Life happens, and you have a book finished and a LibraryThing review to write, but you also leave it at home because it's Thanksgiving weekend and you don't want to carry more than you have to when you make the trek back to Victoria and thus all the passages you folded over and want to refer back to in making your case are safe on the bookshelf, and inaccessible.

So you make a few points quickly and get out. The first is that Terry Eagleton is right--if you're going to read either this or the Dawkins book, read this, because at least it is well written, and there is nary a dangling participle in site.

The second is that it's hard to disagree with Hitch--because, like, what's to disagree with? Religious people have done bad things? Churches have shown hypocritical behaviour? Get out! I mean, obviously all things considered I am on his side here--the side (briefly) of reason and health and not (briefly) superstition and fear. And obviously the religious are disproportionately on one side, unfortunately, and the secular disproportionately on the other.

And okay, in some ways that's worth just saying again and again and again, as Hitchens does here. And it's worth injecting some polemic spite if that will give you power--although for Hitchens it just seems to fall in with a natural pettiness and weaken his stance. And he does a service by insisting on the religious nature of totalitarianism, which is so obvious to the nonfaithful but which gets effaced in a million spurious "the problem is not that without Christ they'll believe in nothing, it's that they'll believe in anything" Christian apologist moves. And the most interesting part of the book is the systematic destruction of the idea that God sacrificing his only son for our sins is anything more than grotesque. I mean really, go ahead and try to argue otherwise.

But these are the handful of gems in a great fetid wash of regurgitated hate, solipsistic argument, and reductive self-congratulation. I don't want to pretend it's not a problem, the "how do you talk to the freaks?" thing, but really the freaks don't have to come on board for positive change--they just have to be marginalized, which is a crueller and less satisfying but ultimately more realistic solution. Stop hacking on religion at its worst, which is so easy; tackle the far more interesting question of what religion at its best--tolerant, compassionate, secular, humanistic, preserver of communal life, a powerful balm for the spirit and spur to political action, to say nothing of simple love--can do for us in the here and now. Anything? Maybe, maybe not. But that's the first step, before we loose the hounds of intolerance(even intolerance-of-intolerance): is religion as a practice separable from the hateful, atavistic aspects of sooooo much actual religion as practiced in the present day, and can it thus be helpful? Looking around at all the religious people I know who are brilliant, amazing, progressive, powerful, and who yes, often have sources of moral strength that are less readily available to us secular types, I say yes. Hitchens doesn't even tackle the question. ( )

Wonderful essay on atheism, or rather, against religion. Won't sway the believers, but won't dissuade the nonbelievers either. ( )

Hitchens makes me crazy, but I always read Hitchens. I'm sure he's aware of the dissonance and enjoys it. ( )

A rational and eminently sensible critique of religion and its destructive influences on society. Read by the author himself (who sounds a lot less ranty that you would at first expect) there is enough dry humour that you can bear to listen through the horrors of what religion has wrought upon societies throughout time and space, up to and including the current age. Where Hitchens is at his best is dismantling the ridiculous arguments religion uses to support itself, as well as using the arguments it uses against atheism/secularism to point out the flaws with organised faiths. ( )

Mr. Hitchens makes some really good points, but his obvious anger at organized religion gets in the way far too often and makes his arguments less credible (for the record, I am not a member of any organized religion myself). It's simply not true that religion poisons EVERYTHING; I think it's more fair to say that fundamentalism poisons SOME things, though. It's probably even fair to say that fundamentalism poisons many things. ( )

Polemic against religion, all religions. Nothing very surprising in the content, and nothing I found objectionable, but it does become a little tedious toward the end. I think that while non-believers will have their views reinforced, this book is unlikely to open the eyes of many of the others. Read August 2009. ( )

I read Christopher Hitchens' column in Vanity Fair every month, and after reading an excerpt from his book, I decided to read it.

