I Got... Physical Mail

So, today I got in the  mail a copy of both Ray Comfort's You Can Lead an Atheist... (complete with illegible "Autograph")  and The Atheist Bible courtesy of an anonymous donor to Ray Comfort's ministry. Since I have not gotten ahold of the next book I will be reviewing yet, my plan is to look through The Atheist Bible and, if there's anything notable, ripping the hell into its points while waiting to get ahold of the other book. Money just hasn't been there for adding to the blog of late. Just the way things go sometimes. 

god is not Great: To Sum it All Up

So, that's everything I'll be covering for god is not Great by Chrisopher Hitchens. Anyone who wishes to look back at the archives to see all the various parts can go here. 

Overall the book was good. Hitchens is really an excellent writer, easy to read and never goes too cerebral. This I found to be positive mostly because it made the book very accessible while at the same time communicating some very complex ideas. Generally speaking I enjoy Hitchens' style. He's very matter-of-fact as well as putting forth a certain acerbic surety that gives the book a powerful and distinct voice.

That is not, of course, to say that the book is without its flaws. As was stated in various individual chapter reviews its often lacking as far as scholarship. That's also a side effect of what Hitchens did to make the book more accessible. Hitchens isn't really a historian or a scientist; Hitchens is a Journalist, and that's the style that works for him. Its a visceral, easy to pick up style that excludes nobody. However, due to his lack of background as a scientist or historian the arguments often lack alot of the punch that proof might provide, and the very limited citation I would also consider a weakness.  

The biggest weakness though, i'd probably say is that it tries to tackle too much for its scope. Its not a long book, only about 280 pages, but he tries to cover 3 holy books many world religions, and arguments both for and against them. This is really just too much for anyone in my opinion. I fully expect Hitchens to write more on the subject in the future, but I'm really hoping he'll choose a more focused method in his next attempt.

In the end it was enjoyable. In most cases I tend to agree with Hitchens which actually made it difficult at times to to be critical of him, but I think in the end I did a fair job with it overall. Please feel free to criticize or comment. I'd really like to know what people think of the final product. 

god is not Great chapter 18 & 19

The final two chapters of god is not Great are interesting, although in the end sadly not terribly poignant. Hitchens discusses the history of rational conflict with religion which is sadly a very short history due to a shortage of well known atheists throughout history. In the final chapter Hitchens mostly discusses the need he feels for a new enlightenment, basically like Europe had in the 17th through 19th centuries.

Hitchens is a competent historian, but is by no means a professional in the field it would seem. He makes good points in discussing the accusations against Socrates, as well as the writings of Spinoza. But in the end the chapter has little choice but to fall flat. There's plenty of discussion going on, but regardless we have no way of knowing what historical potential atheists really believed, and whether they were in fact atheists. None that I'm aware of actually professed atheism. Now, while we could certainly assume someone like Spinoza was a proto-atheist, at the same time I think its important to recognize something Dawkins said as I feel it applies here: parpaphrased, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

Now, I don't like parroting Dawkins, but I feel that was an incredibly salient point he made. We can speculate about the beliefs of anyone: Spinoza, Socrates, Adolf Hitler, Thomas Jefferson, L. Ron Hubbard. It makes no difference; we can never know any of it for sure. Hitchens even recognizes this, and because he recognizes it, I'm glad he can see the weakness in his discussion, but am at the same time rather disappointed that he ended the body of the book with something without much punch, as this would have definitely been a great place to put one.

When he discusses the need for a new enlightenment, it is pretty much just a call to rational minds. He proposes that, unlike the previous enlightenment, today we have the potential and knowledge available for a kind of mass enlightenment, exponentially more powerful than the first. I've probably blown that up a bit, because it reads very utopian and Hitchens is not a Utopian thinker. That said, it makes a good point, but is not realistic. The religious will continue clinging to their holy books and their gods, and the world will continue to move forward. While I certainly believe the world will change with religion continually falling behind and losing ground, I certainly don't see a major shift in the very near future. Maybe in the next couple decades.

