hitchens: the lou dobbs interview

I've always enjoyed Christopher Hitchens' appearances on The Daily Show, but his most recent interview left me kind of flat. Thankfully Lou Dobbs delivered the interview I wanted to see. Before you watch this, make sure you can get beyond the title of Mr. Hitchens' book, and focus on the practical topic at hand.



Talking about Buddhism in his lecture Journey from India, Alan Watts said,

"You do not need a religion. You do not need any Buddha statues, temples, Buddhist rosaries, and all that jazz. But when you get to the point that you know you do not need any of those things, you do not need a religion at all; then it is fun to have one. Then you can be trusted to use rosaries, ring bells, hit drums and clappers, and chant sutras. But those things will not help you a bit. They will just tie you up in knows if you use them as methods of catching hold of something."

I'd like to think that Mr. Hitchens rejects religion because he doesn't trust the occupants of the fat part of the homo sapiens bell curve to use it properly. Unfortunately, there is plenty of good evidence to that effect. And that's a shame.