God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2007

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-19

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

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Themes

Religion Is Outdated

Hitchens admits that in the early history of humanity, religion was an inevitable consequence of society’s desire to understand and interpret the world. When early people saw anything that appeared to be outside the natural order, such as an eclipse or a river seemingly changing direction, their tendency to attribute the event to a higher power was understandable. Modern science has allowed people to understand things like cosmology and tidal systems, though, so there is no longer any reason to seek truth in a conscious god or gods.

Hitchens believes that the origins of religion are tied to humans’ solipsistic nature. People naturally see themselves as the center of their own universe. Thus, gods were created as a more powerful version of people, and world histories were created that centered humans as the most important part of the universe. Today, it is known that humans are a very small part of the universal picture, and evolution has proven that our existence is largely a coincidence. For these reasons, Hitchens views continued belief in human-like gods as willful ignorance and as laughably self-centered. Through an exploration of the history of miracles and prophets, Hitchens suggests that religious people may actually understand that their beliefs should be relegated to the past even if they do not admit it. He points out that most supernatural events tied to major religions—such as the great flood of Noah and the birth of new prophets—happened long ago and have not been proven. Although many religious people believe in an inevitable end of times, new prophets and miracles are almost never accepted on a wide scale.

The exploration of new religions drives this point home even further. By demonstrating the fraud inherent in the founding of the LDS church, Hitchens aims to show that anyone who claims to be a messenger from God is simply hoping to gain power for themselves. When he describes the American military-centered religions on certain Pacific Islands, he conveys that “miracles” only seem miraculous to people who do not have a full picture of what is going on. Since these remote islands did not have access to modern science in the 1940s, they can be compared to early believers throughout the world.

Ockham’s razor is used multiple times in the book as a way to argue that modern religious belief is foolish. In the past, when science was in its infancy, acts of God were a valid explanation for natural events because no simpler explanation existed. Now, much of nature is well understood by science. When religious believers try to shoehorn God into science, Hitchens believes they are adding an extra, unnecessary element. Furthermore, he argues that religion has prevented scientific and philosophical progress throughout history. Hitchens lists many instances in which revolutionary intellectuals have been silenced by religious institutions, a trend that, in his view, proves that religious people are worried that science will prove them wrong.

Religion Is Oppressive and Violent

The theme of religion as an oppressive force runs throughout God is Not Great and takes on many forms. Hitchens writes that religious oppression can occur on both large and small scales. It can be focused internally on people within a religion, or be carried out by members of one religion against those who do not believe.

Misogyny and anti-LGBTQ+ bias are some of the major forms of religious discrimination found in God Is Not Great. Many religions, especially the major monotheisms, construct a worldview based on a strict heterosexual patriarchy. Hitchens outlines the ways in which Islam, Christianity, and Judaism (especially in their most fundamentalist forms) have convinced both male and female followers that women should be led by men. This often takes the form of strict rules about purity, such as modest dress codes, restrictions against worship while menstruating, and harsh punishments for any woman who has sex outside marriage. Misogyny is also responsible for many religious views surrounding abortion, which minimize women’s rights as individuals and instead view them as vessels to carry and care for their husband’s children. Hitchens also outlines the ways in which religion has promoted anti-gay bias. Many religious sects ban gay relationships and teach that being gay is a sin. This has caused endless suffering for many gay children of religious parents, and in extreme cases can lead to murder and imprisonment of gay people. Hitchens outlines several instances in which major disasters, such as September 11 and the AIDS crisis, have been painted as God’s punishment for people who “choose” to be gay.

In his discussions surrounding places like Northern Ireland, Palestine, and Rwanda, Hitchens outlines how religious oppression can grow to the scale of war or genocide. In Northern Ireland and Palestine, multiple faiths lay claim to specific areas of land. While Hitchens believes that these issues could be solved with careful political negotiation, religious leaders have rallied their followers to see the other group as dangerous, heretical intruders. Thus, the only solution in the minds of many Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims is complete eradication of the competing population. This sentiment played out in its most extreme form during the Rwandan genocide. Christian leaders who were part of the Hutu majority became a major factor in spreading the belief that Tutsi people were “cockroaches” who needed to be exterminated. In some cases, they tricked Tutsis into churches with the promise of protection before inviting the police to kill them en masse. In offering these examples, Hitchens argues that religious belief is inherently oppressive and often violent, both on an individual and societal level.

Morality Does Not Require Belief, and Belief Can Foster Immorality

The Ten Commandments come up multiple times in God Is Not Great, usually as the subject of ridicule. Hitchens believes that these rules and similar rules from other religions are completely pointless, as they ban things that most people do not do anyway, such as murder and theft. He writes that a basic sense of right and wrong lies within almost every person; if that was not the case, then human society would never have developed. He also cites that crime rates among atheists have never been shown to be higher than among religious believers. In fact, many crimes are religiously-motivated, as perpetrators are convinced they are following God’s word. In Hitchens’s view, secular morality is more genuine than religious morality, as it requires a person to carefully consider the personal and social reasons behind why they view an act as good or bad. If a person is strictly following what their religion tells them to do, they are just as likely to do something horrific in the name of God as they are to do something good.

Although Hitchens admits that many religious people are morally good and that many do genuinely nice things in the name of their higher power, the same can be said for non-believers who do good in the name of humanity. He acknowledges that there have been instances of secular evil throughout history, but argues that evil is carried out much more easily if the perpetrators believe that God is on their side. A major example is the Confederacy during the American Civil War. The Southern white population was mostly made up of devout Christians, who saw the North as dangerously secular. Since they believed themselves to be much more pious than their neighbors, many Southerners decided that God wanted them to practice slavery—after all, the Bible permits slavery and even contains a set of rules for the slave trade.

When discussing secular immorality, Hitchens argues that many of the most immoral acts not done in the name of God actually took on a quasi-religious character. He uses Nazism and Stalinism as examples. Although neither movement was religiously motivated—the Soviet Union was explicitly atheist—both deified a single charismatic leader. Followers would hang on that leader’s every word, and by doing so effectively turned Hitler and Stalin into gods. Immoral acts committed in the name of Nazi political ideals, then, became effectively the same as those done for religious reasons. Instead of proving that secularism is evil, Hitchens argues that this proves his point that religion is actually less moral than non-belief, as immorality often stems from adherence to rules outlined by a single powerful force. Morality, on the other hand, often comes from collective work toward the best interest of society and individual people.