Final analysis later today...

god is not Great Chapter 17: The "Case" Against Secularism

As the title makes clear, in chapter 17 Hitchens will go into the only major argument that the religious use against secularists which Hitchens has yet to address in the text: The old argument of how bad regimes like Hitler and Stalin et al. were, while claiming that the very problem stemmed from Atheism.

I think anyone reading this can think of a hundred reasons why this is a ridiculous argument, form the fact that Hitler and the Nazis under him were a pseudo-religion of german superiority, or Hitler being a Roman Catholic, to Stalin creating a similar cult of personality. These of course are the most common counters which are espoused by those such as Richard Dawkins use in their writings.

While Hitler notes things of this manner in passing, when he discusses Hitler he focuses not on the religion of Hitler himself, but of the relation of religions with hitler. Most notably he goes into the early, somewhat uneasy, relationship between the Nazi government and the Vatican which later become much more mutually supportive. It think it was a good tactic to use as it gives Hitchens a clear direction away from the Dawkins approach, but it also puts things back to the religious. If religions prevent this kind of thing, why didn't they here? Hitchens even goes into some of the fabricated stories of the great resistance of the clergy and religious and why they were obviously fraudulent.

He goes on to discuss other rulers' pseudoreligious regimes like Kim Jong Il, as well as the ancient God-Kings of the middle east. Overall Hitchens tears apart the argument, showing our morality to be a human trait again, not a religious one.

It was an interesting chapter, but not entirely necessary for the argument, and in part it feels tacked on because of it. Worth reading nonetheless.

Chapter 18 & 19 tie into each other, and I will be reviewing them together, hopefully on Friday.

god is not Great Chapter 16: Is Religion Child Abuse

This chapter, which is almost a direct continuation of the previous chapter focuses largely on the things that religions do to children. Overall, Hitchens makes some very good points, although my larger personal opinion is noted in a recent entry, Hitchens goes much further than I did.

He starts with the psychological, delving into the issue of things like Hell. Terrorizing children witht he prospect of eternal torture and damnation for disobedience and religious infidelity. I too wonder how many children have been harmed by these and similar practices by well meaning, and not so well meaning authority figures.

As Hitchens demonstrates, the institutions of religion have long understood how impressionable young children are, and that the key to having a hold on the adult is to indoctrinate him as a child. Overall, when it comes to the psychological damage section Hitchens writes a good piece, but in this exercise was well overshadowed by Dawkins in The God Delusion.

Regardless, Hitchens goes next into discusssing the physical abuses children suffer as a consequence of religions. He points out, of course, the issue of circumcision first as it is perhaps the most obvious. I can't help but agree with Hitchens, particularly with regards to infants. There is no good reason to mutilate a child's genitalia without their having a say in it, or even more importantly, without their even ever having known of the option to say no. It seems immoral to make a decision like that which is basically irreversible.

One place that Hitchens goes that is not covered in others (to my memory) is the masturbation taboo and the psychological and sexual repression that comes with it. Overall, a small section but somewhat poignant.

Overall the chapter didn't provide alot that was new, or illuminate much. It was a good read, but I would still stand by my personal opinion as stated previously.

Poll Completed!

Ok. So, now its over... and with  50% of the votes you have all condemned me to reading Ray Comfort's God Doesn't Believe in Atheists as my punishment for running an Atheist focused blog. 

Anyone who has anything in particular they'd like covered or focused on in the review I will certainly consider any suggestion. I will also be putting up a new poll probably next week regarding the Pharyngulation of the garbage book. 

Just for the record, if I decide to do a poll for my next review Ray Comfort will not be an option. 

god is not Great Chapter 15: Religion as an Original Sin

In chapter 15 Hitchens takes four key points of doctrine and tradition in religions and explains in his view and experience why these are "not just amoral, but positively immoral." These four points are quoted as follows:

• The doctrine of blood sacrifice
• The doctrine of atonement
• The doctrine of eternal reward and/or punishment
• The imposition of impossible tasks and rules.

