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God Is Not Great
Sign in to saveAlso known as God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, How religion poisons everything, God is not Great - How Religion Poisons Everything, God is not Good, Religion poisons everything, God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion
2007 essay by Christopher Hitchens
Key facts
- Author
- Christopher Hitchens
- Language
- English
- Subject
- Criticism of religion
- Publisher
- Twelve Books imprint of the Hachette Book Group USA
- Publication date
- May 1, 2007
- Publication place
- United States
- Media type
- Print ( hardcover and paperback ), and audiobook
- Isbn
- 978-0-446-57980-3
- Dewey decimal
- 200 22
- Library of congress classification span
- BL2775.3 .H58 2007
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Author
- Christopher Hitchens
- Genre
- essay
- Country of origin
- United States
- Publisher
- Hachette Book Group
- Main subject
- criticism of religion
- Image
- God is not great.JPG
Show 6 more facts
- title
- God is Not Great
- subtitle
- How Religion Poisons Everything
- Commons category
- God Is Not Great
- publication date
- 2007-05-01
- language of work or name
- English language
- first line
- If the intended reader of this book should want to go beyond disagreement with its author and try to identify the sins and deformities that animated him to write it (and I have certainly noticed that those who publicly affirm charity and compassion and forgiveness are often inclined to take this course), then he or she will not just be quarreling with the unknowable and ineffable creator who—presumably—opted to make me this way.
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
~9 min read
Encyclopedic overview
God Is Not Great (sometimes stylized as god is not Great) is a 2007 book by journalist Christopher Hitchens in which he makes a case against organized religion. It was originally published in the United Kingdom by Atlantic Books as God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion and in the United States by Twelve as God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, but in 2017 Atlantic Books republished it with no subtitle.
Hitchens states that organized religion is "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children" and is sectarian, and that accordingly it "ought to have a great deal on its conscience". He supports his position with a mixture of personal stories, documented historical anecdotes and critical analysis of religious texts. His commentary focuses mainly on the Abrahamic religions, although it also touches on other religions, such as Eastern religions. The book sold well and received mixed reviews, with some critics finding historical inaccuracies in the text and some finding the book highly important.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “God Is Not Great” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.