god is got Great

And neither is this book. Christopher Hitchens god is not Great has a great book hidden in it somewhere underneath the diatribe. And annoyingly it's way under referenced. And even more annoyingly the little referencing there is, is in my paperback copy (published by "12" in 2007) incorrectly referenced. I suspect it's taken straight from the hardback without any thought about the changing of the page numbers.

If you didn't like The God Delusion for its language, then you're going to loath god is not Great. And frankly even I, who's batting on the same team as Hitchens, had trouble with some the outlandishness of it. Let's take look.

'In 2004, a soap-opera film about the death of Jesus was produced by an Australian fascist and ham actor named Mel Gibson. Mr. Gibson adheres to a crackpot and schismatic Catholic sect consisting mainly of himself and of his even more thuggish father...' [131]


Now maybe the above is true, but there's not a further explanation, reference or footnote for any of this. It reads like opinions backed up by bile. Gibson has never had even an Oscar nomination for acting, but could you really call him a ham? What sect of Catholicism is Gibson in? What's the story with Gibson's father being a fascist? Is it common knowledge, and I'm just out of the loop?

I recommend the book to those who want a good laugh.