Jump to content

Talk:God Is Not Great/Archive 1

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1

Inconsistency in book title

title is capitalized wrong: "god is not Great". it should at least be marked that way —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.55.10.104 (talk • contribs)

I have altered it to match the title on the book cover. We need to reach some agreement here as to consistency in titling this book. It has been changed numerous times in the main Hitchens article. My understanding is that "God" in the article title has to have a capital "G" because of Wikipedia formatting. Is this correct? Even if this is the case, "is" and "not" could be changed, though this would require a page move. I would like to hear some other opinions on this matter. Thanks. ---Cathal 22:39, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
I think it should be moved to reflect the lower case first 3 words; the Hitchens article is slowly reaching that conclusion, I think. I think Wikipedia now also finally allows lower case articles. See eBay, iPod, etc. --Allstar86 16:42, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I am entirely in favor of a move. The title of the article, and the phrasing of the title within both articles, should match the title on the book. I very much believe that Hitch titled the book in that manner quite consciously. ---Cathal 19:58, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Given the lack of opposition, I recommend we proceed with the page move. ---Cathal 17:06, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
Done. ---Cathal 17:32, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
I completely disagree with this, having just found this article for the first time. Wikipedia guidelines on trademark usage follows most other style guides by saying to "follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules even if the trademark owner encourages special treatment". And I'm not even particularly convinced that the owner "encourages special treatment", when the main argument on Talk:Christopher Hitchens seems to be that we should be echoing a cover design decision merely because it's apposite.
And while I'm being a devil's advocate, do we really need the subtitle in the article title, when the God Is Not Great page isn't being used by anything else? --McGeddon 10:05, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The decapitilisation of the 'G' to: 'god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" as per Mssr. Hitchin's exact title of his book, is interesting & indeed something to reflect upon.

The small 'g' is by comon consensus indicating an indefinate 'god' ie one of many 'gods' in a polytheistic belief system.. for eg in Hinduism: monkey god, elephant god etc

It is not the letter or the meaning used, for eg. in the Arabic, الله "Al Lah" (lit:'The' God) a definate noun denoting only one, accented by the definate article "ال" 'the'.

As such, Mr. Hitchens, very amuzingly & by 'coincidence' as some would call it, is denoting by this letter & word, unwittingly, another 'god' in his exact title. Even though that I'm sure was not quite his intention, given that he refers, by implication, to the 'The God' of the monotheistic Jews, Christians & Muslims, within the book's content.

Since that is the title published & that the wiki article refers to the book of the same name: there indeed should be no difference.

(restraining a giggle) : It is, thus, the perfectly correct title!

Enthogenesis 15:29, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

From the article itself "His attacks focus mostly on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, although other religions such as Hinduism do not completely escape the book." So, while the Abrahamic god is the main focus, he seems to target gods in general. Syrion 23:01, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I've just seen the UK edition cover, whose title is entirely capitalised, and as has been commented on Talk:Christopher Hitchens (and is easily confirmable by a glance at Amazon.com), the copyright page of the book capitalises the first letter. Until someone can produce a strong argument for MoS:TM being ignored, I'm going to be bold and revert the page title to use a capitalised first letter. --McGeddon 08:59, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a non-argument. McGeddon is correct with regard to the consensus of style guides on formatting and capitalization; moreover, a plethora of sources ranging from Amazon.com ([1]) to the New York Times review of the book ([2]) to the Christopher Hitchens Web itself ([3]) all display the title of the book as God is Not Great. Case closed.Cak58 19:11, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

It appears as the Wikipedia (at least a particular audience) has been poisoned as well...the Wiki article should reflect the title of the book "god is not Great" as Hitchens intended, otherwise this particular Wiki article is simply not accurate.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.88.48.22 (talk • contribs) 18:13, 29 July 2007 (UTC).

Please take a moment to read the MoS:TM Wikipedia style guide that's already been referenced on this matter. Wikipedia articles should "follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules even if the trademark owner encourages special treatment". --McGeddon 18:44, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Just wanting to chime in here. The UK Amazon link above shows a cover where the title is in all caps, so it's not really informative. The "hitchensweb" thing isn't Mr. Hitchens' web site, as far as I can tell, just a fan site of some sort. And as far as leading non-caps, I've been seeing them all over WP lately, even as the first word in a sentence. Shouldn't we reflect the author's intent (if it can be determined clearly)? Huw Powell (talk) 04:23, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
The all-caps title suggests that perhaps Hitchens wasn't insisting on it always being printed in lower-case. But even if Hitchens' intent could be determined, I'm not sure that authors should deserve any particular exemption from MoS:TM. --McGeddon (talk) 08:57, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

The argument that the cover of the book should in any way dictate the capitalization of the title is completely invalid; usually, authors have little or no control over the book cover, and capitalization on covers is almost always a matter of design, not content. And while it's still possible that Mr. Hitchens intended the word god to be lowercase, English rules of style are clear, as are Wikipedia's. The first word of a book title are always capitalized. As are the words is and not. Hence, the title should be God Is Not Great.Kyle Hardgrave (talk) 00:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

