Coverage of a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton on, you guessed it, religion and atheism. Also, because this is a blog at The New York Times, the comments are intelligent and insightful, which is sort of amazing in and of itself.
Anyway, Hitchens makes his case and Sharpton moves the goal posts around by refusing to engage in a debate over religious texts or religious doctrine, and opts to promote a god divorced from anything but personal experience. This is a winning strategy and everyone goes home happy.
It's interesting that Dawkins is regularly attacked for not knowing enough about Religion as it is practiced. So Hitchens does the research and is criticized for not talking about God as God. The whole debate is a house of mirrors and without the history of 20th century barbarism, they wouldn't have a finger left to waggle.
