God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

English language

Published Jan. 5, 2009

ISBN:
978-0-446-69796-5
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4 stars (63 reviews)

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.

13 editions

Review of 'God Is Not Great' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This book title is well known and roundly criticized by various religions, but I think the majority of the criticize is not actually read it. It does not say anything specifically AGAINST any religion other than that which is already known. But I can see Christians, Muslims, and religious Jews in particular having a lot of trouble with it, because he points out aspects that are already known but rationalized away.
I admit that as a Reform Jew I do my own rationalizing away to make my own belief system "acceptable and reasonable" in some sense, but there you are…
As I say, this book doesn't actually introduce any new knowledge, but it puts it all in one place, and it points out a lot of religious fallacies and inconsistencies. Fortunately, I knew, going in, what I was in for, and the kaleidoscope of facts – although disheartening – is …

Review of 'God Is Not Great' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

While the people that need this book the most are the least likely to read it, it may help those on the fence make up their minds, and give existing atheists and agnostics articulate counter-arguments to religious claims. Fans of Hitchens's acid wit won't be disappointed.

This book makes a good companion piece to Dawkins's "The God Delusion," covering the social and historical argument against religious belief while Dawkins handles the scientific and logical one.

Review of 'God Is Not Great' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

"God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" by Christopher Hitchens is a a stirring defense of humanism and a well-crafted critique with a startling premise: that all religion is a malevolent force in the world and has retarded human progress. No matter where you reside on the battle lines of this issues, one cannot deny that Hitchens has written an impassioned work that stirs the mind and intellect.

My initial impression of this book was that it was a dogmatic atheist screed. I consider myself a humanist but have not engaged with the belief in a complete way. The book is more than a diatribe against religion but an inspiring defense of reason, intellect, and morality, which are not derived from religion. It calls upon the reader to try to find wonder and magnificence in the universe around us. He writes "If you will devote a little time to …

Review of 'God Is Not Great' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

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 …

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