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God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Christopher Hitchens

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Sep 28, 2009 Lena Lang added it

Shelves: religion

Hitchens does a through enough job of delineating the reasons for the tyranny of all world religions. This book has a great deal of sarcasm, anger and irony in it. Though I certainly agree with his thesis that humanity has been far too tolerant of religios atrocities on the grounds of cultural relativism, I can't help but have some reservations about condeming the practice flat out. Since most religions have some sort of accompanying written text, it always been up to people to pick and choose Hitchens does a through enough job of delineating the reasons for the tyranny of all world religions. This book has a great deal of sarcasm, anger and irony in it. Though I certainly agree with his thesis that humanity has been far too tolerant of religios atrocities on the grounds of cultural relativism, I can't help but have some reservations about condeming the practice flat out. Since most religions have some sort of accompanying written text, it always been up to people to pick and choose how they want to interpret their chosen text. While this also plays into Hitchens argument that religions are man made, there is something to be said about a group of people forming a community around a shared set of beliefs, traditions and world views. Hitchens describes at length the problematic nature of such a community as it tends to misinterpret the origins of life, puts undue limits on human sexuality and individual freedom and almost always pits itself against those who dont subscirbe to the community's beliefs. Though history has shown that most of the time religions have been disruptive to progress and to peace in general, I think their complete absence posits a differnt set of problems that may not be adequately adressed by a strictly secular world view. The issue of belonging to something, aligience to something is one that each person grapples with as they attempt to eke out some sort of meaning from an otherwise random existence. Religion gives people a sence of identity and affiliation that goes beyong a strictly intellectual comderaderie shared by people who consider themselves atheists or agnostics. the framework in which religious observance is carried out gives people a much needed chance to contemplate their existance and confront the eventuality of life's passing. I suppose what I am talking about is spirituality rather than religion and though I am by no means positing the spiritaulity is limited to religious observance, I find it difficult to imigine the active cultivation of spirituality in the complete absence of all religion. ...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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