This is a special case; the usual rules do not apply here. I just read the book, and Hitchens clearly intended for "Great" to be the only capitalized word in the title. Whether or not we agree with him, we should respect the author's intent. It's much like the unusual case of the poet e. e. Cummings. Those "e"s are lower case by choice, and that choice has been respected, almost universally, for decades. It set a precedent that definitely applies here. RobertAustin (talk) 13:15, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Edit: please make that "e e cummings," as he, himself, preferred. No periods, no capital letters. I had to look it up (on his Wikipedia page, naturally) to make certain I had it exactly right, and I wasn't quite on the mark in the paragraph immediately above. RobertAustin (talk) 13:19, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
How clear is "clearly intended"? Is there an extract where he explicitly discusses this? --McGeddon (talk) 16:44, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Look, in this case, lower case letters for the words at the beginning of the book's title should be used EVEN IF doing so violates Wikipedia's style guidelines. Style guidelines are just that -- guidelines -- and are not as important as accurately portraying the intent of the author. Read the book, and you will see that Hichens used lower case letters on purpose, and for a reason. That should be reflected in this article. I'm not going to change it myself right now, because I don't want to jump into the middle of what seems to be an editing war. I am, however, leaving this argument here, and hope that it helps a consensus form to respect the author's point of view regarding his own book. Does this make sense to anyone else? RobertAustin (talk) 11:21, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Does the book explicitly mention its own title, though, or does Hitchens just write generally about the capitalisation of "God"? We shouldn't retitle an article if it's possibly just the cover artist having read the book and thinking a lower-case "god" would be a neat design. --McGeddon (talk) 11:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
Other printings of the book have GOD IS NOT GREAT on the cover, and (AFAIK) all of them have the title all in uppercase on the title page. Does that mean WP should render it all in uppercase? No. By convention, a book title has all significant words with uppercase first letters, and we should follow that convention rather than try to mimic what the typographical designer has done on the cover of one particular edition. Should the article on Macy's be renamed Macy*s? Should Marks & Spencer appear as MARKS&SPENCER? That is how those two shops style themselves on their shopfronts and stationery. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 12:45, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think Wikipedia should be concerned with how other websites display the title. Furthermore, I believe that people arguing for the capitalisation of this title are not doing so out of respect for the conventions of Wikipedia, but are instead trying to avert attention to their own bias. It is obvious (or should be) to all concerned that the 'g' in god was deliberately spelt using the lower case 'g' in order to be confrontational. As a mark of respect, 'God' is always spelt with a captial 'G', even by disbelievers. Hitchins title is attempting to communicate that even this token gesture should be done away with.

The fact that this debate has gone on for as long as it has, is just another example of why people become disenfranchised with the Wikipedia project, and why it will never be regarded as an unbiased and serious work on matters affecting Christianity. The majority of editors are from the US, and are therefore much more religious than those of other Anglo backgrounds (such as myself). As a result any dispute that invovles a vote on a matter that Christians find confronting *always* resolves to the Christian viewpoint. Regular unbiased encyclopaedias do not suffer from this problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HappyGod (talk • contribs) 07:06, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Seems like we've settled on the right title in the end, but shouldn't the article at least contain a mention of the fact that 'god' appears in lowercase on the cover of most editions of the book, since this seems to be the only thing most people know about the book? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.240.28.176 (talk) 05:56, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

His publisher capitalizes "God". Good enough for me. --Javaweb (talk) 16:08, 4 August 2011 (UTC)Javaweb

The title of the book, as well as Hitchens' own references to it, always has "god" in lower case, usually the rest in upper -- that's the POINT of the title and book, and it's blasphemy upon the memory of the great author to modify it and make it upper case. Geĸrίtzl (talk) 18:35, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

The book's US cover is shown at the top of the article. Anyone seeing the article will see "god" on the cover in the right side of the page. We aren't keeping it a secret. --Javaweb (talk) 19:05, 12 March 2012 (UTC)Javaweb


We can see from the accompanying image of the cover that only the word "great" is capitalised. That was the intention of the author, and his reason for doing so is self-evident. There seems to be no legitimate reason change the article. If Wikipedia intends to aspire to accuracy and credibility I suggest that a slavish adherence to arbitrary rules is not the way to go about it. Changing a book's title to fit the rules just seems perverse, and sadly, I have to agree that the difficulties here appear to arise mainly from pressures from a minority of religious hard-liners from the USA. That does not reflect well on Wiki or it's neutrality. I note that on the article talk page for the prophet Muhammed there is a request that reads: "Dear admin, Kindly hide the face of prophet Muhammad[pbuh] in the images. Let me know if any assistance required" The response reads: X Not done: See /FAQ. Wikipedia is not censored. So Wiki does not bow to pressure from Muslims, but it seems happy to cave in to pressures from US Christians. Again,that hardly adds to the credibility of Wikipedia. The book is titled "god is Great", and the lower case lettering is an important, nay essential component. Quite frankly, I have seen no good reason expounded here why Wikipedia should arbitrarily change it. Please give it the correct title. Tarquin Q. Zanzibar 10:38, 9 April 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by El Badboy! (talk • contribs)

Title in UK?

