Tony Blair, Christopher Hitchens debate religion

Hitchens clearly won this. But kudos for the Christian world to allow this debate in the first place. Any attempt to do the same in, say, Saudi Arabia, would be met with an instant death sentence.

Organised religion is a great way for a few immoral people to make cash from the gullible and desperate.

How much evil is carried out in the name of religion every day?

Blair, 57, converted to Catholicism after leaving office in 2007.

@stevecpfc: Of course. It is a given. MONEY

The earliest form of politics to control a mass has always been irrelevant to the universe; don't believe and set yourself free, accept that the truth of insignificance --on a cosmic scale-- is a reality and do good in your life today to give yourself meaning; more and more people are waking up and breaking the shackles of religious control. Long be the day that all of humanity truly aspires to be emancipated from its past.

Go Hitchens! If you need religion and fear of God to do good things, how good can you be? People should do good things because they don't want their fellow human beings to suffer. You certainly don't need an organized religion to have morals.

politicians from democratic countries who tout religion in the way this cretin from the UK does are among the biggest hypocrites on the planet.

God is not Great is a wonderfully written and highly insightful book. I really wish I could have seen the debate.

REMEMBER the Chinese attacks on BLAIR's 2007 speaking tour of Chinese capitals. CCP media condemned it as money-raking, and "was full of pleasantries, and clichés on collaboration between the government and business, education, and environmental protection, but did not offer any new insight".

So why-the-heck is he now all of a sudden a spokesman.... for God?

Blair attempted to persuade his verbal sparring opponent, writer Christopher Hitchens, that religion is a force for global good when he was asked by an audience member how religion influenced his decision to stand with the United States against Iraq.

Good God, HITCHENS included on a "religious" debate... are they sure it's not the decline of western culture (or culture wars) they're debating? You might as well invite other celebrity gurus like Ann COULTER, Germaine GREER and Al SHARPTON to make it more diverse.

I've always thought religion was mostly to answer natural human curiosity about where we came from and what happens after we die. The other stuff is mostly filler to help you believe that you have the right answers. For a vast majority of people their religion seems to be linked to nothing other than geography.

I don't think you need to be religious to want to help people or end conflict. But in terms of organization you can't really deny the good that that a church can do. I've also seen some people start to get more involved in church which helped turn their lives around, so even if you don't believe what they do you can't deny that it did do something positive. Bust does that outweigh the conflicts that religion has created? Not sure. I just wish people could find spiritual fulfillment without the extra baggage that it sometimes creates.

Anyway, sounds like an interesting debate. I didn't know that Blair was involved in such things these days. In the end I suppose we just got lucky that someone asked about Iraq which suddenly made this newsworthy (profitable).

Religion is for the weak and used by others to control masses.

What would the world look like without it?

One way or the other the world needs something for the weak and some way of controlling the masses.

Pity it has to be something as fasical as religion!!

Religion is for the weak and used by others to control masses. What would the world look like without it? One way or the other the world needs something for the weak and some way of controlling the masses.

Yep, it's a culture war debate NOT a debate on faith. I do hope they'll organize another one, but without HITCHENS and Tony 'Faith Foundation' BLAIR...

We need to look deeply why and on which ground religion came first and who are being benefited most for it and who are getting ruined for it.

There's a great YouTube video on the work of Alan Watts (1915-1973) titled "Atheist Spirituality."

Talk about religion is ultimately pointless. As a great saint of India has put it, "He is an atheist who does not believe in himself."

Nice Dolphine

500 years later, most people are going to look back at today's view of religion and laugh.

medievaltimes:

" 500 years later, most people are going to look back at today's view of religion and laugh. "

Nice idea, alas there is no reason to think so.

Like anything else religion can be used for a variety of purposes. I use my beliefs as a basis for self reflection. Really depends on what teachings you focus on and how you individually interpret them. Same principle applies to theories on government and economics.

If you need religion and fear of God to do good things, how good can you be?

I don't think that was the focus of the debate. Actually Blair stated, "Religion doesn’t do policy. All my decisions were based on policy and so they should be, and you may disagree with those decisions but they were made because I genuinely believed them to be right." While that statement was made in relation to his decisions as a politician it was probably meant to apply to decisions made on the individual level as well.

Religion is for the weak and used by others to control masses.

So is media, government, educational systems, the arts, and diet plans. Everybody wants to control everybody else. Religion has been used as a tool of the corrupt in the past and will continued to be used as such but I find it ridiculous to judge and entire group based on the actions of a minority. It would be like denouncing all animal rights groups because the ALF is a bunch of crazed domestic terrorists or that all Russians are evil because of the holodomor.

Religion is an aspect of a person’s life. To marginalize it or insult those who believe in it is unnecessary and displays a gross lack of respect. If a person elects not to believe in a higher power than points for them, my religion has been a pillar of strength for me to draw from over the years. We all make our own way but so long as you path doesn't trample someone else I've got no problem with it.

all of the world's religions represent, to some degree, an inspired response to some crisis that arose in the course of history. politicians and bureaucrats in organized religions (i.e., the priest class) try to use religion to present an ahistorical transcendent timeless lie that enables them to achieve some aim--whether it be intentionally aimed to deceive and manipulate, or based on a delusory notion resulting in the blind leading the deaf type scenario. mr. blair is a fraud and a charlatan, and mr. hitchens a bonafide scholar, whether you agree with his views on religion or not. the fact that many people can accept the criminal acts of the charlatan politician yet can't abide with a scholar who is a proponent of atheism is a sign of the deplorable state of education and tolerance in civil society in this day and age.

WilliB - I would disagree.

Over the past 100 years, there has been an amazing array of inventions, discoveries, and advancements in a wide variety of fields that has radically transformed life as we know it. Just to think that we sent an object (and people), outside this planet for the first time in history a mere 50 years ago is quite something. I wish I could be around to see what happens in the next 500 years.

Just my guess, but we probably won't lose relgion per se...but rather our view/interpreation of it and how we apply it to our lives/communities/governments will be radically different 500 years from now.

Somebody once told me, the great thing about science is it doesn't care how you feel...it just is. Gravity doesn't care how you feel...if you jump off a building, you will fall. Religion is the opposite. It's whole existence is based on how you feel. Also, in science there is a concerted effort to actually DISPROVE a theory...whereas in religion, the tendency is to dig in your heels deeper and cast aside questions/doubts.

medievaltimes:

" Over the past 100 years, there has been an amazing array of inventions, discoveries, and advancements in a wide variety of fields that has radically transformed life as we know it. Just to think that we sent an object (and people), outside this planet for the first time in history a mere 50 years ago is quite something. "

Who is "we"? The Western, Judeo-Christian, enlightened and largely de-religioned world did. Certainly no theocracy did. Radical buddhist Buthan and Tibet did no such thing, animist tribes in the Amazon did not, and for that matter the entire islamic world did not.

Get real! It is totally ridiculous to generalize on all religions, as they all had the same content and taught the same behaviour.

Who is "we"?

Humanity. You misintepreted what I typed.