . (I don't know if the small "g" in god is a typo or intentional, so I left it in.) During the course of the interview, Hitchens makes a rather strange statement. As to the "good" that religion has done, I state very clearly in "God Is Not Great" that many believers have done exemplary things. But I insist that they are valued for qualities and deeds that any humanist can applaud, and that supernatural authority is not required to oppose Hitler or Stalin, say, or slavery. Whereas scriptural authority WAS required, for example, to justify racism and slavery in the first place. Now, I agree in part that religious teachings have been used (or, in the case of Christianity, misused) to support racism and slavery. I have heard (but have never looked for myself) that Islam...