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Digital Cameras - Camcorders - God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
![God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything]()
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List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $13.59
Your Save: $ 6.39 ( 32% )
Availability: Not yet published
Manufacturer: Hachette Audio
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Audio CD
Dewey Decimal Number: 200
EAN: 9781600245572
Format: Audiobook
ISBN: 1600245579
Label: Hachette Audio
Manufacturer: Hachette Audio
Number Of Items: 8
Publication Date: 2009-04-06
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Studio: Hachette Audio
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: For those who want to know "Is there really a god?"
Comment: Let me first say up front (appologetically) that this is not a review of the book. After reading many of the reviews about this and related books, I thought it was important for people to hear from at least one person who has special experience (to the extreme) on both sides of the fence regarding the subject of science and reason on the one hand and faith, religion and God on the other. I can understand why the author of this book can become bitter about religion because of some bad experiences he has had in the past with religious people. But to conclude there is no God because of people's abuse of religion is a grave mistake.
I grew up with an extremely religious mother. I wanted to know the truth about the origins of life so I studied science and evolution. I am a devout evolutionist. My mother and I have had some bitter words over this subject. But it is because of my mother that, in 1983, I got on my knees and made a promise to God that I would wait for 20 years for the one He would have me marry. Two nights later I had this incredible dream with a thousand details in it that was God showing me an over-view of what was going to happen during the rest of my life. In the dream I encountered four women and married the fourth. In real life, I encountered those four women and I married the fourth out of my faith that God would not offer me anything but the best choice for me. I have to admit that I had no physical attraction for my wife but I married her out of faith in God. Amazingly, it has really worked out beyond my own reasoning and juddgement and it can only be God (or some great force that is what we call God) that gave me this divine knowledge. Let me continue on because the dream is still happening. I have a business partner that was in the dream and there are many more things that have happened and still have to happen yet in my life that are all in the dream. Let me also fast forward and say that in the end of the dream my wife and I are surrounded by a brilliant white light and we are taken up into heaven where the last scene in the dream takes place.
I do not believe that the Bible is the "Word of God" but is the "word of man concerning God". The expression "Word of God" is a traditional (and unfortunate) one that too many people take literally. But there are many truths in the Bible that are indeed divine wisdom. One of these is "you must first come nigh to God before He will come nigh to you." That one hits the nail on the head because I truely believe that I would not have had that awesome dream 25 years ago had I not gone to God with a sincere spirit and made that prayer to him. Those who conclude there is no god out of bitterness or whatever reason will never experience an encounter with God like this (in my humble opinion) because they are unwilling to take the first step. My best advice to all of you readers is not to hold a grudge against God and religion because of one or more bad experiences with a rabid Creationist or any other self-righteous person who does not represent God (but perports to represent Him). There IS a God and He IS great. The creationists make a big mistake when they fail to realize that God's true greatness is in designing a set of laws in this universe that make evolution work as well as it does. No matter what side you find yourself on in this debate, you have to admit that WE are all really awesome creatures and the world really is simply amazing. I just hope that some of you will have an experience such as mine but you will not find it in any book. You have to go to God in private. And I guarantee that, if He talks to you, it will change you forever and you will cross a boundary where you can't turn back. Atheists can give me all the reasoning they want to that there is no god but I know better. They are truely in the dark on this subject.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Bitter, but Fascinating
Comment: All of religion's smut, dirt, shortcomings, and fallacies are exposed, and in the most concise manner. This book is very informative and thorough, but I do wish the talented Mr. Hitchens hadn't sounded so bitter and enraged whilst writing this brillant piece of work (though he was more composed than Sam Harris). Highly recommend this piece for the Agnostic and entry level Atheist.
Customer Rating:
Summary: reads more like 'WHY I DONT LIKE RELIGION'
Comment: It goes on for 300 pages.Some of the oldest philosophies are HINDU/BUDDIST.He offers 8 pages of text ovet 9 pages of the book and while he may have a publishing deal/best seller[s] HE DOESNT GET THOSE 2 RELIGIONS!
He also doesnt seem to know much of the real history of the dreaded UNITED NATIONS.
Atheism is a belief system.It might have better to offer than this.
HE ATTEMPTS TO TAKE 6000? YEARS OF HINDUISM AND REDUCE IT TO 'OSHO'...the druggie with rajnesshpurim in oregon and the 100? rolls royces.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A 101 for the beginner atheist
Comment: After reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion last year, I wanted to give a few other atheist manifestos a read - not really with the intent of learning anything particularly new, but just out of interest in the different views. Dawkins' was heavily scientific, to be expected from a scientist, so I assumed - rightly - that Hitchens' would lean more towards the historical and philosophical. Although there's nothing new or particularly inspiring here, he does have a way with words and uses his sharp wit to deliver a rain of relatively gentle blows upon the shoulders of the worst aspects of religion.
As mentioned there wasn't really anything ground-breaking for the well-informed atheist, but it's a decent read for anyone newly interested in the discourse on religion and its significance in today's world, and provides a little 101 on some of religion's more illustrious moments in history. He does make some very salient, always-worth-repeating points about the fact that true morality and good deeds come from the heart and have nothing whatsoever to do with any religion, and vice versa.
I got a little bored with the conversation on fascism and communism, but again I think that's because it's old, oft-treaded ground already. Hitchens does not mince words when it comes to calling out certain world leaders and icons, past and present, for their participation in and proliferation of some of religion's more irresponsible consequences. Even those who are traditionally left out of other atheists' rants are not spared here, including the Dalai Lama, St. Francis, Mother Theresa and Gandhi, in a list of those who have manipulated masses of people in ways that, in Hitchens' view, did almost as much harm as good. In his conclusion, he states unequivocally that in today's educated, enlightened world religion truly has no further justification for itself, and that indeed, in some of its more fanatical manifestations is actually an enemy to be fought by the intelligent, rational and genuinely ethical. He repeats a famous quote by Spanish painter Francisco de Goya to illustrate the need to think first, then believe: "The sleep of reason breeds monsters," ("El sueno de la razon produce monstrous.") - always a worthy point, if rarely taken.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Disappointed with Delivery
Comment: As an Atheist familiar also with the works of Harris and Dawkins, I found Hitchens attempt to be quite disappointing in comparison. The primary problem was not content but in his organization and delivery. He writes they way you would expect a journalist... the longer book format doesn't work for him. I reread some of Dawkins' just to make sure my memory wasn't faulty, and it was clear that Dawkins' style is much better organized and coherent. Hitchens seems to jump all over the place. I also didn't like that the endnotes were not marked in the text. I like his magazine work... He should stick to it.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Now available as a value-priced edition!
Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as "one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time "takes on his biggest subject yet--the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world.
With his unique brand of erudition and wit, Hitchens describes the ways in which religion is man-made. "God did not make us," he says. "We made God." He explains the ways in which religion is immoral: We damage our children by indoctrinating them. It is a cause of sexual repression, violence, and ignorance. It is a distortion of our origins and the cosmos. In the place of religion, Hitchens offers the promise of a new enlightenment through science and reason, a realm in which hope and wonder can be found through a strand of DNA or a gaze through the Hubble Telescope. As Hitchens sees it, you needn't get the blues once you discover the heavens are empty.
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