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God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens
Review: Unfortunate & unwise title-I agree religion isn't good,at least the corruptions that have been initiated by man altering every revelation that their forefathers may have had. 'Man Made Religion is not Great', would be a better title. Better leave God out of the title, Hitchins; you don't know Him.
Review: As a Christian I picked this up because an Athiest friend would constantly mention Hitchens like he was the most amazing person in the world and unlike my friend I look into these things.
I then bought this book and also "A Case for God" as a contrast.
In terms of "God is Not Great", you cannot fault Hitchens for his logic, observations and research. The majority of the book is spent pointing out the countless bad things which have occured during humanities history as either a direct or indirect result of religion (in this case mostly Christians, Jews and Muslims are targetted).
There is absolutely no denying that (for Christianity) the Church has done some bad stuff, horendious even and a lot of wars have been fought under the banner of God, even today in Iraq. We also have endless terrorist attacks in the name of Allah or God happening right now.
None of this can be denied and Hitchens points them all out, including how the Church has impacted scientific development in the past and still tries to and also slavery.
However, Hitchens makes one thing very obvious...
...he is showing his bias and deep hatred for religion and this is preventing him from being objective. This is proven at 3 points in the book. There are 3 times in the book (after pages of talking about religion being bad) when he aknowledges meeting 3 distinct religious individuals who have proven themselves to be good, decent people.
An example is when Hitchens talks about how his wife lost a large sum of money in a taxi, and the Muslim taxi driver then spends an entire night finding their address in order to return it to them.
Hitchens also mentions at least two other instances like this. These include Christians who prove themselves to be morally and ethnically upstanding members of society either through actions or conversation. Yet despite this.... Hitchens only devotes a few, TINY lines of text to mention these people and doesnt explore this at all?
He is instantly returns back to raving about how all people influenced by religion are ultimately idiots and bad.
Hitchens, like a lot of people, only looks at the negative and NEVER the positive. He believes the negative outweights the good. Yet the problem with this, is that the negative is always more prominant then the positive.
The media only ever wants to report on the "bad news" and when religion goes wrong. They dont want to report on the good which a christian community may be doing because it doesnt sell papers or make you switch over. You will see the guy on the street shouting "the world is ending, repent", but you wont see the guy who is helping out in a homeless shelter feeding needy people because hes not in your face.
This is a very good book which makes good points, but it is ultimately flawed by Hitchens blindess to accept that NOT all religion persons are bad or preach damnation or hatred. Hitchens also argues that all religious persons are ALWAYS trying to convert others.
As a Christian I have never tried to convert anyone, and I find it is the Athiests who always approach me and want to question me about my faith, and mock me and poke fun at me. But that is just personal experience.
This book is worth a read on both sides.
Review: Having purchased the audio version I was delighted to hear Christopher Hitchens put forward himself his many arguments for rationality. This book is certainly great.
Review: I found some parts of this book a bit heavy going, but overall Christopher Hitchens lays out a convincing and comprehensive case against organised religion. This is not a cheap knock, more a detailed analysis of the main religions and their shortcomings. Having read this I have no doubt in my mind that God has been created in man's image and not the way we have been conned over the past two millenia. A must read for any doubters out there!
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