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Religion has been a wonderful and positive influence in my own life, but lately I grieve over how mean-spirited and intolerant religious people have become. I often wonder what has become of the Christian virtue called love. Christians of the early 21st century seem to love only those with whom they agree. Ironically that makes them no better than those Muslims who advocate jihads against the west, or any other group that Christians love to criticize.

I wonder if religion is not more disruptive to a peaceful and loving society than it is helpful. Could it be that so many of today's "faithful" people are poor representatives of the religions they embrace?

Rev Cooper - why not take one tiny step forward and continue your good works without feigning belief in the supernatural.

Zach, most atheists are agnostics and vice versa. There's a difference between denying the possibility of something outright and simply being unconvinced. The unconvinced, whatever their reasons, are still atheists. I truly wish people would stop representing agnosticism as a separate intellectual position from atheism. It creates a false notion of what the most common atheist position is, and it misrepresents both atheism and agnosticism. I can't rule out the possibility of god, no matter how small I think it is (it's not possible to prove a negative), so I can't claim to know (gnosis) that god doesn't exist, which makes me technically agnostic, but that doesn't mean I believe, which makes me also an atheist. Agnostic atheism is by far the most common form of atheism. So, when you recommend an atheist try agnosticism instead, you're being rather nonsensical. Chances are the person you're speaking to already is an agnostic AND an atheist.

i had no idea there were still so many thoroughgoing rationalist disciples of the enlightenment. where were you when the modernist project fell apart in the twentieth century? and chaotician, your summary of christianity is shallow and myopic. the concept of sin is not what you make of it, nor is the concept of god "an angry old man in the clouds." that is YOUR purview of christianity, and from that perspective, it's quite obvious to me why you see no need for religion. i see no need for that brand of religion, either.

i encourage you to read Karl Rahner's foundations for christian faith.

we are also misunderstanding faith when we say it is somehow a human thumbing his/her nose at the brutally obvious facts of existence in favor of some wish-fulfilling notion of life-after-death. that is inappropriately glib. only a fool would say this. rahner's understanding (in line with anselm and erlich) is that faith is a "pre-gripping" of the divine. this conversation would not even occur were it not for our pre-notion that the divine either can or can not be. in railing against god, atheists are simultaneously affirming god as a live option. may i recommend agnosticism if you really feel that faith is wrong.

In fact I have my own regard to Mr.HITCHeNS's believe. But it is unfair to announce religion in general as unhealthy to humanity. First we should understand what is religion? What does it mean? And limitless questions about religion in general. It is the reality of any religion and its followers to ask about their origin. I do believe that life without religion is meaningless. It is religion gives human that there is another life after death. IF THIS idea (there is life after death) is wrong, the God and live will be meaningless. By this a dictator and a fair person are equal. I ask a question, I hope Mr. Hitchens answer me. Do you believe that you and Hitler are the same after death? In fact religion tells us not to make life bloody. But I agree that sometime the followers use the religion as a tool to get their opportunities.
This my email (aso_duhok@yahoo.com)

Dear Jim,
Providing Help, Hope, and Healing can best be done in a non-religious setting; especially from a Christian one which depends so much on the belief that man is inherently sinful and must accept that only some mean spirited old man in the clouds can forgive and provide meaning to a life! How anyone capable of though as presumably someone who spends many years in a seminary would be can still pretend to believe such nonsense is a miracle of desire and fear conquering reason and facts!
Why do men seem to need some reward to help and serve their fellow men?

After observing many different religions, I have noticed that people tend to blame "God", or their faith for their achievements.

Are you saying that you would not be able to work agains to violence, irrationality etc. in our community today if you were not with your faith?

Don't blame religion for yourself being a strong person...it's just not right

You would say that.

You've missed Hutchins points also, that all the good people of religion do, can also be done *without* religion. One does not need god to care for his fellow human beings.

As to "healing" if you mean comfort, you are right. Religion does comfort many, at an exorbitant price: living life sustained by comfortable lies -- I find it somewhat ignominious.

I assume the Rev. Dr James Cooper has a first
rate intellect,since, he has a doctorate. Having
made this assumption, it is surprising on his
part, given his intellectual heft, to be so sanguine that religion can solve the problems it has created in the first place.
It is more than two millenium since christianity
was founded and we still have the same problems
that have been there since its inception. When will christianity ever take responsibilty for
its failures.
And when will christians ever have any sense of self respect, to question this guy called Jesus Christ as to what the heck he is doing sitting in heaven(God!! only knows what that means). All he has been doing for the last two millenia is
spreading misery. Hey! is anyone going to hold
this guy(or God what a shame to give him such a moniker) responsible. If all the burden of proof
is on poor souls on earth with imperfect bodies and imperfect minds; what the heck is he there for?!!

