An alliance of values

Richard Harries, former Bishop of Oxford:

He [Christopher Hitchens] seems to think that religion is the root of all evil. It isn't. The problem lies with us, especially when we are organised in groups with a dominant ideology, whether secular or religious. His misdiagnosis is not just a baleful intellectual error, it has very serious consequences in the modern world, where religion is now such a major player... it alienates the millions of ordinary, decent, moderate religious believers who look to their religion to help them in the struggle to live a better life. Most seriously of all, it hinders the alliance that should be forming between people of all shades of belief and unbelief in the basic struggle going on in every country for human rights, peace and economic justice against fanatics of all kinds.

Hitchens can't think that religion is the root of all evil, given other things he believes, but anyway Harries is right that it's an error to think so, and that non-religious ideologies have proved just as lethal. He is also right that we of non-religious outlook should make common cause with all those believers who fight for humane values. We should regard the shared values as more important - morally and practically - than the differences of philosophical and metaphysical belief.

The freedom to criticize religion is not only a fundamental right; for those of us who are unbelievers it is also a kind of duty, since one must do one's part in opposing belief not supported by evidence or reason or, as it appears to us in this case, anything compelling at all. But that is something different from treating religion as uniformly productive of harm or as having a monopoly on unreason and fanaticism, and from treating its adherents as worthy of contempt. To do this is ignorance and folly.