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God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
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Average Rating:  out of 807 Reviews
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Price: $24.99
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Sale: $13.83
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Manufacturer: Twelve Books, Hachette Book Group
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EAN (European Article Number): 9780446579803
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Hardcover
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Author: Christopher Hitchens
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Publisher: Twelve Books, Hachette Book Group
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Dewey Decimal Number: 200
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Publication Date: 2007-05-01
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Reading Level: 307
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Description: In the tradition of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris's recent bestseller, The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case
against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and
reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope's awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry
of the double helix.
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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: pipsqueekish. |
Date: 2008-11-11 |
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Details: CAVEAT: Theists won't like the following post - and atheists won't as well. That leaves choice C, "none of the above." Those who are neither atheist, nor theist will understand the meaning of the following.
As a science teacher, I definetely enjoyed Hitchens' debasement of Intelligent Design and agree with him wholeheartedly, but keeping the overaching context of this book in mind, i was left with no choice but to offer one lonely star as a rating. I apologize in advance for the redundancy of my arguments that follow which simply restate the same idea from different vantage points. I believe my argument precludes the necessity (at least to my mind) of examining surface minutia, and subsumes them just the same.
Hitchens, in typical myopic atheist fashion, throws out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. Being an "atheist" myself (with qualifications not expressible here), I have come to make a distinction between the external (exoteric) forms of religion: idols, statues, rites, laws, etc, and internal (esoteric) experience: the actual "religious" experience itself. The former is for the masses, mistaking the outer forms for the totality of religious experience, while the latter is for very few indeed. Hitchens believes he is critiquing religion, when actually he is judging only those that adhere, to varying degrees, to its outer forms. He makes no distinction between those who remain at the simple level of belief (evangelists as an extreme example), and those who through deeper practice transcend mere belief, paradoxically undermining common notions of religion entirely. There is a saying in Zen for example: a master tells his student, "if you see Buddha in the road, kill him", another way of saying, don't take the forms (signs) to be the experience. Hitchens only gets it partially right: he critiques those who simply BELIEVE, but evidently has little or no knowledge of those who have "gone the distance" (though he thinks he does). One must also be aware of those who profess to have higher vision, when in fact they fool themselves and those who feed at their trough. These are an easy target for Hitchens, and so they should be. Anybody can critique religion from this level, which makes this such a boring read.
His critique of Buddhism is laughable and demonstrates little knowledge on even the most superficial level. He cites those who completely misrepresent the deeper levels of the system and use Buddhism for their own means, Hitchens believes he is actually critiquing Buddhism. In fact, he is critiquing a bastardized appropriation, but he doesn't realize (nor can he) that he's doing so. Unfortunately, this misinformed appropriation is pretty much the history of religion (all of them), so in this respect Hitchens' attacks are right on. But his transgression is that he is not altogether different than those he judges: the latter in ignorance adheres to outer forms alone, sustained by simple belief, while the former disavows the whole shebang, without knowledge of religious depth. Hitchens believes he has come to the table to critique the main course, but in fact, by predictable default, has only examined the digested end products, i.e. the excrement of religious history. As a critic of that excrement, he is nonpareil, a master among Plato's "chained men". If I wrote a book entitled "A Critical Look at the Citizens of China", and in the book I based my judgement of these citizens exclusively by the actions of the totalitarian regime at the top, I would be doing a disservice not only to Chinese citizens, but to my readers. A gross prejudice and incompleteness, don't you think? A one star foray..yes?
I recall a student of mine saying " Just look what science has done to our environment." She failed to realize that the laws of science are immutable - the facts of physical reality, and as such "do" nothing. It is what WE DO with that knowledge. Similarly, deep religious experience is ahistorical, and operates outside temporal, political trappings (the food of the MASSes). Fundamental truths, embodied in contemplative traditions and realizable only through direct experience, are neither for zealots, nor critics. Yes, "many have died in the name of religion," but via adherence to its metamorphosed dogmatized forms. These are propagated by those in power, and sustained by those who simply follow along The very same become the poster children of spiritual tradition and easy fodder for bottom feeder critics like Hitchens, ignorant of higher esoteric dimensions which ALWAYS arise from a condition of compassion and non-violence.
Hitchens demonstrates, in an ignorance more acute with each chapter, that like his religious literalist counterparts, has absolutely no feeling for analogy, metaphor, mythic interpretation and mythic invariance - all functioning as signs which point toward deeper dimensions of human awareness. in the long run he has simply critiqued the literalists - exemplifying a distinguishing characteristic of scientific tunnel-vision - a form of dogma not unlike that of religion.
