An Atheist Manifesto Worth Reading

This is an awesome book. In a season when atheist manifestos are suddenly of interest, Christopher Hitchens has written a book that nukes the competition, not so much because he invents such great and novel arguments for atheism but because he writes them so well. Unlike Sam Harris whose End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation are whiny cures for insomnia, or Richard Dawkins whose The God Delusion is an equally insufferable diatribe, bolstered by Dawkins' status as a professor of evolutionary biology at Oxford, Hitchens is a journalist and literary critic. He is not a scientist, but he is a wordsmith, and for once, atheism has an exponent whose rhetoric is verbal heroin.

The title, God Is Not Great, is a play on the most famous phrase in the history of Islam, "allahu akbar", or "God is great." Whether such a "play" is one of mischief or malice depends on the extent to which political correctness has made it impossible to criticize non-western systems of belief with the same vigor normally reserved for their more familiar counterparts. Unlike a good many critics of religion - who tend to focus on religion at home - Hitchens' book is an equal-opportunity offender as it shreds the sacred cows of Catholic and Protestant Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and New-Age Spiritualism. For Hitchens, whether one is an observant Christian, Muslim or Jew - or any number of other faiths - religion isn't just capable of evil; religion IS evil. The book's secondary title, How Religion Poisons Everything, bites as much as it barks. Having staked out a provocative - all or nothing - position, Hitchens swings a brickbat, and this boy swings for the fences.

Hitchens recounts moments, along his own journey, when the the metaphorical light came on, suggesting that his religious training was of questionable value. In one such story, he contrasts the value of Bible study (which he credits as his "first introduction to practical and textual criticism") with an attempt by "Mrs. Watts," the equivalent of an elementary school teacher to indoctrinate him into the glories of God by arguing that God made the grass green to make it soothing to our eyes. As Hitchens recounts, even at age nine, this was patently absurd: "The eyes were adjusted to nature, and not the other way around." This was one of many moments, during Hitchens' youth, when he found himself questioning the stupidities of religion, objections based less on any advanced learning so much as basic errors in common sense, objections that religion could not resolve, even to the satisfaction of a child.

Hitchens is fully candid about his own loss of faith, declining to blame his doubt on any form of abuse. Describing Mrs. Watts, he can't resist calling her "a pious old trout," but adds that she was, in many respects, a heroic and selfless public servant. Part of Hitchens' charm is that he doesn't hesitate to call 'em like he sees 'em, but he will go back to add a note of explanation to what might have sounded like a drive-by slur. In one instance, he hilariously suggests that one of his early teachers was a latent homosexual, but then notes his indebtedness to this man for helping instill in him an appreciation for learning. What he does say is that he met many, even during the early part of his life, who had come to similar conclusions - though so many of them felt alone in coming to such conclusions.

In Chapter One: Putting It Mildly, Hitchens sets forth a brief case for atheism. In machine-gun fashion, he unleashes a spray of atheist talking points that are both obnoxious (in their indifference to diplomacy) but well-taken nonetheless. He acknowledges disagreements between atheists, disagreements possible in an open dialogue between freethinking individuals, disagreements capable of being sustained and discussed in a free debate rather than the kind of excommunications found in religion. Atheists, as Hitchens describes, are fully aware that life is limited to the present one, that immortality is to be attained through one's children or one's work, that atheists work for a better world through no rewards other than the satisfaction of living in a better world. Atheists do not have to wallow before any authority, nor do they require priests or relics. To an atheist, no space is any holier than any other. Where the religious make pilgrimmages to, and fight over, holy sites, atheists are free to make pilgrimmages to libraries and lunches with friends. Athiests need no prophets to tell them what to think, nor do they have to expend the energy wasted by apologists. Atheists don't have to make the evidence fit some dogma. They don't have to punish others for failing to accept certain dogma. For all of the limitations, disagreements and downsides of atheism, they are at least much to be preferred over the absurdities and contradictions of religion.