Well, it is extremely rare that I cannot finish a book, but this book set a new record. I quit in the middle of the second chapter. In my opinion, this was one man's laundry list/rant of atrocities committed in the name of religion--at least the beginning of chapter 2. But what put me over the edge was how after each example, the author then repeated his catch-phrase "religion spoils everything." ( )

This is the last of the Four Horsemen's books that I have read (and I heartily recommend all of them), and I was putting this one off because I assumed it might be something of a retread -- choir-preaching, if you will. Indeed, if you have seen Hitchens debate or appear on television, you've come across a lot of what is in this book. What in one unified tome, God is Not Great is an excellent and quick read, at that (though perhaps more like a series of related essays than a single narrative, particularly in the second to last section which is something of a truncation of Jennifer Hecht's "Doubt: A History"). Happily, I can also say that even though it is Hitchens it, like the books of Dawkins, Harris, and Dennett, is not arrogant, it is not mean-spirited. Hitchens takes this subject very seriously, sees real consequences to superstition and theism, and makes a hard-nosed, unapologetic case. Confidence is not arrogance, telling hard truths is not mean. You may find more to disagree with in the more nuanced political positions he takes, but his case against religion is compelling. ( )

Accessible, documented, clear arguments for the abolition of organized religions. ( )

I certainly can’t add anything useful to the 3,000-plus evaluations already posted (I typically read books that, at best, three other goodreaders have commented on. And I don’t offer much in the way of usefulness with those either). All I’ll say is that Hitchens takes on the wide-world of religious belief and posits the notion that, not only are the primary, “sacred” texts nothing but manmade collages of dubious and provincial stories, but that religion is and has always been a mostly negative thing for humanity. He’s unflinching and certainly bombastic. (A bit like one of my favorites, Mike Davis). I was occasionally bothered by his lack of comprehensive footnotes (even Davis supplies ample references – though often of newspaper accounts which are often suspect), but I found this riveting overall.

At a surface level, he seems to leave no stone unturned and no major belief structure unscathed. Likely my relative lack of religious knowledge – or interest – intensifies my credulity. His writing style is engaging but almost chaotic as he weaves a tapestry of support from an endless array of philosophers, scientists, playwright, government officials, and, of course, religious figures (and the unknown, “idiotic” sacred-text authors) themselves. This unbridled diversity and meandering narrative has likely opened the door for charges of inaccuracy or (obvious) biased rhetoric. But not from me. The only apparent struggle he has is his piece on Stalin –a notable secular tyrant. He seems to end up with little more than the argument that despotism is the same as monotheism, so…it’s apparently the same thing. Seems to present a hole in his narrative. At a certain point – relatively early on – I began wondering if this is actually something of a veiled attack on the nature of historical scholarship, or even journalism (as a correspondent he once complains that pieces under his own name were unrecognizable to him after the sub-editors took over). I nonetheless parted with this notion as he’s sort of all over the place – perhaps the closest example of maintaining a structure within a stream-of-consciousness ramble? – thus this certainly couldn’t be a venue with which to attack scholarship (and who would hide such a hackneyed pursuit under the rubric of pissing off already pissed-off communities anyway?). Alas, I have nothing unique to offer to this review except perhaps in saying, nice book! ( )

This book is entertaining and sometimes mordantly funny, but often unfair and over the top, even to an atheist like myself. I'm sure it would be easy to write a book structured exactly like this one, but instead of listing the historical wrongs of religion, it would list the historical virtues. I prefer Sam Harris's strategy of demonstrated the logical fallacies of religious faith, whether its fruits are good or evil.

I'd like to challenge Hitchens to write a screed against the Quakers. Not as they might have behaved or spoke 200 years ago, but as they behave and speak now. A little harder to caricature, eh Chris? ( )

Note in Chapter Thirteen author's reference to Lincoln reading Volney.

(posted on my blog: http://davenichols.net/god-not-great-...)

Hitchens wastes no time making his point clear with the title on the cover: God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. While he isn't quite thorough enough to completely validate his 'everything' assertion, he nonetheless assaults religious foundations throughout this book and makes a very convincing case that religion has undermined many of the very causes it claims to support.

