A Review of Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great – Summary

The following is an outline of my review of Christopher Hitchens’, “God is not Great”

Part I – Chapter One
The definition of Atheism. Do “the faithful” commit more crimes? Are atheist dogmatic?

Part II – Chapter One
the “four irreducible objections to religious faith.”  Religion and sex

Part III – Chapter One.
Do believers claim to know everything?  “essential knowledge”

Part IV – Chapter One
Are we evil, or just partly rational?  What is ‘reason.’ Worldviews.  Reason and the existence of God.

Part V – Chapter One
 The core weaknesses of atheism: rational evil.  Eugenics and Social Darwinism.

Part VI – Chapter One
the “Secular injunction” in Philippians 4:8  Truth, Justice, Lovely, Pure, and Virtue.

 Part VII– Chapter Two
Why aren’t believers happy?  Christians who interfere in the lives of others? Charitable giving.

Part VIII – Chapter Two.
Hitchens and Dennis Prager.   Northern Ireland.

Part IX – Chapter Three.
Jews, Muslim and Pork.  Do prohibitions grow out of repressed desire? Being Holy.

Part X – Chapter Four.
Religion and Health.  Conspiracy theories. the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc or false cause.

Part XI – Chapter Four.
Cardinal Alfonso Lopez de Trujillo and condoms, and the politicization of science.

Part XII – Chapter Four.
Religion and Medicine, The fallacy of Hasty Generalization, the Black death. The germ theory of disease. 

Part XIII – Chapter Five
The Metaphysical claims of Religion. Atheist’s demand for proof. Religion vs. the behavioral sciences.

Part XIV – Chapter Five
The secularization of society.  The fallacies of appeal to the people and appeal to misplaced authority. Ockham’s razor.  Do we need God to explain the universe? probable arguments. deductive logic and inductive logic.

Part XV – Chapter Six
Hitchens distorted view of religion. Religion and Superstition.  Miracles, evil, and the problem of evil.

Part XVI – Chapter Six
Arguments from design. Paley. Hitchens argument concerning death and the universe.  Design and purpose.

Part XVII – Chapter Six
Specific arguments for Design.  Myths used to support evolution. evolution is unfalsifiable.

Part XVIII – Chapter Seven
The Old Testament.  Hitchens view of revelation. The Ten Commandments. Slavery. stoning of children for disobedience

Part XIX – Chapter Eight
The New Testament. “if English was good enough for Jesus…”  The flat earth.  Biblical scholarship.  Dating the New Testament.

Part XX – Chapter Eight
Reliability of the Gospels, Liberal Scholarship. Two major Errors of Hitchens.  The “other gospels.”  Virgin birth. Bart Ehrman.

Note:  I skipped chapter Nine as it dealt with the Koran.

Part XXI – Chapter Ten 
Miracles.  Hume. The resurrection. The nature of miracles.  Freewill.  Proof and evidence.

Part XXII – Chapter Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen    
Chapter 10: The lost of belief.  
Chapter 11:  The origin of religion. The Melanesian “cargo cult” Marjoe Gortner. Mormonism. Chapter 12:  The end of religion
Chapter 13: Does religion make people better? Martin Luther King.  Abolition.   

Part XXIII – Chapter Thirteen   
Who is a Christian. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Hitchens refutes the majority of his  own book.

Part XXIV – Chapter Thirteen   
Are atheist immoral? The foundations of morality. Marriage.   

Note:  I skipped Chapter Fourteen as it deals with eastern religions.

Part XXV – Chapter Fifteen
Is Religion Immoral? Presenting a false picture of the world to the innocent and the credulous. doctrine of blood sacrifice. Atonement.  Anti-Semitism. Corporate Guilt.

Part XXVI – Chapter Fifteen
Atonement. religious laws that are impossible to obey.

Part XXVII – Chapter Sixteen
Is religion child abuse. Abortion.  Evolution myths. Eugenics. Circumcision.

Part XXVIII – Chapter Seventeen
Atheists and the evils of the 20^th century.  The definition of religion. “the totalitarian mind-set.”

Part XXIX – Chapter Seventeen
Hitchens attempts to link 20^th century evils to religion. Christians who risked their lives to save others.  Fascism and Christianity.

Part XXX – Chapter Seventeen
The problem with focusing on the evil in others.  

Part XXXI – Chapter Eighteen
The Resistance of the Rational.  Galileo. Socrates. Gibbon. The Fall of Rome.

Part XXXII – Chapter Nineteen
A New Enlightenment.  Lessing. Faith and Reason. Worldviews.