In the analysis of blood sacrifice Hitchens largel discusses the Judeo-Christian scriptural blood sacrifices of animals, but is quick to also discuss the ghastly story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. By Hitchens' view, whether the sacrifice was stopped before it occured or not, it does not change that such orders from a tyrannical deity do not make for a good rationale for worship. I, myself, in fact find the very concept repulsive, when the presumed intent of the story is to inspire faith and trust in God.

All in all this section was less than it could have, and probably should have been, ironically because it focused so heavily on the most well known religions. It could have benefitted gretly from a discussion of the infant sacrifice of Carthage for example, or perhaps the ever so common Aztec human sacrifices (although he mentions them under atonement). Blood sacrifice of both humans and animals is in enough religions that 2 pages is insufficient coverage in my opinion.

As he hits on atonement it is clear that it is mostly targetting the Christian traditions. He discusses the very immorality of vicarious redemption, which I agree is absurd. Nobody can take responsibility away from someone, and as Hitchens would probably say, it would be immoral for someone to ask, and immoral for me to accept. He rails rightfully against the idea that we are all as humans responsible for the torture and subsequent crucifixion of the mythical son of God, and that to require us to atone for this, and the "original sin" of Adam is like the proverbial situation of god making one sick and then telling him to heal himself. It is absurdity in the highest degree. Hitchens also takes the opportunity to take a bit of a shot at the Christian tradition of blaming the Jews for Christ's execution.

Let me pull away at that point, because it never made sense to me. The Christians (traditionally), both Catholic and Protestant (don't kid yourself Ray) have historically blames the Jews for the crucifixion. The crime of deicide. But looking deeper, what they're really saying is the Jews fulfilled Christ's purpose on Earth, since without his crucifixion he a. wouldn't have been the sacrifice he was purportedly intended to be, and b. could never have resurrected which, according to Paul is what the entirety of their faith hinges on. So, they blamed the Jews for giving them their religion. How grateful.

Onward to Eternal Punishment and Impossible tasks. I've personally discussed the absurdity of eternal punishment for temporal crimes many places, but Hitchens doesn't really delve into that. What he does do, however, is beat up on pascal's wager a bit for good measure, mention ways religions have profited from people terrified of damnation (i.e temporary brothel marriages in muslim countries, and papal indulgences) and then discuss the issues of Judeo Christian law that impose impossible restrictions on people.

He starts with the most obvious, the commandment not to covet. This is of course, as we all know, impossible. This goes also for the common argument of, "have you ever lusted?" that some evangelists love so well. If you make the rules impossible of course its impossible to meet the standard. Its a similar situation in Buddhism that I feel Hitchens is remiss in not mentioning. One of the biggest points of the philosophy is overcoming and rejecting all want, which is pretty much impossible.

This is, again, actually a very good chapter with some regrettably big flaws. It could benefit significantly from more research and historical understanding, as well as a broader religious view. While the focus on the most commonly known religions is important to the book's accessability, if your thesis is "religion poisons everything" a better universal case needs to be made.

From here, Hitchens actually segues directly into his next chapter, which is also a favorite topic of Dawkins': Is Religion Child Abuse? Should be an interesting review.

god is not Great Chapter 14: There is no "Eastern" solution

For the entire book to this point Hitchens has focused almost entirely on the monotheistic traditions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. At this point he takes the opportunity to try and demonstrate that the eastern religious traditions are no better, particularly targeting Buddhism. 

What makes this an interesting chapter is how different Hitchens' focus is in his writing. While discussing the monotheisms he was very harsh (often justifiably) to the doctrines and scriptures as well as the acts of the adherents. This time, however there is basically nil as far as discussions of offensive or questionable doctrines, replaced by what I see as largely exceptions to the rules. Case in point, Hitchens writes about a clearly corrupt Buddhist retreat where the guru was encouraging wealthy attendees to give up their worldly posessions (to "the monastery" of course) and posting a sign saying "Shoes and minds must be left at the gate." Now, to be fair, Buddhism does encourage these things, but not to assuage the greed of its proponents. That will of course never stop the truly enterprising from abusing their flocks and fleecing to their heart's content. 

