God is not so bad, after all

In this his book, God is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens discusses a hypothetical question he was asked by Dennis Prager: If he were alone in a unfamiliar city at night, and a group of men he didn't know approached him, would he feel safer, or less safe, if he knew these men had just come from a prayer meeting? Hitchens answers by specifying some "unfamiliar cities" where he may indeed feel threatened. Sticking just "within the letter B" he lists Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem, and Baghdad. He claims "absolutely" that he can find reasons why, if walking in any such city and meeting a group of men coming from a religious observance, he would "feel immediately threatened."

 

But is it just an intersection of extremism and place? Is religion really the core element here? If he was alone alone in a unfamiliar city at night, and a group of men he didn't know approached him, would he feel safer, or less safe, if he knew these men had just come from a political meeting where they were discussing profound (and fervent) matters of political ideology? Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Pol Pots Cambodia and in today's world Burma, China, North Korea, Zimbabwe...

 

The chapter is called "religion kills". Should there be one called "politics kills"? Hitchens seems to assume that if he can show religion kills, it must be a bad thing. By the logic of that argument, politics is also a bad thing. Shoddy logic, methinks.