Subtitled “How Religion Poisons Everything”
(Twelve, May 2007, 307pp, including 24pp of acknowledgements, references, and index)
Here is the fourth, and last-published, of the four books by the so-called “new atheists” published in the mid-2000s. While Sam Harris was an academic, Daniel Dennett a philosopher, and Richard Dawkins an evolutionary biologist, Christopher Hitchens was a journalist and “public intellectual.” It’s worth glancing at the table of contents of his enormous essay collection Arguably to get an idea of his range of subjects. He had opinions about a great many things. He drank and smoked a lot and died at age 62. And he deliberately used lower-case “god” in the title of his book.
There are many videos of him speaking; he is erudite, has a cultured British accent, and can speak fluently on any topic at a moment’s notice, it seems. By the same token, this book reads more like a personal essay than an extended rational argument, chapters detailing historical events endlessly with occasional personal anecdotes thrown in. He’s the least polite of any of the four. Wikipedia has this summary, including the book’s critical reception. (With nits like how he confuses two of the Crusades, without addressing any of his core topics.)
Not surprisingly, many of his topics overlap those of the Dawkins book just revisited. (Imposing religion on children; arguments from design; how the NT is worse than the OT; how religions arise; how art and science reveal more than the scriptures; about Hitler and Stalin; and obviously, how the claims of religion are false.) Unlike the Dawkins, I have not reread this book recently; I’m just polishing up the notes I took back in 2007.
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Ch1, Putting it Mildly
When author was a boy, it was Mrs Jean Watts who taught scripture lessons, and it was her saying things like “see how God made the grass green, since it’s the most pleasing color” that caused his thoughts to rebel—obviously, she had it exactly backwards. Eyes adjust to nature, not the other way around.
Other epiphanies—
- If god created everything, why are we supposed to praise him for doing what he did anyway?
- Why didn’t Jesus heal blindness, not just one blind man?
- Why all this prayer with no result?
- Why this anxiety about sex?
- And a minister would say faith will become important when you start to lose loved ones. What does that have to do with it? How does the truth of religion depend on being comforted?
There are four irreducible objections to religious faith—
- It misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos;
- It combines the maximum of servility with the maximum of solipsis;
- It results and causes sexual repression;
- It is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking.
Author says “I am morally certain that millions of other people came to very similar conclusion…”
Our principles are not beliefs, based on faith; we are not dogmatic. We are not immune to wonder and mystery—that’s what art and literature explore…. the revelations of science are far more awesome; the Hubble photos. Marx was misquoted (about religion being “the opium of the people”).
Religion is mad-made, and the men who made it can’t agree on what their prophets et al actually said or did. Yet they claim to know *everything*…
Not that author would advertise these views; he’s happy to participate in religious rituals when circumstances require.
Religion is only the beginning of arguments about meaning, of justice; it will never die out, as long as we fear death, the unknown, and each other. It can’t be prohibited. But is the opposite true? In fact, people of faith are happy to plan the destruction of those who disagree with them—
And so the author concludes: Religion poisons everything.
Ch2, Religion Kills
Why is it that belief in a supreme being who dictates the rules of the universe not make people happy? Congregations are seldom happy to revel in their claims; they must interfere with nonbelievers, to have power in this world. Thus Mother Teresa flew across the world to influence the divorce laws of Ireland.
Dennis Prager asked author how he would feel about being in a strange city and seeing a group of men approach him from the down the street. Would he feel safer knowing they came from a prayer meeting? In fact, author has been in such positions, and would feel threatened… as he has in Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, Belgrade, and so on.
