It was received late, but at no fault of the sender, who had obviously thought hard about its content (thanks for that). One of the more curious arguments posed in support of religion is that it provides a sound moral framework upon which the follower may base his or her life. Implicit in this point is that without religion, one would be left without the necessary moral guidance to be a good, decent and morally upstanding member of society. As Christopher Hitchens’ quote alludes to, human decency in various forms has obviously been around for considerably longer than the world's main religions and the existence of that decency need in no way be correlated with religious practice. Far from it, at various times, various religions of the last two thousand years have been used to justify some of the most heinous crimes against humanity ever perpetrated and religious scripture itself often portrays its own deity as a vengeful, jealous, sadistic or malicious being, capable of deeds so hideous as to make those of Hitler or Stalin seem positively angelic. In any event, there are many people who have rationally deduced that the existence of an intelligent being who loved us all and who had created everything is so unlikely as to be discounted and these same people have, in the main, consequently determined that religious worship would be an anathema to them. However, for anyone to deduce that an unreligious and/or atheistic conviction would also indicate an absence of morality, is not only insulting, it is absurd.