About this title: Hitchens takes on his biggest subject yet--the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. With insight and wit, he describes the ways in which religion is man-made, immoral, and repressive and argues for a new enlightenment through science and reason. (World Religions)
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Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Twelve Books, Hachette Book Group
ISBN-13:9780446579803ISBN:0446579807
Description: Very Good. 0446579807 Very good condition, minor wear. No major marks or damage. Hardcover. 100% satisfaction guaranteed. Great customer service and a no problem, EZ return policy. Real people, real service, since 1981. read more
Edition: Reprint
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Twelve Books, Hachette Book Group, New York
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780446579803ISBN:0446579807
Description: Fair in Fair jacket. 0446579807 This book has some shelf wear as well as tanning and marks on the cover and pages. The library stamps and stickers are still on this book. This book is 307 pages. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Twelve Books, Hachette Book Group
Date Published: 2007-05-01
ISBN-13:9780446579803ISBN:0446579807
Description: New. New Book. There is slight time wear. Otherwise looks new. Free tracking # included! International buyers are welcome. We ship every business day. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Twelve Books, Hachette Book Group
Date Published: 2007-05-01
ISBN-13:9780446579803ISBN:0446579807
Description: Very Good. This copy states: First Edition May 2007, which is in very good condition. No visible markings, highlights, underlining, tears to text. Tight spine. Clean Hard Cover. Dust Jacket has a chip to top front/back edge, with light/minimum, shelf/edge wear. Great reading copy, worth having at an affordable price. (L5-6) read more
"What a good book, religion has almost destroyed the world and the thing is that most of the bible we cannot be sure if it is correct or not as there are so many different versions of the ancient autographs. Religionists forget the words, love one another like you love yourself"
"This is a subject that has needed courageous, explicit treatment at least since the Enlightenment. Without mincing words or engaging in timid euphemistic doublespeak, Hitchens lifts the cover of blind piety and obediance to reveal all the unfounded conclusions of organized religions based on the ignorance of the past before our current empirical scientific model based on evidence. What is left is a realization that all religions have sought ethical and humane behavior on the part of their adherents, but have ususally wound up inciting the opposite. I only wish the author had the insight to call the book something like "Our Concept of God is not Great!" We need those elusive values represented by the concept we call God. I feel Hitchens did not throw the baby out with the bath water, but his title can lead one to think so. Read the book anyway. You might just clarify, enrich, and strengthen your own belief system."
"Imagine if a basketball fan set out to discredit baseball and converts its adherents to his chosen sport. He would note the rather dubious creation myth still celebrated in the sports' Hall of Fame, the Black Sox scandal, the exclusion of African American players until the 1950s, frequent brawls between teams that literally clear the benches, and two most successful players of the last decade being almost undoubted cheats. He could go on to argue that the uniforms are childish, the habits of players disgusting (and their salaries even more so), and the rules hopelessly complex and inconsistent. Finally, he might say, subjecting children to such a game through organized little leagues is perhaps a form of child abuse. After all, it subjects them to needless stress to perform in an environment where even the most successful fail more than half the time and relies on shouting coaches for motivation. The basketball fan might then make a few comments on the beauty of a Larry Bird jumper, the deftness of a Magic Johnson behind-the-back pass, and the awe-inspiring grace of a Jordan dunk and thus safely conclude the argument convinced that his case was proved.
Replace baseball with religions and basketball with enlightenment rationalism and you've essentially got God is Not Great. Hitchens' book is a catalog of the sins of religions and a well considered and highly pointed one at that. I found much I want to think over a bit more in my faith after watching it fall under Hitchens's inspection. Still, it seems like the same sort of catalog can be written up about any organized human endeavor and the fact that organized religions are not free of the human stain hardly surprises.
What is surprising is the extent to which Hitchens' goes to leave no saint unblemished. Why he chooses to blame Indian partition on Gandhi, when Gandhi advocated contra Jinnah for a united India is beyond me. Similar is the portrayal of Mother Teresa as an opportunistic nun (I am sure the people she served wish there were more such opportunists). I suspect Mother Teresa is cast in such an unfavorable light more from the antipathy Hitchens feels for his fellow polemicist Malcolm Muggeridge, who first filmed her, than anything she's done. (In Hitchens estimation Muggeridge is an idiot as are most people he disagrees with).
I suppose an atheist will find most of this comforting, though he may be pricked by a niggling doubt (a similar doubt to the doubt a theist such as myself has when reading some of C.S. Lewis' work) that the case for atheism is just a little too easily made here."
"What a book. Its so hard to review a book who's author is both an enormous intellectual and an equally enormous ahole. I certainly would recommend it to every believer and think it will shake their foundations. But like every fanatic and believe me Hitchens is as fanatical in his atheism as any fundamentalist preacher, he overreaches. He spends chapters propositioning that communism is a new religion yet says nothing about the dominate economic worldwide system of capitalism?? He talks only briefly about MLK jr but doesn't see the unique position of the Black church in America? Hitchens was an unabashed supporter of the Iraqi invasion and America's illegal occupation and destruction of that cradle of civilization but...not a peep against the religion of oil money and its gas pumping temples on very American street corner?! But alas Hitchens picks easy targets and extrapolates, makes spurious connections and uses circular logic but damn if you won't leave this book saying that yes, religion poisons (and here is the qualifier) damn near everything!"
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