There was the Ayatollah Klomeini, who issued a pronouncement of death against Salman Rushdie, for writing a work of fiction. At the time, perhaps, he needed an issue. In fact, attempts were made on Rushdie, or on his translators—some succeeded. And the Taliban, destroying ancient works of art. And the 9/11 hijackers were no doubt very sincere in their faith. And Robertson and Falwell, who blamed it on various sins. And so on…
Ch 3, A Short Digression on the Pig: or, Why Heaven Hates Ham
All religions seem to have dietary provisions; what is it about the pig? Author speculates it is perhaps because of their very similarity to humans… even the taste may be that of “long pig”, as roasted human is referred to in New Guinea…
Ch 4, A Note on Health, to Which Religion Can Be Hazardous
Religion is bad for your health. In Calcutta and other Muslim nations, a US/UN campaign to inoculate against smallpox was denounced by religious authorities as a western plot to sterilize the faithful… Meanwhile Catholics spread misinformation about condoms.
Isn’t it interesting that most ‘miracles’ are about healing. Arguments against condoms cite ‘natural’ justifications. Is it natural for a grown man to suck the penis of an infant boy? It is if it’s Jewish – performing a circumcision. No matter how weird or unhealthy, such practices are considered the free exercise of religion. So the Christian Scientists, the Adventists, etc.
Author says by all means allow adults to entertain various weird ideas… but to impose them on children is some kind of sin.
There is the ‘Jerusalem syndrome’, describing those psychiatric patients who wander around that city claiming to be the messiah. We are to take their claims at face value.
Religions claim a monopoly on sexual matters, and are oddly preoccupied with virginity. A category of literature focuses on adults recovering from religious education. And religions seem to focus, even welcome, the end of the world (hardly a healthy preoccupation), from various prophesiers to Left Behind and David Lindsay. Ironically, they would hijack the advances of science to carry out their ends.
Ch 5, The Metaphysical Claims of Religion are False
Obviously, the early faithful were ignorant about the world in which they lived. Any attempt to reconcile their writing with science is doomed to failure.
Deism was at one time a reasonable position, but now it is a childish thing, to put away with childhood. Laplace said his hypothesis about the movement of celestial bodies did not require the idea of god; neither do we; to have faith makes no difference.
We can wonder about how ‘they’ thought in ancient times, but it’s no excuse. Ockham’s razor implies that if a creator is necessary, so is an infinite regress of them. A ‘leap of faith’ has no end.
Ch 6, Arguments from Design
The paradox of religion is the insistence on submission, with the conceit that humans are at the center of things. Humans are solipsistic; superstition is understandable, they are innate.
Author recalls bus ride in Sri Lanka, when a pedestrian was run over, and author dissuaded local authorities, leading other passengers to regard him with some kind of reverence…
Fortunate events are heralded as miracles; unfortunate ones overlooked.
Design arguments range from macro to micro. They betray the same solipsism. Being inspired by the shape of a daughter’s ear. But ears look the same even when their owners are deaf. We like to think the world is suited for us, forgetting the other planets and infinite space.
At the micro end are all the unverifiable and unfalsifiable arguments. Quote Shermer on the eye; it’s not intelligent, there are variants – ospreys have *better* eyes than humans, and some fish have 4 eyes. But details show flaws. Evolution is smarter than you are. Intelligent Design is a tautology.
Evolution is capricious and cruel—species have disappeared, so have human cultures, gone in floods or conquest. Genesis cites beasts but knows nothing of microorganisms.
The Burgess Shale, as written about by Gould, implies that ‘rerunning’ evolution would by no means result in the same outcome. Cites It’s a Wonderful Life; the Galapagos, Voltaire, Sam Harris.
Ch 7, Revelation: The Nightmare of the “Old” Testament
Religion betrays itself by citing revelation, which rather undermines its insistence on faith. Obvious objections: revelations are inconsistent, often come to illiterate people in remote places, etc.
The early books of the bible, called those written by Moses, include the Ten Commandments, which are easy proof that religion is man-made—were murder et al permissible before Moses? How can they demand the impossible—to not even *think* about wanting other people or things? Why didn’t god just invent a different species?
And what was left out—nothing about slavery or child abuse or rape or genocide. In fact, a few passages later, Moses *orders* a slaughter.
