MixedThe GuardianHitchens is the latest fire-and-brimstone atheist. Having sharpened his ire on targets such as Mother Teresa, whom he once denounced as a fanatic, he now takes on an opponent he may consider to be more his own size ... This is Hitch versus God, slugged out to the bloody death ... On the evidence of this book, Hitchens has spent too much time around religion, not too little. Like an ex-smoker who grows to loathe the habit more than those who have not tasted nicotine, he abominates God with the zealotry implicit in dictatorial faith. Anyone who has grown up in the shadow of hellfire evangelism will recognise some answering echo here. This is a papal bull for the non-believer ... Hitchens does not get to grips with the power of a blind trust that, far from being snuffed out, seems more unquenchable than ever now that all the lies and deceptions of organised religion have been exposed by science. Nor does he examine what, beyond rank stupidity, drives communities and states back to primitive belief ... Hitchens\'s book will be manna to the converted, but his explicit aim is to win believers to his cause. I doubt that he will reclaim a single soul.
