[.ca] God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (ISBN 0771041438)

More Entertaining than the Bible:
I thoroughly enjoyed this piece of work. Although I enjoy Hitchen's lectures even more, this book made me laugh straight through. In the end, the superstitious really do get ridiculed and dumbed down to the point where it makes you angry that they have so much influence over the world today. Generally, I expect these types of books to contain lots of scientific references, and I was a bit hesitant to purchase it at first considering Dawkin's God Delusion presents a far better 'scientific' case against the plausibility of the existence of God; Hitchens is not a scientist after all. He doesn't omit using logic and reason, but I always find scientific research, statistics etc. always adds to the credibility. This is a rare case where it still works - having 'tediously' run through all the scientific reasoning against religion in other books, I get it , the probability of celestial dictator existing is infinitesimal - with this book I could just lay back and relax, take it more for it's entertainment value, and laugh at the ridiculous sources and deeds of religion, from all the virgin births to the mental illnesses of Mohammed to crazy Christian indoctrination which I could to relate to perfectly well. You can tell Hitchens is not lacking in the intellectual department, and some may not understand all his British references. Fortunately I'm Canadian, ie. sort of British, and I was able to swallow most of it without the aid of wikipedia. Hitchens presents his case against religion from the position of an antitheist. I would say Dawkins focused more on the premise that it just wasn't true, whereas Hitchens went further to say that not only is religion fabricated, but it is has a negative impact on society as a whole, thus he doesn't mean religion poisons 'everything' literally, just that we'd better off without it. He could have elaborated more on how morality is innate and several other details, but then again, those belong in the scientific domain. Overall an excellent read. Keep up the great work Hitchens, we ALL ought to help Jefferson build up that wall.

Hitchens may be a jerk, but his arguments are sound:
In order to make his point Hitchens oversimplifies religious belief. His tone is arrogant and tiresomely devoted to the same note played over and over. He is sarcastic to the point of disrespect. He is far from gracious. Hitchens makes all the arguments you've heard before: -religion almost inevitably leads to violence -evolutionary science disproves the possibility of any literal truth in every major tradition's creation story -The recorded miracles of various traditions are all false -archaeology almost always disproves religious histories and, his favourite: -belief in God is completely unecessary. You can explain the universe without God quite easily. This is an old and tired debate. There is nothing new here. And delivering these old arguments in such an unpleasant tone certainly hasn't helped him sell his ideas. However... Having said all that: I find that this book is shaking off most of the last remnants of my belief. I realized that this is the first time I've read a book attacking religious belief with a completely open mind. Whenever I encountered these books in the past I approached them defensively. I wanted them to be wrong. (I suppose I still want Hitchens to be wrong, just because he is such an arrogant prick). But now, for the first time, I am pulled from both directions. Some parts of me still want to hang on to my Christianity, and other parts want to abandon it entirely. What I am finding in reading Hitchens' work, is that all the old arguments are coming to life for me. They are adding up to a convincing whole. He is right that evolution disproves the creation story. It is true that the miracles of the Bible are almost impossible to believe (more on that below). And, yes -belief in God is completely uneccesarry. Neither philophy nor science require it. So why subject myself to what he calls the "tyranny" of belief? In fact, his poorly-sold argument is so convincing that I feel I must now -for the sake of intellectual honesty- reluctantly admit that I am now an atheist. Not an antitheist; but an atheist all the same. I don't believe in God anymore. thanks.

Not a very worthwhile book:
I read Dawkin's "The God Delusion" with some interest and enjoyment. I thereafter read a variety books on the same issue(s) (both pro and con) and this was one... I can't especially recommend this book as adding to the debate. It re-hashes general arguments without offering anything new, and it frequently resorts to broad, over-generalizations which rely on anecdote or bald assertions without then providing any particular authorities. The title 'God is not great: How religion Poisons Everything' does fairly describe the book's thesis, but one tends to get the impression, in the first part of the book, that it is a discussion over the validity of religous belief. Ultimately, it is really a somewhat repetitive indictment of all the evil things that have been done in the name of religion. Some of the things this book says are arguably important, but this is not a book that is properly associated with erudite philosophical/scientific analyses of religious belief. C. John Thompson

Couldn't have said it better myself!:
This book put everything I was thinking about religion in to words. Hitchens eloquently writes a well thought-out book, debunking many of the arguments people put forward as to why religion is so necessary in todays world. Not only that, be he goes on to show/explain how religion has stood in the way of helping the human race develop and expand grow. Is the book controversial? Sure it is. Religion is a topic that people don't like to discuss. And what's funny about this, is that Hitchens addresses this EXACT issue in his book :) I read this book in a week and couldn't put it down. Nay, didn't want to put it down. Truly, an enjoyable read.

http://www.reasons.org/ http://www.everystudent.com/index.html:
http://www.reasons.org/ http://www.everystudent.com/index.html Here are a couple of \o5 STARS\c ratings for the other side of things.