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God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything Hardcover – May 1, 2007
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against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and
reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope's awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry
of the double helix.
- Print length307 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherTwelve Books
- Publication dateMay 1, 2007
- Dimensions6.25 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
- ISBN-100446579807
- ISBN-13978-0446579803
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Editorial Reviews
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Review
"An intellectual willing to show his teeth in the cause of righteousness." -- ―The New Yorker
"Thank God for Christopher Hitchens." -- ―Esquire Magazine
One hell of a religious read." -- ―New York Post
About the Author
Washington, DC.
From The Washington Post
A century and a half ago Pope Pius IX published the Syllabus of Errors, a rhetorical tour de force against the high crimes and misdemeanors of the modern world. God Is Not Great, by the British journalist and professional provocateur Christopher Hitchens, is the atheists' equivalent: an unrelenting enumeration of religion's sins and wickedness, written with much of the rhetorical pomp and all of the imperial condescension of a Vatican encyclical.
Hitchens, who once described Mother Teresa as "a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud," is notorious for making mincemeat out of sacred cows, but in this book it is the sacred itself that is skewered. Religion, Hitchens writes, is "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children." Channeling the anti-supernatural spirits of other acolytes of the "new atheism," Hitchens argues that religion is "man-made" and murderous, originating in fear and sustained by brute force. Like Richard Dawkins, he denounces the religious education of young people as child abuse. Like Sam Harris, he fires away at the Koran as well as the Bible. And like Daniel Dennett, he views faith as wish-fulfillment.
Historian George Marsden once described fundamentalism as evangelicalism that is mad about something. If so, these evangelistic atheists have something in common with their fundamentalist foes, and Hitchens is the maddest of the lot. Protestant theologian John Calvin was "a sadist and torturer and killer," Hitchens writes, and the Bible "contain[s] a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre."
As should be obvious to any reasonable person -- unlike Hitchens I do not exclude believers from this category -- horrors and good deeds are performed by believers and non-believers alike. But in Hitchens's Manichaean world, religion does little good and secularism hardly any evil. Indeed, Hitchens arrives at the conclusion that the secular murderousness of Stalin's purges wasn't really secular at all, since, as he quotes George Orwell, "a totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy." And in North Korea today, what has gone awry is not communism but Confucianism.
Hitchens is not so forgiving when it comes to religion's transgressions. He aims his poison pen at the Dalai Lama, St. Francis and Gandhi. Among religious leaders only the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. comes off well. But in the gospel according to Hitchens whatever good King did accrues to his humanism rather than his Christianity. In fact, King was not actually a Christian at all, argues Hitchens, since he rejected the sadism that characterizes the teachings of Jesus. "No supernatural force was required to make the case against racism" in postwar America, writes Hitchens. But he's wrong. It was the prophetic faith of black believers that gave them the strength to stand up to the indignities of fire hoses and police dogs. As for those white liberals inspired by Paine, Mencken and Hitchens's other secular heroes, well, they stood down.
Hitchens says a lot of true things in this wrongheaded book. He is right that you can be moral without being religious. He is right to track contemporary sexism and sexual repression to ancient religious beliefs. And his attack on "intelligent design" is not only convincing but comical, coursing as it does through the crude architecture of the appendix and our inconvenient "urinogenital arrangements."
What Hitchens gets wrong is religion itself.
Hitchens claims that some of his best friends are believers. If so, he doesn't know much about his best friends. He writes about religious people the way northern racists used to talk about "Negroes" -- with feigned knowing and a sneer. God Is Not Great assumes a childish definition of religion and then criticizes religious people for believing such foolery. But it is Hitchens who is the naïf. To read this oddly innocent book as gospel is to believe that ordinary Catholics are proud of the Inquisition, that ordinary Hindus view masturbation as an offense against Krishna, and that ordinary Jews cheer when a renegade Orthodox rebbe sucks the blood off a freshly circumcised penis. It is to believe that faith is always blind and rituals always empty -- that there is no difference between taking communion and drinking the Kool-Aid (a beverage Hitchens feels compelled to mention no fewer than three times).
If this is religion, then by all means we should have less of it. But the only people who believe that religion is about believing blindly in a God who blesses and curses on demand and sees science and reason as spawns of Satan are unlettered fundamentalists and their atheistic doppelgangers. Hitchens describes the religious mind as "literal and limited" and the atheistic mind as "ironic and inquiring." Readers with any sense of irony -- and here I do not exclude believers -- will be surprised to see how little inquiring Hitchens has done and how limited and literal is his own ill-prepared reduction of religion.
Christopher Hitchens is a brilliant man, and there is no living journalist I more enjoy reading. But I have never encountered a book whose author is so fundamentally unacquainted with its subject. In the end, this maddeningly dogmatic book does little more than illustrate one of Hitchens's pet themes -- the ability of dogma to put reason to sleep.
Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
Product details
- Publisher : Twelve Books; First Edition (May 1, 2007)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 307 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0446579807
- ISBN-13 : 978-0446579803
- Item Weight : 1.16 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 1.25 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #173,192 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #92 in Atheism (Books)
- #115 in Sociology & Religion
- #405 in Religious Philosophy (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was the author of Letters to a Young Contrarian, and the bestseller No One Left to Lie To: The Values of the Worst Family. A regular contributor to Vanity Fair, The Atlantic Monthly and Slate, Hitchens also wrote for The Weekly Standard, The National Review, and The Independent, and appeared on The Daily Show, Charlie Rose, The Chris Matthew's Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, and C-Span's Washington Journal. He was named one of the world's "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by Foreign Policy and Britain's Prospect.
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Customers find the book well-written, easy to read, and excellent. They also describe the author as concise, clever, and articulate. Readers say the book is thought-provoking, with fresh and caustic athiest insights. They appreciate the compelling arguments against religion. In addition, they find the writing entertaining and witty.
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Customers find the book compelling, well-written, and easy to read. They also say the author is concise, clever, and articulate. Readers mention the humor is dark, incisive, and never boring.
"...Fascinating, witty, enlightening, and irreverent but never boring. In the proper context, this is a "bad" book that is good for you...." Read more
"...He is a literate writer, and he assumes that his readers will recognize quotations and literary allusions without having to be spoon-fed...." Read more
"...The book is well written and easy to read...." Read more
"...Hitchens's style is wonderfully abrasive at times, thorough and factual at others. I loved it...." Read more
Customers find the book thought-provoking. They say it's a breathtaking analytical tour de force and worth reading. Readers also mention that the author is objective, rational, and methodical.
"...In summary, this is one of the most thought-provoking books you will ever read. Hitchens establishes the premise of his book and he never relents...." Read more
"...his literary and historical bent, Hitchens provided an intriguingly different point of view...." Read more
"...effectively, "preaching to the choir" but it certainly provides plenty of examples of obvious, fundamental problems with these religions that an..." Read more
"In his public life Hitch was crass, honest, abrasive, confrontational, critical, and courageous. As such, he is a hero and will be missed...." Read more
Customers find the book compelling and methodical. They say it's the ultimate book on religion, with solid arguments against religion. Readers also mention the book is comprehensive, has plenty of anecdotal interjections, and is a superbly efficacious antidote to religious thinking.
"...Example, condoms and AIDS.11. Debunks many religious beliefs with compelling arguments...." Read more
"...Hitch was crass, honest, abrasive, confrontational, critical, and courageous. As such, he is a hero and will be missed...." Read more
"...Add to that, yes, a basic humility, with much humor. Three cheers.Do I promise you will like Christopher Hitchens? No...." Read more
"Excellent collection of events and philosophies that contribute to the alternative truths organized religion brings onto society. Reason over faith." Read more
Customers find the writing witty, entertaining, and articulate. They say the book is full of insight and intelligent humor. Readers also appreciate the elegant rhetoric and well-thought-out discourse.
"...Fascinating, witty, enlightening, and irreverent but never boring. In the proper context, this is a "bad" book that is good for you...." Read more
"...of the art of the rant: he says what I feel, with passion, intensity and wit."This is not a book that seeks to convert...." Read more
"We so need Christopher Hitchens now.... Intelligent, witty, truthful, unabashed, and so correct in his..." Read more
"...Yes he is a contrarian, his humor can be dark, incisive, and cutting to those who agree with him and mean-spirited and strident to those who don't...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the book's anger level. Some find it indignant, powerful, and succinct. They say the passion and outrage is attractive, and justified when applied. However, others say the tone is sometimes quite angry and the arguments are logical.
"...I learned more from it than the other two, and because it caught my mood so well...." Read more
"...You will be rewarded with a calmness, logic and clarity of language that is light years away from the hysterical readings of the illiterate, desert..." Read more
"...And yet...and yet, the book is so angry and bitter that it's hard to read. I started it five times before I was able to slog my way through...." Read more
"...indignation obscures the clear logic of his case, but passion and outrage is attractive and justified when applied to the subject of religion...." Read more
Customers find the book's historical accuracy great. They say it has dozens of historical examples to support its claims. Readers also describe the book as timeless and a great contemporary work.
