Christopher Hitchens endorses Chinese crackdown on Tibet

(Washington, DC) - In the ongoing war of words between officials representing the People's Republic of China, who consider the recent trouble in Tibet to be a result of agents of the Dalai Lama, and those who see the exiled spiritual leader as a source of calm and reason in the current Tibetan crisis, a new voice has emerged in support of the recent Chinese crackdown in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and neighboring provinces...

"One only has to look at the violent protests taking place all over the globe by and for Tibetans to grasp the futility of thinking that religious nationalism can promote peace. Mao was right - religion is poison. His tactics and his policies were abhorrent, but philosophically he was quite correct..."

Hitchens has previously been critical of the fourteenth Dalai Lama on a number of issues, from claiming that the Tibetan political and spiritual leader has supported India's testing of nuclear weapons to his association with Shoko Asahara, the leader of a group that released toxic nerve gas in the subways of Tokyo...

Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet have come out in support of Hitchens' position, admitting that while the political and economic structures of Communism had proven too vulnerable to abuses of power, Communists may have gotten it right on how to deal with religion. According to Dennet, it was time concede that there is some validity in the complaints of their more vocal critics, who charge that if the New Atheists are going to hold everyone with a particular view of religion accountable for what any and everyone else with the same view has ever done, particularly emphasizing the most horrible aspects to give the impression that such atrocities are the norm, then they would have to be responsible for any and all acts done in the name of atheism or by atheists. Particularly acts against religion and religious people.

"It's time we realize that if we are true to our own standards of judging and criticizing others, we should recognize that in some ways we are heirs to campaigns against religion such as those initiated by the former Soviet Union and by the People's Republic of China," Dawkins acknowledged. "We have to be serious about saving the human race from the plague of religion, and if that means we have to make some sacrifices in the name of protecting our future, then so be it." According to Hitchens, "China is the only current or emerging superpower willing to call a spade and spade and take the necessary steps to liberate humanity from its bloody infatuation with the unreasonable and the inane, which hides under the veneer of respectability associated with religion..."

Sam Harris, who has written sympathetically about some Eastern forms of spirituality and meditation, but who carefully eschews any explicit reference to religious terminology or symbolism, was less enthusiastic about the harder line being taken by his fellow New Atheists. "I know that people think that we are all the same and that we share a common distrust toward and disgust with religion, but honestly, we have quite a diverse range of views concerning how and why we want to end [religion]", remarked Harris. "I think people sometimes unfairly lump all atheists together and assume we all think and act exactly alike, which is to say, poorly and unfairly. I wish they would take some time to really get to know the subtlety and nuance of our positions and realize that we are not a monolithic group."

An official from the Vatican, replying to these statements on the condition of anonymity, asked, "Wait, what is today's date?"