Ken Blackwell and Christopher Hitchens recently engaged in a debate (of sorts) on the influence of religion in American history.

I feel sorry for Blackwell and it was refreshing to find Hitchens‘ not so belligerent or disrespectful. I say that I feel sorry for Ken Blackwell because he doesn’t seem able to hear Hitchens’ main point: the founding fathers were nothing like the evangelical Christians (mostly, although Christians of other stripes chime in) imagine them to have been.

Where Blackwell does make a point, and one which Hitchens stubbornly refuses to assent to, is that America’s moral principles are undeniably based on Judeo-Christian principles. They are not non-theistic, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim or any other religion.

Blackwell slips, though, when he doesn’t acknowledge the point Hitchens makes about one not having to be religious in order to be moral.

I offer the video clip as an example of the kind of debate that people have.