He jumps right in by offering that 'religion spoke its last intelligible or noble or inspiring words a long time ago: either that or it mutated into an admirable but nebulous humanism...." Following that up, he spends several chapters pointing out how religion has led to the massacre of millions and the destruction of physical structures and moral guidance.

Throughout, he argues against religion from words taken in context from the Bible, Koran, and other sacred tomes. Personally, I felt he went easy on religion on a couple of subjects where there was ample ammunition available for overwhelming argument. He seems determined to make this book accessible, however, and brevity is a key to achieving that goal.

Hitchens brilliantly consolidates his counterarguments to creationists and those who would condemn 'atheists' such as Stalin. As he points out, and has been very well presented by many others, including Sam Harris, the problem with Stalin (or any other hard-line state such as communist China or Pol Pot's 'government' in Southeast Asia) was not due to atheism, it was because those leaders replaced the position of deity with the state. Just like religion, Stalin demanded subjagation, mandated overseers of privacy and pleasure, intimidated rivals (and potential rivals) to his order, and enforced his rules with brutality. Pol Pot himself was an avowed atheist who sought to destroy anyone who might challenge his power, including the religious, the non-religious, and specifically the well-educated. As expected, Hitchens reasons, replacing the deity with a state or head of state, and following similar behavior enforcement methods as any major religion will lead one to the same attrocities and evils delivered repeatedly by the ruling religions.

It is very hard to argue with Hitchens under normal conditions, but in this book he is in his element, using his experience as a widely-travelled journalist and social commentator to provide personal anecdotes to color the narrative. He sticks to history and more empirical determinations when making his conclusions, however, which offers the reader, in the latter half of the book, reasons why skepticism and atheism were persecuted and forced to hide until only very recently. He finishes up with a call for a new enlightenment, one where religion is not allowed a seat at the table.

Those that share Hitchens' views will thoroughly enjoy this book and find loads of ammunition for their arguments (though not many new ones to those readers well versed in Dawkins, Harris and biblical criticisms). To the skeptical but unconvinced moderates, there is a lot to approach here, and Hitchens will have presented an excellent discussion in favor of religion's 'poisonous' nature. For the religious reader willing to question his/her own beliefs in order to strengthen them, there are certainly gaps in his argument they will undoubtedly notice (and to be fair, not even a 10,000 page book could completely fill those gaps). To the devout...well, they never opened the book to begin with. The closed-minded and the overly confident will find nothing enjoyable about this book. Four and one-half stars, and highly recommended. ( )

Stimulating reading although he has to stretch his biographical evaluation of both Martin Luther King and Gandhi to make his argument that religion does not pay.

Hitchens faults King for not bringing about an end to slavery and of course many religious believers for many years upheld slavery. But, as a corrective, Hitchens too harshly dismisses King's achievement (p. 180). It was a profound devotion to the Christian understanding of God that motivated King. And, it is a corollary achievement of American Christian culture to recognize a Biblical call to witness in racial matters. It would be a distortion of the King legacy to not recognize that Americans of all colors responded to a distinctive, and religiously Christian message to end racism.

Likewise, in regards to Gandhi, a religious message is given short shrift. Hitchens criticizes Gandhi for striking the British at an opportune time: when Japan threatened British hegemony in India. Except, they did not. Hitchens claims that Japan did their fighting for him, as a criticism of Gandhi's pacifism. It seems to me that Gandhi was just an astute tactician when the British had other options. Indians responded to the religious call to strike at the heart of British colonialism. And, as Hitchens is forced to state, Japan "was on the frontiers of India itself" (p. 183). Japan did not enter India though so Hitchens' statement that Gandhi let the "Japanese imperialists do his fighting for him" was not true (p. 183).

Hitchens should not be allowed to smugly assert that religious people can not be canny, timely, and politically astute. Religion does not spoil the ability of religious leaders to improve the lot of their adherents.

