If you regularly attend religious services, you will not like this book. If you have any affinity for the basic tenets (i.e., the sacred texts) of your particular spiritual association, you will not like this book. If you have any attachment to the historical founders of your religion, you will not like this book. If you have any respect for the clergy (of any stripe) based on their goodness derived from their adherence to the basic teachings of their faith, you will not like this book. In fact, even if you are basically agnostic or atheist but are tolerant of your faith-bearing neighbors, there is a good chance you will not like this book. And, if you are among the orthodox of your specific faith, you will not only hate this book, but actively agitate that it is blasphemy.
Christopher Hitchens has subtitled his book, "How religion poisons everything" and by God (pun intended) he means it. Compared to Hitchens, Sam Harris (the first of the recent anti-religion treatises in "The End of Faith") is a nice guy with a quaint perspective. Harris's basic premise was that anyone who believed that their basic sacred text (e.g., Koran, Torah, New Testament, Bagvadhgita) was the literal word of God would by definition trample the rights (and eventually justify the taking of life) of anyone who did not agree with them. In Harris's case unthinking belief drives irrational human behavior. It is my interpretation (or my feeble memory) that Harris leaves open the possibility that when tempered by real reformation, religious values might actually be put to some good.
Hitchens goes one step further...for him, the essential belief systems of religion are based on seriously flawed fables, fictions, falsehoods, fabrications, and total folderol. Religion according to Hitchens is "man-made" and contributes nothing but oppression, violence, and the suppression of the human spirit. Hitchens see religion as anti-science and anti-reason. He has no time for the supposed saints and prophets. Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad get skewered as do more modern incarnations of religious leadership as Brigham Young, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, and Gandhi). No one is spared, for example, "and in North Korea today, what has gone awry is not communism but Confucianism". Ouch!
Hitchens' detractors (and there are many as you can imagine) argue that he is one-sided, unfair, and blind to other interpretations. They argue that Hitchens ignores the good that religion has brought us, that evil deeds are committed by both believers and non-believers, and that not everyone is a fundamentalist.
So why read this?
Because despite the ramped up rhetoric, Hitchens does a few things worth examining closely. First, he clearly exposes some of the greatest hypocrisies within the major religions. The Catholic Church is devoted to improving the condition of humans but relegates 50% of the population to second class status (women); Orthodox Jews continue rituals and practices that violate any number of laws on a regular basis. Hindus and Muslims kill each other with wild abandon and glee. Islamist jihadis celebrate the deaths of Americans and Israelis. And on and on.
Second, while Hitchens critics continue to hammer at him that evil is done by all, Hitchens does more than a credible job of demonstrating that deliberate evil is done by, for, and in the name of the very institutions that should be models of better behavior. Hitchens detractors on this are simply disingenuous....he is absolutely right. Our religious institutions, hierarchies, and leaders should be more than the rest of us..more moral. Hitchens' litany is compelling even if most of us will reject his arguments. His detractors maintain that most of this is ancient history. Catholics reject the Inquisition. Jews no longer practice animal sacrifice. Muslims no longer convert by the sword. Really? The current Pope wants to saint Pope Pius -- known for (at best) his indifference to the Holocaust. The fanatics of the BJP in India have bombed mosques. Islamists murder cartoonists and apostates, and kill their raped daughters for dishonoring the family. How far have we really come?
Finally, read this because, despite the reviews that argue that Hitchens' arguments regarding intelligent design are overdone, I did not find that to be true.
Overall, I certainly believe that Hitchens is monumentally angry at religion. I am also sure he drops into hyperbole on a regular basis. He is also monumentally erudite and viciously incisive. He will make you uncomfortable and he will make you think. That is worth all the rest.
Well, I'm now going to read it for no other reasons than I just loved this alliterative sentence:
" . . . the essential belief systems of religion are based on seriously flawed fables, fictions, falsehoods, fabrications, and total folderol."
I know you had fun with that!
Posted by: Bennett | February 04, 2010 at 01:46 PM