Book: God is not Great: How Religions Poison Everything
Regular readers will notice that I've:
a) been reading a lot lately and
b) part of the reading has been on life/religion/etc.
Out of the anti-religious books I've read, Christopher Hitchens' God is not Great: How Religions Poison Everything pretty much sums up what Christopher thinks right in the title. Rather than being somewhat apologetic about his views, Christopher argues that most of the ill in the world throughout all of history has been caused directly or indirectly through religious views and/or practices. He spends most of the book backing up that claim and even given my religious upbringing, I would struggle to argue with most of what he's written. He basically contends that the time has come of us to put religion on the scrap heap, along with more ancient mystical and magical belief systems.
Since I've read this book, I continue to see so many examples of exactly what he's talking about. The destruction of the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan is a classic reminder of this. A non-religious person would look at those statues and see them as an interesting historic relic and want to preserve them, without any need to see a religious significance in them. Sadly, it seems to take a "religious fervour" to regard them as "false idols" and worthy of destruction.
But this is not just an issue in places like Afghanistan. I thought it was interesting to see all the calls for censoring Kathy Griffin's speech at the Emmy's recently. While it seems to be ok for many awardees to parade up and thank their very personal God for letting them win (which must be a bit sad for the other believers that lost), it was not acceptable for Kathy Griffin to state that God had nothing to do with her win. Yet, isn't this style of censorship directly on a par with the sort of behaviour that the West criticizes fundamental Islamists for carrying on with elsewhere?
Anyway, confronting as you might find this book, it's definitely worth reading, regardless of your views.
Recommended!