God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything in Atheists and Skeptics

Jul 13, 2009 D. Parker rated it liked it

I read this book immediately after reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, which made for a fitting followup. Whereas Dawkins explores the arena of religion in terms of scientific evidence and reason, Christopher Hitchens' strengths lie in the humanities. He demonstrates his vast knowledge of history, literature and culture, often pompously but to good effect, throughout the book. His arguments against the special privilege of immunity to inquiry granted to religion in our society are pretty I read this book immediately after reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, which made for a fitting followup. Whereas Dawkins explores the arena of religion in terms of scientific evidence and reason, Christopher Hitchens' strengths lie in the humanities. He demonstrates his vast knowledge of history, literature and culture, often pompously but to good effect, throughout the book. His arguments against the special privilege of immunity to inquiry granted to religion in our society are pretty much the same arguments as atheists and secularists have been making for some time, although Hitchens does a good job of placing these arguments into a historical context and then placing the historical elements into the context of modern morality.

There were some areas where I thought his arguments were a little weak or unnecessary. In particular, I think (as Hitchens also seems to) that the "Hitler and Stalin were atheists" argument in opposition to atheism is weak, but his counterargument had all the feeling of an obligatory capitulation. I could sense his venom at feeling pressure to dignify this old argument with a response. This argument is also covered in other works, including that of Dawkins who obviously penned his chapter in ink rather than pure vitriol.

The aforementioned counterargument as well as many of the rest of the arguments Hitchens' made throughout his book would have been better supported had he spent more time exploring the meanings of his pompously obscure literary and cultural references. He tosses around the product of his arguably superior education in the humanities without regard to engineers like myself and others who don't have his vast background. I even got the impression that he was holding back a little. That's fine if your audience is classically educated humanities majors, but in this case, his audience is already drastically limited due to the nature of the topic and he serves himself and us poorly by alienating the rest of us. However, I concede that had he invested the time in adding a summarizing sentence or two to each of his inline references, it would have been a much larger book.

As I mentioned, the obvious problem with atheist texts is that they appeal only to atheists. It just so happens that I agree with many of Hitchens' points, but I'm hardly a difficult sell since I came on board with many of those opinions already fully formed. It is nice to get some of the context, as well as a feeling of having an intellectual niche occupied by more than just myself. That is certainly one area where Hitchens delivers: I feel less alone both among my peers and historically.

I would recommend this book to anybody who is either an atheist or who is on the fence. I might also recommend it to anybody who is looking to put together a yellow-brick reading list to the land of pompOzity. Still and all, it was a good read where it was good and it wasn't ever truly bad. Don't take his word as gospel, though - the irony might undo all of Creation. ...more

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Aug 16, 2009 Eric Michael rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Hitchens is at his best in a book that approaches religion from an international and historical perspective. A perfect partner to Dawkins' "The God Delusion." ...more

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Mar 04, 2009 Greg rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophy-religion, my-favorites

I would recommend this book, along with 'The End of Faith' by Sam Harris, to people who consider themselves freethinkers, truth seekers or those open to reasonable discourse concerning religion. ...more

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