Hitchens is on stronger ground to directly state that the Koran is a rehash of Jewish and Christian myths. Islam, with no Reformation, and no internal self-critical tradition, is the least adjusted world religion to the obvious contradictions of living in the modern world with a pre-modern mindset. Any historical example to critically examine the claims of Islam has resulted in repression (p. 125). The accounts of Muhammad (d. 632) "are hopelessly corrupted into incoherence by self-interest, rumor, and illiteracy" (p. 127). "The first full account of his life was set down a full hundred and twenty years later by Ibn Ishaq, whose original was lost and can only be consulted through its reworked form, authored by Ibn Hisham, who died in 834" (p. 129). In addition, there is no way of determining how the competing accounts and traditions were collated and edited to form the text of the Koran. We are left with conjecture and hearsay as to the actual message of Muhammad.

The chaotic manner in which the Koran was assembled gave rise to the more pressing issue of succession, a controversy characterizing Islam and one in which Muslims have never solved. At the very least though, one major tradition, either the Sunni or the Shia--must by definition be incorrect. Islam though internally has attempted reformation so the statement that there has no improvement in the Islamic tradition strictly speaking is false, as Hitchens correctly points out (p. 136).

The primary issue though is a similar willingness, as Jews and Christians have allowed and benefited from, to examine the Scriptural claims to objective, scholarly examination. The consensus of religious obscurantism though has precluded "free inquiry and the emancipating consequences that it might bring" (p. 137).

Meanwhile, rogues, terrorists, mullahs, and misguided Islamists predominate and prey unmolested upon unwary victims.

I was impressed with the research that Hitchen's put into this book. He uses many quotes and references many well-known and lesser known works by writers far and wide. This adds credence to his argument against organized religion being a source of security in our present life or our after-life. He uses different religions to point our how faith and the faithful are less than convincing in their reassurances that your faith in God will bring you to a glorious end, to a place where we will view others being punished for their wrong deeds. He makes a volatile issue one that can be seen through history's spyglass as an on-going deception on a huge scale. Those faithful that insist on certain behaviors qualifying you for eternal life at the hands of God most often reveal themselves to be hypocrites, which Mr. Hitchens proves with thorough research and logic , on the part of some of our world's greatest thinkers. While it is not an easy subject he makes it easier to broach by putting a human face on different events or discoveries that bring into question religion's emphasis on blind faith. He provides a great deal of possibilities for future research on the part of the reader because he references many famous works and cites many well-known scientists, writers, and brilliant minds of this century and previous centuries. If you are at all curious about the stranglehold that religion has on the masses,don't miss this book. ( )

this book made me feel like i was stupid. I liked the points but I really did not feel like i knew enough to "get" it all. ( )

I found more interesting Dawkins' book: more linear and consistent. Hitchens often breaks his reasonings in order to quote an anecdote from his travels around the globe.
For a reader with ideas opposed to him, this could result unnervingly.

Still, it's a good book. ( )

Although some of the facts stated by Hitchens are somewhat shaky, overall his arguments are compelling. He does a good job of exploring where morality does (and perhaps more importantly) does not come from. The book is most valuable as a refutation of the close-minded yet popularly-held opinion that the World would be in grave moral danger if not for the warm, loving embrace of its religions. It is weakest in the points at which the author descends into a preachy tone reminiscent of his rivals. ( )

highly recommended if you're agnostic or your atheism is waning. ( )

Very compelling read. ( )

