God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Chapter 18 outlines the history of skepticism and non-belief, a concept which Hitchens argues has always existed. Skeptics are rarely found in accounts of ancient history, he argues, because “they have in all times and in all places been subject to ruthless oppression” (254). Despite this, Hitchens details evidence of a number of historical non-believers, from Socrates to Benjamin Franklin. He speculates that many more examples exist who kept a veneer of faith to escape persecution.

In particular, Hitchens believes that there was a high level of skepticism among early philosophers and scientists. He points to ancient Greek writing that expresses doubt about Zeus being responsible for rain, and the persistence in the face of persecution that allowed scientists to develop theories about the cosmos and atoms. He focuses particularly on Baruch Spinoza, a Jewish philosopher who was condemned throughout Europe for suggesting that souls may not be immortal. Despite a lifetime of ridicule and hate, Spinoza continued to produce philosophical works and eventually became a major influence on European philosophy as a whole. Hitchens also references visionaries like Thomas Paine and Charles Darwin, who denied being atheists during their lives but whom he suspects were less devout than they presented themselves as being.

Hitchens ends the chapter with a history of Jewish intellectual oppression. He condemns Hanukkah as a celebration of a resurgence of radicalism after many Jewish Palestinians began to abandon devout faith in favor of Hellenism. The Maccabees, a group of Jewish fundamentalists, began a campaign to destroy this secular tendency. The group eventually allied with the Roman Empire, and in doing so gave birth to Christianity and eventually Islam. Hitchens mourns the lost potential of an intellectually vigorous, mostly secular Jewish community who might have ushered in a period of groundbreaking philosophical thinking. Instead, a fundamentalist monotheism took hold across the Holy Land, which Hitchens believes the world is still suffering from today.

The final chapter of God Is Not Great explores the problems that religion continues to create, even as Hitches is writing the book. It begins with a picture of modern Iran in 2006, when President Ahmadinejad announced the expansion of the country’s nuclear program. This event was highly religious; during the ceremony the president pushed a scroll containing the details of the program down the cistern where the mythical Twelfth Imam is said to reside, awaiting his change to return and save the world. Hitchens is at once worried about the idea of a religiously-radical nation having access to nuclear weapons, and angry at Iran’s destruction of the great Persian civilization in favor of fundamentalist Islam.

Hitchens sees an increase in dangerous radicalism in his own work, as well. He reports that instead of having civilized debates with religious leaders, he was often pulled away from writing his book to attend anti-fundamentalist events, such as the counter-protests in Denmark after a local newspaper’s cartoons depicting Mohammed became the focus of widespread rage. He expresses discomfort that in the wake of this event, there was no pushback by non-Muslim newspapers or leadership. He reports that most stated they would not republish the cartoons out of respect, but in reality they feared retaliation.

At the same time that fundamentalism is gaining power across the world, Hitchens sees huge advances in science and technology that further push religion into the background. He believes that it is time for a new Enlightenment, and calls for all readers to intentionally push back against claims that religion still has a place in the world. He writes, “Religion has run out of justifications. Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, it no longer offers an explanation of anything important” (282). Instead, the only purpose of religion in the modern world is to impede progress, to create unnecessary conflict between populations, and to control people for the sake of a powerful few.