In the book, Hitchens contends that religion is "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry,
invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children." Hitchens'' main arguments for his points include a combination of personal stories, documented historical anecdotes and critical analysis of religious texts. His commentary focuses mainly on the Abrahamic
religions, although he
discusses other religions (such as Hinduism and Buddhism) as well.
Hitchens'' critique of religion comes down to four main points:
Religion misrepresents the origins of humankind and the cosmos
Religion demands unreasonable suppression of human nature
Religion inclines people to violence and blind submission to authority
Religion expresses hostility to free inquiry
Hitchens begins the book by discussing the fact that he was raised in a religious environment, and that even at the early age of nine he began to see some flaws in the arguments of religious believers, notably the argument from design.<1> He then goes on to discuss people who become atheists; saying that some are people who have never believed, whereas others had to separately discard religious tradition. He discusses the fact that atheists who disagree with each other will eventually side together on whatever the evidence most strongly supports.<2> He briefly discussed why we believe and argues that until we get over our fear of death, religion will be uneradicable. He ends by saying that he does not want to get rid of religion if it leaves him and his beliefs alone, but that religion is incapable of this.