In Hitchens’ chapter “A Note on Health, to Which Religion Can Be Hazardous,” he continues his tirade against religion. This chapter is really just more of the same. Hitchens’ goal is not to offer a direct link between religious teachings and evil/suffering but rather to just show some of the worst moments in humanity and how people affiliated religiously were connected. What Hitchens continues to fail to do is show how religion leads to these things. He avoids the fact that even in this increasingly secular world that most people still affiliate religiously and so by the odds these connections are going to be found. Does he really believe if we turn to officially atheistic national experiments such as the Soviet Union or Communist China that we would find a pristine moral paradise?
Hitchens suggests that religion has lead to some very bad decisions that have harmed the overall health of people worldwide. Perhaps some Muslim groups have discouraged use of some vaccines because of supposed western conspiracies. However, I have heard secular people discourage use of vaccines because of pharmaceutical conspiracies. This is not a religious phenomenon. Also, somehow Hitchens forgot to mention all the Christian and other faith-based organizations that work hard to improve the health of children and adults worldwide.
What does religion say about sex? I can only speak about Christianity. Some organizations have made some very bad choices. The decision by the Roman Catholic Church to hide sexual abuse was evil. No excuse. But does Christianity lead to an unhealthy view of sexuality? Not at all. People may abuse religion to impose their own sexual values, but that does not find its origin in religion. Hitchens connects this issue with religion’s offensive view of women. Speaking for Christianity, the church has made some mistakes, but looking to the New Testament both Jesus and Paul had some very positive views of women, radical for their own time.
As for the end of the world, perhaps there have been some people who have looked forward to the end. But how do we measure this? Is it by how much it is spoken of? What about all the secular talk of nuclear war, climate change and other ecological disasters. I hear more of this talk from secular sources than I do from religious sources. By the way, Christianity does not look for the end of the world. The Christian hope is for the re-creation and transformation of the world (See Romans 8). The Christian hope is not pie in the sky when you die but resurrected people living on a transformed and perfected earth. No end of the world to look forward to.
