Christopher Hitchens targets God and faith

By Ed Stoddard

DALLAS (Reuters) - Combative writer Christopher Hitchens doesn't mince words in his new book. He thinks religion has done no good.

In the just published "god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything", Hitchens explains why he thinks religion is man-made, why he regards its claims to moral superiority as preposterous and why he believes religions are intolerant -- and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

With his trade-mark iconoclasm, he takes aim at more than a few sacred images: Indian independence hero Gandhi's rejection of modernity would have led to mass starvation; Mormonism is a "plain racket" transformed into a serious religion; a miracle linked to Mother Theresa is a transparent fraud.

British born and educated but American based, Hitchens spoke with Reuters about the book and his dim views of faith and religion.

Q: We live in an age of growing fundamentalism - Christian, Islamic, Hindu. But do you think in the 21st century that this may be a reaction to secularization and that religion is on its way out?

A: "As long as people are afraid of death and as long as it is suggested that there is a way around that I think religion will stay in the ring ... It is based on wishful thinking."

Q: A hypothetical question -- if astronomers or biologists discovered extraterrestrial life would that be the end of the world's revealed religions? Or would they fight back or roll with the punches as they did with Darwinism?

A: "I think they would probably do what they have done with Darwinism and even with Einstein and would say this just makes our creator even more wonderful than we had previously thought."