As explained earlier, there is universal human (apart from the mentally ill) experience that certain things are bad...as universally people don't want those bad things to happen to them...and other things that are good. Application of the golden rule is just having a belief that every person should be treated the way one wants themselves to be treated. If that were taken to heart by all, there would be no moral problems in society, as a person's own conscience would guide them to moral actions...as they would only act in a manner they deemed they would themselves want to be treated.
Have you actually read Orwell? You may wish to start with Orwell's 1946 essay, The Prevention of Literature: http://www.george-orwell.org/The_Prevention_of_Literature/0.html Make no mistake. Orwell is very much not on your side of this argument. He knew what religion could do, getting his first glimpse when he attended a hermetic school run by Christian sadists in his early life. Do you actually know anything about the man that you seemingly speak so knowledgeably about? You think that the only societal alternatives are secular totalitarianism or theocracy? How about secular pluralism, where you get to keep your religion out of my face and out of the secular laws of the land? Meanwhile, you can pray to your heart's content as long as it bears no imposition on anyone who wants no part of it. How is that not the freedom that you crave? And don't talk to me about corruption. The church has a long history of association with corrupt and depraved governments. In addition to its initial support of the regime, the church facilitated the escape of Nazi war criminals to South America. It supported apartheid in South Africa. Only when the regime began to falter and the wheels started to come off did the Dutch Reformed Church elders have a revelation that maybe apartheid wasn't such a good idea after all. How telling that the church did not have this revelation when it had a firmer authoritative clutch, wouldn't you say? The list goes on and on. Power corrupts? When True Believers swallow the bullshit about eternal damnation or heavenly reward, can power actually get any stronger? When they have your heart and your mind, they own you. And yes, such power does indeed corrupt as history has amply demonstrated.
Does the feeling of power over the devil you portray as theism also corrupt? I mean to say that certainty corrupts just as much as power, where certainty is unobtainable. Both conditions lead to a sense of power over powerlessness, i.e. not being able to achieve true logical certainty...that leads to corruption of thinking. Intellectual certainty, when lacking logical proof as a foundation of intellectual thought, corrupts...absolutely.
You are running all over the place. Theism is a "devil" only insofar as its arbiters wish to hold sway over an unwilling population. Historically, religion and totalitarianism did not operate very differently. Each held people by the balls and did not let go for as long as it could get away with it. Throughout history, more atrocities were performed in the name of god than for any other reason. Religion is a basis for bigotry writ large. So long as religion is personal, it is relatively benign. As soon as True Believers feel compelled to spread the word of their god at any cost and upon those who want no part of it, then it becomes evil. Of this I am certain.
"it is relatively benign." Relatively benign? Please expound on that one. Overall, your argument is confused and suffers from the logical fallacy of modus ponens. Is extremist thinking bad? Generally, yes, and leads to corruption. Do we see extremist thinking in areas other than theism? Yes, of course. Then theism is not the cause of extremist thinking. The extremist thinker is attracted to extremist movements. Whether they are religious movements or if they were movements of extremist atheists to expel religion...if they are extremist in nature, then they are usually dangerous as they lead to corruptible thinking. "Religion is a basis for bigotry writ large." Patently false, simply because religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, Taoism, & Confucianism accept all other religions, they do not oppose "competitive" religions like the Abrahamic religions do. Please do make the same mistake and logical fallacy that the right wingers do with Islam, hating Islam because it is not Christianity... I understand your "beef" with Christianity, etc. but that doesn't give you the logical license to lump all religions into the same category.
Nice try, but not so. Sri Lanka was ravaged by violence and repression, and the contending forces are essentially Buddhist and Hindu. Ethnic tribalism, reinforced by religion, wrecked the society. You really should familiarize yourself with history. While you may not agree with Hitchens's opinions, his journalistic integrity is intact in his factual chronicling and is supported with full bibliography. He cites the first foreign visitors to Tibet who were appalled at the feudal domination, and hideous punishments, that kept the population in permanent serfdom to a parasitic monastic elite. Sound familiar? Japanese Buddhism became a loyal servant and advocate of imperialism and mass murder. During the Second World War, Japanese Buddhists regarded their country's membership of the Nazi/Fascist Axis as a manifestation of liberation theology. You really should read Hitchens, if not for his opinions then at least for his "investigative" reporting of factual history as compared to the revisionist variety. Brian Victoria's Zen at War described how Japanese Buddhists considered people to be children and that it was actually fascism rather than socialism that the Buddha and dharma required of the people. There are no innocent religions. History has shown that they all seek control and power in their own way. Even in the world's single remaining super power and the shining light among First World countries, religion continues to attempt incursions beyond the religion/state divide. (And yet, ironically, this distinction and separation between church and state is what distinguished the experiment called America from all other countries.) You need only look at home at how religion seeks to pull people backward rather than forward. And history has amply demonstrated what happens when religion exerts power and control, which it always seeks to do. It is a virus that perpetually seeks dominion over its host.
