God Is Not Great

One of the best cases against abrahamic religions I have ever read. This book calls out the dogma of most profet based religion who claim to know everything. It also pushes you have a open mind towards superstition and dogma. Although there were some inaccuracies when in comes to hindu theology, the book barely touches hinduism but there are some factual errors . For example in a place book was mentioning that all religions stem from virgin women and in those examples it names mother of krishna devaki which is incorrect. Krishna was naturally conceived and his father was vasudev, but That was a single error. Christopher has a very minimal level of understanding of hindu and other indigenous faiths but book barely touches those so I don't mind. In conclusion, every sane and open minded person should read this book. Its is a must read.

Exactly what i was looking for. The author critisizes religion on the basis of its past, basicall not to judge it just by looking at the reformed version of religion. Too many points and the best part is he has done a lot of research befor writing this book as he doesn't talk about only one religion in this book but multiple of them.

If exploring Atheism as an Ideology Best way to start it

Very interesting

Recieved in good quality

Just wow Nice book

Good product

Excellent 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Having finished reading this book the first thing I would point out to a potential reader is that the subtitle provides a better description than the main title. Hitchens goes to great length to point out the many and varied crimes of institutionalized religion. This is something that not even the most devout Catholic would deny. The crusades, the inquisitions, burning people alive and other horrible and immoral acts fill the history of religion like a syringe filled with poison. Hitchens' main point, and also something that I thing most people of any religion would agree with, is that these acts shouldn't be forgotten or forgiven simply because they were done in the name of any particular religion. Immoral acts are immoral no matter who does them. Indeed in the varied reviews that people have given of this book, critical reviews nearly always forget to even mention these crimes and immoral acts. They might get caught up with something as pedantic as the wording of a scriptural quote. To me this seems like a rather pathetic argument. It's much like a murderer in court saying "Look, forget about him saying I killed all those people - he said I wore brown shoes when I was clearly wearing black!". It picks at minute details to distract from the larger ones. That's not to say that reasonable religious readers will agree with this book wholeheartedly. Hitchens makes no attempts to hide the fact that he does not believe in God, and feels there is absolutely no compelling reason to do so. He even goes on to point out that if you were to practice your religion and beliefs in the comfort of your own home, he wouldn't have the slightest problem with it. He does, however, object to the god described in the old testament as an immoral monster. Overall there is a lot to take from this book, regardless of your personal views on the matter. Its focus is perhaps less controversial than The God Delusion in that the crimes detailed are a matter of historical record and considered horrific mistakes even by the most conservative of church-goers. If I had to make only one complaint about this book it would be that I didn't always feel that the examples given fell exactly in the subject of the particular chapter where they were placed. The examples were compelling and important to know about, but sometimes I feel they would have been better used at different points in the book to support some other argument. I would recommend this book to anybody regardless of their beliefs if only so that they can be aware of the wrong that can be done in the name of religion and do their best to avoid it ever happening again.

Um grande estudo mostrando porque religião não tem nada de divino ou sobrenatural, tendo sido contruida por seres humanos. E que causou e continua causando um mal imenso!

enjoyed

Christopher Hitchens folgt mit diesem Buch dem derzeit populären Outing der Agnostiker/Atheisten/Humanisten, und haut in dieselbe Kerbe wie Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett (in USA) sowie Michael Schmidt-Salomon, Franz Buggle und Hans Albert in Deutschland. Im Gegensatz zu manchen anderen vermeidet er jedoch die theologisch/philosophische Debatte um die Existenz Gottes und konzentriert sich stattdessen auf die im Namen der Religionen oder von religiösen Menschen ausgeübten Untaten. Auch hier kann man den Inhalt mit dem alten Spruch zusammenfassen: Es gibt auf der Welt gute Menschen, die Gutes tun, und böse Menschen die Böses tun, aber nur durch Religion bekommt man eigentlich gute Menschen dazu, Böses zu tun. Im Falle des Christentums wissen wir das eigentlich schon lange (zumindest in Deutschland) durch das Lebenswerk von Karlheinz Deschner. Christopher Hitchens ist jedoch in den USA lebender Engländer, und dort scheint diese Erkenntis erst in den letzten Jahren Anhänger gefunden zu haben. Er bleibt jedoch nicht bei einer Religion hängen, sondern zeigt auch im Kapitel über den Islam (die Weitergabe von Gottes Wort durch einen Engel an einen analphabetischen Kaufmann in der Wüste), die überall auf der Welt existierenden Schattenseiten dieser Religion auf. Ein weiteres Kapitel ist den östlichen Religionen gewidment, die er ebenso als ungeeignet für ein ethisches Verhalten entlarvt (Konflikt zwischen Hindus, Moslems und Buddhisten in Indien bzw Sri Lanka, Rolle des Buddhismus bei Japans Imperialistischer Politik im letzen Jahrhundert). Spätestens hier bringt er Facetten, die bei den anderen derzeit populären Religionskritikern fehlen. Das Buch ist flüssig zu lesen, und die Argumentationsweise ist weniger polemisch als bei Dawkins oder Harris. Dennoch wird das Buch dem dogmatisch Gläubigen jeglicher Religion die Zornesröte ins Gesicht treiben, denn der Autor spricht schonungslos aus, was viele weichgespülte Pseudokritiker zu relativieren suchen und euphemistisch umschreiben: Alle Religionen disqualifizieren sich als ethische Grundlage für ein vernünfitiges Zusammenleben in der heutigen Zeit. Auch wenn in der Bibel oder dem Koran auch "Gutes" zu finden sein mag (was immer exemplarisch herausgepickt wird), so steht darin so viel menschenverachtender Unsinn, dass man diese für nomadisierenden Hirtenvölker der Eisenzeit geschriebenen Stammesregeln einfacht nicht als Richtschnur seines heutigen Handelns nehmen kann.

Not an easy read. Almost every chapter needs re reading to understand fully the depth of the authors knowledge and understanding of the subject. Loving every page, a truly amazing book.