Reddit mentions of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

I see you're also a Christopher Hitchens fan.

I wouldn't call you a theist apologist, just poorly informed. You subscribe to the naive view that all religions and atheism are equally suited as vehicles of morality and a better existence for humankind.

Many of us here see things differently: Humans are pretty much the same all over, with a baseline of decent folks and a handful of psychopaths and other assholes thrown in. So, plainly stated, some people are good and some people are bad. However, the vast majority of religions, and certainly the Abrahamic religions, add a special set of motivations which are demonstrably harmful to their adherents and to humanity as a whole. Here is my list of problems uniquely caused by religions; here is somebody else's.

Nobody here says that getting rid of religions will turn the world into a utopia. Many of us do claim, though, that getting rid of religions will solve a large set of problems as shown above, and that we would be better off to do so. Do you think people like Christopher Hitchens are just pulling things out of their ass when they claim "religion poisons everything?" Sam Harris wrote a whole book explaining how it's possible to objectively assess morality of human behavior, and that some societies are decidedly worse than others, for reasons often directly attributable to religion.

You're not alone; my poll came up with about 50% accommodationists like yourself. It seems they find this sub interesting enough to put up with the religion bashing. You are of course free to go where you want. A quieter, more cerebral alternative is /r/Freethought; a less biased one is /r/religion.

Upvoting for valid question, even though I don't agree with your views. Maybe we can change your mind.

Christopher Hitchens talks about this tragedy in god is not Great (available at fine bookstores everywhere)

I wish I could tell you that all you need to do is to stop believing in God and suddenly things will become much clearer. Unfortunately, this is not really the case.

Think of the God idea as a piece of malware, which is running on the computer of your brain. It's malware because it takes up your resources to do something that isn't beneficial to you. Once upon a time you installed the Loving Parents And Social Circle software, and it asked you to install the God program as part of it. You clicked OK at the time, but now you've figured out it's malware, and you need to find a way to get rid of the malware, but you don't want to uninstall the Loving Parents And Social Circle software too.

This is a very touchy process and I can't guarantee you'll be successful. Some people give up and simply decide to go without the Loving Parents And Social Circle software, because the licensing requirements are just too restrictive. I don't recommend this path. Even if the requirements are pretty rough, it's good software.

But here's the kick that no one tells you: by getting rid of the malware, you don't just suddenly have an awesome computer you can use for anything. You have to find and download lots of other software now. Getting rid of the malware was just the beginning, and now the real work begins. You're already way behind people who got rid of their malware ages ago, or maybe never had it to begin with. You need to play catch-up.

Here's the good news: most people, once they've finally gotten rid of the malware, wake up the next day and get really excited about all the new things their computer can potentially do, and they find themselves staying up all night downloading and running new stuff. There's a burst of energy that comes with suddenly finding all these free resources.

Maybe there's some old software sitting there that you never really used, and now you can run it much better than you did before. That was the case with me, and this was the software I ran. Then I started downloading more and more and more. Now I feel like my speeds are better than most and about as fast as the people I find interesting to talk to.

>The refutation is begging the question.

Incorrect. The refutation is:

>"An atheist would say, 'False premise. God is not a being greater than anything that can be imagined. God, a fabrication composed of nothing more than brain matter and parchment scrawl, is neither a being nor greatest.'"

It is not:

>"False premise. God is not a being greater than anything that can be imagined. God, a fabrication composed of nothing more than brain matter and parchment scrawl, is neither a being nor greatest."

The refutation is that the OA is begging the question. It explains this by offering the alternate premise (which you then recognized as begging the question, but doing so for the "other side"). The fact that you accused this refutation of begging the question means you realize that the premise is in dispute.

In other words, the OA assumes that God exists in the premise (but masks this fallacy in an "innocent" so-called "definition"). Having an atheist present his position is an effective way of pointing this out.

Take this argument:

1. Everything the Bible says is true.
   
   
2. The Bible says that Jesus healed a leper.
   
   
3. Thus, Jesus healed a leper.
   
   Depending on the audience, this argument may have a disputed premise. An atheist, of course, would say, "False premise. Not everything the Bible says is true."
   
   The OA is just as impotent versus an atheist as the leper argument. The OA says, "God must exist, since he exists by definition (a being having universal greatness, including in terms of existence)." A completely sufficient refutation is "Actually, that definition is disputed."
   
   >1. There exists the idea of a greatest being.
   
   >2. Existing in reality is greater than existing merely as an idea.
   
   >3. The greatest being exists
   
   >4. BTW, this greatest being is what we call God.
   
