Hitchens is debasing himself in his peevish, trite, and pointless literary offensive against theism and religion (two subjects he confuses endlessly; I gather he believes they're synonymous).  Although I probably shouldn't feed the troll, I think it's safe to assume he won't see or reply to this.

In the following except from The Portable Atheist, he makes a pathetically obvious logical error; see it?

Nine times out of ten, in debate with a cleric, one will be told not of some dogma of religious certitude but of some instance of charitable or humanitarian work undertaken by a religious person... My own response has been to issue a challenge: name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer. As yet, I have had no takers. (Whereas, oddly enough, if you ask an audience to name a wicked statement or action directly attributable to religious faith, nobody has any difficulty in finding an example.)

I really admire Hitchens as a writer, a thinker, and a fascinating character, but this is thinking so sloppy it rather embarrasses me to read it.

Hitchens notes that when clerics trumpet some charitable deed performed by the religious, he thinks, "Well, nothing they do isn't also done by atheists; at the very least, nothing they do is in principle un-doable by atheists.  There is thus no connection between religiosity and good deeds."

He then notes that when he asks for examples of wicked behavior from the religious, instances abound.

1. (1)It's obvious that few (if any) deeds require a belief system to be accomplished.  What matters is whether there is a correlation, and whether there is a comparative variation in frequency: if 80% of worldwide charity is undertaken by believers, the argument of the cleric is meaningful and Hitchens is wasting our time.  Even if the correlation isn't established, Hitchens has, at best, proved as much as the cleric, and has only said something we all know: all sorts of people do good deeds.  This is not an argument for or against religion or theism.
   

2. (2)Worse by far is that Hitchens then commits the very error he criticizes the "cleric" for: he states that "nobody has any difficulty in finding an example" of religious people doing wicked things.  I would ask him to please "name me an [wicked] action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer."  There's no need to suggest examples of atheism spawning terrible violence; merely to mention Hitler and Stalin is enough, I hope, to put to rest the idea that atheism and reason will lead easily to peace.
   

I remain an atheist, and I do favor reason, but Hitchens' failure to see his own logical weakness is too disappointing to let pass without comment.