God Is Not Great

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.

Unfortunately I have only come to know of Hitchens after his death. But what an utterly insatiable and total demolition of the theory of god. Hitchens approaches religion from the perspective of the faithful followers of the cults and gradually dismembers each and every argument that the proponents of the main monotheisms use to defend their perverse and inexcusable destruction of humanity. The book arms the reader in preparation for those unavoidable confrontations when faced with a religious bigot and their twisted subjugation of all who fail to follow in their footsteps. He dismembers the theory that god is great and piece by piece diminishes even an hesitant sympathy for the main religions of the world. His assault is relentless, his breadth of knowledge is frankly astonishing and he appears to have read, retained and for the most part dissected entire libraries of books, writings and information including not only every philosopher you can think of but a good few the reader will most likely never have even heard of. Hitchens cannot be credited for transforming me into an atheist for that was my leaning from the tender age of 11 or 12. But I must credit him the most respect for managing to transform me from a passive aggressive atheist into an utter militant atheist. He reinforces the wonderful concept of atheism that cuts to brow of the god suckers, who demand 'respect' for beliefs. I and indeed Mr Hitchens cannot respect for a moment the utter contemptuous beliefs of religions which cannot afford my beliefs true respect and who each in their perverse manner damns me to an eternity of suffering. Thanks to Hitchens every conversation with a theist is now commenced with a realignment of the boundaries of debate, namely that I do not respect, for a blind moment, your utterly insane belief in a god so lets not start on the footing that you expect that, and for the record, before you start reciting passages of your holy book to me let us start from the basic evidential burden namely that you cannot, for a moment, produce evidence that your jesus ever lived, or that the old testament drenched in blood as it is, was even written within 5 generations of the fabled life of the theoretical man that you pander to. contempt for religion, as Hitchens rightly points out, should no longer be manifested respectfully or idly. those raising the sword of their gods and saviours must be challenged in the most demeaning and openly honest manner and that is what Hitchens does in this marvel of a book which I have read in a week since buying, then re-read and am now starting my third round. Everything is dragged out in this no limits expose of the god brigade, everything from the crusades, witch hunts, middle age wars, the highly doubtful lineage of Mohammed, the abject support if not encouragement of child sexual abuse in christianity and the continued encouragement of this practice in islam, the subjugation of women, whom Hitchens rights recognises as gods lesser creation for even the English word for History refers to a males dominated start. The manner in which the female has been cursed by the believers in god, female and male genital mutilation (as Hitchens states, if god is so perfect then why does humanity need to adjust these natural sexual organs of the human race?), mental abuse and the horrendous crimes committed in the name of religion and god right up until this very moment in time. He disseminates the religious argument which claims that some openly atheist dictatorships committed worse atrocities than those committed under the umbrella of gods and rips to shreds the Nazi's and Stalinists and Communism to show that at every human mutilating stage of their gory histories they each rode upon and relied upon the abject support of the Vatican and the perverse catholic church. Frankly, in my view, I would love to see a theist read the book and look me in the eye afterwards. It is a damnation of all that is marketed as god. Hitchens makes wonderful analogies and observations, like 'god certainly has never favoured Africans' given the treatment they received. And even better is the faith that the slave and the slave driver both had in the same god - what greater evidence that religion is man made than the mere fact that both pray to the same god whereas one of these groups is the oppressed and the other the oppressor, therefore where in this equation of twisted faith lies the forgiving god? Was the annihilation of the jews not a religious mandate? and what of the conduct of the jews ever since they occupied palestine? Three sects, each plagiarised to pblivion off one another, occupy a single hill in what is not occupied Palestine and all three scream and kill to the tune of their supposed chosen diety. It's a pathetic scene demonstrative of how humanity is stunted in the dark ages of superstition and black magic. The drawing of the blood routines that dominate all the main monotheisms, the masked tolerance of the church, the suppression of all forms of natural human emotion and feeling from love to devotion to masturbation and anal sex. In the illustrious words of Hitchens 'the most prolific masturbating homosexual in history has not managed to commit the atrocities of the clergy'! Even the apparently friendly monks don't escape a damning crtique of their abuse of humanity. But don't be fooled, Hitchens always gives credit where it is due. It is time that humanity woke up to the repulsive regressive retarded belief in a god or a life after death and hailed the new messiah Christopher Hitchens! and a final word to those who claim that he is biased. Yes he is biased, extremely biased too. But biased in the sense of a mother who knows that the milk being fed to her child is rancid and screams and protests to try and save the child from swallowing that rancid milk!

What can I write that hasn't already been said about the character that is Christopher Hitchens. 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. But this book isn't written to gain new converts, it is mostly candy for atheists. Mr Hitchens says in the book that he doesn't think religious belief will ever end and he isn't in the business of telling people what to think. He is looking for the rational crowd to be more outspoken to ensure that this voice is heard. A book like this shouldn't have to be written. To most rational people, a book on this subject is directly equivalent to a dense treatise on whether Santa Claus can plausibly deliver all those presents in one night. But this book does provide a place for us all to vent our frustration at the dominant role that ludicrous beliefs have had in the public square. But while I don't think he will gain many converts, the New Atheists have definitely initiated a call-to-arms to be more vocal about our ridicule of religion. This may be the lasting impact of books such as this. The fact that Christopher Hitchens won't gain new converts isn't a discredit to his arguments, it is merely a statement on the inertia of changing peoples minds on a topic they hold near and dear. Most people are taught from their impressionable years onwards that religious claims are true. Religion provides false but comforting answers to questions of death, suffering, meaning and justice. The atheist can't exactly go door to door to say, 'surprise there is no god', 'when you die, you are gone for eternity', or other not-made-for-Hallmark statements. But like the author, I prefer the reality we find ourselves in. We only have one chance in this world. Each kiss to your wife, kind word to a friend, good deed done, every sunset on the beach, could be your last. As William Burroughs once said, 'Life is a vacation from two eternities, who wants to waste those precious years worrying about what happens when you get back to forever". I find the description of reality and the creation myths of the world's religions to be boring and uninspired. I side with the Reverend Carl Sagan in a spirit of wonder and awe at the true nature of our universe and our evolution. If only religions had tapped in to the true magnificence of our universe, instead of the narrow path they had chosen. But our hopes about the reality of the universe have no bearing on their truth. I believe that there are two options, either god is evil or he doesn't exist. Thankfully the latter is true and we are spared an oppressive god who disproportionately starves poor African children, sends tsunamis after poor villages and decides who wins football games. I can hear the grumbles already, that god gives suffering to test our faith, to break us down so we can come to believe in him. Aren't there more subtle ways for an all-powerful deity to teach us lessons, isn't this method of inflicting suffering on the world to get a point across a bit barbaric and why does god disproportionately teach lessons to those who are poor and dark-skinned. Either way, I could go on and on but this topic kind of bores me. There are no good arguments for a belief in god. But this is a very entertaining book about a great writers favorite topic, you can't go wrong. You should be thoroughly entertained by this therapeutic romp at the expense of the absurdities that have dominated the social sphere underneath the domain of religion. But most rationalists won't get anything new from it.

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!

Not an easy read. Almost every chapter needs re reading to understand fully the depth of the authors knowledge and understanding of the subject. Loving every page, a truly amazing book.