Poison

I was listening to the coverage of the US election earlier this week and the reporter was door-stepping various Trump supporters asking them why they were going to vote for Trump. One chap came straight out and said he supported Trump because he was a Christian and supported Trump's view on abortion (i.e. that it should be illegal in all circumstances) Now, I'm not suggesting for a moment that people shouldn't be able to hold vile opinions, but you have to ask, when it comes to abortion rights who is the more moral person here? Is it the Christian who thinks all abortion is wrong or the atheist who believes that there are clear and obvious exceptions to this (like rape) and that Women should have a say in how their own body is treated? 

To think about this we have to consider the motivations of the two positions more deeply. The Christian objects to abortion because (primarily) that only "God" should have the right to take life and that we are all "made" in the image of God. The Atheist would typically be concerned with minimising sufferring and would argue that in order to make a claim like this you first have to show how your base assumptions are true, i.e. that there actually is a "God" and this is what he wants.. In other words the Christian bases his claim to "what is moral" upon knowing the mind of God (if he exists!)

So who is more moral or compasionate? The Christian who is happy to ruin lives because he believes in a fairy story* that he can't prove but wishes to impose (by force if necessary) this delusion on other people who don't believe it, or the atheist who would prefer that the people who are the ones that are going to suffer most should have the right to make the decision for themselves. 

IMO Hitch was right, religion poisons everything.

*No one in the entirety of history has ever shown that it's not..