The remaining chapters break down the atheist argument into specific topics in which "religion poisons everything." After finding agreement with, but chucking, much of the writings of Dawkins, Harris and others - because they simply sound so dismal - I'm surprised to find Hitchens such a fun read. I think it's Hitchens' willingness to play the part of the British villain in some B-movie shot by and for the religious right. Where Harris sounds like a professional accident victim and Dawkins sounds like an Anglican priest (albeit Biology's equivalent to one), Hitchens sounds more like the surly heckler at the back of the class. He's the atheist's Good Will Hunting, jumping the grad-student boor with a taste of his own medicine. Unlike Dawkins, whose knowledge of science can hardly compensate for his plodding, pedestrian, arguments - Hitchens has style. He's verbal bruiser who blows smoke rings between bouts. Now THAT'S entertainment!

His Chapter Two: Religion Kills, is the shape of things to come. The title alone suggests the gloves are off and the knuckles are bare. This is not to be an arcane, academic, discussion about the imperfections of religion. Hitchens is lit. He's the atheist Rambo who's been saving up his grenades to save that Burmese village from bums who need another roll on the wheel of life. Hitchens argues that religion does not simply have moments of madness. It's mad to the bone - and it has the rapsheet to prove it. Responding to a question asked of him, that if he were in an unfamiliar city, and approached by men unknown to him, whether he would feel safer knowing they had just come from a prayer meeting, Hitchens doesn't just argue in the negative. He picks out "the letter B" and cites six places - Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem, and Baghdad - where one would feel less safe being approached by a group of religious men. And since he's a journalist who has been to all six cities, Hitchens recounts what he knows of each and why he would definitely not feel safer approached by a group of unfamiliars from a "prayer meeting." It's a tour de force!

In Chapter Three: A Short Digression on the Pig or Why Heaven Hates Ham, Hitchens ripts into the dietary restrictions imposed by religion. Citing the famous ban on pork-related products by Judaism and Islam, he examines why both faiths consider pigs to be so evil and praises the noble pig, arguing that pigs are actually cleaner (when free, rather than forced into pens), more social, and more intelligent than almost any other type of animal - with the exception of dolphins and dogs. He also argues that the prohibition is related to both an attraction to the animal (whose meat tastes great and therefore must be evil) and an unsavory reminder of the good-old days of human sacrifice. This becomes the basis for a discussion of how religion makes silly intrusions upon food and drink.

In Chapter Four: A Note On Health, To Which Religion May Be Hazardous, Hitchens discusses the many ways in which faith wages war on good health. Opposition to birth control leaves population growth unchecked, except perhaps by a similarly stupid opposition to condemns, which leaves the same populations vulnerable to AIDS. Hitchens recounts instances where superstition has prevented populations from using medicines, like the polio vaccine, to finish off diseases once considered wiped out by science, making it inevitable that such diseases will come back - and in a more virulent form. He also discusses the stupidity of refusing medical treatment in an effort to prove one's faith.

In Chapter Five: The Metaphysical Claims of Religion Are False and Chapter Six: Arguments from Design, Hitchens argues that religious thinking is an intellectual backwater belonging to an older time. He goes after the various religious claims, and arguments for the existence of God, with a veritable brickbat. Taking each apart, Hitchens declares the stupidity of religious thinking and laments the way these silly arguments affect social and political policy.

In Chapter Seven: The Nightmare of the Old Testament and Chapter Eight: The New Testament Exceeds The Evil of the Old One, Hitchens examines the Old and New Testaments, discussing the mistakes, incongruities, contradictions and moral deficiencies of both the Old and New Testaments. Among other things, Hitchens points out the lengths to which biblical authors changed facts to make them fit the dogma, such as the idea that Jesus, who grew up in Nazareth, was born in Bethlehem - just to fit a scripture passage in Isaiah. As Hitchens points out, the census described in Luke has little bearing with history. Not only was there no census in or near the year of Jesus's birth but the idea that those counted had to return to the place of their ancestors is absurd and unsupported by history, but one created in an effort to link the place of birth to a passage in Isaiah.