Buddhism also gets quite its share of flak from the Japanese atrocities justified by it in a kind of Imperial cult Mahayana Buddhism. Whether this could be seen as a Buddhist movement creating a nationalistic furor, or a nationalistic furor infecting the local Buddhist sects is largely irrelevant; Buddhism was still used as an encouragement to violence and conquest no less deplorable than the Crusades or any Jihad. 

But sadly this is where Hitchens ends the chapter. It would have been interesting had he gone into Confucuanism, or Taoism (having discussed Hinduism with Gandhi), but he doesn't, and that's a bit disappointing to me. He's trying to make a case against religion as a whole, and he targeted three western religions, but in depth thus far only one eastern religion. His coverage of Hinduism is brief and discussed only one man's usage of it. This chapter really could have been much more. 

Admittedly, I agree with Hitchens' premise, but I do not think his writing sufficiently represents his goal. I realize it is nearly impossible to sufficiently cover every possible religion available, but in this case, more should have been done to paint a broader, if still imperfect picture. 

Ray Comfort Review

So, its very much looking like, with about half the votes and only a week left on the poll that I will be reviewing Ray Comfort next. If anyone here reading has a copy they would either sell cheap or lend, I will happily pay for shipping. I would just like to see if there are any copies used before I let any of my hard earned money go to Living Waters.

That said, you never know how things can change in a week, but I am planning ahead.

god is not Great Chapter 13: Does Religion Make People Behave?

As is fairly obvious fromt he chapter title Hitchens this time discusses the issue of morality in relation to religion. Of course, anyone reading this is likely to already agree with Mr Hitchens that religion does not incite morality. Hitchens makes a very good case against the morality of religion in this chapter, and it is probably his strongest argument.

He uses this chapter to discuss several personages and groups as examples in support of his thesis. Dr. Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi, the Christian, but Muslim backed LRA, and the Rwandan genocide's catholic supporters.

In the cases of the individuals he shows that their good acts were never founded on religion so much as raw morality, and particularly in the example of Dr. King how the religious allusions he used were from a religion that in innumerable instances had been used textually to oppose exactly what his goals were. This of course creates an inconsistency wherein the religion cannot be right on all sides, and someone is immoral either way.

He exposes Gandhi as a hypocrite in his passifism, feeling somewhat justly that he was perfectly content to let the Japanese do his fighting for him. At the same time Gandhi's efforts to keep India village based, and his status as a Hindu Mahatma directly hurt the ability for India to remain one nation after the British occupation ended. It seems a good argument from Hitchens that religion has a tendancy to color our morality and often make things acceptable that normally would not be, including slavery, inquisition, torture, and murder.

Perhaps the nastiest case he discusses is the genocide in Rwanda where, while the Vatican was likley not complicit, the Catholic population and clergy had served as aiders and abetters to horrific genocide.

It is of course important to note that Hitchens does not make the argument that relgions do not do any good. He does however heavily lean to imply that they don't do any good that could not, or would not, be done without them. And there I certainly agree with him. One of religion's most powerful aspects is by far its ability to take perfectly good people and make them capable of the atrocious.

Perhaps my favorite recounting of Hitchens in this chapter, and maybe the most telling was his brief discussion of a debate between A.J Ayer and a Bishop Butler where after a comment of Ayer's notes he sees no good reason to believe in god the bishop replies that he could not see why ayer did not lead a life of "undridled immorality." This of course speaks volumes about how this bishop feels he would act did he not believe in god, and says nothing that makes Ayer in any way immoral by fiat.

god is not Great chapter 12: How Religions End

The title of Chapter 12 is actually a bit misleading. While it does discuss the rise and fall of a specific movement within Judaism, it could hardly be considered indicative of how religions (in a general sense) end.

Hitchens chooses Sabbatai Sevi as his subject. To those not familiar with him, Sevi was a mid-seventeenth century candidate to be the Jewish messiah. He had a large backing from people as well as Jewish religious figures, but in the end was imprisoned and forced to either convert to Islam or die (guess which he picked), and left Jerusalem never to return, dying in relative obscurity. Hitchens declares "So the Sabbatai Sevi religion came to an end," but that's not entirely honest in my opinion.

