by Jen Moore

Created on: May 21, 2008   Last Updated: May 28, 2008

I admit it: I picked up this book with the express intention of making a little pile of tally marks for every non sequitur. I am not Christian, nor am I Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu; I am a modern Pagan, working in a largely self-defined belief system somewhat based on the faiths of my distant European ancestors, but nevertheless with a true and genuine belief in the reality of Deity and the supernatural. I consider myself a deeply religious person and feel I have a great deal in common with other religious types, though obviously not all of them. I also have a degree in anthropology, a more than passing familiarity with other sciences, and firmly believe in and support the efforts of science to improve both our society and our understanding of the Universe.

I write this so you understand where I am coming from when I say this book is full of nonsense.

My biggest problem with Hitchens is a scientific one; indeed, an anthropological one. He simply does not believe the basic principle of social research, the thing that causes anthropology and sociology and a great deal of psychology to exist, that people do not always do what they say they are doing for the reasons they say they are doing it. He spends much of the book citing examples of wars and violence perpetrated in the name of religion - as usual, the Crusades and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are favorites, but he pulls out many other examples as well. Interestingly enough, he even cites other social causes for these wars, things like trade in the Crusades and land use rights in the Middle East, but he continues to argue that the wars themselves are the fault of religion. Does anybody really believe that if we were all atheists, we would find no reasons to kill one another? Eugenics has been executed in the name of evolution, after all. But neither evolution nor religion are necessarily to blame for human atrocities; they are merely excuses tacked on after the fact.

The second problem is a theological one. Most of the arguments about the morality of religion dissolve if you no longer postulate an omnipotent, benevolent god. Granted, this is exactly the basis of the Abrahamic religions, and does throw up some thorny theological issues, none of which Hitchens tackles with anything like...well, anything. He seems unaware of the centuries of serious work done in this area, or at the very least, he simply doesn't care, preferring to portray all religious people as either charlatans or dupes.

But, just as the polytheist answer to the question "Can God make a rock so big even he can't lift it" is, "Which god?" the polytheist answer to "why is there evil in the world" is kind of...a shrug and handwave. That is the way things are, and there isn't someone whose job it is to make it otherwise (at least not someone who has a good chance of it). I understand polytheism is a niche culture (in most parts of the world; Hinduism is something Hitchens seems to know nothing about, and touches on only to point out that Hindus Have Wars, Too), but if a book is intended to prove the case for atheism, it ought to be able to prove a case for something other than just dropping Abrahamic monotheism or organized hierarchical church-structures. god is not Great cannot.

There are probably people in this world whose faith can be destroyed by proving that the priesthood is a manmade institution, or that the Koran has historical and mythological antecedents, or that evolution is a complex and self-sustaining explanation for life as we know it. But they aren't going to be swayed by this book, with all its grandstanding and intentional antagonism. And it is insulting to all other people of faith to imply that we should be convinced by it.

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