Fortunately, we can be reassured that none of these events ever actually took place; they’re fiction. Thomas Paine spelled out that Moses was obviously not the author.. He was referred to in third person, the books allude to events that occurred long after his death. Numbers describes Moses’ command to slaughter all civilians except virgin women. The books are preoccupied with the local—nothing beyond the desert, the nomadic existence.
Ch 8, The “New” Testament Exceeds the Evil of the “Old” One
The gospels are preoccupied with fulfilling the prophecies of the Old Testament, but are obviously hammered together and later tampered with. HL Mencken. The error, made by Mel Gibson and everyone else, is thinking the gospels are history, when they disagree on important matters, and *other* gospels give even other accounts, the gospel of Judas, for example, giving Jesus’ origin as the celestial realm of Barbelo. If that had become canonical, unbelief in Barbelo would have been grounds for torture…
The best argument for the questionable existence of Jesus is the lack of records by his contemporaries; the gospels were reverse-engineered and mistranslated (almah meant young woman, not virgin). Jesus never mentioned his virgin mother; was rude to her. And what about his brothers and sisters? Amazingly, the Catholic church invented the doctrine of Assumption as late as 1951. Thus man-made.
Like the Old Testament, the New is full of astrology and magic, and Jesus’ sayings are oddly absurd—unless coming from a person who actually believed his ‘kingdom’ would come in the lifetime of those who followed him. (thus, ‘take no thought in the morrow’).
CS Lewis’ preposterously argued that the absurdity of those teachings proved his divinity—otherwise he would have been a lunatic. In a sense there’s a brave argument here: either the gospels are literal truth, or the whole thing is a fraud. But the gospels can’t be literal truth…
Another scholar, Barton Ehrman [[ who now writes as Bart Ehrman ]], set out to examine the gospels and discovered sections that were obviously added later—e.g., the story of the woman adulterer who was brought before Jesus, who said let him who is without sin cast the first stone. It wasn’t part of the original gospel…
Only ‘faith’ is left.
Ch 9, The Koran is Borrowed from Both Jewish and Christian Myths
The Koran grew out of the usual oral tradition among illiterates, and once written down could only be expressed in Arabic. Translation is resisted, and doubters sternly repressed, betraying a sort of insecurity. .. Author describes an incident at a dinner party in DC when someone took great offense over a remark he made about Jesus.
Islam began in the 7th century: Muhammed and the cave; the ‘hejira’. In some sense Arabs felt ‘left out’ of the tradition of revelation, so they welcomed their own prophet. But squabbles began almost immediately, since Muhammed left no succession plan.
There’s some question whether Islam is really a separate religion, since so much was plagiarized from earlier holy books. It demands complete surrender and submission, with no justification. The form of Arabic at the time permitted vastly different readings (i.e. the way vowels and consonants were recorded), and collections of anecdotes about who said what were sifted over the ages, at one point 237 years later an expert decided only 10,000 of the original 300,000 could be authenticated—and then many of those were from other sources, or contradicted each other. One set of sayings were known as the ‘Satanic verses’ because at some point Muhammed decided he didn’t mean what he said, and supposed he must have been possessed by the devil at the time.
Hume had the final word on revelations… (which is easier to believe, etc.). And Islam has never had a ‘reformation’ like the other major religions.
Ch 10, The Tawdriness of the Miraculous and the Decline of Hell
It’s odd that religions require miracles at all; doing so is to admit that faith by itself isn’t good enough, that something is required to impress the credulous. The things to observe about supposed miracles is how petty some of them seem—tears from a statue, etc.
Hume again expressed the issue: is it more likely the laws of the universe were suspended for one person, or perhaps that they were deluded?
Two examples: resurrection, and UFOs. The interesting thing about resurrections is how many there were in various biblical stories. And in any event, what do they prove? As for UFOs, despite the many accounts and their similarity, never has any physical evidence appeared.
Author had direct part in the church’s investigation into Mother Teresa, first concerning a TV documentary filmed in a dimly lit room, when a technician decided that when the footage came out better than expected, the holy light was the reason. Then the later story about a woman in Bengal who was supposedly cured by Mother Teresa, with all the shady circumstances therein.