Yes, Sevi failed spectacularly in converting to Islam, and by extension he was clearly no messiah for the Jews. That said, however it was not an end to Messianic Judaism by any means, and calling Sabbatai Sevi a religion is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. What Sevi is a very good example of is how easily myths arise around a messianic archetype both within their lifetime and shortly after. Miracles were attributed to him, supposed eye witnesses vouched for him, and he had no shortage of followers. If his Muslim captors hadn't been as wise to history and the power of martyrdom as they were, we very likely could still be hearing about Sabbatai Sevi today. The parallels of him to Yeshua up until his conversion to Islam are that Stark.

All in all, it was an extremely short (4 pages) chapter that sadly didn't set out to show what it said it did. It is so far, probably Hitchens' weakest showing.

god is not Great chapter 11: Religion's Corrupt Beginnings

Interestingly, halfway through the book we get to the origin of religion and the problems that spring from it. In all, this chapter was very telling, and struck a chord with me in particular because it discussed my own erstwhile denomination, the Mormon church. Additionally in this chapter he discusses two other modern religious phenomena, those being the Pentecostal Marjoe, and the "Cargo Cults" of Melanesia.

Anyone who has read The God Delusion should already be familiar with the ideas of the cargo cults and the ease in which religions can create themselves in the right situations. Hitchens demonstrates how easily in this case primitive superstitions and a simple lack of understanding regarding how something works can even over a short amount of time result in a full blown religion around such. What is terribly striking about this, of course, is the difficulty it takes for them to give up that belief once it has been shown to be a fraud, which Hitchens rightly points out, and is certainly telling as far as other, more mainstream religions are concerned. The age of thsoe religions may make their beginnings less transparent and certainly a bit more mysterious, but that doesn't mean, by any account that there is some real difference between them in their initial formation.

Hitchens next addresses the issue of Marjoe, the Pentacostal youth who was abused into preaching by age four. Hitchens goes on to explain that he finally rebelled and even later showed exactly how miracles and such are created for the unwitting observers. Its an obvious case of group encouraged delusion when the preacher admittedly knows its a fraud and demonstrates its a fraud, but people believe anyway, mostly because they want to. Marjoe is a case of showing how the charismatic movements in Christianity are absolutely corrupt, and despite even one of their own showing how its done publicly and on film they still prosper and profit off the donations of ill informed dupes.

Then, of course, Hitchens addresses the Mormons. The demonstrably man-made Book of Mormon has spawned a religion spanning the world and around ten million followers. Joseph Smith, the founder, was as most know, a polygamist as well as a con-man from his youth, but apparently was a good enough con-man to get people to believe his religion despite its obvious flaws, and his previous criminal convictions.

The benefits to Smith are obvious. He got tithing money for doing essentially nothing other than reinforcing the religious propaganda he started, and making a strict social structure with him at the top. He got multiple wives due to his so-called "revelations" from God, much to the consternation of his first wife Emma. Smith even referred to himself as a new Muhammed, showing a great cunning and understanding of exactly what his intent was from the outset.

All in all the Mormon section of the chapter packs the greatest punch as well as the most pages. And its easy to see why. Of all the religions that have arisen in modern times perhaps only scientology could lay claim to greater corruption and transparent falsehood. That said, while Hitchens does demonstrate ways in which religious movements arise, he doesn't demonstrate a universally binding necessity for corruption.

This is of course the problem with the really hisorical religions, like Judaism and Christianity where we cannot pin a single founder, and lack a good history of the events surrounding the rise. Christianity, and to a lesser extent Islam suffer from the same issues in criticism.

All said, the chapter supports the hypothesis that religions are parasitic, but whether they poison everything by their very existence may be a bit of a stretch.

god is not Great Chapter 10: The Tawdriness of the Miraculous

Chapter 10 as the name implies discusses miracles and their decreasing effect on the views of people over time. Overall, this is really nothing that any of us don't already know as rational modern people, so I expect it won't be a terribly long review this time.

