Book Review: god is not Great by Christopher Hitchens

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It may seem odd that an apologetics website would post a book review for an atheist’s book that tries to argue against Christianity (and in this case religion in general). In some ways it is, but in this review my goal as a reviewer is to try to capture what is good about this book and make some comments in response to the arguments presented.

The text’s two hundred ninety-six pages are broken up into nineteen chapters and an afterword. It is written as a kind of argument against religion in general and Hitchens writes this polemic against all religions. He does spend more time writing against Christianity and Islam, which he recognized and admits that he does so because he knows more about those religions than others. Though this is clearly true throughout the book it is easily seen that though he knows about Christianity and Islam, he doesn’t really understand what they are about, particularly Christianity. As I’ve heard an esteemed apologist say, when an atheist or skeptic describes God, I end up agreeing with him or her. The same concept applies here to Hitchens’ view of Christianity. I agree with his view of Christianity. A clear example of some strong points of agreement: Hitchens mentions being raised in a school that taught the Bible and the views of the Church of England, during that time he spoke of reading passages in context. Every Christian should do so. As Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason says, “Never read a Bible verse.” Hitchens was actually quite wise to realize that one shouldn’t look at isolated sections and base one’s views on that pinhole-look at a text. Hitchens also talks of failed prayer experiments. He clearly thinks that Christian prayer is about getting God to do something, which I agree with him is false. Prayer is not about getting an answer or getting healing, so when scientific studies say that prayer has no effect or perhaps a detrimental effect on the one being prayed for. He also describes numerous evils perpetrated by religious people throughout history. And, I agree with him that those things, if representative of Christianity, make it out to be evil, though not necessarily false. But, clearly this is a shallow, false understanding of Christianity. The vast majority of the book presents the argument: 1) These religious people have done evil things in the name of their religion. 2) Therefore god (intentionally lowercase) is not great. A thoughtful Christian can, in a sense, even agree with this whole book. Because the word used is “god,” which is not correct as Christianity teaches that “God” is God’s proper name and therefore must always be capitalized. If one uses the lowercase word, not name, “god” then one is referring to some other deity than what Christianity follows. The god that Hitchens argues against is man-made, and as such we Christians agree, man-made gods do not exist (are not great).

In the opening chapter Hitchens presents what is presumably a sort of outline for his objections (though he doesn’t follow the outline very clearly throughout the book). He offers four “irreducible objections to religious faith:” 1) it misrepresents the origins of man and the universe, 2) it combines the maximum of servility with the maximum of solipsism, 3) it is the result of and cause of dangerous sexual repression, and 4) it is ultimately grounded in wish-thinking. The opening chapter is followed by an equally inane argument about how evil some religious people are and that Christianity even kills people. Hitchens attacks such low-hanging fruit as religious people who object to various scientific/health advances and applies their beliefs to their children, various times when one religion or another restricted the political involvement of another religion, and the list goes on. Misrepresentations of Christianity abound such as this description, “… if you obey the rules and commandments that [God] has lovingly prescribed, you will qualify for an eternity of bliss and repose.” It is certain that this describes some religions, but it certainly doesn’t describe Christianity.

Probably the most confusing and worst chapter in the whole book appears early (chapter three). In this chapter Hitchens presents an incredibly confusing line of thinking. He spends most of the chapter describing how religious compunction against pork/pigs is “ancient stupidity.” However, he also writes about how pigs are actually very close analogs to humans in numerous ways. They have similar organs (including skin), they seem to have emotions of a certain level, they scream much like a human would when in pain, and may have been important to non-Jewish religious rituals as it’s unsettlingly similar to human sacrifice. Basically, he presents a strong apologetic for why we probably shouldn’t eat or sacrifice pigs. They’re our “fairly close cousins” and mistreating them and eating them is bad, as science and rational thought shows us, or at least Hitchens seems to argue. However, when religious leaders or religions themselves say to not eat or sacrifice pigs, it is “ancient stupidity.” Why, when they both say the same thing, though they may have different reasons for saying those things, is one clear rational thought but the other stupidity? In fact, he admits that one possible explanation for Old Testament prohibitions of pork may be based on rationality, that is, trichinosis is common and dangerous in pork. So, the prohibition of pork by Judaism may have a rational basis, but really it is “ancient stupidity.” A recent example of this would be cleanliness. Hitchens (and others) looks down on the Bible as ancient stupidity, but given the Old Testament’s teaching on hygiene (the New Testament also encourages clean living) it is clearly not stupid.

Hitchens does try to present arguments relating to his four objections after the confusing digression on the pig and another on health. He brushes aside any metaphysical claims of religion as completely explained away by science. Science and rational thought, he seems to think, have explained away the ancient faiths. He is at least honest enough not to argue that science has disproved religious claims, but rather that it has made them unnecessary. Science explains the mysteries of the universe and creation, there’s no need for these ancient superstitions. In all these things Hitchens venerates William of Ockham (Ockham’s Razor). He describes him as forward-thinking and courageous. Hitchens tries to turn Ockham’s own razor against his religious beliefs and shave off faith as unnecessary. Unfortunately, Hitchens fails (as many people do) to properly apply the principle of parsimony (another term for Ockham’s Razor). He neglects the idea that the simpler idea is preferred when it is able to adequately cover all the variables. For example, atheists will say that the concept of God is unnecessary for understanding the creation of the universe. However, without postulating God as a possible creator, there are numerous issues left unanswered by materialism, particularly answering why there is anything at all. This is his answer to how religion misrepresents the origins of life and the universe; Ockham’s Razor says to not allow such a postulate because it’s unnecessary.

For the second objection (maximum servility and solipsism) Hitchens looks at the argument from design. His only response is that it is part of religious teaching that saying humanity is specially designed by God requires that humans be solipsistic (think mankind alone is special in creation). This is a strange usage of the word solipsism. Generally, the term is used for a philosophical problem about how can anyone know if anyone else actually exists because one cannot actually know anything outside one’s senses, which are untrustworthy. Hitchens uses the term to say that religion wrongfully teaches that mankind is special in this universe. Not only does Hitchens think the argument for design leads to servility and solipsism, it can be dismissed because clearly humans are poorly designed. This is a poor objection to the argument from design and has been refuted in many ways. Nonetheless, Hitchens thinks this is a convincing counter to the argument.

To keep this review from getting too long I’m going to skip to the conclusion of the matter (and book). After trudging through eighteen(!) chapters of bad arguments and internet-meme-like one-liners attacking religion, one comes to this conclusion. Hitchens feels that his book has clearly shown that religious people are clearly deceiving themselves and seeking to deceive others, particularly the young and naive (not unlike the claim of Dawkins’ book The God Delusion). Clearly, (according to Hitchens) religion is philosophy with the questions left out. There’s a special kind of irony here since this page and countless other Christian apologetics, Christian philosophy, and philosophy of religion pages seek to do just that, question what we believe and why. Apologists and religious philosophers the world over question various parts of Christianity all the time. Philosophy has long (at least since the Middle Ages) been seen as the “handmaiden of theology.” Yes, religious people tend to subordinate philosophical questioning to theology, but that still includes thorough questioning of theological points. Indeed, theology itself is a systematic, logical, even philosophical pursuit of the truth about God and His relation to the world. So, to say that religion stifles questioning and free thinking requires Hitchens to ignore all Christian and other religious thinkers. Clearly Hitchens has actually deceived himself about religious thought and philosophy.