Can someone confirm that the book "God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion" by Christopher Hitchens, published in the UK, is the same book (god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything) just retitled? The amazon.co.uk link is: http://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Not-Great-Against-Religion/dp/1843545861/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/026-1762460-7508437?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180580200&sr=8-1 If it is, the article should be updated to include this information, and the page "God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion" should be a forwarding page to this one.

redirect page made. Have not yet added information about UK title to main page yet. Michaeln36 14:00, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
If the book has different subtitles in different countries, I'm not sure we should be using either of them in the article title. --McGeddon 10:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with McGeddon. I was unaware, until just now, that different subtitles were in use, but, since they are, they should be omitted from the article title, and the different subtitles mentioned, instead, in the text of the article. If anyone can find out (and document) the reason why there are different subtitles, that would be a good thing to include as well. RobertAustin (talk) 11:24, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Weasel Words

The paragraph

While some would argue that commentators such as Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, in their contempt for religion in the secular age, miss the point of faith and spirituality, others would argue that their particular, respective brands of atheism deserve as much respect as any other position.

is full of weasal words. If people have criticism of the style of the text, put it under the subheading criticism, and not in the main part of the body. In the main page for 'the bible' me writing 'some, like xxxxx would argue that the bible is a document filled with bigotry, hatred, and chauvinistic tendencies, others argue that it is relevant to our society' etcetc..

Hi, don't forget to sign your posts with the tildes. I agree with the weasel wording. The term "others" needs clarification of whom exactly these "others" are. ResurgamII 19:09, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Absolutely correct, Resurgamll. The "weasel words" should be attributed to a source, or deleted. As it is now, this section weakens the article's quality. RobertAustin (talk) 11:27, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Criticisms

The following must be cited, as it is a direct quote, before it can be included.

Stephen Prothero of The Washington Post concludes "Christopher Hitchens is a brilliant man, and there is no living journalist I more enjoy reading. But I have never encountered a book whose author is so fundamentally unacquainted with its subject. In the end, this maddeningly dogmatic book does little more than illustrate one of Hitchens's pet themes -- the ability of dogma to put reason to sleep." Significantly, the substantial points that Hitchens makes are not contradicted.

VanTucky 22:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I have added the following:

The "problem with Hitchens’ thesis that religion poisons everything is how to explain those who use it to do good" writes Michael Skapinker in The Financial Times. "How does Hitchens account for Martin Luther King? Here’s how: King was not really a Christian. Really? Well, at no point did King suggest that those who reviled him would be punished in this world or the next. ”In no real as opposed to nominal sense, then, was he a Christian.” Let’s leave aside the possibility that King’s lack of interest in revenge came from the Gospels … What of godless people who do evil? … Hitchens says that Stalin understood his people’s religious superstitions and mimicked them. So King wasn’t really religious and Stalin was. If that sort of intellectual and moral shabbiness is to your taste, this book should be too." [Thanks to Ronz below]
Suggesting that Hitchens' references to "Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Dostoyevsky" in order to promote the atheist lifestyle ignores, deliberately or otherwise, the content of the writings of these "Christian authors", one religious critic has concluded that "Best-selling atheist authors are riding a wave of ignorance and illiteracy." As for Dennis Prager, he points out that the Hitchens book misrepresents his argument about "Bible class" in favor of the Christian faith. Asteriks 11:34, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
That's very poorly written for an encyclopaedia.--Svetovid 18:41, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
What is it that is "very poorly written for an encyclopaedia", Svetovid? Since most of what I added are quotes, I am not sure whether the writing you consider irremediably poor is that of myself or of people such as Michael Skapinker of The Financial Times (unless, of course, you are discussing an entirely different section of the article)… How about Michael Medved? Do you not like his writing either? ('Similarly, Michael Medved called the book "a maddening combination of stimulation and sloppiness, erudition and ignorance, provocation and puerility", concluding that the "sly distortions and grotesque errors that appear in every chapter of his work demonstrate the author’s carelessness and arrogance" and that, "Beyond its factual errors and obvious misstatements," Hitchens' book "provides a frequently primitive and juvenile characterization of religious belief."') Asteriks 22:20, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Svetovid, if you can improve Asteriks's wording, why not do so? Later, someone may do the same to your work. We should not let our feelings get hurt over this, or get angry, etc.; this is simply how Wikipedia works. RobertAustin (talk) 13:22, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

