Product Description

"God Is Not Great" is the ultimate case against religion. In a series of acute readings of the major religious texts, Christopher Hitchens demonstrates the ways in which religion is man-made, dangerously sexually repressive and distorts the very origins of the cosmos. Above all, Hitchens argues that the concept of an omniscient God has profoundly damaged humanity, and proposes that the world might be a great deal better off without 'him'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1111 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
"'If Hitchens didn't exist, we wouldn't be able to invent him.' Ian McEwan 'Do yourself a favor and skip the Dawkins and Harris; they're smug, turgid, and boring, with all the human feeling of a tax return. Read Hitchens instead... A tendentious delight, a caustic and even brilliant book... Thank God for Christopher Hitchens.' - Mark Warren, Esquire 'Dazzling... A campaign to put this glittering anti-theist tract on the national curriculum for "religious education" should begin here.' - Johann Hari, Independent 'Hitchens is a grand rhetorician, and his double-barrelled shotgun of a book is high entertainment... As with Voltaire, his scornful laughter is a powerful weapon.' - Christopher Hart, Sunday Times 'The anti-religion case has never been put so well, so comprehensively or so definitively as in this razor-sharp book... Hitchens accumulates a devastating case... Outstanding.' - A.C. Grayling, Independent on Sunday 'Christopher Hitchens is a master craftsman of argument... God is not Great is undoubtedly the most boisterously entertaining contribution to the [atheism] debate.' - Siobhan Murphy, Metro 'God is not Great is easily the most brilliant and fascinating contemplation upon the role of religion in human society in recent times, the Das Kapital of a tolerant, if exasperated, atheism.' - Kevin Myers, Irish Independent"

Esquire US
'Thank God for Christopher Hitchens. For he has written the finest
of the down-with-God books.'

Johann Hari, The Independent
Dazzling... It shows Hitchens can still intellectually get it up, and
how...

Customer Reviews

Clever, Very Readable and Pretty Convincing Too
Firstly - I've read the US version of this book, "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything", this is why I can write a review.
If you just want to comment on Hitchens/Atheism in general (either for or against) then please do it somewhere else!

I wasn't the greatest Hitchens fan but I have to admit that this book is something special. It's well written with lots of entertaining anecdotes and is easily more readable than Dawkins "The God Delusion". The pages fly by and his points are interesting and well made.

Obviously I was expecting a rabid attack on all things godly yet Hitchens turns out to be cleverer than that. He insists that people should be free to believe what they want - they just shouldn't try to force their beliefs on others. There's the expected examination of the Abrahamic religions here (yes, including Islam) but also critiques of other faiths too. Intelligent and inventive, this was far far better than the book that I was expecting.

Overall it's a great read with a convincing message that has convinced me to look at Hitchens back catalogue to see what other gems are hidden there...

I dare you to read this!

Read it with an open mind
This book is a worthy companion to Dawkins "The God Delusion". Whereas Dawkins is a scientist, this author takes more of a historical perspective.

I have read a great deal of the current fashion of these type of books. I have enjoyed them all, but Hitchens is perhaps the best of all. He is fearless and expresses himself with great eloquence. You really have to admire his convictions, even if you do not agree with his every point.

Hitchens shows why he believes religion to be a consequence of our evolutionary childhood, why he believes it should not be considered a source of morality and all the ways in which it has demonstrated (he believes) its tendency to forster totalitarian malevolence.

It is unfortunate that many of the reviews posted are vitreolic arguements from pro- or anti-creationists. Clearly many people take great offence to their faith being questioned. But surely if ones faith is trully strong, they should be able to respond to such challenges in a positive way? It is scarcely likely that a book is going to change your lifelong held beliefs, so surely it can be read with an open mind as to understanding other peoples point of view.

The only criticism I would make of this book is that sometimes too much knowledge is assumed of the reader. At times I found myself having to contentrate quite hard as I was not overly familiar with the historical events.

The style lets it down

Hitchens makes many strong points; but his style is a distraction.

He uses far too many emotive phrases, for example: Edward Gibbon is "revolted" by Christianity (p. 267); Hannukah is "vapid and annoying" (p. 273); John Brown is "lionlike" and "a fearsome and pitiless Calvinist" (p. 177). It gets a bit much after a while and reads like something written by a schoolboy.

A secondary gripe is that the references are weak. In more than one case, I wanted to check where he got his information. For example, when discussing child abuse in the Catholic church, he writes (p. 51) that "... it is now estimated that the *un*molested children [...] were very probably the minority." There is no indication of the source for this claim (and many others).

While I am a hardened atheist, and generally agree with the content; I find the book a bit too strident and didn't enjoy reading it.