Loved this book. Hitchens is my kind of Atheist, swayed not by dogma (or in blind opposition to it) but who seeks to understands religion then reject it on it's own absurdity. He opens with a discussion about why there are, and will never be, any modern "prophets" along the lines of those so seemingly common-place in the Middle Ages and earlier. He discusses how religion grew to be a tool to control the masses, much to the benefit of the few on top. He talks how dangerous some ancient barbaric rituals can be in modern society (a knowingly diseased mohel in NYC infected numerous babies, with two of them dying, but since it was under the auspices of religion, he was not charged with a crime). He also covers some of the same ground Carl Sagan did in Demon Haunted World by associating medieval demonic possession claims with modern UFO abductee nutjobs. And, of course, he discusses the negative effects on national leadership throughout the world and it's influence on war. All of the major religions try to impose social order with variations of "thou shalt not kill," but the also ALL have an exception making it okay to kill people of different faiths. Again, this ties back to control...you want to keep the rabble domesticated until such a time as you wish to wield them as a weapon against your enemies (the "you" being the head of church and/or state). The section where he debases "Intelligent Design" is amusing, but then again, attacking that nonsense (and all creationism) is shooting fish in a barrel. It never ceases to entertain, though.

Hitchens traveled around the world, participated in many religious rituals, and investigated many claims. He doesn't talk smack without backing it up, often using religious texts themselves as ammunition. I look forward to reading more of his work...not since Carl Sagan died have I read such a reasoned, common-sense narrative on this topic. ( )

I was impressed with the research that Hitchens put into this book. He uses many quotes and references many well-known and lesser known works by writers far and wide. This adds credence to his argument against organized religion being a source of security in our present life or our after-life. He uses different religions to point out how faith and the faithful, are less than convincing in their reassurances that your faith in God will bring you to a glorious end, to a place where we will view others being punished for their wrong deeds. He makes a volatile issue one that can be seen through history's spyglass as an ongoing deception on a huge scale. Those faithful that insist on certain behavior qualifying you for eternal life at the hand of God most often reveal themselves to be hypocrites, which Mr. Hitchens proves with thorough research and logic, on the part of some of our world's greatest thinkers. While it is not an easy subject, he makes it easier to broach by putting a human face on different events or discoveries that bring into question religion's emphasis on blind faith. He provides a great deal of possibilities for future research on the part of the reader because he references many famous works, and cites many well-known scientists, writers, and brilliant minds of this century and previous centuries. If you are at all curious about the stranglehold that religion has on the masses, don't miss this book. ( )

If you found Richard Dawkins' "God delusion" a bit harsh on religions, you have seen nothing yet. Hitchens does hammer the points in case you might not understand: not only religions can lead to horrific advices, it has lead to the unjustified devastation of countless lives. Even if you know quite a bit on the subject, you will likely learn new horror stories. Hitchens is a master story teller and that makes reading "God is Not Great" a refined pleasure. All in all, a great piece. ( )

Hitchens does not mince his words. He is out to prove a point, a lone, controversial voice in the noisy natter of religious zealots. He explores every aspect of religion: origins, teachings, history, arguments. He focuses on the three main religions, but spares none. He even has the Cartesian sense to present a counter-argument to secularism (only to demonstrate of course that failed secular states originate from traditional religious-based practices). Hitchens has credibility as he has followed a personal path from religion to enlightenment, but in this one can sense that he preaches rather than explains his case: he is a convert to atheism. While I understand that the voice of irrationality is often much louder than the voice of reason, I often found his use of abusive vocabulary (stupid, ignorant, irresponsible, etc.) unnecessary and perhaps even detrimental to his argument. Overall, however, an instructive and interesting read, and definitely a different point of view worth knowing. ( )

I am a liberal, lefty, atheist, and I am proud of the fact that my political GPS places me pretty close to Ghandi. I have conscientiously read the New and Old testaments (a number of times) and struggled through the Koran (in English, I'm afraid).
Chris Hitchens’ book is a refreshing reminder of why religion should be left out of government and any public life. Religious peoples of the world - keep your beliefs at home and do not impose them on anyone else.
On the funny side, Hitchens ranting style reminder me a little of an intelectual Michael Moore (e.g. Dude where's my country), and it amused me to envision some parallel universe in which aetheists pick-up 'God is not great' and start quoting from it and turn it into their own version of The Bible and start bashing a religious minority over the head with it. ( )