Title: God is Not Great
Author: Christopher Hitchens
Type: Non-Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 310
Rating: 4/5
I’ve been looking forward to getting to this book for a while now because I’m a pretty staunch atheist, although if I was ever presented with any evidence of a god then I might change my mind. I just follow the science.
God is Not Great sits alongside The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins as one of those books that you should read if you want to learn a little more about why organised religion sucks, and I’m glad that I picked it up. I did think that The God Delusion was a little better, but I’m probably biased because Richard Dawkins retweeted my review of it and then a bunch of angry fundamentalists started sending me death threats, inadvertently proving my point.
The God Delusion is more based on logic and reasoning and taking on the main arguments for religion, while God is Not Great is more anecdotal, focusing mostly on Hitchens’ own experiences with religion. There’s nothing wrong with that though, and if anything it just means that the two of them go together well.
I wouldn’t say that reading this book changed my mind about anything, but I don’t know if it really reaffirmed my beliefs (or lack thereof) either. Hitchens writes a little less forecefully than Dawkins, which means that it feels much more like a friendly dialogue than a spirited debate.
But that’s okay because that’s pretty much exactly what I was in the mood for, and it meant it was an easy read that washed over me instead of forcing me to analyse every paragraph. I’m definitely glad that I read it and I’d recommend it to anyone else who’s interested in religion, whether they themselves are religious or not.