In order to make an argument false, all that is necessary is to show that is not logically true and consistent. If P, then Q. Q therefore P is the fallacy of modus ponens. It is exactly the way in which you are reasoning from the conclusion that religion is the cause of extremist behavior. The majority of time, religious people do not engage in extremist behavior...especially the eastern religions. So, if you want to find a causal relationship between a person and their behavior, you are going to have to find something other than religion to blame the behavior on. Religion is not causal across the board. It might be a factor, but more than religion is the person who is attracted to extremist thinking and extremist movements. They may or may not be religious, therefore religion itself is not causal. It goes to human nature, and by your own position...religion is not a product of human nature, but rather just an idea of some people. History has forever shown that some people want to exercise power over others, politics has been around longer than religion, so again your position is flawed and illogical as you are not looking to the cause of the problems...you are looking at some symptoms and making fallacious jumps to erroneous claims via a generalization fallacy. Hitchens arguments are flawed...and badly, because his reasoning is shoddy and full of selected situations, building a case that isolated and selected events are causal for an entire group, or an entire genre, etc. It is akin to racism in a way, as the same logical fallacy is in play. How is that? Say some blacks riot and cause problems in society. So a racist says, blacks are bad, because some blacks rioted. Hitchens does the exact same thing, as he picks isolated events (not the totality of all events connected with all religions) and condemns all religions. He then suggest that his way of belief is the right way for everyone...a totalitarian perspective. Think about it deeply and you will discover the weakness in your argument. "There are no innocent religions. History has shown that they all seek control and power in their own way." False, of course. Religions don't do anything...human beings do. Human beings make their own choices, they have free will, they can decide not to believe one thing or another...for that is what you did right? You made a decision to believe what you like. You want to blame some mommy and daddy religion for the ills of the society...I say blame the mind of mankind for the flaws of mankind, and we see religious people do good, we see them do bad, we see instances of totalitarian political thinking, and we see an Amish community do nothing of the kind. So again, while you may feel you are right, logically your argument doesn't cut the mustard.
And the NRA would be right behind you, proclaiming that guns don't kill people, people kill people. The problem is that guns in the wrong hands can do devastating damage. Religion, even more so. And religion always seems to attract the wrong hands. You claim that Hitchens refers to isolated and selective examples? Surely you must be joking. (If anything, your Amish example is perhaps one of selection and isolation. And even then, I wonder how many of its reluctant adherents are shamed into compliance under threat of ostracization.) Religion has been the scourge of society since time immemorial. Those who did not subscribe to the belief of the moment were killed. Those who tried to offer scientific explanations for natural phenomena were deemed heretics and spawns of the devil. There was never room or tolerance for open inquiry when religion reigned supreme. If you looked at a cleric the wrong way there was a good chance you'd burn at the stake. How many thinking people do you think decided to hold their tongue and toe the line when faced with the alternative? How is that any different from a totalitarian state when religion is left to its own devices by the very people it principally attracts? To this day, either an avowed atheist or a believer of anything other than the official religion could not become a US president because of the bigotry perpetrated by religion and the majority of those who subscribe to it. As I noted earlier, religion is a virus that seeks dominion over its host. Reminiscent of the tale of the frog and the scorpion, that is its nature. I must say that, while I find your political arguments quite lucid, your arguments in favor of religion are those of a child or a wishful thinker.
The NRA? Straw man. ...and I think you know it. A religion is a belief system, just like atheism is a belief system, just like conservatism or socialism or yada, yada, yada is a belief system. Your argument boils down to: "My belief system is better than your belief system." It may feel good to you, but arguments from conclusion filled with logical fallacies to prop them up are still illogical arguments. Freedom of choice of a belief system is good...any extremist, even atheist extremists who would abolish other belief systems, i.e. religions are not healthy and moderate in their nature. I can repeat this for the umpteenth time, I support anyone holding their own belief system, as long as they don't force their belief system through a political process on anyone. Religions throughout history have not ALWAYS forced their their beliefs on anyone...so your generalization fallacy is showing once again. Or are you held at gunpoint when the two Mormon guys come to your door to accept what they say is true or they will kill you? Hell, do they even make you open the door to hear their pitch? It is laughable really, your lack of logic, and pure emotionally driven fallacy filled arguments...but hey, if it makes you feel good, I don't see any harm in it. It is easy pickens to demonstrate your flawed reasoning, just like it is easy for any real critical thinker to destroy Hitchens arguments by illustrating the genuine problem with their foundation. The danger is when so called reasonable people produce arguments that are not logically sound or consistent, and they are preaching "reasonableness." It is no different in principle than Christians preaching love and peace...and bombing women and children in Iraq. There is an enormous gap between the atheistic promoters, and true intellectual honesty and fallacy free arguments...