God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything | Christopher Hitchens

God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything | Christopher Hitchens | Difficult to get through, but learned some

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God Is Not Great: ...

	God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything Christopher Hitchens Twelve Books, Hachette Book Group, 2007 - 307 pages average customer review:based on 796 reviews view larger image
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Well thought out arguments

I'll start out by saying that I agreed with many of the premises of this book before purchasing and reading it. That being said - I don't think these types of books are about persuading a religious person to give up their faith. Their intention is to preach to the choir as they say.

So the biggest pitfall to a book of this nature is to fall into the same trap that religion does. Begging the question and requiring us to go on faith that what we are reading is true. I thought Hitchens did an excellent job of relating his arguments to his own life experiences and showing historical examples. His areguments are well thought out but at times (and they are few) he over reaches to make a point. Each chapter I found to be intellectual, carefully planned and easily read.

There is substancial material in this book and it is worth reading.

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Difficult to get through, but learned some

I think this would be a more enjoyable audio book than a written book, as it was challenging to get through at points. I thought Hitchens was unneccessarily snarky in spots, which eroded the power of some of his argument/statements. Overall, I am happy that I read it, but it became more of a chore than a joy. I am not religious, but I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is because it would seem like it would raise questions the could lead to further searching and discovering and ultimately strengthen one's faith. Those who dismiss the piece out of hand because of it's anti-religeon stance are missing an opportunity, I think.

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Nietzsche's "Antichrist" for the 21st Century

Whatever one thinks of Hitchens and his new book, at least one cannot accuse him of beating about the bush. Although he is (in)famous for NOT verbally beating another Bush, when it comes to God, Hitchens gets out the big cane of an Enlightenment schoolmaster and gives religion a sound thrashing. It poisons everything, we read on the cover, and the pages that follow show that Hitchens actually means it.

In that way, he is very much like Nietzsche and his "Antichrist." Its title, too, leaves little doubt as to the position of the author, and its contents deliver one vituperative blow after another against everything that Christianity stands for.

In fact, one could even say that "God Is Not Great" is simply Nietzsche's "Antichrist" repackaged for the 21st century. The advantage of the former is that Hitchens' many stories, anecdotes, and current political/cultural references make his work more relevant for today. The advantage of the latter is that it gets to the point much more quickly. In the "Antichrist," you get almost all of Hitchens' basic thoughts that underlie the tapestry of his many details. These thoughts are compressed in such a way that each sentence feels like a strike on the anvil against the (supposed) evils of Christianity. In other words, Nietzsche digresses much less than Hitchens does.

The strength of both is that they take a position on religion that is both poignant as well as exhilerating to read. There has hardly been a philosopher as entertaining and poetic as Nietzsche - and therefore as rapturously subjective -, and there are few modern atheists who are as entertaining, poetic, and rapturously subjective as Hitchens.

And just like Nietzsche needs interpreters to refine his bold strokes and prevent harmful applications of his thoughts, Hitchens probably needs the same. If the view that religion truly does poison everything takes hold of the masses, it can potentially lead to quite frightening results. In that way, there might be poisonous potential in Hitchens' book itself.

My recommendation: Read Nietzsche's "Antichrist" first to get the gist of Hitchens, then read Hitchens to fill in the details.

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