Текст книги "God Is Not Great"

Автор книги: Christopher Hitchens

Соавторы: Christopher Hitchens
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However, only the most naive utopian can believe that this new humane civilization will develop, like some dream of «progress», in a straight line. We have first to transcend our prehistory, and escape the gnarled hands which reach out to drag us back to the catacombs and the reeking altars and the guilty pleasures of subjection and abjection. «Know yourself», said the Greeks, gently suggesting the consolations of philosophy. To clear the mind for this project, it has become necessary to know the enemy, and to prepare to fight it.

Acknowledgments

I have been writing this book all my life and intend to keep on writing it, but it would have been impossible to produce this version without the extraordinary collaboration between agent and publisher – I mean to say Steve Wasserman and Jonathan Karp – that enabled me. All authors ought to have such careful and literate friends and allies. All authors ought also to have book-finders as astute and determined as Windsor Mann.

My old schoolfriend Michael Prest was the first person to make it plain to me that while the authorities could compel us to attend prayers, they could not force us to pray. I shall always remember his upright posture while others hypocritically knelt or inclined themselves, and also the day that I decided to join him. All postures of submission and surrender should be part of our prehistory.

I have been fortunate in having many moral tutors, formal and informal, many of whom had to undergo considerable intellectual trial, and evince notable courage, in order to break with the faith of their tribes. Some of these would still be in some danger if I were to name them, but I must admit my debt to the late Dr. Israel Shahak, who introduced me to Spinoza; to Salman Rushdie, who bravely witnessed for reason and humor and language in a very dark time; to Ibn Warraq and Irfan Khawaja, who also know something about the price of the ticket; and to Dr. Michael Shermer, the very model of the reformed and recovered Christian fundamentalist. Among the many others who have shown that life and wit and inquiry begin just at the point where faith ends, I ought to salute Penn and Teller, that other amazing myth– and fraud-buster James Randi (Houdini of our time), and Tom Flynn, Andrea Szalanski and all the other staffers at Free Inquiry magazine. Jennifer Michael Hecht put me immensely in her debt when she sent me a copy of her extraordinary Doubt: A History.

To all those who I do not know, and who live in the worlds where superstition and barbarism are still dominant, and into whose hands I hope this little book may fall, I offer the modest encouragement of an older wisdom. It is in fact this, and not any arrogant preaching, that comes to us out of the whirlwind: Die Stimme der Vernunft ist leise. Yes, «The voice of Reason is soft». But it is very persistent. In this, and in the lives and minds of combatants known and unknown, we repose our chief hope.

Over many years I have pursued these questions with Ian McEwan, whose body of fiction shows an extraordinary ability to elucidate the numinous without conceding anything to the supernatural. He has subtly demonstrated that the natural is wondrous enough for anyone. It was in some discussions with Ian, first on that remote Uruguayan coast where Darwin so boldly put ashore and took samples, and later in Manhattan, that I felt this essay beginning to germinate. I am very proud to have sought and received his permission to dedicate the ensuing pages to him.

REFERENCES

CHAPTER TWO
RELIGION KILLS

[p. 17–18] Mother Teresa was interviewed by Daphne Barak, and her comments on Princess Diana can be found in Ladies’ Home Journal, April 1996.

[p. 24] The details of the murder of Yusra al-Azami in Bethlehem can be found in «Gaza Taliban?» editorial, New Humanist 121:1 (January 2006), http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/volume121issuel_comments.php?id=1860_0_40_0_C. See also Isabel Kershner, «The Sheikh’s Revenge», Jerusalem Report, March 20, 2006.

[p. 27] For Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s letter to Osama bin Laden, see http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/31694.htm.

[p. 33] For the story of the born-again Air Force Academy cadets and MeLinda Morton, see Faye Fiore and Mark Mazzetti, «School’s Religious Intolerance Misguided, Pentagon Reports», Los Angeles Times, June 23, 2005, p. 10; Laurie Goodstein, «Air Force Academy Staff Found Promoting Religion», New York Times, June 23, 2005, p. A12; David Van Biema, «Whose God Is Their Co-Pilot?» Time, June 27, 2005, p. 61; and United States Air Force, The Report of the Headquarters Review Group Concerning the Religious Climate at the U.S. Air Force Academy, June 22, 2005, http://www.afmil/shared/media/document/AFD-051014-008.pdf

[p. 33] For James Madison on the constitutionality of religious establishment in government or public service, see Brooke Allen, Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006), pp. 116–117.

