The final day of the 17th World Humanist Congress has opened with a keynote address by Christopher Hitchens, journalist, Vanity Fair contributing editor and author of books including "God is not Great".

In an entertaining survey of belief and unbelief around the world, Hitchens took his appreciative audience on a tour of totalitarian regimes and religions around the world. He damned the "parties of god" who seek to kill not only non-believers and adherents of other religions but also to "purify" their own religions.

In the holy land, there are two competing religions and it is only common sense that the land should be divided into two states. The majority of the populations want that, but it is not possible because of the malign influence of the parties of god.

He refuses to call creationism "intelligent design" -- you might as well give equal time to alchemy and astrology. How does he know that evolution is right? The Wilberforce-Huxley debate and the Scopes trial show the outcome of any open debate.