An interesting debate has been uploaded to Google Video, which was posted on Digg a while back, between Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton. Hitchens is the author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and Sharpton is an American Baptist minister.

When I started to watch this, I was afraid it would just turn into an arrogant shouting match, but both conducted themselves very well. They, for the most part, answered questions with well thought-out answers and took criticism and playful ribbing without becoming defensive.

The debate goes in circles a little at times with Sharpton wanting to focus the discussion on God rather than religion and Hitchens not complying. I haven’t read Hitchens’ book yet, so I can’t vouch for how valid this is, but according to Sharpton he does write about God specifically and wasn’t bringing those points up during the debate. Otherwise, I think it went fairly smoothly.

I’m an atheist, but I’m not very militant about it. I’m not a Hitler Atheist, as I heard someone refer to their coworker as once - an insult that doesn’t make sense on multiple levels. My family is technically Protestant. I say technically because we never attended church, and I believe both of my parents think of themselves as agnostic now.

Religion in my family was always a private topic. We didn’t shy away from it, as I was one of those kids that had to ask a million questions about everything around him, but what you believe and how you decide to follow those beliefs was always something personal. I was never pressured in any which way, and my parents were great at discussing religion objectively.

I definitely agree with Hitchens that religion shouldn’t be preached in schools or forced upon people. I do believe, however, that it would be great if school curriculum included a mandatory course on religion in one of the lower grades. A course that would introduce students to the major religions followed throughout the world and their teachings. So many people’s views seem spoiled by propaganda and biased news reports. Something like this, early on in kids’ lives, could help stop some of the hate brought on by ignorance. Unfortunately, a course like that could so easily be abused by an instructor with a bias.

Anyway, it’s an interested debate. If more people could discuss religion as civilly and intelligently as these two, we’d probably be better off.

I’ve embedded the video for your viewing pleasure.