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 Moonshoe Blue Mantis   Registered: 05/28/04 Posts: 27,202 Loc: Iceland |
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Christopher Hitchens, in his work “God is not great: How religion poisons everything” argues that religion in all its forms, is a fundamentally corrupt and inevitably detrimental force that has negative consequences for individuals, societies and the world as a whole. He presents the case that religion is guilty of innumerable crimes against humanity, ranging from child rape to genocide and imperial conquest (15). Ultimately, Hitchens will suggest that in order for humanity to progress in a desirable direction, religion must become a thing of the past, replaced by a global ethic of atheistic secular pluralism, based on materialist rationality.
Hitchens presents his thesis in the form of a series of individual essays united by the common theme of religious criticism. The first of these essays is entitled “Religion Kills” and this will be a definitive and recurring theme throughout his work. Hitchens argument against religion derives much of it’s moral force from his frequent references to acts of violence perpetrated by individuals or groups who were apparently religiously motivated, correctly noting that religion has frequently been complicit in ethnic cleansing (21), sectarian violence (18), torture (24), terrorism (31) and censorship by assassination (29). In places such as “Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, Bethlehem and Baghdad (18)” religion has been a major source of social conflict and violence. In addition to its legacy of flagrant slaughter and bloodshed, Hitchens notes that religion has also consistently functioned as an impediment to scientific and medical progress, effectively retarding the intellectual growth of the human species and preventing millions of people from gaining access to the quality of life offered by modern technology and medicine. Pointing to incidents where statements by prominent religious officials undermined important public health initiatives, such as polio vaccinations in west Bengal or contraception programs in Brazil. Hitchens sums up his point by claiming that “the attitude of religion to medicine, like the attitude of religion to science, is always necessarily problematic and very often necessarily hostile (47)”. Thus, in addition to causing massive suffering in the form of war, murder and human sacrifice, religion also frequently condemns its believers to additional suffering as the result of medical misinformation or prohibitions on science and technology. Hitchens claims that in all of its various forms, the torments of religion always afflict children the most savagely. From the mental torment that accompanies illogical taboos against masturbation and lust, or nightmarish stories of hells and devils, to the physical mutilation of the genitalia, young people are frequently exposed to religious rites or practices which they are not capable of consenting to. Furthermore, actions that would otherwise be considered illegal and immoral are frequently permitted on the basis of religious tolerance (52). Thus, Hitchens’ begins his critique of religion with a long list of indictments for crimes past and present, ranging from systematic and institutionalized child rape and mutilation, to war and ethnic cleansing. In this way he demonstrates that the behaviour of religious people is often morally reprehensible. However, he will push the point farther, saying that the immorality of religion is not just “in the behaviour of its adherents” but also “in its original precepts (205)”. According to Hitchens, foundational doctrines such as those involving blood sacrifice or doctrines of eternal reward and punishment are themselves immoral, and often entirely repugnant to any humane ideal of compassion or justice. As such, any attempt to exonerate religion from the crimes of it’s followers fails to address the fact that scripture is often perverse and immoral in and of itself. Other parts of Hitchens’ work concerns itself less with the gruesome real world consequences of religious activity and focuses instead on the intellectual fallacies that are involved in religious thinking. In his chapters on the old testament, the new testament and the Koran, he presents convincing evidence that all gospels, scriptures and revealed books of the great monotheisms and by extension all faiths are man made in origin and thus fully susceptible to every form of mistranslation and bias. Among the most potent of his observations is that the scope of the religious texts is always “oppressively confined and local (107)” betraying a highly limited scope of geographic awareness that is entirely inconsistent with authorship by any omniscient being. In addition to tearing apart the scriptural underpinnings of religion, Hitchens paints theological thinking as the result of old and outdated explanations that have been disproved and replaced by modern science . For example, the traditional view that the complexity of nature is indicative of a supernatural creator, has, according to Hitchens, been conclusively refuted by recent understandings founded on the entirely material processes of natural selection (79). Similarly, all supernatural myths and doctrines are incompatible with science and as such the entire religious enterprise is intellectually invalid. At this point, Hitchens has presented numerous incidents of atrocities committed by religious believers, including many that were openly motivated by religious beliefs. He