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.
Informative and persuasive 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 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 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 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.
Great book Author shows his dislike for religion in an intelligent and informative manner. I would recommend people involved in religions to read and assess their views afterwards.
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