God Is Not Great?

[blazeofglory]

God is great as a father figure. But at times he fails, and succumb to fakes and nothing else.

[curlyqlink]

I have read Hitchins' book. I found it amusing, and a bit informative. He is of course preaching to the converted (or should I say the unconverted?) There is really nothing new to say in the arena of atheism; it is after all a negation (and I don't mean that in a derogatory sense at all), the most powerful argument in favor of atheism being the absolute lack of any physical evidence of God's existence. The other atheist arguments are the historical retreat of belief in the supernatural as rationalism and science have advanced, and the linking of modern religion to various mythologies that are nowadays recognized as absurd. All three arguments have been around for a very long time.

Still, there is value in a systematic restatement of these ideas every now and then. God is Not Great is not going to make an unbeliever of a true believer, but it offers hope to the serious doubter, to those who don't really care to believe but who were perhaps raised to be religious and know nothing of rational disbelief. Religion is everywhere, and is almost universally praised as good or at the very least harmless. As the book itself points out, it is only recently in the history of civilization that such freethinking has become permissible; religious faith has long been compelled under threat of the harshest possible of punishments.

Sure, Hitchins' book is partisan. He makes no bones about it, and I see nothing wrong with it.