Similarly the faithful are anxious about having to explain natural disasters, when no explanations are needed if you merely understand the basics of geology and weather and chance. Yet the faithful are eager to blame this or that sin—take your pick.
Better explanations, via science and art, exist now than anything in the holy books.
Author has some sense of what it’s like to lose one’s faith—his in Marxism eventually gave in to reality. You’ll feel better when you do.
Ch 11, “The Lowly Stamp of Their Origin”: Religion’s Corrupt Beginnings
It’s still possible to see new religions arise—the cargo cults of pacific islanders. Later a child evangelist named Marjoe (for Mary + Joseph) Gortner grew up, quit the racket, and made a documentary film exposing the techniques they used—which won an Academy Award, and changed nothing.
Then there’s the Mormons, and Joseph Smith’s discovery of burial mounds and golden plates that no one could be allowed to see besides himself; he ‘dictated’ their contents to scribes, with of course much material lifted from the bible. Dennett wonders if the preachers really believe what they preach. In any case, Joseph Smith had the charisma to play the role, for people in a new territory open to the idea. Mormonism was explicitly racist, until a convenient ‘revelation’ changed church policy. And give it to them for the clever idea of retroactively converting everyone who ever lived, via their genealogy databases—a way to solve the problem of how people who lived before their prophet could be saved.
Ch 12, A Coda: How Religions End
The prime example being the case of Sabbatai Sevi, a 17th century ‘messiah’ who claimed many followers, but who managed to disappear without becoming a martyr; his followers vanished and he became a footnote in history.
Ch 13, Does Religion Make People Behave Better?
Author admires Martin Luther King, but he didn’t preach religion so much as nonviolence. Curiously, the Old Testament brought down all sorts of plagues and punishments on people, but only Jesus mentioned Hell and the concept of *eternal* punishment.
History shows that the morals of the great religions are questionable—both Christianity and Islam endorsed slavery…until it became economically prudent to abandon it. Both sides of wars always claim god to be on their sides. Islam still condones slavery, for those they consider heathens.
Gandhi is not as admirable; he simply rejected modernity, would have had India reduced to villages and prayer wheels, and let others do the fighting for him rather than taking part in serious negotiations.
So do people need faith? The point is, behavior doesn’t prove anything one way or the other about the ‘truth’ of the faith. Examples.
Ch 14, There Is No “Eastern” Solution
Author once attended an ashram, where a sign said to leave your shoes, and your mind, at the door. Religions of the Orient may seem attractive, but they lead to the same kind of violence… as in Sri Lanka, where suicide murders were invented. Dalai Lama seems mild, but what he advocates amounts to one-man rule, by himself, and his statements are so full of vapid contradiction that they’re ‘not even wrong’.
Ch 15, Religion as an Original Sin
Some precepts of religion are simply immoral themselves. Creation myths, for example, that are simply wrong in light of recent knowledge about the universe.
Blood sacrifice—the idea that slaughtering animals, or humans, accomplishes anything. There are still cults trying to breed the ‘red heifer’, and people kill each other over a cave in Hebron where Abraham supposedly lived.
Atonement—the idea that one person dying 2000 years ago somehow forgives the sins of someone living today—who had no involvement or interest in that event, and is implicated in the ‘original’ sin simply by being alive.
Eternal punishment and impossible tasks—strictures that are mere wish-thinking, often revealing hypocrites who say one thing and do another. Laws that are impossible to obey—coveting goods, merely thinking about adultery is adultery. It makes religions into police states, where every thought and action is watched, or banana republics, where bargains are made to excuse or forgive.
You can’t compel altruism, or it isn’t altruism. You can’t overlook the plain fact that a humans hands reach to the genitals…
Ch 16, Is Religion Child Abuse?
A passage in Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a prime example of a preacher describing the torments of hell in order to frighten children. Religion institutionalizes torture, including the traumatization of children.
