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Christopher Hitchens: god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (Twelve, Hachette Book Group USA, 2007) That Hitchens could produce such an excellent compendium of reasons why religion is simply unacceptable and answers to the by now tedious self-justifications of the religionists shows that even a fairly common or garden Englishman, given the gift of free and clear thought plus an admirable mastery of the language, can lead a reader to thoughtful conviction. One must give Harris and Jacoby credit for breaking the glass ceiling of American Xtian censhorship, but Hitchens does make the whole thing so much more entertaining – and rich in content. And Hitchens does correct Harris’ error: Fascism was not just not atheistic, it was a Xtian, indeed Catholic movement. You might call Fascism the political wing of Pius XII’s Vatican. The blemish – somewhat minor in context – lies in Hitchens’ rather bourgeois cultural universe: Shakespeare, Mozart, Orwell (He even throws in the odious Ayer). One can just imagine the author, eyes beatifically shut, beating time with his finger to Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.