"...The chapter "There is no `Eastern' Solution" was one section that is most memorable, as much for its assertions as for its more unique material in..." Read more
"...or era this book is read or by whom, it'll remain relevant and timeless. Peace & thank you, Mr. Hitchens. If I could give it 10 stars, I would." Read more
"...It's a great contemporary work to whet a new reader's appetite for greats such as Spinoza, Russell, Hume, Lucretius and the like...." Read more
"...It's not just his vocabulary, but his vast command of history...." Read more
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"god is not Great" is a one of the most fascinating books you will ever read. A scholarly, passionate, and witty book that challenges religious dogma with panache. This 336-page book is composed of the following nineteen chapters: 1. Putting It Mildly, 2. Religion Kills, 3. A Short Digression on the Pig; or, Why Heaven Hates Ham, 4. A Note on Health, to Which Religion Can Be Hazardous, 5. The Metaphysical Claims of Religion Are False, 6. Arguments from Design, 7. Revelation: The Nightmare of the "Old" Testament, 8. The "New" Testament Exceeds the Evil of the "Old" One, 9. The Koran Is Borrowed from Both Jewish and Christian Myths, 10. The Tawdriness of the Miraculous and the Decline of Hell, 11. "The Lowly Stamp of Their Origin": Religion's Corrupt Beginnings, 12. A Coda: How Religions End, 13. Does Religion Make People Behave Better, 14. There Is No "Eastern" Solution, 15. Religion as an Original Sin, 16. Is Religion Child Abuse?, 17. An Objection Anticipated: The Last-Ditch "Case" Against Secularism, 18. A Finer Tradition: The Resistance of the Rational, and 19. In Conclusion: The Need for a New Enlightenment.
Positives:
1. Hitchens writes with panache.
2. Thought-provoking does not begin to describe this book.
3. Hitchens is the ultimate intellectual entertainer. It takes a brilliant mind and command of the language to be able to convey such lucid thoughts.
4. Any book by Hitchens is a quote fest but this is his Magnum Opus.
5. Hitchens is able to put into words what many of us think.
6. Challenges many religious beliefs of various faiths.
7. The uncomfortable nature of religion and sex. Many poignant examples.
8. The truth about how agnostic cadets are bullied by "born again" cadres.
9. Violations against the Establishment Clause illustrated.
10. How religion and faith distort our whole picture of the world. Example, condoms and AIDS.
11. Debunks many religious beliefs with compelling arguments. As an example, destroys the absurd notion of a young earth.
12. A look back at some fascinating doomsday predictions.
13. The clash of science and religion and how religion thwarted scientific progress.
14. The arrogance of religion exposed.
15. An eye for evolution...you will understand my pun once you read this page-turning book.
16. The fallacy of Noah's Ark. We are all wet to believe such things.
17. The truth behind the ten commandments and what they don't say.
18. The "divine" authority to commit evil. A well developed theme throughout this book.
19. The religious dogma that lead to witch hunt.
20. Instruments of evil illustrated, oh my.
21. What archaeology hasn't uncovered.
22. Faith as a mask of insecurity.
23. No such things as miracles.
24. Many apologetic arguments destroyed.
25. Religion as a political source of control.
26. This book lead me to watch the Oscar-award winning documentary, "Marjoe". A tale of American evangelical hucksterism. Highly recommended.
27. How some religions were invented by opportunists.
28. The cruel practice of slavery and its misguided religious justification.
29. The impact of Dr. King. Fascinating take.
30. Many religious icons presented in a different light.
31. Colonel Robert Ingersoll, enough said.
32. Cruel creeds at work throughout the planet.
33. Vicarious redemption as only Hitchens can express it.
34. Dictatorships and their tools of oppression.
35. Apartheid and its connection to religion, racism and totalitarianism.
36. The lack of evidence for "intercessory" prayer.
37. Very few people are as well read as Hitchens, but what sets him apart is his ability to relay topic-appropriate narratives with flair and this book exemplifies that.
38. Well researched and referenced book.
Negatives:
1. This is not an even-handed book and Hitchens makes no bones about it. Hitchens did not write this book to give you the positives about religion so if you are looking for a fair assessment, you must look elsewhere.
2. His brutal unrelenting honesty will rub those who oppose his views in a bad way.
3. I have no problems going after immoral dogma, but I do have some reservations about equating immoral dogma with immoral believer. I think that distinction gets lost in this book.
4. Clearly religion doesn't poison everything as evidenced by many of the good works of religious believers. That much we can say for certain, however I do have a problem with good acts in conjunction with proselytizing. Hitchens has done a very good job of clearing this issue up after the book was released.
5. Having to wait for Mr. Hitchens next great book.
In summary, this is one of the most thought-provoking books you will ever read. Hitchens establishes the premise of his book and he never relents. He never holds back and does so with an intellectual passion rarely seen. Fascinating, witty, enlightening, and irreverent but never boring. In the proper context, this is a "bad" book that is good for you. Highly recommended.
Further suggestions: "Cruel Creeds, Virtuous Violence" by Jack David Eller, "Why I Became an Atheist..." by John Loftus, "God's Problem" by Bart D. Ehrman, "Godless..." by Dan Barker, "The God Virus" by Darrel Ray, "The End of faith" by Sam Harris, "The Religion Virus" by Craig A. James, "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, and "God and His Demons" by Michael Parenti.
