"You guys ready for some sparks," a man quipped as he took his seat to hear the rhetorical pugilists go head-to-head on the topic, "War, Terrorism & Geo-Political Crisis: Is Religion the Solution or the Problem?"

Billed on yellowing posters as a Wild West showdown and a championship boxing match all rolled into one, moderator Alex Green felt it was appropriate to set a few ground rules.

"For tonight's two debaters; Please, no head-butting, no ear-pulling, no slapping, no biting and no gagging," Green said tongue-in-cheek. "No eye-gouging, no spine locks, no neck cracks, no faking an injury and no escaping the ring. No hair-pulling, no fish-hooking, no distracting the referee, no groin strikes and no toe locks. No grabbing the throat. No attacks on the windpipe. No punches to the head, kicking below the belt and no unsportsmanlike conduct."

Hitchens, a pugnacious secularist and author of "god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," entered the ring first, loosening the mostly Libertarian crowd up with a few coarse jokes and then launching into what D'Souza later described as the "elliptical mode of attack."

Arguing in his book that religion is man-made, sexually repressive, the basis for totalitarianism and a threat to human survival, Hitchens described a series of experiences from his travels as a foreign correspondent that convinced him just how dangerous faith is.

He recounted his remorse over favorable articles he once wrote about Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, a dictator who has allegedly subjected his country to torture, famine and death squads. Despite these abuses, Hitchens said the nation's religious leaders have been conspicuously silent during Mugabe's 28-year reign.

"He'd probably have to recommend condoms and abortions before any condemnation would come from the pulpit," Hitchens said.

Hitchens, contributing editor to Vanity Fair and Atlantic Monthly, topped off his argument about the potential nightmare religious fanaticism poses – whether it's Islamic terrorists abroad or Christian fundamentalists at home – by drawing the audience's attention to Iran's recent missile launches and concerns it is developing nuclear weapons. He further cited the example of North Korea, a totalitarian nation and the "most worshipful and religious country I've ever seen" in its adulation of leader Kim Jong-il.

"We have worried and wondered when it will happen that a messianic regime, gang or group would manage to get a hold of apocalyptic weaponry," Hitchens said. "When will those people who think the end of the world is coming get weaponry to make it happen? Well, it's about to happen in Iran."

Stepping to the podium, D'Souza, author of "What's So Great About Christianity," described Hitchens' opening statement as "sneaky" and containing a grain of truth, but using a bogus analogy.

"There is an effort here to equate Islamic radicalism with Christianity," D'Souza said. "Now, first of all, let's ask in a very reasonable way, who is the Christian bin Ladin? Where is the Christian Al Qaeda? Where is the Christian Hamas or Hezbollah?"

D'Souza, the Robert and Karen Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, also sought to debunk Hitchens' argument that conflicts in hot spots around the world are driven by religious beliefs. He asked the audience if the Israelis and Palestinians are really fighting over God.

"No. They are in fact fighting over land," D'Souza said. "Similarly, the Hindu's and Muslims are fighting over Kashmir. And in Northern Ireland, the Catholics and the Protestants are not fighting about the Eucharist or Transubstantiation. They are fighting over which group of guys gets to rule that country."

D'Souza challenged Hitchens' claim that religion has been responsible for countless deaths over the years, arguing the alleged sins of Christianity – the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and religious wars – were vastly overblown and occurred hundreds of years ago. For example, Henry Kaymen, the leading scholar on the Inquisition, found about 2,000 people were killed over 350 years during the Inquisition.

In contrast, D'Souza said atheist regimes of the past century – Communist Russia, Communist China and Nazi Germany – are responsible for upwards of 100 million deaths. Even Pol Pot, a minor league dictator and leader of the Communist Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, killed up to 2 million people in the late 1970s.

"If religion must take the blame for the crimes committed in the name of religion, let's be consistent and blame atheism for the crimes inflicted in the name of creating the atheist utopia and the secular paradise liberated from the shackles of traditional religion and traditional morality," D'Souza said.

In his rebuttal, Hitchens continued his argument that religion is the source of the world's problems, noting the "cheapest and nastiest" moments in the United States' presidential campaign involved clergyman like Rev. Jeremiah Wright. He also registered his disgust with Rowan Williams, the controversial Archbishop of Canterbury, who has suggested the British adoption of Sharia law is unavoidable. Hitchens suggested the comment is indicative of the masochistic nature of Christianity, a faith that proposes the "hideous, the disgusting, the contemptible, the revolting, the dangerous, the suicidal idea ... that we should love our enemies."

"I don't want him saying in the name of this contemptible Nazarene ideology that I must give up my freedom – that the rule of law is over, that there is a separate law for people of religion, that we aren't all governed by the same courts," Hitchens said.

But D'Souza said Williams was making an argument based on secular, liberal multiculturalism - not Jesus Christ's admonition to love one's enemies. Rather, the comments were something a university professor might argue, contending the collapse of the religious foundation of Western civilization has opened the door to a certain kind of "namby-pamby tolerance." D'Souza also pointed out Hitchens' contention that faith leads to totalitarianism involves a "very stylish sleight of hand."

"He's basically saying, 'Let's blame religion for the crimes of religion and then lets take all the things done by atheist regimes in the name of atheist regimes and blame them on religion, because after all, isn't it true when you look at these atheist regimes, that they kind of resemble theocratic regimes," D'Souza said.

Ultimately, D'Souza said Hitchens' arguments amount to a "dodge," attempting to blame religion for the crimes of atheist regimes, which have historically resulted in an ocean of blood and a mountain of bodies.

"The 20th Century was really an attempt to create the secular utopia," D'Souza said. "It's failed miserably. So the one great experiment of creating secularism, of creating the religion-free society, has been a terrible failure."

At the end of debate, the conference host asked the audience – through an informal show of hands – who they thought won. Surveying the hands, the host named D'Souza the champ.

Later that night, the comment about the debate igniting sparks proved eerily prophetic as thunderous lightning bolts lit up the skies above Bally's Las Vegas, the rumbling sound reverberating throughout the Strip.