A few potential sources

--Ronz 20:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC) Although I've thoroughly enjoyed the book so far, I think he has the Bhagwan's story wrong in the chapter, There Is No "Eastern" Solution". Shree Rashneesh's attempt to flee U.S. law enforcement by jet has been omitted by implying he was already dead at the time. The Bhagwan was tried, and found gulity of some sort of immigration violation, and sent packing back to India, where although his popularity suffered he soldiered on until 1985 when he truly packed it in. I wonder how Chris missed this bit? I found this attempted flight from law enforcement far more interesting than O.J.'s slo-mo run. The Bhagwan went totally Harris Ford in his attempt to get awayNorris99 04:06, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Article rename - removing subtitle

I can't find any particular precedent for having a book's entire subtitle in the name of its Wikipedia article - given that Hitchens' book was published with a different subtitle in the UK ("God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion"), does anyone have a good argument against simply moving this article to God Is Not Great? --McGeddon 13:48, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

In fact, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Subtitles only recommends including subtitles for short titles, for disambiguation purposes. I'll go ahead and make the change in the next day or two, if nobody gives a strong objection. --McGeddon 14:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Moved. --McGeddon 09:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. I think subtitles should be included, all the time, and the Wikipedia naming conventions should be changed. A subtitle is part of a book's title, and often is designed, by the author, to carry some special meaning (clearly the case with this book's American version, at least). The intent of the author should be respected. That simply seems self-evident to me. RobertAustin (talk) 13:27, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Feel free to take it up at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (books), but I think the policy's examples ("A History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day") are a clear enough reason for why this would quickly become a bad idea. So long as we mention the subtitle(s) in the article body, I don't think we're doing the author a disservice. --McGeddon (talk) 16:42, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
My point of view has changed since December '09. I now support omission of the differing subtitles from the title of this article, on grounds that they do differ, and think that the differing subtitles should be discussed only in the text of the article itself. (What was I thinking back in December?) RobertAustin (talk) 11:31, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Article move

I have moved this article from God is not Great to God Is Not Great, in accordance with MoS:TM. Mushroom (Talk) 08:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't you have moved it to "god is not Great"? That is the title of the book, after all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by El Badboy! (talk • contribs) 10:50, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 04:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Synopsis

The synopsis is incomplete, but by extrapolation it will be about 4 pages (on this screen anyway) by the time it's finished, which seems pretty long for a synopsis section. I'm all for detailed synopses, but they should at most only make up about half of the article, and we currently have under a page of other material. The extended discussion of the eighth chapter also throws off the balance. If we gave half a page to each chapter we'd have a 10 page synopsis alone. Maybe there should be somewhere where we can write more extended synopses of books (a 'synopsis wiki'?) but this isn't going to be the place. Richard001 (talk) 06:27, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was No consensus Parsecboy (talk) 22:08, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I realize that this has been discussed before, but I really think this article needs to be "god is not Great". The issue in brief - in at least the US hardcover edition (a copy is sitting next to me), every instance of the title is "god is not Great" rather than "God Is Not Great". The two exceptions being the Library of Congress listing (which has the first letter and none other capitalized in every book in the US, so this is irrelevant) and in all-caps form (GOD IS NOT GREAT) at the top of various pages. Past discussion has focused on guidelines of WP:TM but I think this is misguided: we are discussing a literary work and not a trademark. Some of the discussion (here and on Talk:Christopher Hitchens focused on the punctuation on the book cover - if the lowercase title appeared only there and not in the title page itself, this might be a valid point but as noted, the book is consistent in its use of lowercase. I couldn't find much in the way of WP guidelines for non-standard punctuation in titles, but Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(books)#Precision suggests that NPOV guidelines "includes not to tamper with what authors of notable works want to express with the title they give to their work". Clearly in this case Hitchens is making a point (or at least trying to rile people) through the use of a lower case "god" and I believe it is best to not censor that in Wikipedia. Again, this is not a commercial trademark but an intellectual work that should be respected in a way that a trademark does not necessarily merit. Two more things: users who disagree with me, please express a preference for "God is not Great", "God is Not Great" or "God Is Not Great" - both this article and the Hitchens article are inconsistent and whatever the consensus ends up we should be consistent. Also, if anyone has access to a UK (or other English-language) edition I would be interested to see how the title appears there. If the British publishers went with "God" the case for "god is not Great" would be less strong, and this would help with the "is/Is" and "not/Not" question. CAVincent (talk) 01:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment: I have no opinion on the issue itself. However, you need to read Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)#Lower case first letter if there is consensus to put a lower case "g" in "god" in the article title. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 07:34, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
If we did decide to use god is not Great. we could move the page to God is not Great and then use the lower case template on that name making the page appear as god is not Great.--76.66.188.48 (talk) 07:51, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose for now. Given the author, this may be auctorial intent; but quotations should be provided. If not, it is stylization by the publishers' design team, which we should ignore per WP:MOSTRADE; the next reprint may differ. (In any case, this cannot be done by moving the page; use {{lowercase}} if there is consensus to change.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:03, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose in the absence of explicit authorial intent, as well. The UK edition can be skimmed on amazon.co.uk, and appears to use 'GOD IS NOT GREAT' on the cover and the top of every page; if the capitalisation was an important issue for Hitchens, I don't see why he would have let it slide on the UK cover.
What do you mean when you say "every instance of the title" in the US edition - does Hitchens refer to the title of his own book in the text, or is this just the back cover and spine as well as the front? --McGeddon (talk) 11:01, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
  • response No, he does not refer to the title, but it occurs on the cover, spine and title page. I have not seen actual quotations by Hitchens, but how often does a reviewer ask an author about his title's punctuation? CAVincent (talk) 16:08, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
If the lower-case "g" is only known to appear on the cover, spine and title page of the American edition of the book, then this sounds more like the decision of a single, anonymous graphic designer than a deliberate authorial statement.
Given that Hitchens is a journalist, perhaps it's worth digging through his own articles to see if he mentions the book title; either explicitly saying why he used the lower-case g, or just mentioning it in passing without a sub-editor correcting it for him as per their style guide. --McGeddon (talk) 16:30, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I just skimmed the first three chapters for instances of God (i.e. references to the monotheistic Abrahamic diety rather than a generic diety). In all cases when God occurs in quotation it is an uppercase-G. In his own words, there are six cases of God rendered lowercase-g; a 7th case it is upper-case G as the first word of a sentence; and the final case is an uppecase-G in the phrase "from Satan or from God". Hitchens does use an upper-C for "the Creator". Looks like authorial intent in the text and not a graphic designer's work, even if this doesn't necessarily prove the title. CAVincent (talk) 19:50, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