[p. 35] For Charles Stanley and Tim LaHaye, see Charles Marsh, «Wayward Christian Soldiers», New York Times, January 20, 2006.

CHAPTER FOUR
A NOTE ON HEALTH, TO WHICH RELIGION CAN BE HAZARDOUS

[p. 45] For the Bishop Cifuentes sermon, see the BBC-TV production Panorama, aired June 27, 2004.

[p. 46] The Foreign Policy quotation comes from Laura M. Kelley and Nicholas Eberstadt, «The Muslim Face of AIDS», Foreign Policy, July/August 2005, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3081.

[p. 47] For Daniel Dennett’s criticisms of religion, see his Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York: Viking Adult, 2006).

[p. 57] For the Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins quote, see their Glorious Appearing: The End of Days (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2004), pp. 250, 260.

[p. 59] Pervez Hoodbhoy’s comments on the Pakistani nuclear tests can be found in Free Inquiry, spring 2002.

CHAPTER FIVE
THE METAPHYSICAL CLAIMS OF RELIGION ARE FALSE

[p. 68] E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage, 1966), p. 12.

[p. 69] Father Coplestone’s commentary is from his History ofPhilosophy, vol. iii (Kent, England: Search Press, 1953).

CHAPTER SIX
ARGUMENTS FROM DESIGN

[pp. 81–83] On the evolution of the eye and why it argues against intelligent design, see Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design (New York: Times Books, 2006), p. 17. The emphasis is in the original. See also Climbing Mount Improbable, by Richard Dawkins (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), pp. 138–197.

[p. 87] For the University of Oregon «irreducible complexity» study, see Jamie T. Bridgham, Sean M. Carroll, and Joseph W. Thornton, «Evolution of Hormone-Receptor Complexity by Molecular Exploitation», Science 312:5770 (April 7, 2006): pp. 97–101.

[p. 93] For Stephen Jay Gould’s quotation on the Burgess shale, see his Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989), p. 323.

[p. 95] For the University of Chicago human genome study, see Nicholas Wade, «Still Evolving, Human Genes Tell New Story», New York Times, March 7, 2006.

[p. 96] Voltaire’s statement—Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer—is taken from his «À l’auteur du livre des trois imposteurs», Epîtres, no. 96 (1770).

[p. 96] Sam Harris’s observation on Jesus being born of a virgin can be found in his The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005).

CHAPTER SEVEN
REVELATION: THE NIGHTMARE OF THE «OLD» TESTAMENT

[p. 102] For Finkelstein and Silberman’s work, see Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s

New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York: Touchstone, 2002).

[p. 103] For Sigmund Freud on religion’s incurable deficiency, see The Future of an Illusion, translated by W. D. Robson-Scott, revised and newly edited by James Strachey (New York: Anchor, 1964).

[p. 104] The Thomas Paine quotation is from The Age of Reason in Eric Foner, ed., Collected Writings (Library of America, 1995).

CHAPTER EIGHT
THE «NEW» TESTAMENT EXCEEDS THE EVIL OF THE «OLD» ONE

[p. 110] For H. L. Mencken’s assessment of the New Testament, see his Treatise on the Gods (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), p. 176.

[p. 118] For C. S. Lewis’s quotation beginning «Now, unless the speaker is God», see his Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), pp. 51–52.

[p. 119] For C. S. Lewis’s quotation beginning «That is the one thing we must not say», see Mere Christianity, p. 52. For his quotation beginning «Now it seems to me obvious», see p. 53.

[p. 122] For Bart Ehrman, see his Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (New York: HarperCollins, 2005).

CHAPTER NINE
THE KORAN IS BORROWED FROM BOTH JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN MYTHS

[p. 124] For why Muslims must recite the Koran in its original Arabic, see Ziauddin Sardar and Zafar Abbas Malik, Introducing Mohammed (Totem Books, 1994), p. 47.

[p. 136] The Karen Armstrong quotation comes from her Islam: A Short History (New York: Modem Library, 2000), p. 10.

CHAPTER TEN
THE TAWDRINESS OF THE MIRACULOUS AND THE DECLINE OF HELL

[pp. 145–146] The Malcolm Muggeridge and Ken Macmillan anec-dotes regarding Mother Teresa are included in my Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (Verso, 1995), pp. 25–26.

