While I admire Mr. Hitchens' Voltairian delight in criticizing and poking fun at what other people take to be sacred, I think he should also recognize that people's self-censorship is not merely the result of fear. Many of us hold our tongues out of respect for others. For the same reason that I don't tell my corpulent neighbour that he's a fat slob I don't tell my Moslem friends that they are credulous idiots. (Also, I think that religions are more complex things than mere credos, but that's another issue.)

And for that reason your neighbor will die of a heart attack and your neighbor will live a life believing you are less than a whole person. I agree that civility is always preferable- but I do believe there is a balancing test pitting civility against some significant public interests where civility takes second fiddle.

Obesity is a problem, probably going to cost billions in healthcare- and not exactly a sexy issue going to be debated in the next few weeks. One can offer advice or aid to an ailing neighbor with candor- or you can 'respect' them by acting as though there were no problem. Obesity is a public problem with both individual and cultural causes- and so long as people take the attitude that respect is due to a fat person, a drain on the public, the public will continue to bear that cost without alleviation. As mean as it is, humiliation may be more appropriate than respect.

In the context of religion, the same kind of balancing test might apply. You might have a certain amount of respect for a person's choice to believe in a god, but that kind of respect is what will allow religions to continue to spread.

While you shouldn't tell your neighbor he is a fat slob, perhaps get him, with good humor, a gym pass- and slide your Moslem neighbor a copy of some philosophical texts. If that doesn't work, ridicule is a popular choice.

Yes -- I think your final advice is good. Let's apply it. If I were a newspaper editor bent on challenging the tenets of a given faith I would write respectful arguments rather than empty ridicule.

(That said, I think that there is a lot more to religions than mere true or false propositions, but, as I said before, that is a big can of worms.)

I can be very polite to my christian fundamentalist neighbor, even when they tell my kid that her halloween costume celebrates satan, but I still need to be able to write an editorial in the paper disagreeing with their teachings, and I need to be able to oppose them when they try to ram their religious beliefs on marriage and holidays down everyone else's throat.