God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens ?

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Has anyone here read the Book called God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens ? I have talked to People who tell me and I have heard Christopher Hitchens says that God is a Dictator and that Heaven or the Aferlife would be like a Dictatorship can anyone explain why he thinks this ? I have not read the Book but I do plan on buying a copy of the Book.

Christopher Hitchens vs. Sean Hannity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eBmyABeAa4

i've read the book and it wasnt what i was expecting.

rather than being a book arguing why god is not real, it explains the harm of radical religion (especially in the middle east).

its hard to parallel the average churchgoer to a middle eastern terrorist.

moreover, he spends a whole chapter rambling about religious uses of the pig.

I would love to have Christopher Hitchens as a guest for a dinner party, he is a master of rhetoric. His argument against religion however does not stand up to close interlectual scruitiny. If you are looks for a good debate watch Craig v Hitchens.

That is what I was going to say 91

On balance the great religions of the world have caused more harm, pain and death than they have produced benefits for mankind. On balance, religion has been a negative force in the lives of humans.

One can always find instances where religious folk, because of their religion have practiced kindness and goodness to their fellow humans, but that is not the major effect of religion. War and death is.

ruveyn

And the belief in one God all started with the Jews.

"One-god-ism" is recorded in 14th B.C.E. Egypt, under the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaton. Even the God he "chose" then refused to communicate with this Pharaoh, as did the rest of Us.

Tadzio

I quite agree. Let's see the Swiss vote SVP in a week's time.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVjd1yDXNTM&feature=feedf[/youtube]

Off topic but funny.

Hitler appeared to have three testicles (he took too much Taurine???, even with the "vegetarian" kick).

"The Big Bang" was the label used by Fred Hoyle to insult, in my version, to insult George Gamow, over Olber's Paradox (Why is the sky dark at night?), and the discovered "cosmic microwave background radiation". I know the God Infinity, and the Steady State Model of the Universe is correct (hence, no beginning and no ending), and I know there is an "infinite repetition" of all sequences of events, and ratios of "counts" of Infinities for sequences of all possible events, all repeated infinitely (sometimes called a "circle", but it isn't really a circle, as it is just "endless" with no "beginning", (Gods can mosey around time too, also sorta like Humans mosey around temperature)). The absence of the beginning precludes using "the beginning" as "proof" of any God, so as a God, I know this argument for my existence fails.

The God Random self-contradicts himself, but if you want to believe in "chance" (it doesn't exist (calling it an "ignorance ratio" would help clarity)), blame everything on Quantum Mechanics.

Tadzio

P.S.: "Big Bang" = A God let a big "one", and blew the Universe apart!! !

Hitchens is a drunk and a smoker and often an ass, but he has a wonderful mellifluous voice; I have the book, read by the author, on CD. It's better than some, not as good as others; if you plan to read several 'new atheist' books, it's a good one, but don't make it your only exposure to the genre.

As for the debates, it's amazing how the views on 'who won' vary by which side one starts out on. I've never seen Hitchens lose a debate he didn't show up drunk for.

Fortunately whether one is drunk and/or an ass is only incidental as to whether what they aregue was correct. Otherwise a lot of men on the street would never say anything coreect at all even when they do.

This is all based on the fact that fear and coercion do not good people create.

I do apologize then the beleif in only ONE GOD of the abrahamic religions started with the Jews

You can also get it from the iTunes Store.

EDIT: Uncalled for Ad Hominem. One of my best ones, but one of my most classless and vicious.

Anyway, I want to show my favorite Hitchens clip: the "selling pencils...FROM A CUP!" speech (while attacking an anti-Semite in the process). Since Falwell questioned Martin Luther King, Jr.'s sincerity, was against sanctions on apartheid South Africa, etc., he would not be considered Christian by most of the outspoken theists on this forum and is a false teacher. Anything he says about faith is AUTOMATICALLY false, so it is not a big loss.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umVp2L82nPY[/youtube]