In the tradition of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris's recent bestseller, The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a... read more
“All religions take care to silence or to execute those who question them”
“Human beings and institutions are imperfect, to be sure”
“Religion poisons everything”
1. Putting It Mildly
2. Religion Kills
3. A Short Digression on the Pig; or Why Heaven Hates Ham
4. A Note on Health, to Which Religion Can Be Hazardous
5. The Metaphysical Claims of Religion Are False
6. Arguments from Design
7. Revelation: The Nightmare of the "Old" Testament
8. The "New" Tetament Exceeds the Evil of the "Old" One
9. The Koran is Borrowed from both Jewish and Christian Myths
10. The Tawdriness of the Miraculous and the Decline of Hell
11. "The Lovely Stamp of their Origin":Religion's Corrupt Beginnings
12. A Coda: How Religions End
13. Does Religion Make People Behave Better?
14. There is no "Eastern" Solution
15. Religion as an Original Sin
16. Is Religion Child Abuse?
17. An Objection Anticipated: The Last-Ditch "Case" Against Secularism
18. A Finer Tradition: The Resistance of the Rational
19. In Conclusion: The Need For a New Enlightenment
It's pretty heavy reading at times, but a young adult interested in the topic should be able to read it without too much of an issue.
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