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| God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 793 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1118
Category: Book
Author: Christopher Hitchens
Publisher: Twelve Books, Hachette Book Group
Studio: Twelve Books, Hachette Book Group
Manufacturer: Twelve Books, Hachette Book Group
Label: Twelve Books, Hachette Book Group
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 307
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 0446579807
Dewey Decimal Number: 200
EAN: 9780446579803
ASIN: 0446579807
Publication Date: May 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In the tradition of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris's recent bestseller, The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case
against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and
reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope's awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry
of the double helix.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 788 more reviews...
 Untitled, Sorry. August 25, 2008
I've absolutely loved everything Christopher Hitchens has said about religion in this book and everything else he's had to say about religion before and after. He's a brilliant man who's done his homework. But I think the title is misleading because I don't think god(as in the concept or possibility) is inseperable from religion. In other words I don't think its unreasonable for an anti or exreligious person or even a scientist to believe in god. As long that god isn't being worshiped and does not stand in the way of education, than it is reasonable.
As long as the concept and possibility of god is used responsibly and not selfishly, it shouldn't stand in the way of truth. Religion is the problem because it is education's worst nightmare, it is absolute. As long as people interpret god as being a cross between Kim Jong Il and some self-centered teenaged girl from Beverly Hills as religion has done beautifully for thousands of years, than its going to become more and more difficult for rational people to be taken seriously by atheists when they say they believe in god too.
But that's enough of my rambling, buy this book, I don't care who you are because Hitchens has said what needs to be said relentlessly about the evils of religion. Don't be ashamed or afraid of being an atheist because books like this one demonstrate that its a good thing.
Informative and persuasive August 19, 2008
Hitchens is an extremely sharp, erudite, and well-qualified author on the subject of religion. Having had several encounters with different faiths in his life, he is a journalist who has witnessed first-hand the effects of religious belief around the world. He also has intimate knowledge of religious traditions through history, as well as of important thinkers. In this book he chronicles how throughout human history, religion has been the bringer of more suffering, fear, and misery than any other force. What's sad is that most of what he says is obvious, yet most everyone is afraid to admit it. At one point Hitchens gets a bit carried away, arguing that Stalin's regime showed many characteristics of a monotheistic religion. That may be true, but there's a logical fallacy at work: just because religious institutions tend to be totalitarian in nature, and Stalinism was totalitarian, doesn't make Stalinism a religion. It's important to realize that it's religious institutions that are responsible for the considerable damage catalogued in the book. The faithful don't tend to be any more or less moral than the nonfaithful, but the power of religion as a means of dominance and control gives them a whole lot of leverage.
 The War on Religion - A never ending conflict August 15, 2008
0 out of 9 found this review helpful
it comes to no surprise that these anti-religious loons are trying to convert as many people to atheism and humanism when events like 9/11 were sparked by religious fundamentalism. It is fundamentalism that is the problem, not religion itself. However, these people who have limited understanding of God seek to do damage which is not supposed to be the role of individuals but rather a collective of people who seek to prove that they are right and everyone else who is not like them is wrong. These secular fundamentalists are no different nor any better than their religious counterpart, I find it interesting how much they have in common yet they hate each other.
This war on religion should be more so focused upon the war against fundamentalism, not religion, nor God. These inspired texts have caused much conflict, no one can deny it, but they have also cause people to reach potentials never before reached. Could it be that fundamentalism is the problem being that fundamentalism is what has caused religion to be used for war and personal gain? These critics of religion should be willing to help their religious heretical counterparts in breaking down dogmatic fundamentalism. Instead they dont, they attack all of religiosity as if it was the full problem. These books and others like them are based on ignorance.
This book is not about God August 13, 2008
0 out of 11 found this review helpful
Whatever this book is about, it's not about God. It's about the author, first and foremost, which is perhaps a very exciting subject for the author himself, but not necessarily for his intended audience. It is also about the religion, primarily about the organized religion. I would suggest that an appropriate title for this book should be either 'Christopher Hitchens Is Great' or 'Organized Religion Is Not Great'.
Boring, inconsequential and meaningless is all I can say about this book.
 Technical Critique- Audiobook is unintelligible August 3, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
This review addresses the quality of the audiobook and does not address the content itself.
The engineer on this album failed or simply forgot to compress and/or normalize the audio. The narrator has a habit of "punching" the first words of the sentence and then trailing off to almost a whisper.
If you drive a very quiet car or have a killer sound system, this may not be an issue. For the Toyota drivers of the world, it's a nightmare. If you crank up the volume you get an ear-splitting start of a sentence and then a "what did he just say?" end to the sentence.
In short, do not buy the audiobook version unless you're listening in a sound-proof studio in a hollowed-out volcano using professional earphones. It's maddening.
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