As a professor with a doctorate and two master's degrees in separate fields of study, I don't see how any person can credibly be considered well-educated and intellectual if they simplify so greatly such an important and diversified subject as religion. I agree with Jason Cowley who, in the Financial Times, said this: "[Hitchens'] will be remembered more for his prodigious output and for his swaggering, rhetorical style."

Although I believe that most thinkers of this world (including often myself) can be befuddled by the complex and nuanced realities in which we all exist, and although I believe that the simplification of subjects can lead to fruitful and deeper understandings of their essences, I also believe that Mr. Hitchens offered little to the debate over the negative or positive qualities of religion. Having studied his book God Is Not Great I feel confident in saying that Hitchens’ arguments concerning religion did help foster debate and controversy; however I believe that a more nuanced treatment of any subject as complex as monotheism is the only productive avenue for their discussion.

Mr. Hitchens likes to carry himself off as a well-educated man, but his understanding of religion is remarkably infantile! There are many well-reasoned criticisms of the variety of typical Christian, Jewish, and Islamic monotheistic understandings of reality. I am aware of similar criticisms of many other religions and, as a Christian minister, I take these criticisms to heart.

But what Mr. Hitchens fails to recognize is that many of the mandates in ALL religions are suggested and function more as human prescriptions of power and control over others, not as divine suggestions that lead to the betterment of all. His criticisms of RELIGION could be paralleled by making equivalent criticisms of MONEY: very great evil has been done for profit and by the use of money.

Does this mean that all money is bad, or simply that some people make use of money in harmful and destructive ways?