Religion Poisons Everything Analysis

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Waqar Ahmed (2016-11-0230)
Mr. Hamza Khalil
SS 100 - Writing and Communication
Section 4
November 23, 2012
Religion Poisons Everything The article “Religion Poisons Everything” is an excerpt from the book “God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” written by Christopher Eric Hitchens (1949-2011), a British American. Christopher Hitchens is a well-known author, journalist and religious critic. He was born in a Christian family but converted to atheism in his boyhood. He started his journalism in London but later on he moved to United States and continued journalism. As a writer, he worked with Slate Magazine, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, The Nation, The Times Literary Supplements and London Review of Books. “God is not Great: How Religion …show more content…

His convincing writing and appealing technique are very beneficial in making this article more persuasive. He uses science as a weapon of convincing his readers. People believe in scientific reasoning and judge everything on the basis of scientific knowledge. That is why he starts his article by taking a very strong position by comparing religions with science and claiming that “religions have misrepresented the origins of man and cosmos”. Analyzing his claim in the light of science, it seems to be true as science do not believe in non-physical things. Science has not provided any proof of the existence of the God and angels. This point is more attracting for atheists as they only believe in logical and ethical reasoning. Furthermore, he argues that the belief of hell and heaven is no more than “blandishments and threats”. This claim is verified by science as there is no physical existence of these things in the light of science. He appeals the religious believers that they should believe only those things that can be proved scientifically and logically and they should not follow things blindly as science gives reason behind every phenomenon and satisfies the human beings on the basis of logic. That is why he succeeds in convincing his readers to a great extent due to the practice of logical …show more content…

Today this is a fact that even within a specific religion, there are many sects. For example in Christianity, Protestants and Catholic are major sects. Similarly in Islam, Sunni and Shiyah sects are prominent. These sects even fight against each other. In the history, there is a prominent example that during the reign of Elizabeth I in 1559, Catholic practice was made illegal (Pritchard 3). So Hitchens’ claim is true to a great extent. Similarly, different religions start fighting against each other without any genuine reason and do not bother to settle their dispute in a peaceful manner that gives birth to turmoil in society. So this point strengthens this article to a great