   That's not the Ontological Argument. 4 doesn't follow from anything, and might as well be, "BTW, the greatest being is Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's not perfect, but he's been in awesome movies, is pretty strong, has a cool accent, and is concerned about the environment." You can talk about whatever metric you want to measure "greatness," and as long as that metric measures something of which an existent being is capable, you're guaranteed that a greatest being in those terms will exist. 1, 2 and 3 are perfectly valid, but 4 is clearly a non sequitur (and, again, a claim disputed by atheists -- atheists don't believe God is a being, let alone a great one).

http://www.amazon.com/Hitch-22-Memoir-Christopher-Hitchens/dp/0446540331/ref=pd_sim_b_5

or

http://www.amazon.com/God-Not-Great-Religion-Everything/dp/0446579807

Hitchens put it pretty well: "Religion poisons everything".

Alternate, much better theory: religion poisons everything, it is harmful to society, and we have a lot to be angry about. We're trying to make things better by fighting against the lies and bigotry.

"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins doesn't really go into anything new or original, but the strength of the book is that is a great, concise summary of all the beginning arguments for atheism.

http://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618680004

I'd follow it with Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell", also a good recommendation. Same goes for Carl Sagan's "A Demon Haunted World"

http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Spell-Religion-Natural-Phenomenon/dp/0143038338

http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark/dp/0345409469/

Christopher Hitchens is a bit vitriolic for some, but "God is not Great" has some nuggets in it.

http://www.amazon.com/God-Not-Great-Religion-Everything/dp/0446579807/

I personally didn't like Sam Harris' "End of Faith" but I did like his "Letter to a Christian Nation".

http://www.amazon.com/Letter-Christian-Nation-Vintage-Harris/dp/0307278778/

For the topic of evolution, Talk Origins is great (and free) http://toarchive.org/
Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene" is also a good read (and short). Not so short but also good are Dawkins' "Blind Watchmaker", "Climbing Mount Improbable" and "Unweaving the Rainbow"

http://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary-Introduction/dp/0199291152/

http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Watchmaker-Evidence-Evolution-Universe/dp/0393315703/

http://www.amazon.com/Climbing-Mount-Improbable-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0393316823/

http://www.amazon.com/Unweaving-Rainbow-Science-Delusion-Appetite/dp/0618056734/

A bit longer, but all are solid suggestions, and although I could add two dozen more, I'm sure others will take up the cause.

• What the dog saw, by Malcolm Gladwell
  
  
• Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre
  
  
• 
  God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens
  
  
• The Moral Landscape, by Sam Harris
  
  
• The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein
  
  
• Super Freakonomics, by Levitt & Dubner
  
  
• The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
  
  
• The Case for Mars, by Robert Zubrin
  
  
• The Value of Nothing, by Raj Patel
  
  
  

Get a copy of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens. There's a "Discussion Questions" section in the back, starting with this gem:

1. Name an ethical statement or action, made or performed by a person of faith, that could not have been made or performed by a nonbeliever.

God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens.

http://www.amazon.com/God-Not-Great-Religion-Everything/dp/0446579807

lol, I'm actually using the Bible as a reference, along with http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/. I've also been looking through God Wants You Dead and God is Not Great. Unfortunately, this is a fifteen page paper that I need at least 2 book sources, 2 periodicals, and 2 web sources.

Absolute pain in the ass.

Just buy a copy of this book and leave it on his nightstand with a bottle of his favorite booze.

http://www.amazon.com/God-Not-Great-Religion-Everything/dp/0446579807

>If you know as much about science as I hope, then explain how everything came out so perfect out of (insert atheist way of creation)!

I will refer you to 3 books for that one, but then I will explain why that is not a valid argument and then explain why god does not answer that question either.

First the books: the first two will explain the big bang and inflationary cosmology (this is actually what took over or heavily modified the big bang theory from its original form) they are both by Briane Greene and I highly recommend them if you are interested in physics at all (they are not about god) the fabric of the cosmos and The hidden reality. There are also NOVA specials you can watch from the Fabric of the cosmos and his earlier book the elegant universe though I do not remember if they cover the big bang or inflation. The third book is specifically about the argument you just put forward. It is The fallacy of fine tuning:why the universe is not designed for us by Victor Stenger.

The reason that the argument you made is fallacious involves logical fallacies. Now, I don't want to seem like I'm talking down to you at all (I'm not) but I'm not sure how familiar you are with the intricacies of logic. Basically every argument has a premise, logical steps, and a conclusion. The argument you made (that the universe is perfect) has three flaws.

