mccormick

Do you align with the Allied Atheist Alliance? Or the United Atheist Alliance? Perhaps are you a member of the Judean People’s Front? Or the People’s Front of Judea?

God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens is a very interesting examination on religion and its impact on history. The subtitle How Religion Poisons Everything tells the reader rather bluntly how Mr. Hitchens thought about religion. As a religious person myself, I was prepared for the mental battle and to defend myself.

History’s most horrendous and evil acts have been done in the name of religion. That is no secret. I also know some of the most inspiring, most life-giving acts have been done in the name of religion. I was prepared for Mr. Hitchens to jump all over the horrendous acts while conveniently ignoring the good acts. What I wasn’t prepared for was a well-reasoned, fairly rational work.

In the book, Hitchens spends most of his time combing through Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. He goes through apparent inaccuracies, religious sponsored atrocities, and the outright foolishness of faith over science. Most of his points are valid statements though I do have some comments. First, I do think he is rather present minded when discussing the religious texts; he uses a 21^st century, western lens on history which I think skews some religious concepts. Second, he treats science like this all-knowing, infallible entity. Now I consider myself a very logical, scientific person. I think Christians should see all truth as God’s truth and we should never write unexplainable things as just “God” things. We should always look to science to help us discover more about our universe. We should not be afraid of science replacing God if we truly believe in God. However, I feel like Hitchens takes it to this argument: if god was real he would have given us scientific answers before we could attain them. However, I could possibly be oversimplifying Hitchens’s view.

I picked up this book because I thought it would be very interesting to understand not only an atheistic view but an anti-theistic view. I know it may sound weird, but I thought it was a good book. If you want to strongly defend your faith, this book will really put you through the ringer.