The unfolding of authentic spiritual dimensions (Samadhi, Satori, Kensho, Rigpa, etc, and not precludng a neurological interpretation if one wishes), fostered by practice, and transmitted via a TRUE adept, is not for Hitchens, or fundementalists, evangelists, new agers, and 99.9999% of us. It is that .0001% that poke holes in the argument (though none would bother). HOWEVER, One need not be part of the ".0001% club" to understand the narrowness of Hitchens' complaint. For the lesser among us, understanding that level, at least, requires keen discernment, a task undoubtedly too daunting for the run of the mill atheist (or theist for that matter), who invariably mistake the tree for the forest. Secularists are as uninformed as those they critique; Atheist-Theist, two sides of one coin - "surface dwellers" one and all.
It is amusing, after centuries of religious examination, discussion, and critique, by some pretty heavy hitters, that some reviewers above presume that Mr Hitchens has finally figured it all out for us and got it right. Now there's some dogma for you. "God is not Great" is not the full-bodied examination that the reviewers on the back cover suggest, but is in fact just another White Zinfandel on the shelf. |
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Review Summary: logical, but superficial to some extent |
Date: 2008-11-10 |
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Details: I read "God is not great" relatively quickly, despite many thoughts rushing throung my head while I was reading. I am happy I read this book, which is one of many recently published in the never-ending polemics between believers and atheists. I feel that it is hard to review a book so popular, and I am aware that my review will probably drown in the sea of others, but I could not resist the temptation to share a few thoughts.
Christopher Hitchens tries to take an angle different from Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, and reviews the whole spectrum of atheist arguments, with a personal flavor, perhaps attempting to win a broader, more general audience. He did not need to win me, because I am a skeptical scientist, but I was curious what his arguments would be.
The book consists of 19 chapters with provocative titles like "Religion kills" or "Religion as an original sin". These are misleading, as is the title of the whole book. Hitchens makes an argument, that much is true, but it is not an argument against God or faith per se - it is an argument against organized, institutionalized religion. If we do not remember it, the meaning of the whole book can be lost. Hitchens himself admits it, somewhat nonchalantly, here and there, for example at the end of chapter six, "Arguments from Design" (which, in itself, is not the best, and serves only and a reference for those interested in biology and evolution): "...we no longer have any need of a god to explain what is no longer mysterious. What believers will do, now that their faith is optional and private and irrelevant, is a matter for them. We should not care, as long as they make no further attempt to inculcate religion by any for of coercion." The people in the hierarchies of various religious organizations, not faith, turn out to be the whole problem, and here Hitchens makes his case very well.
I was a little disappointed by the initial chapter, which I found very superficial and not very original - up to (and including) chapter six (although there was some anecdotal info, which was interesting or new to me - like the answer to the question "if you were in a strange city at night, and you saw a group of men approaching you, would you feel safer knowing that they had just come out of a place of religious worship". The middle chapters I found best, and towards the end I was a bit bored - I am not sure if this was the intention of the author...
I appreciated very much many references to specific works of philosophers, as well as the literary associations and the reference list at the end of the book. For those wishing to explore the subject it is an excellent source. Hitchens relies very much on his area of expertise, having done a lot of work and written books on Thomas Paine and Mother Theresa, and these fragments of the book felt for me the best and the strongest. The biological arguments were not the most impressive part (better left to Dawkins). Some of the language can be perceived as offensive by the religious people, too. I liked the logic and the comparisons of religious organizations to the infamy of Nazism and Communism (sad but true).
All in all, I think it is a book, which can be a useful voice in a discussion for beginners making first steps in the world of the battles between the religious and the non-believers, and trying to figure out what is good for them. |
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Review Summary: Not Again..... |
Date: 2008-11-09 |
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Details: Just another book by an angry Atheist that needs to beat up those (verbally) who belive in God or have religion. I would say the same for a Believer who would write a book railing Atheists. People's religious believes are none of Hitchen's business and instead of writing books, should just read them. Everyone takes cheap shots at those, especially Christianity. I would like to see Hitchens have a conference on his book in Saudi Arabia, perhaps he would appreciate the free press (in Christian nations) that give him rights to spread his gospel of hate. |
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Review Summary: Amusing but Shrill |
Date: 2008-11-05 |
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Details: The first thing to remember about Christopher Hitchens is that he is a journalist by trade, versus a scholar capable of writing a well researched paper that could withstand extensive critical peer review. Just a quick flip to the back of "God is Not Great" proves my point: there is no bibliography, and the "reference" section, all six pages of it, consists mostly of sloppy and essentially lame notes citing sources that, quite frankly, are almost counterproductive to his arguments.
