God Is Not Great: Christopher Hitchens

A tremendous book everyone should read. It articulates what so many people feel about religion. It’s really a love letter to reason and the world that could be had

[Repeated from my blog at geoffarnold.com] 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.

This is the second major book of atheist philosophy to hit the market in recent months (the other, of course, being The God Delusion ). Like Dawkins' book, it asserts the notion that there is no god of any sort. It makes the points with intelligent, well-reasoned statements and seldom lapses into polemic and stridency. However, the book is not as easy of a read. It is surprisingly slow going. I usually find myself reading a book, glancing up after a bit and being surprised to find that I'm much farther into it than I expected. The opposite happens here. This is partly because of Hitchens' rather dense prose and his desire to not use one or two syllable words when there's perfectly good five and six syllable ones laying around unclaimed. The other part of why it's a long read is because it actually made me stop and think a bit more than "The God Delusion". For instance, the book seems to have almost single-handly changed my views on circumscion (which I prefer on an asthetic level, but have come to realize that my asthetics don't matter when it comes to the right of a newborn child to keep their foreskin intact. I still stand by the notion that if there are measurable medical benefits, and I understand there are, then it should continue to be allowed. Absent that, it should be banned until the person in question is an adult). It's also pointlessly worth noting that, unlike "The God Delusion", this book is not shinny and can not be used to signal passing aircraft. Ultimately this is a very good book that I highly recommend. It didn't hold my interest as much as "The God Delusion" did, but for all that it is still worth buying, reading, and giving to your religious friends.

Review: God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens The title of the book did not appeal to me but Hitchens' reputation had already filtered down to me long before the time I began to read his books. I found Hitchens' style of writing easy and relaxed and to the point especially on a topic that is normally heavy and dull. Hitchens soon showed why the God of Moses, the God of Jesus, the God of the Jews and Christians (and Islam) is not great although most Jews and Christians (and Muslims) consider that their God who created the Universe as well as man must be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent which is in accordance with the stories in the Torah, the Bible and the Quran. But with the benefit of modern science, freedom of expression, and liberated concepts, Hitchens slowly dismantles the pillars of faith in his book. The religious misrepresentation of the origins of man and the cosmos is still maintained by fundamentalists (of all three Abrahamic faiths) who manage to keep the maximum of solipsism grounded on wishful thinking or some other convoluted reinterpretation of words. Fundamentalists will not concede that when religion was first conceived in the dark ages, the only source of information was derived from the limited knowledge of the clergy of religion, but as the light of knowledge appeared it was foolish to still use such a blind man as guide. But faith will still use the familiar guides of old for fear of upsetting the memes he was groomed with from childhood. The Abrahamic faiths as organised religion has a doctrine, and history of violent, irrational, intolerant tribalism and bigotry invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children, has a lot to answer for. The reality that religion and churches, temples, and mosques were manufactured by man is totally ignored in order to mystify the gullible ignorant people to accept some mystical ethereal figure that there is some supernatural power who controls their destiny. This ethereal figure painted as some omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent spiritual figure who created and rules over us, but strangely is never present when you need him most when disaster strikes, led to challenges whether he is actually omnipotent, or simply unwilling, or even a malevolent in his intent. This has led to the next logical conclusion: "The absence of evidence is the evidence of absence." It is a Must read for those with and those without faith. ............................................................................................................................................. As a tribute to this great author I would like to quote this from his wife, Carol Blue: CAROL BLUE: Yes. Freedom of speech was everything to Christopher. He believed in an absolute First Amendment. His voice, both written and spoken, was everything to him and he writes in the article that you referred to - or in the snippet that appears in Mortality - about the - how the spoken word and the written word dovetail and are kind of synergetic. And so it was very odd for this man with the most perfect voice who could command the attention of anyone, any time, anywhere suddenly sitting at the dinner table surrounded by children and relatives trying to cut into the conversation. It was very odd. Luckily, it didn't last for very long. His voice popped back in just as he was filing that Vanity Fair piece that became part of the essay of Mortality.

Christopher Hitchens was one of the best that there was but his arguments and positions are still worth a read

Having finished reading this book the first thing I would point out to a potential reader is that the subtitle provides a better description than the main title. Hitchens goes to great length to point out the many and varied crimes of institutionalized religion. This is something that not even the most devout Catholic would deny. The crusades, the inquisitions, burning people alive and other horrible and immoral acts fill the history of religion like a syringe filled with poison. Hitchens' main point, and also something that I thing most people of any religion would agree with, is that these acts shouldn't be forgotten or forgiven simply because they were done in the name of any particular religion. Immoral acts are immoral no matter who does them. Indeed in the varied reviews that people have given of this book, critical reviews nearly always forget to even mention these crimes and immoral acts. They might get caught up with something as pedantic as the wording of a scriptural quote. To me this seems like a rather pathetic argument. It's much like a murderer in court saying "Look, forget about him saying I killed all those people - he said I wore brown shoes when I was clearly wearing black!". It picks at minute details to distract from the larger ones. That's not to say that reasonable religious readers will agree with this book wholeheartedly. Hitchens makes no attempts to hide the fact that he does not believe in God, and feels there is absolutely no compelling reason to do so. He even goes on to point out that if you were to practice your religion and beliefs in the comfort of your own home, he wouldn't have the slightest problem with it. He does, however, object to the god described in the old testament as an immoral monster. Overall there is a lot to take from this book, regardless of your personal views on the matter. Its focus is perhaps less controversial than The God Delusion in that the crimes detailed are a matter of historical record and considered horrific mistakes even by the most conservative of church-goers. If I had to make only one complaint about this book it would be that I didn't always feel that the examples given fell exactly in the subject of the particular chapter where they were placed. The examples were compelling and important to know about, but sometimes I feel they would have been better used at different points in the book to support some other argument. I would recommend this book to anybody regardless of their beliefs if only so that they can be aware of the wrong that can be done in the name of religion and do their best to avoid it ever happening again.

Todas las religiones merecen análisis y justo escrutinio sin nublarlo con sentimentalismos o posturas dogmáticas, exactamente fue lo que hizo Christopher Hitchens en este excelente libro, fue un erudito preocupado y ocupado por una mejor humanidad, llevando en alto la razón y la verdad.

Um grande estudo mostrando porque religião não tem nada de divino ou sobrenatural, tendo sido contruida por seres humanos. E que causou e continua causando um mal imenso!