1: False premise - The universe is not actually perfect, far from it in fact. The reason why we are accustomed to the universe as it is is due to evolution. We evolved to fit the universe, not the other way around. If you mean something specific like how could the constants have got to the exact values we have please read the hidden reality, it answers that question by explaining multiple instances of how the universe can be fractured into slightly variable universes. The god delusion also answers this question but from my experience most theists are not willing to read it.

2: False premise - The burden of proof is not on me to prove or explain anything. I don't know is a completely acceptable answer if I had no evidence to put forward (We do actually have evidence, see the three books). Saying that I don't know how the universe came about does not immediately cede the argument to god. God has to answer to the same standards of logic and evidence that I would require of my own pet hypothesis. Burden of proof was explain in analogy by [Russell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot "This is why our logo is riding in a teapot")

3: Logical fallacy - Argument from ignorance. I already explained this one a little but basically this is the part that says you cannot use what we both do not know as evidence. If we come to a cave, and you ask what is in the cave and I say that I don't know but I bet it's a dragon then I would be using our shared ignorance to try and put forward the idea of a dragon as the inhabitant of the cave (sorry this analogy is bad, I have a flu right now so I'm kind of worn down)

Now, the reason that god fails the logic test (before he fails the evidence test, which he also does) is that if you say that god created the universe then you have put a terminator on the infinite regression that is causality (there are some hypothetical reasons that causality could be violated before the universe but I am skeptical of many of them and it would take me too far off track to get into them). The problem here is why do you give god a break from needing a cause? If we both agreed that there must be a first cause, why the hell should we give it sentience, and intelligence, and supernatural powers? If we also put forward a first cause that did not have those things then we would have an explanation that used fewer assumptions (many fewer assumptions). One of the best logical tools is occam's razor, which says that when we have multiple competing hypothesis we remove the ones with the most assumptions. Now it is only a logical tool and does not guarantee we will be correct but it is still a good probability chooser (remember how I said science is about probabilities).

So anyways, if you read this far I really hope that your takeaway is at least to read the three books i recommended (they are complicated but very interesting). I would also ask that you read the FAQ and probably The God Delusion (as it covers more of the faux science arguments for god than God is Not Great).

http://shaunphilly.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/is-christianity-good-for-america/

Hitchen's book: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

I mean seriously, what's the harm?

I hope that no one has brought up this point, but considering that there are many comments, I would not be surprised if it has already been said. mirsir, as you had said, it is human nature to want to worship something. This is entirely correct. Why? Because it is more comforting to believe that something is controlling things, that there really is a purpose for this fucked up place called Earth and all its inhabitants. Really though, the main question should not be, "What is the purpose for life?" Rather, it should be, "Is there a reason for life?"

Now, the problems I have with religion are numerous, but I will try to bring up the best ones. One of my biggest points is obviously going to be that religions are the cause of almost all wars. War on Terror, caused by religion (and most likely economic reasons as well), almost all medieval wars, WW2, etc. While religion is not the main cause of some of these wars, it is essentially one of the main fire starters.

Secondly, religion causes and fuels hate. Most religions, save for a few (eg. Buddhism), have spread and continue to spread ideas of hate, especially towards gays, atheists/non-believers, believers of other faiths. And even the notion that religion shunned all scientific endeavours for hundreds of years. And guess what, those scientific endeavours have proved religion wrong many, many times. For example, some of these scientific endeavours include evolution, the Ptolemaic system, the works of Galileo Galilei, etc.

Thirdly, I would like to bring up just how wrong religion is. It is obvious, and "one must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody...had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from thee bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs)" (Hitchens p.65). That, and how many times has the Church (only one religion) reformed their beliefs. Yes, I do agree that one must update some of their beliefs to fit with the times, but many times the Church has changed their beliefs because of new scientific evidence which proves otherwise. One of the major examples include the Ptolemaic vs. Copernican System.

Now, please understand that I do not go out of my way to bash religion. While people may still believe this, mainly because I posted this, please understand that I am posting this for discussion. I don't like religion, but that does not mean that I am allowed to demean you because you like religion. In my eyes, in order to advance in a more proper way (advancing properly is just impossible), we need to abolish religion. Notice how civilizations have greatly advanced in the last five hundred years, when religion was slowly becoming less and less prominent. Over the last hundred years, huge technological improvements have been made, thanks to the lack of religion in many places. Again, I will say, these are only my opinions. I am not trying to demean you, as I know that it is only a small percentage of people who will kill over religion. However, just one last thing....last time I heard of an atheist killing over his/her beliefs was....well, I have never heard of such a thing.