God and religion - hitchens

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god is
Contents

not great by Christopher

Hitchens

One - Putting It Mildly Two - Religion Kills Three - A Short Digression on the Pig; or, Why Heaven Hates Ham Four - A Note on Health, to Which Religion Can Be Hazardous Five - The Metaphysical Claims of Religion Are False Six - Arguments from Design Seven - Revelation: The Nightmare of the "Old" Testament Eight - The "New" Testament Exceeds the Evil of the "Old" One Nine - The Koran Is Borrowed from Both Jewish and Christian Myths Ten - The Tawdriness of the Miraculous and the Decline of Hell Eleven - "The Lowly Stamp of Their Origin": Religion's Corrupt Beginnings Twelve - A Coda: How Religions End Thirteen - Does Religion Make People Behave Better? Fourteen - There Is No "Eastern" Solution Fifteen - Religion as an Original Sin Sixteen - Is Religion Child Abuse? Seventeen - An Objection Anticipated: The Last-Ditch "Case" Against Secularism Eighteen - A Finer Tradition: The Resistance of the Rational Nineteen - In Conclusion: The Need for a New Enlightenment Acknowledgments References

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Oh, wearisome condition of humanity, Born under one law, to another bound; Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity, Created sick, commanded to be sound. —FULKE GREVILLE, Mustapha

And do you think that unto such as you A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew God gave a secret, and denied it me? Well, well—what matters it? Believe that, too! —THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM (RICHARD LE GALLIENNE TRANSLATION)

Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in your name, and beyond the grave they will find only death. But we will keep the secret, and for their own happiness we will entice them with a heavenly and eternal reward. —THE GRAND INQUISITOR TO HIS "SAVIOR" in THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV

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Chapter One Putting It Mildly If the intended reader of this book should want to go beyond disagreement with its author and try to identify the