God Is Not Great
Published on 1. March 2008
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-1-84354-574-3 (ISBN)
Description
In god is Not Great Hitchens turned his formidable eloquence and rhetorical energy to the most controversial issue in the world: God and religion. The result is a devastating critique of religious faith
god Is Not Great is the ultimate case against religion. In a series of acute readings of the major religious texts, Christopher Hitchens demonstrates the ways in which religion is man-made, dangerously sexually repressive and distorts the very origins of the cosmos. Above all, Hitchens argues that the concept of an omniscient God has profoundly damaged humanity, and proposes that the world might be a great deal better off without 'him'.
god Is Not Great is the ultimate case against religion. In a series of acute readings of the major religious texts, Christopher Hitchens demonstrates the ways in which religion is man-made, dangerously sexually repressive and distorts the very origins of the cosmos. Above all, Hitchens argues that the concept of an omniscient God has profoundly damaged humanity, and proposes that the world might be a great deal better off without 'him'.
Reviews / Votes
Do yourself a favor and skip the Dawkins and Harris; they're smug, turgid, and boring, with all the human feeling of a tax return. Read Hitchens instead... A tendentious delight, a caustic and even brilliant book... Thank God for Christopher Hitchens. -- Mark Warren * Esquire * Dazzling... A campaign to put this glittering anti-theist tract on the national curriculum for "religious education" should begin here. -- Johann Hari * Independent * Hitchens is a grand rhetorician, and his double-barrelled shotgun of a book is high entertainment... As with Voltaire, his scornful laughter is a powerful weapon. -- Christopher Hart * Sunday Times * The anti-religion case has never been put so well, so comprehensively or so definitively as in this razor-sharp book... Hitchens accumulates a devastating case... Outstanding. -- A.C. Grayling * Independent on Sunday * Christopher Hitchens is a master craftsman of argument... God is not Great is undoubtedly the most boisterously entertaining contribution to the [atheism] debate. -- Siobhan Murphy * Metro * God is not Great is easily the most brilliant and fascinating contemplation upon the role of religion in human society in recent times, the Das Kapital of a tolerant, if exasperated, atheism. -- Kevin Myers * Irish Independent *More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
223 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84354-574-3 (9781843545743)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
New editions
Additional editions
Person
Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and Visiting Professor in liberal studies at the New School in New York. He was the author of numerous books, including works on Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, George Orwell, Mother Theresa, Henry Kissinger and Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as the international bestseller and National Book Award nominee, god Is Not Great.
Content
1: Putting It Mildly 2: Religion Kills 3: A Short Digression on the Pig; or, Why Heaven Hates Ham 4: A Note on Health, to Which Religion Can Be Hazardous 5: The Metaphysical Claims of Religion Are False 6: Arguments from Design 7: Revelation: The Nightmare of the "Old" Testament 8: The "New" Testament Exceeds the Evil of the "Old" One 9: The Koran Is Borrowed from Both Jewish and Christian Myths 10: The Tawdriness of the Miraculous and the Decline of Hell 11: "The Lowly Stamp of Their Origin": Religion's Corrupt Beginnings 12: A Coda: How Religions End 13: Does Religion Make People Behave Better? 14: There Is No "Eastern" Solution 15: Religion as an Original Sin 16: Is Religion Child Abuse? 17: An Objection Anticipated: The Last-Ditch "Case" Against Secularism 18: A Finer Tradition: The Resistance of the Rational 19: In Conclusion: The Need for a New Enlightenment