Over the last year, there have been three important books published on belief and non-belief :
* Dan Dennett's Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
* Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion
* Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
I've already written - appreciatively - about the Dennett and Dawkins books, and I must admit that I approached Hitchens with some trepidation. After all, people have been lambasting Dawkins and others for their "intemperate" and "disrespectful" attacks on religion, and that's the kind of thing that seems likely to get Hitchens' juices flowing (metaphorically and literally). But I needn't have worried.
First, let me say directly and unambiguously: this is a really good book. Hitchens is a mercurial toper, and he may be (nay, he is) dead wrong on Iraq, but he is a great writer. I find myself reading all of the book reviews that he writes, even if I have no interest whatsoever in the book, just for the pleasure of his prose. He is a literate writer, and he assumes that his readers will recognize quotations and literary allusions without having to be spoon-fed. And he achieves this in an utterly contemporary voice, without retreating into anachronism. So please buy this book, to keep the author well supplied with the vodka which seems to fuel his muse. We need more of his work.
Enough of the style: what of the substance? I think that I can best describe my reaction to this book by considering the different uses to which I would put it and its two companions.
If a committed theist asked me why she should pay attention to the "new atheism", I would give her Dennett's book. I would hope that she would realize that the modern world provides clear evidence of the diversity of beliefs and non-beliefs, and that perhaps she would agree that this was a subject worth studying, worth considering from outside her (probably exclusive) world-view. What explains belief? Why has belief changed over the years? I wouldn't expect to change her beliefs, but perhaps she could accept that belief and non-belief were legitimate subjects of inquiry.
If I met a curious man, embedded in a religious tradition but uncertain of whether (or what) he believed, or if he might actually be losing his faith, I would give him Dawkins' The God Delusion. I'd be hoping that he could appreciate the role of science (and its stepchild, technology) in both understanding and creating the world in which he lives. It's not just iPods and cruise missiles, but also polio vaccine, and clean water, and instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope that help us understand our universe, and DNA sequencing that allows us to diagnose disease but also to see our place in the web of life on this planet. And I would hope that he might come to realize, with Carl Sagan, that the realities of the universe are far more majestic and beautiful than the myths of religion.
But suppose that an old friend came to me and asked, "Why are you so fired up about atheism and religion these days? I remember you 15 years ago, and back then you were posting on alt.atheism, and having fun roasting creationists on talk.origins, and reading books on the philosophy of religion. But you didn't talk - and write - about it all the time, and you certainly didn't publically define yourself by your disbelief. So what happened?"
Instead of trying to explain all of my reasons, I think I'd simply give them Hitchens' new book and say, "Read this. He puts it better than I ever could. I merely experience the occasional (but increasingly frequent) feelings of frustration, impatience, outrage, and even anger. Hitchens is an unequalled exponent of the art of the rant: he says what I feel, with passion, intensity and wit."
This is not a book that seeks to convert. Its purpose is, first and foremost, to explain. To explain why atheists are no longer willing to sit meekly on our hands when the President of the United States says that I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens", or when the Archbishop of Canterbury excuses the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, or when Catholic cardinals and archbishops preach that condoms transmit AIDS. Yes, Hitchens also explains why he is an atheist, and the things that he finds mad, bad, or ridiculous about religion. Individual believers will naturally snort, and say that he's not talking about their belief, but that's not the point. He's not seeking to win a debate, or persuade the uncertain: he's laying out facts about the world and his opinions of those facts. And I agree with most of what he says.
Perhaps because he is a student of history, and a former Marxist Trotskyite, Hitchens pays particular attention to what he calls An Objection Anticipated: The Last-Ditch "Case" Against Secularism. He's talking (p.230) about the charge that "secular totalitarianism has actually provided us with the summa of human evil." Hitchens' response is lengthy and detailed, and rejects the simplistic lumping-together of the various dictators of the 20th century. He describes how fascism and National Socialism co-opted religious institutions, which responded with unseemly enthusiasm. On the other hand, Communism in Russia and China had more in common with the anticlericalism of the French Revolution. Obviously Communists wished to eliminate any competing source of ideology or loyalty; beyond this, their secularism was less an expression of ontological atheism than of hatred towards the religious institutions which had supported the previous autocracies or imperialists. In fact, Communists were not trying to negate religion, but to replace it, complete with saints, heretics, mummies and icons. It's a complex topic that could fill an entire book, and Hitchens handles it very well.
As you may have gathered by now, I really like this book. I really think that it's my favourite of the three, mostly because I learned more from it than the other two, and because it caught my mood so well. Of course there are many things to learn from Dennett and Dawkins, but I've been steeped in their works for the last twenty years, and I think I understand the world from their perspective. With his literary and historical bent, Hitchens provided an intriguingly different point of view. And, as I think I mentioned, the writing is simply superb.