Abortion is a difficult issue but every step of understanding the issue has been fought by the church. Genital mutilation—including circumcision of boys—is practiced to control sexual pleasure. And ridiculous misinformation about masturbation persists on Islam websites…
Ch 17, An Objection Anticipated: The Last-Ditch “Case” Against Secularism
But, people always ask, haven’t secular/atheistic regimes been just as bad—e.g. Hitler and Stalin? The answer is they were totalitarian societies, which are religious in a sense, with a supreme leader and thoughtcrimes defined to control the private sphere. (As bad as John Calvin’s defining who is and who isn’t saved or ‘elected’ being out of one’s control.)
There is also the point of how the established religions responded to those regimes. The Catholic Church endorsed Mussolini, made treaties with Hitler, and through inaction condoned their regimes; and after the war, the church helped Nazis escape to South America.
While in Asia, Hirohito was proclaimed to *be* god.
Einstein is quoted as praising the church, but the statement is phony; in fact he explicitly denied belief in a personal god, etc. The communists sought to replace religion. But the religious impulse is ineradicable… p247.6: “All that the totalitarians have demonstrated is that the religious impulse — the need to worship — can take even more monstrous forms if it repressed.”
More examples: North Korea, anti-Semitism, apartheid in South Africa.
Ch 18, A Finer Tradition: The Resistance of the Rational
Unbelief has always existed, though until recently it’s been kept largely private. Socrates showed how conscience is innate, and how to mock believers by taking their beliefs at face value. Later: Lucretius, Spinoza in 17th century Holland, cursed for ‘pantheism’; Bayle and Voltaire and Kant, who undid the traditional arguments for god and faith. Writers like Paine and Franklin paid lip-service to religions of the time. Darwin used the words. Only Einstein needed no caution, being explicit about his denial…
Ch 19, In Conclusion: The Need for a New Enlightenment
If we had the alternative to be handed the truth, or be able to search for the truth, we should take the latter. Now we have fundamentalist regime, Iran, about to possess nuclear technology, while creating hysteria over Danish cartoons.
Religion has run out of justifications; we need a new enlightenment, the study of mankind, of science and literature that enable us to know ourselves and our world.
Last paragraphs:
Above all, we are in need of a renewed Enlightenment, which will base itself on the proposition that the proper study of mankind is man, and woman. This Enlightenment will not need to depend, like its predecessors, on the heroic breakthroughs of a few gifts and exceptionally courageous people. It is within the compass of the average person. The study of literature and poetry, both for its own sake and for the eternal ethical questions with which it deals, can now easily depose the scrutiny of sacred texts tht have been found to be corrupt and confected. The pursuit of unfettered scientific inquiry, and the availability of new findings to masses of people by easy electronic means, will revolutionize our concepts of research and development. Very importantly, the divorce between the sexual life and fear, and the sexual life and disease, and the sexual life and tyranny, can at last be attempted, on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse. And all this and more is, for the first in our history, within the reach if not grasp of everyone.
However, only the most naive utopian can believe that this new humane civilization will develop, like some dream of “progress,” in a straight line. We have first to transcend our prehistory, and escape the gnarled hands which reach out to drag us back to the catacombs and the reeking altars and the guilty pleasures of subjection and abjection. “Know yourself,” said the Greeks, gently suggesting the consolations of philosophy. To clear the mind for this project, it has become necessary to know the enemy, and to prepare to fight it.
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A final comment of my own. I don’t think his humane civilization will ever development. For centuries, there’s already been a split between those who understand all these things, and those who don’t. The latter are those form whom life is made easier by ascribing to a particular religion, or say they do, without necessarily knowing the complete content of the religion. Many people don’t *care* about the world is about beyond their personal well-being. And if they do care, it’s so easy to say, all the answers are in this or another holy book, period. That explains a lot. That’s why (see Prothero) the more people in some countries know about religion, the fewer they actually believe. And to a large extent it’s an identity, the way being a member of a town or city or descendants from a particular country is… not a matter of an individual choice.