Thankfully Hitchens early on defines what would be viewed as a miracle calling it "a disturbance or interruption in the expected and established course of things." This is about as fair of a definition of a miracle as one could probably come up with.

To explain his title regarding miracles being "tawdry" he discusses the typeds of people who have debunked miracle workers and magicians using laboratory conditions such as James Randi. This serves for Hitchens as a segway into criticising the sources reporting miracles, particularly the New Testament wherein he explains the problems in the miracle narratives, as well as demonstrating via Bart Ehrman's work there is significant evidence of the greatest miracles (i.e resurrection) being added well after the initial writing. All in all, once again, things all skeptics and atheists are fairly familiar with, and among the many things that make us non-believers to begin with.

Once again the part that is most interesting comes from Hitchens' personal reports and experiences. His anecdotes this time come from his experiences regarding Mother Teresa. He opens the section with an old miracle associated with her which was shown to just be a matter of film choice, and not deific preference, and then he goes on to discuss when he took position of Devil's Advocate against Mother Teresa's beatification.

This I found personally fascinating as he showed how willing people are to believe in miracles despite all evidence that something was natural; the film incident, or even more stark the recovery of a patient from tuburculosis and an uteran growth which had greater claim to the doctor's skill than divine intercession via Mother Teresa. Despite this, the subject swore up and down that it was a miracle, not medicine that had saved her.

Overall, this chapter was a bit of a reality check for the faithful, but just an amusing read for the skeptic.

god is not Great Chapter 9: The Koran is Borrowed

After a bit too long of a break due to losing track of my copy of god is not Great I'm back to reveiw chapter 9 taking me up to about halfway through the book. This time we look at what Hitchens describes as both "the most and the least interesting of the world's monotheisms."

Hitchens, in his usual style, beigns by targeting the weakest points of Islam. He alludes to the previous two chapters in noting that because of how much Islam borrowed from its elder siblings, the failure of them to be valid contributes directly to a failure of Islam. He even goes so far as to compare the supposed annunciations of the virgin Mary and Muhammed specifically as both "unverifiable and unfalsifiable."

An interesting comparison Hitchens makes is between the resistance of all three of these monotheistic traditions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to having their scriptures translated into the common languages of various nations. The Torah by tradition is still hand written almost exclusively in Hebrew when for liturgical use(although Hitchens notes that many, if not most, of the rituals have been abandoned) the Koran is still considered only correct in Arabic. The only one of these three that has broken out of the linguistic stasis is the Christian scripture, and the largest denomination, Roman Catholicism, only stopped doing Latin exclusively in the 1960's.

He provides an amusing anecdote of a discussion he had with someone in Washington DC where a man bemoaned the fundamentalist muslims who were (and still are) vexing the US. Hitchens gave his explanations and noted there was more proof for Muhammed than Jesus, and his acquaintance threatened him with violence.

Whether the story is true or not (and I don't see hwy he would make it up), it does illustrate well how touchy religion is. Islam in particular is reactive and much too often violent. It was born in violence, and thirved on conquest for the first few centuries of its existence after all. But if a Christian cannot withold threat of violence in defense of his own faith, how could he not expect the same of a believer in another faith?

Our author does make one claim that is of probably the most importance in the entire chapter: All three books, the Tanakh/Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Koran each have one common problem, that being that they were all penned significantly after the events they allude to take place, or, in the case of the Koran, significantly after they were said to have been recited. By this problem, none of the three have a good claim of authority. Each makes some claim to the divine, but none have the hard evidence needed to prove it. The Christians claim eyewitness writers of the gospels, but they were written decades after the events, and the claims of apostolic authorship are dubious at best. The Jewish scriptures claim to discuss events from well before they were written, and the evidence for their original writing dates indicates likely centuries after when they claim. The koran, worst of all three, claims it was passed on perfectly orally before finally being written down.

He concludes the chapter discussing how religions like Islam stifle inquiry regarding the religion itself, particular in these days of much greater scientific understanding where we can examine the claims more accurately. Hithens posits that this is most likely a fear of being proven wrong, which would be insurmountably detrimental to the faith.

