After having read Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion last year, there probably was no need to read Christopher Hitchens’ God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. And if I had actually read its first line (see below) or turned to page 69 (as per Marshall McLuhen), I probably wouldn’t have bothered.
Like Dawkins, Hitchens is a figurehead (of sorts) in the so-called New Atheist movement, which proposes that it’s okay to be openly atheist, as all religion is false anyway. But where Dawkins case against religion is based on science, Hitchens’ case is made with rhetoric and history. And while both make their case equally well, I have a stronger affilitation with science than with rethoric. Add to that way I struggled through both books (I don’t usually do non-fiction) and the large overlap between them, and you might see why I didn’t drink as much of the God is not Great Cool-aid as I did that of The God Delusion.
- Book read
- Christopher Hitchens — God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
- First line
If the intended reader of this book should want to go beyond disagreement with its author and try to identify the sins and deformities that animated him to write it (and I have certainly noticed that those who publicly affirm charity and compassion and forgiveness are often inclined to take this course), then he or she will not just be quarreling with the unknowable and ineffable creator who—presumably—opted to make me this way.