Seeking the Principles of Power and Danger

Around two years ago I wrote an essay Human Rights and Cultural Relativism and I wanted to write up some   follow up observations on the issue of ‘universality’ and   ‘culture relativism’ since I’ve been reading Geoffrey Robertson ’s Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice .  Robertson’s book provides a history of the development of human rights from the Magna Carta to contemporary international treaties and supernational institutions. In the course of this history he frequently comments on issues of cultural relativity and how Authoritarian regimes in Africa, Asia and the Middle East – not to mention democratic Western states - have appealed to distinct cultural and religious traditions to excuse the violation of human rights.   This trend is exemplified, most shockingly, by recent attempts to enact anti-homosexuality laws in Uganda , that seem to come straight out of the book of Leviticus , a piece of scripture that literally pros...

The above clip is Christopher Hitchens closing arguments in a debate with intelligent design advocate William Dembski (available in full: here ) that seems to me to be a perfect coda and summation of the differences between the certainties of  faith (belief without evidence) and this risks of thinking for oneself. On another tack, I recently finished Hitchens' book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and found it to be a thoroughly enjoyable read. It has been criticized on a number of points of minor  inaccuracy, such as conflating the synoptic with the canonical gospels , which is disappointing and provides a superficial basis for dismissal,  but I don't think the handful of slip ups distract overly from the central thesis of the book that religion is obviously man made and abounds in absurdities, that thinking people cannot accept religion as a true or adequate explanation of how and why things are the way they are.