All said, it was an interesting chapter. Perhaps his best of the three holy book chapters. He supports his thesis well, and makes many good points. All in all it was quite worth reading.

PZ Scarred My Brain

with this.

I'm tempted to see about getting a copy of this, just to see how bad it is.

god is not Great chapter 8: For real this time.

In chapter 8, as noted in my previous post, Christopher Hitchens addresses the topic of the New Testament, and with it the issues of Christianity. Much like the previous chapter this does all seem somewhat abbreviated, but Hitchens nonetheless makes a good case against the veracity of the book.

The first problem, unsurprisingly is the inconsistencies in the principle documents: the gospels. He notes that they are contradictory on accounts of the virgin birth, the genealogy of Yeshua, the infanticide of Herod, etc. This alone is a huge argument against the truth and reliability of the gospels, but even moreso are historical inaccuracies like the governorship of Quirinius, the lack of evidence for a census; many things were fairly obviously hashed together after the fact to adhere to the Jewish messianic prophecies.

He does address the apocryphal and heretical and gnostic gospels in this chapter, but only briefly, but does make a good point about them. It would would have taken very little in the course of history, particular in the councils deciding what the canon would be, to have a completely different version of Jesus, and having no proof or evidence of who authored any of the texts, none is more reliable than another, especially given inaccuracies.

Later in the chapter he gives a cursory refutation of C.S Lewis' Lord, Lunatic, or Liar false trilemma for the divinity of Jesus.

That said, there's not alot to this chapter to support Hitchens' thesis overall, but he does make a good case against the accuracy of the New Testament. There's not much here to say religion poisons everything, however it gives a good picture at how well grounded the faith is, and how little it has to stand on in reality.

God is not great chapter 8: The New Testament.

Hitchens in this chapter covers the scriptures which form the basis for the true Christian faith. The most difficult part is that despite his purported upbringing reading the bible Hitchens seems to have no concept whatsoever regarding what He wants from his children.

The obvious truth of the resurrection, the empty tomb story, and all the clear proofs in the gospels that they were inspired and accurate accounts of the events is completely lost on Hitchens, who opts for an insulting and derogatory interpretation of the bible, twisting things out of context to make things seem inconsistent or downright ridiculous.

Do not be fooled! Hitchens is merely a charlatan. He preaches to his anti-theist audience denouncing hell, and calling into question the authority of the canonical gospels. He even brings up the Heretical gospels neglecting to recognize the inspiration of the church fathers who selected the canon with divine guidance. He delves into the heretical Gospel of Judas and even claims it to be MORE credible than the canon.

It is truly a testimony to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that even the best atheists have to offer have such little to defeat our united faith!

Weekly Poll Reminder

Any new visitors, please remember to vote in the poll set up. The more input the better, and the more likely interested readers. Currently its looking like I'll be suffering through Ray Comfort. I'm sure any of these choices will be enjoyable froma certain perspective.

god is not Great chapter 7: Revelation: The Nightmare of the "Old" Testament

As the chapter name states clearly this chapter discusses the first of the three most widely known and adhered to monotheistic books of scripture, the "Old Testament" or "Tanakh" as it is more properly known in Jewish circles.

If it was not already obvious, Hitchens is very much not a fan. In his debates he commonly targets the cruelties of Yahweh in the times of Moses, Joshua, and pretty much the whole of the time encompassed. That said, cruelties are remarkably not what he focuses on in this chapter, but inconsistencies and what he sees as signs of being a man-made book, and by extension man-made religion. He targets the Ten Commandments early as a sign of it being man-made, as other than the first few commandments, all advancing the primacy of the Jewish God, none of the more legalistic commandments are things that any society has ever had trouble condemning without the bible (i.e theft, murder). This in my analysis somewhat demonstrates that the commands of the biblical God are not unique.

