By James W. Dolan

In his recent book God Is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens contends that religion in all its traditional forms has visited death, suffering and turmoil on the world and we would be better off not believing in the God "myth."

One cannot deny that great evil has been done in the name of God and abhorrent acts committed by some who profess to be His instruments. My church has been guilty of cruelty and injustice. Islamic extremism is only the most recent example of the destructiveness of messianic ardor.

A proponent of secular humanism, Hitchens believes in the perfectibility of mankind through a combination of reason, science and evolution. Belief in a supreme being, he argues, distorts that effort and fosters destructive impulses that have plagued mankind throughout history.

He believes no God would tolerate the suffering unleashed in His name and the sooner we face the fact that we are alone, the better off we will be in our struggle to find human solutions in a chaotic world. Religion only distracts us from accepting that reality and applying our energies to the betterment of mankind.

For Hitchens, faith in anything but ourselves is foolishness. In so doing, he tends to ignore how or why we are here. As products of a cosmic accident, he maintains we inhabit the earth and must depend upon our own resources to escape the dangerous mythology that has impeded our development.

Free of the restraints of faith and religion, we can develop a more practical and humanistic framework within which to fashion a moral code of behavior in effect replacing the Ten Commandments with something more like the United States Constitution

His "Declaration of Independence" would be directed against God and religion. Sounds a little like what Adam and Eve might have tried to do in the Garden of Eden; a myth that Hitchens would reject as patent nonsense. Nonetheless, Christians believe that somehow or other mankind offended God by rejecting Him and thereby the evil of original sin became our legacy.

Sensible believers would never deny the catalogue of evil that Hitchens cites. Nor would they dispute that much of it was fostered by religion (albeit in some distorted manifestation). However, they would not overlook or excuse the evil perpetrated by the anti-religious &endash; Nazis and Communists for example.

We must all account for the evil that surrounds us. Hitchens does so by blaming religions. Believers see the flaw in all of us as original sin. We can no more prove it is the product of original sin than Hitchens can prove it is generated by faith and religion.

All we know is that we are somehow flawed, not just as individuals but as institutions, religions, governments, political parties, corporations and the like. In fact our individual flaws tend to be exaggerated when we combine for some purpose.

Hitchens is right. Religions are a problem but so too is government or for that matter any institution including those that profess to promote the public good. They are all composed of flawed individuals who share a common defect.

Religion is not the cause of the defect but a response to it. It is an effort to determine how and why we are the way we are. It provides a framework within which we try to grapple with imperfection. It often helps but sometimes fails and when it fails, the consequences can be devastating &endash; witness the child sexual abuse scandal in my church.

At their best, religions impose important and necessary restraints on human behavior. As a judge, I concluded that reliance on the law alone to prevent crime was foolhardy. Without an awareness of good and evil and a fundamental commitment to the good, we are doomed. That understanding and the restraints to avoid the one and embrace the other are first and foremost the province of religion and not the courts.

Despair is the absence of faith and hope. As I see it, even Hitchens has faith. He places his faith and trust in humanity. How does he conclude that faith in humanity is any less absurd than faith in religion? While religions have not always lived up to the high standards we naturally expect of institution devoted to the worship of God; neither have their secular counterparts.

The former at least acknowledge a higher power; essential in coping with overwhelming evidence of fundamental human weakness. I believe Hitchens' faith is misplaced. Although, I am impressed that he has the strength to persevere without the support, comfort and guidance that faith in God provides.

Most of us are too weak and need what he would view as the "Almighty Crutch" to hobble through the trials and tribulations of our existence.

James W. Dolan is a retired Dorchester District Court judge who now practices law.