chapter 8

jesus did not have to go back for the census until he WAS six... that was wen he was in teh temples teaching the preachers and women whenever his parents left him... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.245.252.186 (talk) 13:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

A motion picture?

Hitchens on the Hour, saying that book might become a motion picture where he would travel to countries where religion is in charge.

http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=1121355844 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.103.63.216 (talk) 20:41, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

This youtube video purports to be a trailer for the film, but I am very skeptical. While it is well produced, it appears to be more of a tribute video made from readily available clips, showing no new material. This Hollywood Reporter quote is the most news of the film I've been able to find so far.

April 07, 2009 The documentary, titled "God Is Not Great" and to be directed by Jeff Sheftel ("Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues"), will be released stateside by Magnolia Pictures, which also is the international sales agent. Hot Docs organizers said the Hitchens' project will be one of 25 projects pitched to international commissioning editors at the Toronto Documentary Forum, which is set to run May 6-7 in Toronto.

-- Thinking of England (talk) 04:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Texas Governor

Bold text

Hi,All

In reading Hitchens' "God Is Not Great", he mentions that there is a Texas governor who said...and I quote, "If English was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me."

Can anyone help me in confirming that quote and who said it?

Thank you.

Regards,

C. Mosby Miller

meresdad@att.net


It seems possible that no governor said it at all: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003084.html mislih 15:50, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
That web site indicates that Tex. governer Ann Richards is who Hitchens is referring to. The site says "... recalling the quote, which is a favorite of another former Texas governor, Ann Richards..." Although that site indicates that Richards did not originate the saying, she did repeat it. --Noleander (talk) 15:59, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I read it to mean that the quote is usually attributed to Ma Ferguson, but that it is questionable whether she in fact said it. It seems like this quote is usually used to disparage the intelligence of Christians (or maybe Texans). mislih 19:40, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
It is clearly NOT attributing the quote to former Texas governor, Ann Richards; it says that it was a "favourite" quote of hers. I don't see it as being "questionable" at all - except perhaps for someone not well-acquainted with English (language). Tarquin Q. Zanzibar 11:00, 9 April 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by El Badboy! (talk • contribs)

Synopsis oversized

Going and retelling the book chapter by chapter is not an encyclopedic treatment. Baring any comment, I will remove all of the chapter-by-chapter retellings in 24 hours. Hipocrite (talk) 05:24, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

