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| Author: Christopher Hitchens
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  106 reviews
Sales Rank: 535
Media: Paperback
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 0.9
ISBN: 1843545748
EAN: 9781843545743
ASIN: 1843545748
Publication Date: March 1, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
 Seminal work September 19, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
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 September 2, 2008
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
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 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.
A Comprehensive Argument against Religion August 18, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I was a convinced secularist before I started buying books on the subject. The first book I tried was Dawkins 'The God Delusion' and I found it rather disappointing. Perhaps the key reason is that Dawkins is a scientist while I am, if anything, a historian. Dawkins spent too much time for my liking showing how Darwin's theories are the answer to all the questions that religious people claim that their religions solve. The book was a struggle for someone like me who does not start with a good understanding of natural selection.
Hitchens on the other hand has produced a book that completely met my needs. The book gives a thorough account of the attitudes and beliefs of various religions, and, most important, their histories, the crimes that have been committed by them.
I must make it clear that I don't mean crimes committed by individuals who happened to profess some particular religion, I mean crimes committed by and in the name of the religion itself. The harmful effect that religions have on the young, the way they have persecuted anyone who is different, the hate that they irrationally generate, ....
Everyone with a modicum of education knows how the Catholic church forced Gallileo to deny what he knew to be true, and that the Dutch Reformed church supported apartheid. But I certainly did not know that Catholic support for the Nazis was so strong that when Hitler died Irish president de Valera dressed formally and went by stage coach to offer his condolences to the German embassy in Dublin. The book is full of accounts of religions' wickedness.
Indeed, the book presents the case against religion so forcefully that it is as if Hitchens is a barrister prosecuting religion in a court of law. Every crime, every fallacy, every wickedness is exposed. It is almost inconceivable that anyone who reads the book with other than a completely closed mind will be a believer by the time he finishes.
Unlike the Dawkins book, there is not one passage where the text makes difficult reading. As Dawkins himself is quoted as saying on the front cover (at least of the paperback edition) 'If you are a religious apologist invited to debate with Christopher Hitchens, decline.'
The case against religion could not have been more clearly or more comprehensively presented. An excellent book.
Oolon Colluphid lives August 10, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
At last a rational, reasoned argument for the non existence of god, Hitchens explains clearly the downright danger humankind puts itself in when believing in an all powerful mythical creature.
Man is not made in god's form, but rather the opposite.
If you're ever at a loss when listening to the diatribe of all the 'one true way(s)' and wish to learn more about the inaccuracies and contradictions of so called holy texts, and be a free thinker then this is a book for you.
Hitchens engages on a more rational level than some other Polemicists, he is often funny, always insightful Hitchens is an excellent writer and this audiobook makes a good listen.
Should this be "Man is not Great?" August 10, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book is a "tour de force". Hitchen takes us on a helter skelter ride through the anomalies of revealed religion. Muslims, Christians and Jews are not spared as he cuts a swathe through the Bible and the Koran and their purported inaccuracies.Buddhists and Hindus fare no better. He takes no prisoners and his arguments certainly provide much to ponder in terms of our own belief.
Hitchens has not reinvented the wheel, however, and questions about the mythological construct of, for example, the New Testament, have already been addressed by theologians. Firstly, David Strauss writing in the early 19th century wrote three volumes on the Life of Jesus and painstakingly analysed the so called mythological context of the Canon. Later another German theologian, Rudolf Bultmann, similarly treated the reported life of Jesus in the Bible as being a mythology.
There are many other books which touch on Hitchen's subject and they all seem to possess a certain anger in their reportage. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that Christopher Hitchens' book, incidentally an International best seller, gives the general reader an insight in to the idiosyncracies of religion as practised by human beings.Hence should we say "Man is not Great". What it probably does not do is provide for the non existence of God or answer the question regarding "first cause" as such. His argument is very much against the theory and practise of monotheistic religion and, for those who would have it, provides a very convincing case.
However, whilst Church attendances decline and the Muslim population of Europe increases, how long will it be before explorations into religiosity are permitted with impunity and not subject to the terrifying sanctions as described in Hitchen's book. Although I do not necessarily agree with all the contentions of the author, there is, nevertheless, much that has the "ring of truth" despite the patent cynicism. This is an immensely readable book and a delight for the enquiring mind even if you do not accept all that is written. The book is given the category "politics" rather than religion.That's what it says on the back cover. It is not a theological book by any standard being written for the "man in the street". It has more in common with the study of religious anthropology, that is how certain groups have built up customs and beliefs in the practise of their faith which manifest themselves in certain attributes which may be anathema to others, especially male and female circumcision.One thing is for certain and that is not all religions can be true as such.
The book's title is slightly misleading as there appears to be no attempt to philosophically justify God's non existence.This would demand an altogether different book. It is refreshing that such books are written as they stimulate discussion and thoughts on how we conduct our religious lives if, indeed, we have one at all.
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