has also claimed that religion is necessarily the enemy of scientific and medical progress, and thus has numerous negative effects on human health. Furthermore, the doctrines of religion are historically false, humanly manufactured, self contradictory and immoral, according to Hitchens’ humanistic standards, as well as being intellectually and scientifically invalid. In brief, Hitchens has attempted to demonstrate the religion is destructive, illogical and amoral. In his own words, religion very simply “poisons everything”. Having thus delivered his critique of religion, he briefly endorses a future founded on atheism, which he equates with intellectual courage, and a secular pluralism informed by humanistic ethics. Hitchens believes that the solution to religion is “a renewed enlightenment” which will base itself on “the study of literature and poetry…unfettered scientific inquiry” and sexual liberation “from fear, disease and tyranny (283)”. Hitchens ends his book with a call to war, claiming that we must “know the enemy, and prepare to fight it” (283). Having outlined his ideas, let us now examine how effective Hitchens is in proving his broad thesis that “religion poisons everything”. Certainly, his case has many strengths. He rightly confronts us with some of religions blood soaked past, and in doing so he effectively makes the case that religions have long ago lost their credibility as an ultimate or exclusive source of moral authority. By his frequent and diverse mentions of religiously inspired atrocities, Hitchens challenges the widespread view that religion equates with better behaviour or higher moral standards than atheism. This point is argued convincingly, and it is hard to imagine on what grounds religion could justify its traditional role as an eminent moral guide in the face of the kinds of widespread and repeated offences that Hitchens identifies. Similarly, I found his deconstruction of the divine origin of revealed texts like the Pentateuch and Koran to be beyond dispute. Essentially, Hitchens seeks to prove that the holy books of the major monotheisms are, far from being God’s own word, obviously man made in origin and as such fallible if not outright misleading guides to truth. For example, Hitchens notes how each of the various gospels describing the life of Christ differs on nearly all the important details. And yet, religious literalists claim that the bible as a whole is the revealed word of God. The word of God can not be simultaneously true and contradictory, ergo the bible is not divine in origin. This argument (which also applies to the other holy books) seems to me to be irrefutably convincing. Anyone can verify these discrepancies merely by opening a bible. However, there are some ways in which I find Hitchens’ arguments to be unconvincing or at least limited in their validity. For example, a huge part of his books intellectual and moral force comes from his somewhat unrestrained descriptions of religious atrocities. Although no one contests that the incidents he describes did in fact occur, there are a number of problems with using these cases to condemn religion as a whole. Firstly, this kind of evidence is essentially anecdotal. By detailing dozens of massacres and homicides, Hitchens emotionally prods us into sharing in his distrust and contempt for religion. And yet he never presents a single statistic showing that such atrocities were committed more frequently by people with genuine faith then by people who were faithless. In order to see the problem with this, let us imagine one of Hitchens’ Christian opponents had written a book called “how atheism poisons everything”. This author, seeking to paint atheism as a grave threat to society and decency, could easily dig up countless incidents of violence and murder perpetrated by open unbelievers. Atrocities such as those committed at Columbine, or ritual slayings perpetrated by irreligious psychopaths could be described at length in order to shock the reader into sharing the authors conviction that atheism is a real and deadly threat to the world. This imaginary author would share two intellectual failures with Hitchens. First, he would be painting an unbalanced picture of the group in question by deliberately seeking out the most gratuitous and offensive acts ever committed by any one member of the group, and then using those stories as an indictment of the group as a whole. Secondly, he would be guilty of extreme bias in the stories he chose to represent the group. Had Hitchens chosen to do so, he could easily have filled his book with anecdotes that related incidents when people of religion performed morally positive acts. He could have found countless stories of charity, humanity and nobility by earnest people of faith. However, he chose to select stories conveying the opposite impression. In effect, he selected his evidence to prove the point he wanted to make, despite the fact that conflicting and equally applicable anecdotal evidence was available. The first problem then is that Hitchens relies extensively on anecdotes but never on valid statistical or scientific studies. A survey of violent offenders in the prison population demonstrating that they were predominantly religious would be valid evidence in this debate. Similarly, a scientific study proving that belief in God leads to increased testosterone in brain and thus increased aggression would also be of great salience. However, Hitchens presents no such statistical or scientific support for his claims, relying rather on off the cuff references to “drills applied to kneecaps (19)” in order to emotionally coerce agreement from his readers. Another serious concern deals with Hitchens’ failure to consider alternative explanations for his evidence. He compiles many stories of atrocity that at least superficially seemed to be related to or inspired by religion, and concludes with minimal proof that religion was thus the primary or most important cause of the violence he describes. What he fails to consider is why religious bloodshed arose in some areas while equally religious communities lived peacefully in others. Could it be that geographical, political or economic factors were critical in these cases? In the field of conflict studies careful consideration is always given to the layered context of the violence. It seems to me that it is this complete context that is lacking from Hitchens equation of religion with bloodshed. The simple fact that fighting occurred between Christians and Muslims in a given area, for example, does not even come close to proving that religion was the dominant motivator and perpetuator of the violence. Other factors may in fact be far more salient. For example, imagine a hypothetical situation. Imagine that two villages existed side by side. One village is exclusively Muslim, and is located on rich, fertile croplands. As such the people of this village are healthy and flourishing. The neighbouring village is exclusively Christian, and is located on arid, rocky, useless scrubland. These people struggle just to survive, and endure crushing poverty as a result. Imagine further that the Christian villagers one day decided, out of desperation and envy, to band together and sneak into the Muslim village at night, slaughtering everyone as they slept in order to claim the bountiful land for themselves. What sane analysis could conclude that religious persuasion was more instrumental in this conflict then was economic disparity and inequality? Is it more likely that the violence of the Christians was motivated by faith, or by hunger? And most importantly, is it not likely that the actions of the starving village would have been identical had they been exclusively atheist rather than Christian? This example is fictitious, but it illustrates the extreme importance of a contextual analysis that includes multiple variables and does not immediately identify one variable as of dominant importance. It is this kind of balanced, nuanced and broad analysis that is completely lacking from Hitchens’ work. Ultimately, I feel that Hitchens falls more or less squarely into a very common intellectual trap. He has become seduced by a simple answer. Confronted by the dizzying prevalence and diversity of violence and horror in the world, it is very tempting to identify a single, universal cause, name it as your enemy, and prepare yourself for a fight, as Hitchens does at the end of his book. The problem is that the world is not a simple place. Any analysis of conflict and geo-politics that focuses on a single variable, whether it be religion, race, political ideology or gender, inevitably fails to generate meaningful solutions. Any truly useful study must include all of these variable and more. Imagine a book detailing a long list of violent crimes committed by black skinned humans, that concluded that race was the determining cause of the violence without considering economic and social factors, and without contrasting comparable crimes committed by non-blacks?. In what way would such a study be any more unfair and misleading then Hitchens critique of religion? I feel that Hitchens has written a book of intellectual and literary quality, which addresses important issues in an apparently thoughtful, sincere and passionate way. His critique of religion is broad and deep, intelligently exploring and condemning the numerous historical and current failings of religion, in terms of it’s real world consequences, it’s scriptural and dogmatic underpinnings and it’s intellectual foundations. His call for humanity to abandon its superstitious and bloody infancy and strive towards an enlightened, pluralist society founded on humanist ideals and rationality is both admirable and stirring. However, the credibility of his work is undermined by his over reliance on anecdotes and the lack of scientific or statistical support for his claims. He is also guilty of bias in the presentation of his anecdotal evidence, which is selected because it supports his thesis while equally relevant evidence is left out. Furthermore, he fails to address the possibility, true or not, that the various crimes that he blames squarely on religion were in fact caused primarily by other factors. D/Ch?ur?ch 1154028 03/11/08 D.Ch?ur?ch -------------------- 
Edited by Moonshoe (03/12/08 09:52 AM)
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Sophistic Radiance Free sVs!    Registered: 07/11/06 Posts: 43,135 Loc: Center of the Un |
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Excellent review. I have this book too, and while Hitchens' snarky contrarian prose is always entertaining, I feel it lacks much real substance.
-------------------- Enlil said: You really are the worst kind of person. 
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 vigilant_mind unfazed   Registered: 01/19/07 Posts: 1,717 Loc: boco Last seen: 17 years, 2 months |
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I feel the same way. The writing itself is entertaining, but as I remember it Hitchens never makes any original points in this book. Personally I thought it was a waste of 15$.
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