god is not Great: Selective Examples

One of the most persistent cracks in Hitchen's reasoning was his penchant for selective examples.  Laughably, he writes of his desire to be "fair and open-minded," yet he constantly rifles through religions to pull the most absurd examples out.

As a self-purported example of his "evidence against interest," Hitchens quotes from Bart Ehrman as if he was an evangelical scholar, saying that he conceded points to Hitchens' point of view.  Hitchens never reveals that Ehrman has left his faith behind. He only mentions Ehrman's religious up-bringing and training. In hiding the truth of Ehrman from the reader, Hitchen goes so far as to refer to him as Barton, instead of the commonly known and used "Bart." Somehow I doubt that every actual evangelical scholar was too busy to speak to Hitchens on the subject of the reliability of the New Testament.

In using the 9/11 attacks by radical Muslims to smear all those who purport any type of faith, he mentions in passing “the courage and resourcefulness of the passengers on the fourth plane,”  yet fails to mention the faith that stirred passengers such as Todd Beamer to display the character that he found praiseworthy.

Often, Hitchens selects some of the more difficult beliefs of the Catholic church and holds them up for ridicule, while convienently ignoring the fact that Protestants and others do not agree with the doctrines - such as the sinless of Mary, veneration of the bones of saints, infallibility of the pope, etc. I will defend my own beliefs, but it is not my job to bear the weight of a belief with which I disagree. That's not a strike against my faith.

Hitchens speaks with disdain of Yale President Timothy Dwight, who “was opposed to the smallpox vaccination because he regarded it as an interference with god’s design.” Tellingly, Hitchens fails to mention Princeton President and prominent American theologian Jonathan Edwards, who “died of smallpox after being a willing participant in testing an early form of vaccination.”

He brings up the unfortunately reality of white Christians in America and Europe supporting slavery and racism, but ignores the contribution those of faith made to end slavery and diminish racism. William Wilberforce's lifelong, faith-guided mission to stop the slave trade in England is never mentioned. What is mentioned is a second or third hand quote attributed to televangelist Pat Robertson's father, Sen. A. Willis Robertson (wrongly called "Pat" by Hitchens) - "I'd sure like to help the colored, but the Bible says I can't." It is undeniable that Robertson like most other Southern Democrats led by Sen. Robert Byrd was opposed to the civil rights movement, but there is no source for that quote except Hitchens testimony that he heard it from Sen. Eugene McCarthy. Somehow the only testimony that is acceptable is that which agrees with the point Hitchens is trying to make.

When choosing origins of various religious movements to analyze, Hitchens selects the Melanesian “cargo cult,” an abused child cajoled into becoming a Pentecostal preacher, and Mormonism. He opens the description implying that he randomly selected these three from "a wide selection of openly manufactured sausage religions." In reality, each of these were specifically chosen to enhance the perception that all religions, including those not mentioned, start from some form of deceit.

Not only is he selective in the examples he choose for Christianity, oddly he is selective in the opposite way when discussing atheism. I'll write more on this later, but when talking about the advance of human freedoms he writes, "American freethinkers and agnostics and atheists come out the best. (emphasis mine)" I wonder why he only referenced American atheists who operate as a minority in a country founded on Christian principles and freedom of religion and not atheist in countries where they are in the majority like China or the old USSR.

It makes it difficult to trust anything that Hitchens writes, when he is so obviously biased in even his selection of information and sources, even while extolling his fairness, objectivity and generosity - I'm sure he brags on his humility in the book as well.