[p. 147] The information on Monica Besra’s tumor and recovery comes from Aroup Chatterjee, Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict (Calcutta: Meteor Books, 2003), pp. 403–406.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
«THE LOWLY STAMP OF THEIR ORIGIN»: RELIGION’S CORRUPT BEGINNINGS

[p. 164] Mark Twain’s «chloroform in print» comes from his Roughing It (New York: Signet Classics, 1994), p. 102.

[p. 165] On the possible utility of religion in curing disease, see Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York: Viking Adult, 2006).

[p. 165] For Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough (1922), see http://www.bartleby.com/196/.

CHAPTER TWELVE
A CODA: HOW RELIGIONS END

[p. 170] For the story of Sabbatai Sevi, see John Freely, The Last Messiah (New York: Viking Penguin, 2001).

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DOES RELIGION MAKE PEOPLE BEHAVE BETTER?

[p. 177] The information on William Lloyd Garrison can be found in his letter to Rev. Samuel J. May, July 17, 1845, in Walter M. Merrill, ed., The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison (1973) 3:303, and in The Liberator, May 6, 1842.

[p. 178] The information on Lincoln comes from Susan Jacoby, Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004), p. 118.

[p. 181] Barbary ambassador Abdrahaman’s justification for slavery is included in my Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), p. 128.

[p. 191] The material on Rwandan genocide is derived primarily from Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998) pp. 69–141.

[pp. 201–202] The philosophy of «Gudo» and the Nichiren declaration

are excerpted from Brian Victoria’s Zen at War (Weatherhill, 1997), pp. 41 and 84, respectively; the Japanese Buddhist wartime proclamations are from pp. 86–87.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IS RELIGION CHILD ABUSE?

[p. 220] Mary McCarthy, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood (New York: Harcourt, 1946).

[p. 221] Joseph Schumpeter’s model of «creative destruction» can be found in his Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1976), pp. 81–86.

[p. 224] For Maimonides on circumcision, see Leonard B. Glick, Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 64–66 [emphasis added].

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AN OBJECTION ANTICIPATED: THE LAST-DITCH «CASE» AGAINST SECULARISM

[p. 239–240] On the Vatican’s endorsement of Nazi Germany, see John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (New York: Viking Adult, 1999).

[p. 242] On the misrepresentation of Einstein, see William Waterhouse, «Misquoting Einstein», in Skeptic vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 60–61.

[p. 250] For H. L. Mencken’s social Darwinism, see his Treatise on the Gods (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), p. 176.

[p. 250] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, 1994).

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A FINER TRADITION: THE RESISTANCE OF THE RATIONAL

[p. 262] Einstein’s statement on «Spinoza’s god» can be found in Jennifer Michael Hecht’s Doubt: A History (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), p. 447. See also Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times (New York: Avon, 1984), p. 502.

[p. 263] The Heinrich Heine quotation can be found in Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History, p. 376. See also Heine as cited in Joseph Ratner’s introduction to The Philosophy of Spinoza: Selections from His Works (New York: Modern Library, 1927).

[p. 264] The information about Pierre Bayle can be found in Ruth Whelan, «Bayle, Pierre», in Tom Flynn, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006).

[p. 265] The Matteo de Vincenti quotation can be found in Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History, p. 287. See also Nicholas Davidson, «Unbelief and Atheism in Italy, 1500–1700», in Michael Hunter and David Wootton, ed., Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1992), p. 63.

[p. 266] Benjamin Franklin’s quotation on the lightning rod can be found in The Autobiography and Other Writings (New York: Penguin, 1986), p. 213.

[p. 268] Hume’s quotation can be found in Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History, p. 351.

[p. 268] The information on Paine and his religious views comes from Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History, pp. 356–57.

[p. 271] The Albert Einstein quotation beginning «It was, of course, a lie» can be found in Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History, p. 447. See also Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffinan, eds., Albert Einstein, the Human Side: New Glimpses from His Archives, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), p. 43. The quotation beginning «I do not believe in the immortality of the individual» can be found in Hecht, Doubt: A History, p. 447. See also Dukas and Hoffman, Albert Einstein, the Human Side, p. 39.

CHAPTER NINETEEN
IN CONCLUSION: THE NEED FOR A NEW ENLIGHTENMENT

[p. 282] For the Robert Lowell quotation, see Walter Kirn, «The Passion of Robert Lowell», New York Times, June 26, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/books/review/26KIR-NL.html.

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Copyright

Copyright © 2007 by Christopher Hitchens

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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