Atheists often have to argue about the issue of morality and whether or not we require a deity to be moral. The fact that not all gods can exist (as some are dogmatically the only one), and all societies have morals and ethics, how could a wrong god provide morals? Clearly god is not a requirement for this. But at this point I digress...

He targets the early Pentateuch the hardest of any section. Most notably he makes sure to show that there is no solid evidence for the Exodus, the 40 year period in the desert, or a "dramatic conquest of the promised land." He demonstrates that archaeology confirms Jewish settlements in the region from thousands of years past, and well before the events of the Exodus story could have taken place.

Probably the most interesting things he targets in the books of Moses is Moses himself. Traditionally the Pentateuch was written by Moses himself. The fact that on many occasions Moses refers to himself in the third person is strange (and in Hitchens' analysis a sign of either alternative authorship or perhaps megalomania), but not conclusive. What more definitively indicates either alternative authorship, or a change in authorship is in the account of Moses' death in Deuteronomy and the use of saying that nobody knows "unto this day," reagarding where moses finally died which I belive Hitchens accurately interprets as indication of a significant passage of time since the actual events, perhaps even centuries. It would also of course be even more obviously onsensical for Moses to be post-mortem discussing a lack of knowledge of Moses' death.

In the end, Hitchens surprisingly, given his record, only notes one instance of massacre at the hands of the Israelites, and the subsequent punishment by Yahweh for letting too many survive.

Oddly enough, Hitchens shows a lot more restraint here than he does in debate. I was personally hoping for more in-depth analysis of biblical problems, but in that respect, which Hitchens knows his bible well, he is not a theologian, and the book is presented to make a simpler point that deep biblical analysis really didn't further.

god is not Great Chapter 6: Arguments from Design

Chapter six addresses one of the most common issues that causes division between theists and atheists. This should of course be clarified that it is mostly Young Earth Creationists who tend to make this a problem. The arguments from design, of course, state that certain levels of complexity in the universe, be it in the form of the living cell, a star, an eye, or the fact that conditions in the universe are conducive to life.

These ideas are compelling to some, but do not tend to convince most skeptics, and as Hitchens shows, if somewhat inexpertly, the science does not require the assumption of design. After some anecdotes Hitchens gets to his point starting with the eye, which has long been inaccurately described by YEC's as nearly impossible to have evolved. This is, as Hitchens argues, patently absurd due merely to the obvious evolution that we see in eyes, from planarian eyespots all the way to the most advanced eyes in vertibrates.

In this very section, though, I have to commend Hitchens somewhat as he uses a common creationist quotemine that creationists use against evolution's proponents and turns it around on them exposing it as a fraud:

"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree."

He continues the quote thusly:

"When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."

It is a common quotemine at this point, and one most atheists know pretty much on sight. But I would argue it is good to have it exposed as mining Darwin is such a common tactic, and was used even as recently as Ben Stein's documentary Expelled in particularly bad taste to link evolution with the Holocaust.

But Hitchens makes further arguments against the design hypothesis by noting how if we are designed it was by a very poor designer, using the eye again as an example citing it is in fact upside down and backwards, which seems quite inefficient.

Something he does later in the chapter is point out a favorite fallacious argument of Ray Comfort, which he seems to think trumps any belief against creation:

"Do you know of any building that didn't have a builder
Do you know of any painting that didn't have a painter?
Do you know of any car that didn't have a maker?
If you answered YES for anyof the above, give details."

Hitchens doesn't go the way I would have here, and instead of exposing the fallacy of comparing things we know were created with something that we have no proof was created he opts to explain that even if something is created it still follows evolution. He uses the examples of aircraft technology evolving gradually through trial and error. I'm not sure I like this example, particularly as at this very same time he declares that "speculation about who designed us to be designers becomes as fruitless and irrelevant as the question of who designed that designer."

He spends much of the rest of the chapter simply discussion the evolutionary theory of those such as Stephen Jay Gould. A bit of discussion of the Cambrian explosion as well as explaining the capriciousness of evolution, including its lack of pointed direction.

All in all, the chapter was interesting and informative, but did suffer from Hitchens' lack of being a scientist, and a tendancy to branch off into tangents.