  • Oppose The contents of the book are extremely noteworthy, and not available elswhere in this encyclopedia in a consolidated format. Although the format is a bit awkward, I think the chapter-by-chapter text is warranted for this book. The argument "other book articles dont do it" is not persuasive. Even if there were consensus to eliminate the chapter-by-chapter format (and there is not) the appropriate thing to do would be to replace it with a summary of the key points. (But even then, you'd probably have one key point per chapter, and you'd be approaching what is already there). --Noleander (talk) 05:28, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, but my argument is not that other article don't do it, but rather that retelling a book point by point is not encyclopedic treatment. This article reads like a bad middle schoolers book report. A massive cut solves that immediately. Hipocrite (talk) 05:31, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes, you have a good point there. But isnt the solution to edit the text and make it encyclopedic? Remove some quotes, combine similar chapters, that sort of thing? I mean, the whole point of WP is to provide information to people. Just deleting 13,000 characters of text because it is formatted in an unusual way seems a bit punitive. That said, I will concede that the text for chapters 4 and 8 is a bit excessive. --Noleander (talk) 05:37, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
The article is better without the text. If you'd like to improve the text, feel free to get it from the history of the article, improve it, and put it back in. Hipocrite (talk) 05:38, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Support Synopsis is waaaaayyyyyy too long, cut it. mislih 18:40, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose. What is wrong with presenting the book chapter by chapter? I think that is the most NPOV and encyclopaedic way of summarising the content of a book, and I am disappointed that more of our featured book articles don't do it. Even if there were a better way, the current synopsis is certainly better than nothing; If you are unhappy with the quality, then improve it. There are also no problems with it being "too long"; the article is far too short without the synopsis. Gregcaletta (talk) 02:08, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Gregcaletta that the article should contain some more content - so that readers of the encyclopedia can get a better feel for the arguments that Hitchens makes (without having to buy or obtain a copy). See the proposal at the bottom of this Talk page to add in some more detail. --Noleander (talk) 02:10, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Support. (with qualification) The biggest problem with this article is the chapter-by-chapter synopsis. With some of the chapters' synopses being a mere sentence, the header takes up more space than the content. However, it's better than no synopsis at all. I haven't read the book so I don't feel qualified to condense the chapters into a single heading, but if someone who has read it could, it would vastly improve the quality of the article. Removing them altogether would leave no synopsis, at least with the current chapter-by-chapter there's something for someone who might want to read about the book before reading it. In short: condense, don't remove. Mr0t1633 (talk) 20:09, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Support (condensing) The synposis is excessive and disproprtionate to the size of the article as mentioned already in this discussion, and it seems it's been that way since 2008. After reading it I feel like I don't need to buy the book as it's been rewritten here. Somebody knowledgeable on the book should please write a much a more concise synposis and add details to flesh out the rest of the article. I would if I could.--sinisterstuf (talk) 14:55, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Translations of the book

It would probably be worth mentioning if there are any translations into other languages or indeed if it was only ever published in English. Pma jones (talk) 04:01, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Rage Against God

The brother of Christopher Hitchens, the Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens, has written (a rather weakly argued, in my opinion) response to God is Not Great, called The Rage Against God: Why Faith is the Foundation of Civilisation. If you have read this book, and would like to help keep the article as unbiased as possible, I invite you all to take a look. - Neural (talk) 19:18, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

In response to first comment

While it may be true that these books argue from one perspective, that is inevitable due to the books' purpose. These books address the fundamental differences between being in a "state" of religion and not being in a 'state' of religion. The assumption here is that when humans are not affected by religion, they are rational beings capable of reason and thoughtful processing. They therefore have to look at the degree to which religion skews thought and perception from this natural state.

That said, I do agree to a certain extent with the previous comment. Too often do the writers of such books focus solely on the philosophical and epistemological differences between religion and atheism, all the while disregarding the very real contribution that religion has endowed upon society; charity, orphanages, social awareness, etc. The aforementioned authors would respond to this, however, attributing many of the evils of the past to religion's firm grasp on history's irrational sword; crusades, misunderstanding, war, everyday terrorism etc.

I would still ask, however, to read any one of Dawkin's books again, and to do so this time by affording the author a little bit of lenience. Atheism remains a radical view in today's society, but I feel that it is a view very much worth listening to. This, having to argue against the mainstream thought of a society, is probably what makes atheist books seem so one-sided. They are a fringe group, and therefore have to argue from that perspective. Give the views a chance, and attempt to see through the sometimes unwarranted criticisms that atheist books levy at religion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.227.34.209 (talk) 10:06, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Add more detailed summary

I propose to add more detail into the article. This is a phenomenally important book, and its major points deserve some more elaboration. I don't suggest that we restore all the content that was in the article in the 21:34, October 20, 2009 version; but I do suggest somewhere in between that larger version and the current version. --Noleander (talk) 20:46, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I whole-heartedly agree. RobertAustin (talk) 17:44, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

"After a survey showed that half of all scientists were religious..." - there is no such survey

Regarding the statement, "After a survey showed that half of all scientists were religious, Gould said, Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid ...", Gould wasn't quoting a survey, he was just using the word "half" vaguely to mean "a lot". There is mention of a survey in Gould's original article, "Impeaching a Self-Appointed Judge" in Scientific American. I think you mean that there was no mention of a survey, anyway I fixed the wording. 192.76.7.184 (talk) 13:51, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Odd

The fact that there's a synopsis for every chapter is telling of the kind of people in the Wikipedia community (myself included). It's quite odd and I've not seen a book on here that matches that. Perhaps a full book synopsis would be better suited? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.242.227.71 (talk) 04:54, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

"Not appropriate for Wikipedia"??

