Well, if you're nonbiased then you give the hat tip to Hitchens.  I am a Christian and give the tip to him.  I'm not sure if you think people will react and think that they have to side with Hedges.   One thing I will admit about Hitchens is that he seems non biased.  He is an atheist and I don't agree with him on his portrayal of religion, but I don't classify him as a biased person.  Penn and Teller are atheists and don't seem to have high opinions of religion, but their expose they did on PETA on the show "BS" was absolutely brilliant.  If you want to see a classic portrayal of PETA I would strongly suggest watching their expose.  There are many posters who post on here who are atheists or who don't seem to have strong religous beliefs that I respect.  Unsane is one who comes to mind.  He and I wouldn't agree on much if it came to a topic of religion, but other than that we have a lot in common.  So I don't know if you're trying to say that persons of Faith can't recognize if an atheist makes a good point that we can't give them the hat tip or not or what, but in my opinion if a person seems unbiased and makes good points then give them the hat tip when they make a good point. 

"I've always been crazy, but it's kept me from going insane"  Waylon Jennings

Do I detect a smirk in that comment? It's understandable. Not all believers are terribly "smart" in the worldly sense, and they don't have to be.  God doesn't judge us based on how well we did on the SATs or whether we got into Harvard Law. At the same time, I would note that there are some terribly "smart" people who are not atheists, including Christopher Hitchens' brother, Peter Hitchens, as well as that old fuddy-duddy Albert Einstein. He was pretty "smart" and he believed in a God. ...   When it comes to a debate between Hitchens and Hedges, Hitchens clearly has the advantage because Hedges' hostility to traditional Christianity clouds his anlayses and his judgment.  And when it comes to Islam, I think Hitchens makes many valid points, and he has done so in other debates (see You Tube for the actual debates)----that the Muslim world has a history of unprovoked violence against the West.  That the West fought back, e.g., the Crusades, is rational and defensible.  ... At the same time, Hitchens' hostility toward all religions, particularly Christianity, clouds his judgment as well.  He is consistently contradictory.  Hitchens contends that the ideas he supports---rule of law, private property, free expression, individual liberty, etc.---somehow sprang out of a secular humanist current that existed somehow outside of Christian (and earlier Judaic--Old Testament) parameters.  But it is clear that most of the freedoms we take for granted (and the subsequent prosperity, too) in the Western world developed from Christianity. Hitchens tries to gloss over all this as if it somehow happened differently because some of the Founding Fathers, for instance, were deists, or that some of the French Revolutionaries were atheists/materialsts.  He misses the forest for the trees.  The "freedom" and prosperity that Hitchens supports were all made possible because Christianity and Christendom set the foundation for them, and it carried it along (warts and all, and often sloppily) up through the present day. Hitchens may believe there is no God but he cannot deny that many of the liberties he enjoys today are the result of 2,000 years of Christianity, with good backing from the Ten Commandments.

I have almost a heroic gladness that Christopher Hitchens has emerged to take on his old comrades, and expose their ridiculous lechery in loving and excusing the Islamic enemy of everyone.
He is a genius, and a wonderful speaker and top of the line debater, I really cannot say I have experienced or seen another with such skill and recall and application of points. Indeed, in addition to all of that, he has a set of long knives and is more than happy to use them at any moment and with startling and judicious effect.
This man Hitchens housed Salmon Rushdie when the Fatwah was(is) upon his head, in his own home, in DC, displaying a lot more than wordy intellectualism with a biting and frighteningly cogent sting, travelled to Iraq many times without endless firepower surrounding him, certifying his credentials against attack by the anti-war crowd, and I have found him to be the last vestige of a REAL LIBERAL as perhaps the liberals that were around before I was born like to in nostalgia claim they currently "represent". They do not. Women, children, and their fellow countrymen they have abandoned, and embraced a fantasy certainly as large as Hitchens considers religions to be.
Well, Hitchens R-E-P-R-E-S-E-N-T-S, and in turn humiliates the crumbling and pathetic new progressive left's diabolic and distortedly micharacterized stabbing of the hand that feeds them, namely the USA and western ideals. He absolutely grinds them into a discarded shame of muddled putridity.
I'm a huge fan.
Rarely do I think it would be an honor to shake a man's or an undeserved treat to have a talk in person with the same, but Hitchens bears that distinction, as does at least one other, Robert Novak.
Three cheers for a brave intellectual giant who has some glaring faults, is more than happy to openly admit and embrace them, and go far beyond the weight they carry and breach the lies and inconsistent tomfoolery of the very drivel that issues from his former associates now deranged by their own failing prospectus, and whom no doubt never were deserving of his alliance in the years prior, a truth to which he has certainly become overwhelmingly aware of.

Good job Mr. Hitchens.

An intellectually honest socialist--wrong on God (and socialism) but right on jihad and the intellectually (and actually) dishonest left.  He probably won't be received by the mass number of takers (or would-be takers) in this country whose sole interest in my view is what can they take from me and you.  Lies don't bother them much and that's why I wish Mr. Hitchens good luck on the circuit that takes him to places like Berkley...being intellectually honest won't attract the vast majority of our leftists enemies.

Liberalism is a convenient lie.

Indeed one should note his admonishment of the babbling liberal boobs in the crowd where Hitchens excused the Military's perchance " religious snake handlers" in favor of their task stated as currently being delivered - the shielding of the very tards that cry out against them, and then heaped shame upon them for their actions and declared they have been saved by the same wether they admit it or not.
I think that ended the idea that Hitchens is against the religious when they happen to be on a mission that is aligned with the expansion of the space where freedom and democracy may take hold. In his sting against the rabble, he declared his own understanding that religion is not always on the wrong side of history.

Same here..I love seeing him flip off Bill Mahler audience in a youtube video.It was so cool.
As far as his belief or lack of that is his buisness.I believe but that is my buisness.How others believe is theirs...oh well