"You will know them by the fruits they bare," and the Christian holier than those bore us George Bush.

A non-essentialist & non-reductivist but nonetheless historically informative definition of 'religion' would have been helpful - - -

X is a religion if X has at least a majority of the following characteristics: . . . . . . . . .

Otherwise claims about the vices or virtues of religion-as-such or a particular religion are worthless and only invite self-serving defensiveness from the so-called "faithful" of all "faiths", religious & non-religious, naturalist & non-naturalist, X & non-X!

As it was once well put, all of us live by "the substance of things unseen, the evidence of things hoped for", that is, that part of each person's web of beliefs in which we each, respectively, put our ultimate trust, only to vindicated or not by living by those beliefs.

Dear Rev Cooper -

A pretty sad argument. At the end of the day, you're saying that religion is good because believers occasionally do good works. Is that it? Religion as the equivalent of the Rotary Club or the local Orchestra Guild? If that's the case, I'll take the Rotary Club, if for no other reason than the lower overhead and a better return on donations.

BKP wrote:

"It may surprise you that some people arrive at a belief in God through pure reason and intellectual contemplation."

Nothing that people do surprises me.

I suppose pure reason is the only way to arrive at a belief in God, because there does not appear to be any physical, objective or external evidence.

A person can reach any conclusion, when he relies upon "pure reason" alone, without regard to physical evidence or external, objective proof. As Francis Bacon pointed out, people floundered around for thousands of years without making substantial progress and without learning anything of value because they tried to solve problems with intellect alone, without experiment and observation.

"I would say the faith as a function of intelligence is U-shaped."

I do not understand this comment.

"It may surprise you that some people arrive at a belief in God through pure reason and intellectual contemplation."

It shouldn't surprise you that the "pure reason" utilized here is inherently suspect. This statement sounds like an attempt to legitimize a belief in the supernatural as an equal to true scientific/mathematical logic and reason.

To draw a conclusion of God through pure reason and intellectual contemplation would require "negative logic"... meaning, this phenomena can't be explained through any other means, therefore it must be God. This is not a valid argument under any circumstances.

This standard for intellectual reasoning would not be acceptable in any other discipline.

Jed Rothwell,

It may surprise you that some people arrive at a belief in God through pure reason and intellectual contemplation.

I would say the faith as a function of intelligence is U-shaped.

I wrote:

"The dying atheist I have seen had illusions and nothing to fear."

That came out way wrong. It was supposed to say:

The dying atheists I have seen had NO illusions and nothing to fear.

I apologize for these odd mistakes. I am forced to use voice input instead of typing for the most part, and the computer makes peculiar & inhuman transcription errors. People may think I'm crazy, but I am merely cybernetic.

Dear Rev. Dr. J. Cooper,
hope, healing and help should now come from a democratic elected goverment. It is true that two thousand years ago religious communities were
providing these spiritual and material needs. At that time, there was a need for the promised
High Being to bring justice, love, hope; this is way the gospels were written ( invented or fabricated) by persons who knew the old Testament very well and labored for decades to fullfill- in writing- the profecies. All was for a good intention and it worked well at first. Then desire for power, greed and many of our savage instints we got through evolution ruined the religion. Why tell children lies? Let us build hope, spirituality and love out of a democratic community.

"But Buddhism and practicing Buddhists are NEVER violent, and it beggars reason to say Buddhism (or secular humanism) is a violent philosophy."

Well . . . The Japanese Buddhist warrier-monks were violent and politically assertive during the 12th century. Zen Buddhism was later a source of inspiration for the Bushido warrior cult. During WWII the Buddhist establishment supported the war wholeheartedly, as did many leading Buddhist intellectuals such as D. Suzuki.

Perhaps Japanese Buddhism is apostate. In general, Buddhism is a peaceful religion, but for that matter so is Christianity, although it has been violent at times.

Some religions are violent and some are not; some believers are and others are not. Some Buddhist sects do not even subscribe to belief in God -- which is sensible and enlightened from my point of view. As I see it, the only fault common to all religions is faith, which as I wrote previously, I do not approve of. Frankly, I find it alien, and I will never understand why religious people feel that faith is a good thing. They say "of course we have no proof; that's why we call it 'faith.'" I would be embarrassed to admit that!

