A Condensed, Illustrated Argument Against Religion by Christopher Hitchens

Of course I meant it's hard to argue that people have NOT done great damage in the name of religion ...

Obama's speech that you posted recently is a great rebuttal to the last bit of this. Hitchens is incredibly cynical (I saw him in a debate in Madison, WI years ago -- he's a brilliant speaker, but incredibly full of himself [Rumsfeldian arrogance] and incredibly cynical). He (Hitchens) implies here that religion prevents us from being what we can be as a species. While it's hard to argue that people have done great damage in the name of religion, I think it goes FAR too far to imply that religion prevents us from reaching our full height as a species.

Absolutely. Many of his arguments are conclusions I came to after being steeped in Christianity for 20+ years. One thing to keep in mind though is that there are Christians who reject terrible doctrines like original sin, the omni-attributes of god, retributive atonement, etc. Before I left the faith, I joined their camp, but I soon realized that they were just trying to keep their Christianity and be honest with their own consciences.