This banner has been in the article for about 18 months, but I see nothing "inappropriate for Wikipedia" in the article or, unless I'm missing something, any significant discussion here about what might be inappropriate. The article has problems that have been debated (such as whether the chapter by chapter summary is too detailed), but I fail to see anything "inappropriate". What exactly does "inappropriate" mean in this context, and is there really anything "inappropriate" in the article or does that term simply mean that an editor doesn't like some of Hitchens' ideas? 69.134.110.166 (talk) 21:50, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

It had nothing to do with the content of the book or Hitchens's ideas. The person who introduced the tag, Hipocrite, believed that summarizing each chapter in such great detail is not encyclopedic. Here is the edit that introduced that tag. While the entire edit summary is just "tag," two edits before, Hipocrite removed the summaries, saying that he "[removed] chapter by chapter retelling of the book. Go read it." That edit was reverted with a request to take it to this talk page. The section above, "Synopsis oversized," resulted. I don't think a good consensus was established, but a slight consensus to keep the detailed synopses appears to have been reached. I think the last comment there, from Mr0t1633, makes the most sense, but until someone comes along and fulfills his idea by cutting those summaries down a bit, the tag should stay. CityOfSilver 22:04, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I see your point, although this raises the question that the banner itself needs some changes. I think the word "inappropriate" with no additional explanation is weak. There needs to be a template similar to the one used for film plot summaries that are too long, or several templates that are more specific than "inappropriate". The way it is now, editors (and I doubt that I'm the only one) are left without a clue as to what problem is being noted, and therefore unable to make the appropriate changes that are needed. 69.134.110.166 (talk) 01:24, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I appreciate having an synopsis of the book chapter-by-chapter. --Javaweb (talk) 02:03, 17 December 2011 (UTC)Javaweb
(Adjusted indent on prior comment). Removed the tagging as it's not constructive. The article as it stands now is completely committed to the synoptic approach. If a rewrite is desired and somebody's willing to put the work into that's a different matter, otherwise it's pointless defacing of the article. I consider the synoptic articles on movies, books, etc. one of the greatest values of Wikipedia, in a lot of cases, I just enjoy the synoptic material at wiki and skip the original work. In this case I skip both. Lycurgus (talk) 15:20, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Present or past tense

Charles Darwin's seminal book, On the Origin of Species is in the past tense. Does Wikipedia have a consistent policy about books by diseased authors? If there isn't a policy there should be. Proxima Centauri (talk) 15:59, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

The paragraphs about the actual contents of Origin of Species seem to be in a mix of past and present tense, mostly dividing up with book contents in present tense, and wider context in past tense (to the point where the reader can distinguish the contexts "Darwin argues X" from "Darwin argued Y"; the first is talking about an argument made in the book, the second is talking about statements made outside of it).
I did look for an explicit policy document, but could only find WP:TENSE on the subject of fiction (which talks of works "coming alive" and always being in the present tense). Intuitively it feels as if the same applies here - otherwise every book (even if the author is still alive) should be in the past tense, because it would be wrong to say that "the author argues that X" when the argument had occurred in the past and the author was no longer in the process of writing the book. --McGeddon (talk) 16:17, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Further down Origin of Species is in present tense. Proxima Centauri (talk) 16:18, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Capital G?

I'm surprised no consensus was made on this decision... There is lots of discussion regarding Hitchen's deliberate use of lover case g for god. It was definitely NOT just a stylistic decision. As for how to handle the article, leave the page where it is and change the title, like Cevin Key and EBay. Vespine (talk) 03:45, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Here is the discussion, in case someone wants to refer back to it. --Javaweb (talk) 03:56, 13 March 2012 (UTC)Javaweb

Right, sorry, duh! Missed that section (right at the top). Well if so many people oppose the name change, perhaps it can be included in its own section? I think it's easily notable enough to warrant an explanation. Vespine (talk) 04:14, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
If Hitchens discusses the lower-casing of "god" in any of the chapters, then sure, no harm in including it. If he directly mentions it in relation to the title of his book, that would be fine as well. We should just avoid any making any synthetic leaps suggesting that Hitchens had direct input on the design of the US edition cover, or that he handed over the manuscript insisting it be titled "god Is Not Great", if that may not have been the case. --McGeddon (talk) 15:30, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Mr. Hitchens, in this British edition of his memoir, refers to its title:

  • Christopher Hitchens (2011). [[Hitch-22: A Memoir]]. Allen & Unwin. p. 9. ISBN 9781742376042. Salman Rushdie, commenting on my book God Is Not Great, remarked rather mordantly that the chief problem with its title was a lack of economy: that it was in other words exactly one word too long. {{cite book}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help) In the American edition, the same quote contains "god Is Not Great". See: http://books.google.com/books?id=g3x29UP5gnsC&printsec=frontcover and preview section "Yvonne". It is near the top of the page. I say, title the article as other articles refer to it (with "G") and mention what Hitchens named it(with "g"). --Javaweb (talk) 17:34, 13 March 2012 (UTC)Javaweb

