An important step towards a new Enlightenment!

In the US it has Christopher Hitchens book with the provocative title "God is not Great - How Religion Poisons Everything" made it to No. 2 in the Amazon bestseller list. In the adjoining discussion forum shows why Americans currently have a split in to people. Because Hitchens is one hand condemned for his heretical ideas and prompted to take back his remarks in order to preserve his soul from eternal damnation. On the other hand he is praised for his courage, for once clearly to identify the root of all evil: The not justifiable by reason belief in one God or many gods.

"We atheists do not require any priests, or any hierarchy above them, to police our doctrines [...] To us no spot on earth is or Could be" holier "than another: to the ostentatious absurdity of the pilgrimage, or the plain horror of killing Civilians in the name of some sacred wall or cave or shrine or rock, we can counterpose a leisurely or urgent walk from one side if the liberary or the gallery to another, or to lunch with at agreeable friend in pursuit of truth and beauty "(6).

"God is not Great" is both a compromise settlements with all religions (and the polytheistic), which are still socially recognized and respected in spite of the suffering that they inflict thousands of years of humanity. These analyzes Hitchens secular through and through evolutionary history of monotheistic religions of the book and the power-political motives of the authors. Even the objection that religions provide people with moral categories, thus guide a better action, does not accept the author. In the chapter "Does religion make people behave better" (173-193) sets Hitchens is convincing that this claim in many cases, just the opposite is not only wrong, but the case. All religions have in common that they outsiders, ie "infidels", threatening to torture and death in order to strengthen the stability and identity of their own group. A brief look at just Bible and the Qur'an confirms this. Reacts Although many of Gewaltexesse were originally perhaps meant only metaphorically, now no longer relevant, mainly because Islam prescribes a blind and almost necrophiliac belief in the dead letter of the Koran and any criticism with a penetrating offended (or assassination) ,

Is Hitchens objectively? Certainly not, but that is also difficult with this issue. Chapter headings like "Religion as an Original Sin" or "Is Religion Child Abuse?" speak for themselves. But despite all the polemics has Hitchens illustration hand and foot and is very good to read. Convincing and zealously he advertises for a secular humanism and a world in which the replace the insights of Shakespeare, Milton and Dostoyevsky of Bible and Koran.

Three in four! After the "New Atheists" led by Richard Dawkins ("The God Delusion"), Daniel Dennett ("Breaking the Spell") and Sam Harris ("The End of Faith") of religion have declared war last year, joins now also Hitchens in this county. And one thing is clear: The world needs this new enlightenment! Almost all the wars in the world have a religious component or religiously justified. It would be for the good of all if this dangerous weapon could be defused.