FORMER BRITISH prime minister Tony Blair and noted atheist Christopher Hitchens were scheduled to take part in a public debate on the subject of religion in Toronto overnight.
Mr Blair, a convert to Catholicism was to argue that faith is a force for good while Mr Hitchens, who has terminal cancer, was to propose that religion is the world’s “main source of hatred”.
Both men were interviewed in advance of the debate by the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper where Mr Blair revealed that his father “is a militant atheist. My mum was sort of bought up in a religious family because she was a Protestant from Ireland (Donegal) but wasn’t especially religious”.
He said: “I think the place of faith in the era of globalisation is the single biggest issue of the 21st century.”
He continued: “I would say that even if you’re not the slightest bit religious you can’t really understand the modern world unless you know something about the faith community. And the great prediction that was made when I was growing up and at university that as society developed, so religion would fall away, has proven to be one of the many wrong predictions that were made. The truth is religious belief is still very much with us and very alive.”
Christopher Hitchens told the newspaper that religion “immediately makes us, essentially, slaves. And it has to be opposed for that reason.” It had “the effect of making good people say and do wicked things. For example, a morally normal person when presented with a new baby would not set about its genitals with a sharp stone or a knife.”
Moral values “come from innate human solidarity. They’re the values we need, have needed to survive as a species. Knowing we have responsibilities to other people, for example, knowing that certain types of behaviour are worse than antisocial,” he said.
“Religion is manmade . . . it’s one of our artefacts, along with, fortunately with, genuine humanistic morality. And I think it’s essential to choose between the two.”