It is a common (and sensible) convention in cataloguing, and in compiling reference lists, that capitalisation should NOT follow the title page or cover slavishly. Otherwise we'd be insisting on things like THE GOD DELUSION (look at the cover image in the WP article). And is someone about to tell us that the fact that word X is smaller or larger than word Y on the title page needs to be reflected in the way it is transcribed? By convention, book titles in English are rendered in italic, with significant words capitalised. So the correct way of transcribing the title here is God Is Not Great, or maybe God is Not Great. If the lowercase G is significant, it deserves a comment in the article, but not a breach of that convention. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 14:35, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

But that's precisely what makes the lower g notable, because it does breach the normal "convention". Anyway, whatever, I think a comment is an acceptable compromise, I can't be bothered at the moment. Vespine (talk) 21:37, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia can mention this kind of intentional break from convention, it just doesn't use it itself when writing about the subject. Wikipedia calls TIME magazine "Time" and it calls e e cummings "E. E. Cummings", in the same way any newspaper or academic text would, even though both subjects have expressed an explicit preference for the convention-breaking stylings. --McGeddon (talk) 21:56, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Except the manual of style disagrees with you: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters)#Items_that_require_initial_lower_case Wikipedia articles may use lower case variants of personal names if they have regular and established use in reliable third-party sources.. See cevin Key and k.d. lang. Admittedly, that does refer specifically to names of people, but that is one the example you tried to use. Vespine (talk) 03:10, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Ah, fair point, I hadn't seen that, I was just going to Cummings for what seemed like the most obvious example. It's not clear where book titles fall between this and MOS:TM, and I'm struggling to think of any examples where a book has used non-standard capitalisation or symbols in its name, for direct comparison. But on given sources, I don't think God Is Not Great's lower-case "g" would meet the "regular and established use in reliable third-party sources" needed for personal names. --McGeddon (talk) 09:34, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Very gracious reply. And i'll humbly admit to agreeing with your final point. A section mentioning the use of the lower case g seems like the most appropriate course of action then.. Vespine (talk) 01:56, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Hinduism

An IP address cut all mention of Hinduism this morning, arguing that "no 'hinduism' in whole book". I reverted it after a brief Amazon search. User:Occultzone has now cut the material again from the "There Is No 'Eastern' Solution" chapter synopsis, in favour of what he or she calls "actual and non-biased material". In questioning this, I was told that my belief that the book mentioned Hinduism thirteen times was "probably a myth" and linking to the searchable text on Amazon wasn't proof.

So far as I can see, "There Is No 'Eastern' Solution" mentions both Buddhism and Hinduism, and explicitly writes about Hitchens' visit to an ashram, a Hindu hermitage. (Hitchens does not seem to explicitly describe the ashram as Hindu, but so far as I understand it ashrams are exclusively Hindu places of worship.) --McGeddon (talk) 15:07, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Which amazon source you are telling about? When it can be simply searched in google books.[4] McGeddon, as you consider, the information that has been existed in this page was biased, i mean there's no source of that information, including the one that about the ashram story that can be found only in this page. Indeed, BBC has covered his trip to the ashram, but he somehow seems to be neutral about it, and the pune ashram made by the Jain, Osho, who's mentioned. Ashram is more like a resting place, not worship place, christian, jains etc have ashrams too. You have been active on this page, so you surely remember, as per the history of this page, that people actually used to discuss here about hitchens not writing about hinduism[5], as buddhism is off shoot of hinduism, and he mentions Indian related affairs so i care less about removing "hinduism" from leading paragraph, but the chapter fourteen is not pointing it anywhere. OccultZone (talk) 15:33, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
The ashram anecdote takes up several paragraphs in the chapter; I've added it back but dropped the "Hindu" prefix, since Hitchens does not appear to explicitly identify the place as Hindu. --McGeddon (talk) 13:55, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
McGeddon, whole chapter he doesn't add anywhere like "tibet and sri lanka" Your claim that "tibet" is mentioned 4 times in Chapter 14 is wrong, because it's not. Search yourself in the book[6]. OccultZone (talk) 08:56, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
Is that a deliberately oblique way of saying "it isn't mentioned four times, it is mentioned three times"?
  • "...it is idle and futile to imagine that a voyage to Tibet, say, will discover an entirely different harmony with nature or eternity..."
  • "...he makes the claim not just that Tibet should be independent of Chinese hegemony..."
  • "...the first foreign visitors to Tibet were downright appalled at the feudal domination, and hideous punishments..." --McGeddon (talk) 09:08, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
But hindu and buddhist feuds are limited with only sri lanka, as per the book. OccultZone (talk) 09:12, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Critical Reception

It should be noted that reviewers William J. Hamblin and Daniel C. Peterson are both Professors employed by the Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, which is owned and operated by the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Also the reviewer David Bentley Hart has written a book called "Atheist Delusions". These reviewers are therefore most certainly biased, which should be noted. Perhaps the section on "Critical Reception" should be divided into several sub-sections.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.177.254.20 (talk)

I reverted an edit that used the article text from the many biased sources rather than relying on actual professional critics which in general were actually rather positive on the book. Lipsquid (talk) 06:11, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Talk:God_Is_Not_Great/Archive_1&oldid=1136769096"