Hitchens VS Gerson

As an atheist with too little time and too many things to rant about I chose not to post on Michael Gerson's intellectually and philosophically absurd commentary, What Atheists Can't Answer. Well Christopher Hitchens, a man I rarely agree with these days, did respond and responded well in An Atheist Responds. Go read the entire commentary but here is my a paragraph that gets to the meat of the argument.

Implicit in this ancient chestnut of an argument is the further -- and equally disagreeable -- self-satisfaction that simply assumes, whether or not religion is metaphysically "true," that at least it stands for morality. Those of us who disbelieve in the heavenly dictatorship also reject many of its immoral teachings, which have at different times included the slaughter of other "tribes," the enslavement of the survivors, the mutilation of the genitalia of children, the burning of witches, the condemnation of sexual "deviants" and the eating of certain foods, the opposition to innovations in science and medicine, the mad doctrine of predestination, the deranged accusation against all Jews of the crime of "deicide," the absurdity of "Limbo," the horror of suicide-bombing and jihad, and the ethically dubious notion of vicarious redemption by human sacrifice.

That pretty well says it all. Of course he could have included this example of moral tolerance.