Comment 23 by anewseminarian :

Comment 21 by eljeffe :

i think this is precisely what hitchens is getting at when he says that (paraphrased) the roots of the totalitarian are religious.

I would say not because if you look at all of the long established religions, they all have a system of internal jurisprudence that provides people with rights, due process, presumptions of innocence, etc.

Disguised totalitarianism is oft an unavoidable concession to running large populations. In a big world you have the innocents starving to death - randomly chosen by chances amidst the entropy. It's as good as a totalitarian empiricism - unaccountable to the bonus seekers who've leveraged themselves several layers of distance from any direct responsibility to the victims plights. Religious, and probably political system, have similar systems of consciousness farming. Feeding the masses the delusion serves short term purpose (of whatever their agenda) and cloak and daggers their psychology upon themselves (guilt based, ego based mind games sown for future value).

The long black cloak has an unseen silver dagger!