God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Product Details

Author : Christopher Hitchens
Binding : Paperback
EAN : 9781843545743
Number of Pages : 320
Product Group : Book
Publication Date : 2008-03-01
Publisher : Atlantic Books

ASIN : 1843545748

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Customer Reviews

Thinking book (2008-10-04)

This book does make you think in two sense of that phrase: it makes you consider the big questions in life and it also makes you concnetrate hard to understand it in places.I liked the book when considering it in the round. It think that Hitchens is clearly a very clever individual, well-read and who has considered his subject-matter in some detail and is very familiar with it. But this is part of the downside to the book in that, for someone like me, who is not a philosopher and who does not have a good grounding in the subject matter, it is difficult to follow in places (quite a few places).I have also read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins recently and on balance I prefer Dawkins book. That said, the two books are written in different styles (Dawkins adopting more of a step by step guide, whereas Hitchens' approach is more conversational). These books are very different to the books I would usually read and I think I have benefitted greatly from reading them, but to others who have not read them I would say that you need to be sitting quietly and without distraction to get the most out of the book!

God is not......... (2008-09-23)

Great book. Unfortunately, I suspect the only people who will read it already know that God isn't!

Welcome to celestial North Korea (2008-09-22)

Dawkins has God on the floor and the Hitch has jumped into the ring and got a sneaky boot in. Booo, hiss! This book starts from where Dawkins left off i.e. there is no good reason for belief in anything with no evidence (e.g. the tooth fairy, flying spaghetti monster God etc). All these things might exist but it seems unlikely. Hitchens goes a step further and tries to show that not only does God probably not exist but it would be bad if he did. He describes Heaven as a celestial North Korea.It seems a strong case but is based entirely around the portrayal of God in the world's religions. It seems possible to me that God does exist but religions are man made and have got God all wrong. Personally I'm not sure whether it matters whether God exists. I like to hope that we do not cease to exist when we die and I certainly hope we are more than our bodies. But I recognise that this is probably wishful thinking and I am not sure where a God or God's fit into all this.This is a good read for making you think about such questions. And as always Hitchens writes wonderfully.

Seminal work (2008-09-19)

Christopher Hitchens smashes the walls of untouchability, religion still cherishes in this book.God is not Great offers the Moral case against God, presented as always in Hitchens gentlemanly inimitable style.It's hard to fault this work. Well paced & absorbing, blow by blow Christopher knocks down the facade with equisitly placed mighty strikes from his theological fists.

Good book, not a great book (2008-09-02)

You cannot come to this book a neutral. You either have faith in which case you may curious to see what the latest atheist thinking is or you are an atheist looking for a book that helps clarify your views. I am the latter but I even I had issues with it.Firstly while I am worried about the rise of fundamentalism in all religions and can plainly see that religion has caused much unnecessary suffering in the world, I don't like the fact that this book is so aggressive itself. This book is a rant and while a rant can be fun, over nearly 300 pages it becomes exhausting.The logic is faultless but the writing is aggressive bordering on arrogant and maybe this style is necessary in a debate with a fundamentalist Christian on a cable channel but in a book like this surely there's an opportunity to take the higher ground and argue the logic with dignity. Too often there are snide comments which don't add anything to the argument and actually make the author sound petty.I would like to think that atheists could argue the logic without getting nasty but Hitchens falls at the second point. I can now see why so many of the faithful find atheism so distasteful because while both Hitchens and Dawkins have done their homework and know their stuff and have arguments that can't be denied by anyone with half a brain, it's told in a rather sanctimonious and aggressive manner which perhaps stops a few people from listening and changing their views.True the faithful don't use any charm against unbelievers and they rant longer and harder than Hitchens ever could but I think atheists are better than that, and should argue the case with a smile not a sneer. This book actually dents that belief for me.

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