The correct quote is “Timeo hominem unius libri” and means “I am wary of an opponent (in a debate) who has read only one book but has read it well”. My favourite blunder though is the quote, “I am a man of one book”, which he attributes to Thomas Aquinas and with which he introduces a chapter on the intellectual stupidity of religion. He could have known that much by clicking twice on. Here he forgets to mention that this book has come under heavy fire from later, more professional, historians. Pius XII is, once again, accused of complicity with Nazism on the authority of John Cornwell’s Hitler’s Pope. According to Hitchens, Paul was nothing more than an epileptic, Francis of Assisi nothing more than a “primate” who talked to birds.

Such a careless treatment of the facts is very surprising from an author who pretends to revere the rules of scientific inquiry. Alas, many of his examples are based on faulty information and/or disputable interpretations. But I do have to concede that religion has sometimes condoned immoral practices and has impeded the quest for scientific truth (could anyone forget the case of Galileo?). I would not lose a lot of sleep over the dubious origins of the Mormon religion and the frauds of sectarian quacks. Admittedly, Hitchens knows plenty of striking anecdotes, more than most believers would care to remember. This thesis he hopes to make plausible by listing an impressive number of examples, spiced with insults resembling those once used against black people and Jews. Religion is pernicious: religion poisons everything.

Religion is a lie used by clever conmen to deceive credulous idiots: Hitchens was once a Marxist and it still shows.

Christians should welcome criticisms, but some are more useful than others, and this one is of the worst kind. Meekly offering the other cheek? Giving as good as we get? For now the latter is the better option. How should the faithful deal with it? Ignoring it is no longer possible. Rarely have so many thundering assertions about religion been made with so much fury and with such weak argument. Here is a very special book, one would think. In Belgium Flemish broadsheets have also devoted much space to it: two pages in De Standaard and even three in De Morgen. Then you would have something like God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens. Imagine a book that compiles all the critiques that have been marshalled against Islam and that now directs them against all the religions of all times.

Hitchens religion poisons everything