CHARMAINE NORONHA | 11/27/10 01:48 AM | 
Guess who won?
TORONTO — Tony Blair faced a fierce opponent in the debating ring Friday night. Hitchens, 61, an avowed atheist, Vanity Fair columnist and author of "God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," has been a prominent voice in attacking religion.
"Is it good for the world to worship a deity that takes sides in wars and human affairs, to appeal to our fear and to our guilt – is it good for the world?" Hitchens said in his opening remarks.
"To terrify children with the image of hell ... to consider women an inferior creation. Is that good for the world?" Hitchens asked as he opened the debate hosted by the Munk Debates center.
Hitchens was just animated than usual in spite of his battle with cancer of the esophagus. He said earlier Friday that he scheduled his chemotherapy treatments around the debate so he "wouldn't have to let anyone down." Hitchens said:
"This is what I do whether I'm sick or not. (Religion) is still the main argument."
Hitchens also stated that his diagnosis has not opened him to God or religious belief.
Blair acknowledged that religion has been used to lead people to commit indescribable acts, but it has also led people to commit acts of goodness. Blair stated:
Health care in Africa has been delivered by those motivated by their religion ... The abolition of slavery was achieved by combined secularism and non-secularism. At least accept that there are people who are doing great things because of their faith.
Blair incited a sarcastic response from Hitchens when he argued the Northern Ireland peace process is an example of how people of different faiths can bridge their differences.
Hitchens: It's very touching for Tony to say that he recently went to a meeting to bridge the religious divide in Northern Ireland, where does the religious divide come from?" Hitchens asked. "Four-hundred years and more in my own country of birth of people killing each other's children depending on what kind of Christian they were . . ."
Audience members voted on the debate and preliminary results posted on the Munk Debates website sided with Hitchens, with 68 percent saying that religion is more of a destructive than benign force in the world.
BBC World News and the News Channel will broadcast the debate on Jan., 1 2011.
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