So what you have here is more of an extended essay: Hitchens' view of the world vis-a-vis religion, which he apparently just had to get off his chest.
There is no doubt that Hitchens IS one heck of a writer, and he has a devastating pen. I would not want to be the target of one of his polemics. Which is what this is. Even though I agree with most of what he says, I can see that ultimately, this is just Christopher Hitchens venting a lifetime's worth of bile toward injustices he sees in the world that he is certain have been caused by religion. I don't disagree with him that in many cases, religion seems, in fact, to be guilty as charged.
What Hitchens fails to address at all however is the debate over whether it is religion that is causing all this evil, or whether bad things happen simply because Man is quite simply a very nasty creature. Believers who like to rebut the former argument by arguing "more people have died under atheist regimes like Stalin or Mao than because of religion" are actually and inadvertently supporting the latter argument. I would suggest that all this mayhem occurs simply because some people are simply no good, and when they get into positions of power they are prone to killing people by the dozens, or perhaps millions. Whether they use their religion, or their fanatic belief in Marxism, or something else as justification doesn't change the fact that their primary rationale has something to do with either greed, lust for power, or just plain nastiness.
Conversely, Hitchens does not account for any of the good that religion accomplishes in the world. And it does, in fact, accomplish much good. I cite as Exhibit A my grand-uncle, who died while I was still very young, and so I do not remember the one time I met him. But I know all about him. He was the village priest in a small farming community in Nova Scotia, and he gave of himself ceaselessly for over 50 years caring for and overseeing the needs of all the people in that community. If someone was sick, he got medical help or tended to the person himself, and used church funds to pay the medical bills if the person had nothing. If someone was hungry, he made sure they were fed. When anyone needed a hand, or support, or a friend, he was there. Would he have still been a decent, caring, charitable person if he had not become a priest? Probably. But would he have accomplished all the good that he did had he not become a man of the cloth? Probably not. So I cannot accept Hitchens argument that "religion poisons everything." It may poison a lot. But everything? No.
If we ran a balance sheet on whether religion does more harm than good, I'm not sure what the answer to that question would be. It might come out pretty even. Or not. I don't disagree that religion causes a lot of harm in the world. We might be better off without it, though eradicating it, when it seems that the need for it is literally hard-wired into most of us genetically, is almost certainly a fool's errand. Still, the kind of black and white thinking that Hitchens exhibits here is ultimately not useful. I would like to see a more balanced analysis of the pros and cons of religion. This book is not it.
In summary, if you are an unbeliever, you may find yourself agreeing with most of Hitchens' criticisms, and you may find yourself laughing out loud. But in the end, this book is too shrill, too negative, too unbalanced, and too unsympathetic to ever do anything more than preach unto the choir of agnostics and atheists, a relatively small percentage of the population. These are not the people who need to be reminded that religion run amok can become a thing of evil. This book will turn off the folks who actually need to hear the message that this book purports to bring long before it ever has a chance to penetrate their thought processes. |
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Review Summary: What now? |
Date: 2008-10-23 |
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Details: So where do we go from here, now that the great English/American intellectual,talk show guest Christopher Hitchens has informed all of mankind that there is no God, that this internal instinct we all have may just be wish-thinking and our need to worship is probably just fear of the dark. And of dying.
Hitchens does do an impressive job of discrediting the holy men and holy books that somehow came to pass before the invention of the video camera and the printing press. The heretofor sacred scriptures are probably just cobbled together collections of folklore, myths, early philosophy and incredible superstition that seemed believable to illiterate peasants in anchient times. But modern man has easy access to all the information ever recorded in the world thru his laptop computer. Are we still to be devoted to such nonsense that was churned up when civilization was in its infancy?
Where I tend to disagree with Hitchens is that even without religion, man will still behave ethically. No he won't. If there is no God, no heaven or hell fire, no certain punishment or eternal reward to choose from, then the riff raft of this world runs amok and society is ungovernable.
The problem is not religion. The problem is the sinister manipulators who inevitably come along to mobilize the gullible, the uneducated, the poor and to use them for political and military gain.
Also, much of this book is wordy and scholarly and whoever did his fact-checking, God bless him. |
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