God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

“Religion poisons everything.”

This phrase is used repeatedly throughout the book, as well as being its subtitle, and serves as Hitchens’s thesis statement. With this statement, Hitchens hopes to convey that religion has corrupted every aspect of human life, from a societal and cultural level down to the most intimate aspects of an individual’s life.

“In this respect, religion is not unlike racism.”

Like racism, Hitchens believes that fundamentalism within one religion inspires the same in other faiths, especially when the faithful feel they are competing against each other. Like race, religion is a human construct that inspires tribal loyalty and prejudice, and divides human populations unnecessarily.

“The oldest and most tenacious of all fetishes is the hatred and even fear of the pig.”

Hitchens devotes an entire chapter to the taboo against pork found in the Jewish and Muslim faiths. He finds this taboo completely nonsensical. The pork taboo is neither the oldest nor the most prevalent religious rule, but Hitchens uses this hyperbole to highlight how it has lasted through many centuries despite a lack of evidence as to why it arose in the first place.

“Now, religion professes a special role in the protection and instruction of children.”

Hitchens intends this phrase as an ironic statement and does not elaborate about specific religious rules surrounding children. The phrase is used to introduce a passage about ways in which religion has damaged children, thereby suggesting that religion’s claims to provide “protection and instruction” to children are false.

“The relationship between physical and mental health is now well understood to have a strong connection to the sexual function, or dysfunction.”

Religions’ sexual rules are a major theme throughout the book. Hitchens believes that sexual taboos not only affect the actual sex lives and relationships of the faithful, but that sexual repression can lead to a swath of different crimes. This is not necessarily restricted to sex crimes: For example, Hitchens believes that young Muslim men often arrive at radical beliefs because of their sexual repression.

“Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on.”

Hitchens repeatedly states that while religion may have been reasonable in the past, it no longer has a place in the scientifically-literate modern world. He suggests that religious belief was therefore born of out ignorance and a desire to explain phenomena that were mysterious and unknowable.

“The real “miracle” is that we, who share genes with the original bacteria that began life on the planet, have evolved as much as we have.”

Evolution, in Hitchens’s view, is enough proof in itself that religion has no basis in reality. He highlights the many branches of the evolutionary tree that have died out over earth’s history and expresses wonder at the fact humans ever came to exist at all. In calling human evolution “the real ‘miracle,’” Hitchens ironically subverts religious terminology to suggest that what is factual can be just as astonishing and inspiring as what is mythical.

“The case of the Virgin Birth is the easiest possible proof that humans were involved in the manufacture of a legend.”

In the chapter analyzing the New Testament, Hitchens points out that the word “virgin” should more accurately be translated as “young woman.” Despite this, Mary’s virginity has taken a central role in promoting the divine nature of Jesus, with Hitchens suggesting that the story of Jesus was deliberately shaped to fulfill earlier prophecies about the Messiah.

“Islam is at once the most and least interesting of the world’s monotheisms.”

Hitchens views Islam as an interesting religion because it is relatively young, and there is strong historical evidence for the prophet Mohammed’s existence. However, he also reports that it is largely plagiarized from other monotheistic religions, so much so that it may not even technically be its own faith, thereby making it simultaneously the “least interesting” due to its supposed lack of originality.

“In much the same way as prophets and seers and great theologians seems to have died out, so the age of miracles seems to lie somewhere in our past.”

With this phrase, Hitchens points out that religious history is unlikely to be true because most of the supernatural events tied to major religions happened long ago. If miracles, prophets, and oracles had any basis in reality, Hitchens believes there would still be convincing evidence of them to this day.

“If we watch the process of a religion in its formation, we can make assumptions about the origins of those religions that were put together before most people could read.”

This phrase introduces the chapter about religion’s beginnings. Hitchens states that much of his skepticism about religion comes from the unreliability of ancient religious texts, and the fact that most religions arose in a highly uneducated population.

“Surveying the not-quite and might-have-been religions, one could experience slight feeling of pathos, were it not for the constant din of other sermonizers, all claiming that it is their messiah, and not anybody else’s, who is to be awaited with servility and awe.”

