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Religion: Christopher Hitchens I Was Reaction Paper

Of course, he did not address any of the wonderful things people do in the name of religion, and I do wonder about that. Is the thought that people would do wonderful things anyway, even if they did not have a religious orientation motivating them to do those things? Is the thought that the wonderful things done in the name of religion are dwarfed by the awful things done in the name of religion? Honestly, I do not know the answer to that one. I believe that one's choice of religion is not really as much of a choice as people suppose; it has largely to do with where and when a person was born. However, how one interprets religion may be largely impacted by choice. For example, looking at a single issue that has challenged the modern Christian community, homosexuality, one sees Christians running the gamut from openly embracing gay members and sanctifying their unions to the Westboro Baptist Church's hateful and violent rhetoric against gays, and Christians all along that spectrum frequently claim that their religion...

It certainly seems to me that this approach is similar in any controversial area; regardless of one's stated religious preference, the individual is going to twist religious mandates to meet their personal beliefs.
In many ways, Hitchens' reinforced my existing views that organized religion can be very damaging and dangerous. However, I am not certain that I am willing to go so far as to agree that all religion is inherently dangerous. I do not think that there are only two alternatives: organized religion and atheism. I also have to question whether it is actually religious differences that have contributed to so many global conflicts. All of the disputes that Hitchens' mentioned not only involved religion, they also involved access to resources. If the people involved had not been of different religious backgrounds, would they have found a different "ethnic" excuse to kill one another? Unfortunately, I think the answer to that question is yes.

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