In Chapter Nine: The Koran Is Borrowed From Both Jewish and Christian Myths, Hitchens looks at how the Qur'an plagiarizes other books of scripture in an effort to come up with a uniquely Arab holy book. Given the threats made to Salman Rushdie and others, Hitchens embraces the risk of offending fanatical Muslims as he subjects the Qur'an to the same rigorous questions he has aimed at the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. One of the arguments he raises is that today's Muslims may not even know whether the version of the Qur'an they hold sacred today is accurate due to oddities of the Arabic language and the less-than-professional manner in which the texts of Islam have been preserved and copied.

In Chapter Ten: The Tawdriness Of The Miraculous And The Decline Of Hell, Hitchens looks at the rise and fall of supernatural concepts such as Hell and the existence of miracles. He ridicules the attempt to divine God's will in natural disasters and the kneejerk impulse to lay blame at unpopular groups.

In Chapter Eleven: Religion's Corrupt Beginnings, Hitchens looks at newer religions as a guide to the dynamics of how religion is formed. Given the difficulties in determining what happened in the most distant corners of human history, Hitchens sees a usefulness in studying recent emergences of religion - such as the development of the Mormon Church - as guides to how religions begin. What he notes is that the questionable beginnings of recent faiths suggests that older, more accepted, faiths are the result of similar shenanigans. Hitchens' argument is that if such fraudulent activities have been at work in religious experiences no more than two centuries old, at a time of relatively modern and sophisticated humanity, just imagine what things must have been like in the creation of the oldest religions whose beginnings are lost in the mist of time.

In Chapter Twelve: A Coda: How Religions End, Hitchens discusses apocalyptic thinking, particularly how religions gleefully look for the end of the world. Hitchens argues that such thinking reflects a very troubling psychology.

In Chapter Thirteen: Does Religion Make People Behave Better?, Hitchens asks whether human beings really need religion to tell them how to behave. He observes that human societies, the world over, have come to remarkably similar conclusions about right and wrong behavior, so much so that one has to wonder about the likelihood that God would be needed to pass down "tablets" to Moses on Mount Sinai to tell Moses what humanity already knew, and had been practicing - sometimes for thousands of years - in other lands.

In Chapter Fourteen: There Is No "Eastern" Solution, Hitchens argues that nonwestern religious traditions are no better than their western counterparts. While some have reached for the exotic in finding an alternative to the religions for which they are familiar, eastern religions are just as jaded as their western counterparts. Buddhism, for example, while famously decrying the consumption of animal flesh, did not prevent the Japanese from becoming mass murderers. Eastern mysticism does not produce paradise.

In Chapter Fifteen: Religion As An Original Sin, Hitchens speaks of religion as immoral by presenting false views of the world and by producing degrading doctrines, such as blood sacrifice. He discusses, at length the disturbing idea that God would tempt Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, as well as the Arab-Israeli fight over land considered holy for that very reason.

In Chapter Sixteen: Is Religion Child Abuse?, Hitchens discusses the various ways in which religion normalizes various forms of child abuse. Hitchens discusses ideas such as circumcision, female circumcision, the heinous idea that to spare the rod is to spoil the child and the treatment of children in fanatical regions, such as Afghanistan under the Taliban.

In Chapter Seventeen: An Objection Anticipated, Hitchens discusses the popular idea that atheism has produced totalitarian regimes of its own - including the Nazis and the Stalinists. In the case of the Nazis, Hitchens points out that Hitler was a Catholic, that antisemitism precedes the Nazis by nearly 20 centuries, that the Catholic Church made no serious attempt to denounce Hitler's actions and the Nazism had less to do with atheism than with a mixture of Neo-Paganism and the old antisemitic sentiments of Christian Europe. Hitchens discusses Stalinism as a totalitarian regime that attempted to replace religion with statism.

In Chapter Eighteen: A Finer Tradition: The Resistance Of The Rational, Hitchens discusses the contributions of ancient Greece and Rome to the development of antitheism, and in Chapter Nineteen: In Conclusion: The Need for a New Enlightenment, Hitchens argues that a better world may be created by moving beyond religion. He urges the emergence of a secular world that need not apologize or sponsor religion as a relic of humanity's infancy.