Some people long to believe, and envy those who do. Karl Rove reportedly said, "I'm not fortunate enough to be a person of faith." There is nothing fortunate about it. I feel only pity and dismay for believers. They are especially pitiful when dreadful things happen to them. They seem to feel betrayed. I have seen many people sick and dying, and other confounded by brutal murder or the loss of children. The religious people seem to be in such desperate straits! They ask "how could God do this to me?!?" I feel so sorry for them. Religion seems cruel, and pointless, and mischievous. I have never seen an atheist so pitiful and dismayed, and betrayed by his philosophy. The dying atheist I have seen had illusions and nothing to fear. (Perhaps I mistake the causality, and it works the other way around. Perhaps preternaturally calm & brave people tend to be atheists because they do not fear, and frightened people tend to reach out for religion because they cannot face reality.)

I understand that "faith" is a form of intuition or a gut-feeling. Such things are fine for art or love, but you should not base a philosophy on them, or morality, or try to explain the workings of nature. Faith should play no role in making rational decisions about society, or helping poor people, or the other good works described by Cooper. Atheism is a stronger, more reliable long-term basis for these things, as the Europeans have demonstrated in the last 60 years, after WWII knocked the stuffing out of their religions.

Mr. Cooper,

There is an overwhelming amount of historical evidence that religion has caused wars, destruction, and hatred among human beings. Whether that's unhealthy or not, that's for anyone to decide (e.g. ice cream is unhealthy, but we still love it).

Mr. Hitchens is simply stating that based on this evidence.

While applauding the humanism and rationality of the columnist, i must disagree with a major point:
Hitchens says:
Religion is violent, etc.

When we say "Gary Gilmore is Violent" we don't mean that he is violent every minute of his life or to every human being he interacts with.

We mean he has an inherent, recurrent tendency and acting-out-history of violence.

Religion CERTAINLY has a "recurrent tendency and acting-out-history of violence". One can argue about whether it is inherent, but it sure crops up over and over again with different religions.

So: Religion is Violent in the same sense that Gary Gilmore was violent. Etc for H's other fine attributes.

Not every religion or religious person is violent all the time.

But Buddhism and practicing Buddhists are NEVER violent, and it beggars reason to say
"Buddhism (or secular humanism) is a violent philosophy.

I have never been able to "have faith". Yet, I join others in congratulating you on your quite resonable postition. If only we had more religious leaders who spoke and wrote the language of rationality as you appear to.

We need more people of faith like you.

May your God bless you and keep you safe.

"There are simply too many religious communities and religious people across the globe that provide hope, healing, and help for millions."

European societies are more atheistic than the U.S. and yet they provide more foreign aid and better social benefits to the poorest members of their own societies. They act more Christian than most American Christians do, so I conclude that religion is not necessary for good works.

Religious communities do good work, as you say. But these communities will not disappear overnight. If they do gradually wither away as European churches have done, there will be plenty of time for secular organizations and governments to step in and replace them.

Religion & its practitioners are so varied that it one cannot say it is healthy or unhealthy. It is good for some people and bad for others. I do not like religion because there is no objective, external evidence for it, and because it calls for a "leap of faith"; that is, belief without evidence. That is unscientific and irrational. But people have many irrational and mistaken ideas, and they usually causes little harm, so most religions do not upset me.

Sir,

With all respect, are you saying that you would not be able to work against violence, irrationality, etc., if you were not affiliated with your faith community?

You strike me as a very strong person. Yet your statement: "I find the strength and will to do that through the faith community that informs my life and actions," gives the appearance that you cannot stand up without that community.

Surely your view of your own goodness and strength is out of synch with what they really are. Your acts of kindness and support of others need no religious framework in order to be valid, or even accomplished.

This is easily the best, and the only coherent, response to Mr. Hitchens' points (and, sadly, the one with the fewest comments). The problem I think you may ultimately have to address, however, is how you propose to work against things such as irrationality, intolerance, racism, etc., when you continue to use faith as a primary building block of your discourse. Take "irrationality," for instance. If you're using it in the normal sense of the term, it means "not logical or reasonable." Logic and reason both require that our assertions and beliefs be based on some sort of tangible evidence available to everyone, yet the whole point of faith is asserting and believing something for which there is no, and cannot be, any evidence that is available to everyone.

You are the type of religous folk that non-believers can get along with. Rational, reasonable, non-judgemental, compassionate, modern. Keep doing your thing, it appears you are trying to modernize the religous community of which you belong. Non-believers should have no qualms with you.