Hitchens likens the array of failed religions throughout history to the branches of the evolutionary tree that have died out. He views these faiths with an uncharacteristic level of sentimentality, imagining how the world might look today had different religions taken hold.

“The entire definition of ‘The South’ is that it was white, and Christian.”

When discussing the religious history of the American Civil War, Hitchens points out that the Southern white population were some of the most devout Christians in the country. The Confederacy leaned heavily on its Christian values to justify its support of slavery, and devout Christians were often viewed as the most brutal people to be enslaved by.

“The argument that religious belief improves people, or that it helps to civilize society, is one that people tend to bring up when they have exhausted the rest of their case.”

Hitchens repeatedly argues that for most people, religion has no influence on morality. He anticipates facing this argument after his book’s release, and offers a list of situations in which secular people have shown strong moral principles with contrasting examples of religion used as an excuse for evil deeds.

“The search for nirvana, and the dissolution of the intellect, goes on. And whenever it is tried, it produces a Kool-Aid effect in the real world.”

In the chapter about Eastern religions, most are characterized as cult-like and resistant to independent thought. Hitchens uses this phrase to emphasize this point, likening Westerners who seek knowledge from Eastern sources to the members of the People’s Temple cult, better known as Jonestown, who committed mass suicide by drinking poisoned Kool-Aid.

“There are, indeed, several ways in which religion is not just amoral, but positively immoral.”

This quote highlights Hitchens’ position as an anti-theist, rather than simply an atheist. He states that he would not have written the book if he thought religion was incorrect but harmless. His primary motivation for many arguments comes from a belief that religion is actively dangerous and “immoral.”

“If we gave in to our every base instinct every time, civilization would be impossible and there would be no writing in which to continue this argument.”

A central argument in the book is that religious belief is not necessary to live a moral life. Hitchens believes that the vast majority of humans have a natural tendency to act in a socially-acceptable way, and that if that were not the case, complex human society would never have developed.

“The obsession with children, and with rigid control over their upbringing, has been part of every system of absolute authority.”

Control, often abusive control, of children is a major topic throughout the book. Hitchens believes that if religions did not seek to foster devout belief in their youngest members, few people would ultimately choose to believe in God.

“For most of human history, the idea of the total or absolute state was intimately bound up with religion.”

Hitchens argues that religion and totalitarianism are often closely linked. Hitchens posits that all early totalitarian regimes had a religious aspect, with leaders often viewed as deities. The book does not explore whether these regimes arose from pre-existing religious traditions, or if early totalitarians created religions around themselves in order to legitimize their rule.

“In the early history of mankind, the totalitarian principle was the regnant one.”

Building on the last quote, Hitchens argues that totalitarianism was the first type of government that human cultures created. His primary evidence for this is the empires that arose in the early Middle East and in pre-colonial South America. Archaeological evidence suggests that these cultures are not typical; many early humans lived in small communities that appear to have been relatively egalitarian.

“Doubt, skepticism, and unbelief have always taken the same essential form as they do today.”

Hitchens believes that atheism has always existed, and that most atheists have arrived at their views not due to religious trauma but by careful consideration of scientific and philosophical evidence. Even before these disciplines reached their modern form, he argues that atheists existed, but often kept their views secret for fear of persecution.

“The stench of Calvin and Torquemada and bin Laden came from the dank, hunched figure whose Kach Party goons patrolled the streets looking for Sabbath violators and unauthorized sexual contacts.”

The Maccabees, an early sect of fundamentalist Judaism, are blamed for many of the issues within Abrahamic faiths that continue to this day. Hitchens mourns the decline of the Hellenistic tradition within the Jewish world after the group came to power and is disappointed that they are still celebrated today with the Hanukkah holiday.

“To ‘choose’ dogma and faith over doubt and experiment is to throw out the ripening vintage and reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.”

Once again, Hitchens likens all religious believers to suicidal Jonestown cult members. He contrasts the Kool-Aid metaphor with a picture of secularism as a fine wine, and argues that those who choose to be religious are knowingly picking an option that may seem easier, but is much less compelling.