God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, written in 2007 by English American author Christopher Hitchens, is a multi-faceted exploration of religion as a negative force in the world. The book’s central thesis is that religious belief is ultimately more damaging than beneficial. Hitchens argues his point using a wide range of examples from different religions, such as religious oppression in matters of science and sexuality and the tendency for violent acts to be carried out in the name of faith. While his main focus is on the three “major monotheisms”—the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—he argues that Eastern religions are also just as destructive.

God Is Not Great reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list by its third week of publication, outpacing the extremely popular final Harry Potter novel. It was a finalist in the non-fiction category for the 2007 National Book Award in the United States. Published first in the United Kingdom as god is not Great: The Case Against Religion and in the United States as god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, it was republished in 2017 with no subtitle and with the pointed non-capitalization of “god” removed.

The citations in this guide refer to the original 2007 United States edition of the book, published by Hachette Book Group.

Content Warning: This guide and the corresponding book cover a number of traumatic and violent acts. Potentially upsetting content can be found in nearly every chapter of God Is Not Great. These topics include child sex abuse, genital mutilation, rape, mental and physical trauma, and violence on both small and large scales. This guide avoids reproducing the vivid details within the book’s accounts of these acts, but they are mentioned repeatedly.

Summary

The book begins with a personal history of Hitchens’s journey to atheism. He became a skeptic at an early age after questioning a series of religious teachers. Hitchens explains that anti-religious views are not always the result of a specific trauma, and that atheists are rarely “brainwashed” by a specific anti-religious speaker or author. Instead, he presents atheism as a natural state for humankind. Throughout history, Hitchens believes that there have been many atheists who arrived at their views through careful consideration of science and philosophy, not as a reaction to religious teachings. He believes many people know deep down that religion is fabricated, even if they hold religious beliefs. As science and philosophy have evolved, Hitchens believes that worldwide skepticism has grown, and that those who stand to benefit from the continuation of religion have gone to greater and greater lengths to convince their followers to retain beliefs.

Hitchens posits that religion is a destructive force in the world. He writes about the myriad wars and large-scale crimes perpetrated in the name of God, from the Israel-Palestine conflict to the September 11 attacks to the Lord’s Resistance Army, a fundamentalist Christian group in Uganda that kidnaps children and turns them into soldiers. Multiple passages are dedicated to sexual repression within religious faiths and the devastating consequences it can have. Some repressive practices are direct tenants of individual faiths, such as childhood circumcision and masturbation taboos, both of which Hitchens sees as entirely immoral. Others are less direct, such as the tendency for celibate Catholic priests to become child molesters and the acceleration of the AIDS epidemic after religious leaders condemned the use of condoms to mitigate the crisis. Even outside the sexual sphere, Hitchens believes that religion is bad for human health. He cites examples like Muslim leaders warning followers to avoid the polio vaccine for fear that it was an American plot to cause infertility, and the mental health issues that can arise from the belief that one is likely going to hell.

Science is another major focus of God Is Not Great. Hitchens writes that before the advancement of scientific thought, it was reasonable for humans to believe that a god or gods were responsible for the mechanisms within the natural world. He believes that humans are naturally self-centered, so it stands to reason that early societies would assume the world was created and managed by a more powerful version of themselves. In light of major scientific breakthroughs, such as astronomical research and the theory of evolution, it has become clear that humans are far from the center of the universe. Thus, Hitchens discredits the human-centered concept of religion as a disproven theory best left in the past.