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Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens Quotes

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Famous Christopher Hitchens Quotes

“Though it is true we are the highest and smartest animals, ospreys have eyes we have calculated to be sixty times more powerful and sophisticated than our own and that blindness, often caused by microscopic parasites that are themselves miracles of ingenuity, is one of the oldest and most tragic disorders known to man. And why award the superior eye (or in the case of cat or bat, also the ear) to the inferior species.”

MenEyeReligionAnimalPowerfulKnownCasesHighestCatEarsMiracleSpeciesSuperiorsTragicAwardsDisorderSixtySophisticatedInferiorsBatsBlindnessIngenuityParasitesOspreys
Book:Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume
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“It is a horrible idea that there is somebody who owns us, who makes us, who supervises us - waking and sleeping - who knows our thoughts, who can convict us of thought crime, thought crime, just for what we think, who can judge us while we sleep for things that might occur to us in our dreams, who can create us sick, as apparently we are - and then order us, on pain of eternal torture to be well again. To demand this, to wish this to be true is to wish to live as an abject slave.”

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Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody - not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms - had the smallest idea of what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge. Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion.”

KnowsHumansChildrenMadeIdeasMatterTodayReligionOrderNaturalPeriodsDemandSpeciesEducatedMy ChildrenAtomsFearfulSmallestFoundersInfancyNatural OrderGod Is Not GreatPrehistorySubtle AtheistInfancy Is
Book:Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume
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“The museums of medieval Europe, from Holland to Tuscany, are crammed with instruments and devices upon which the holy men labored devoutly, in order to see how long they could keep someone alive while being roasted. It is not needful to go into further details, but there were also religious books of instruction in this art, and guides for the detection of heresy by pain.”

MenLongArtBookPainReligionOrderReligiousAliveHolyEuropeInstrumentsDetailsGuidesDevicesMuseumsInstructionMedievalHeresyHollandDetectionHoly ManTuscanyReligious BooksMedieval Europe
Book:Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume
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“The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.”

ThinkingWantFeelsMotivationalEarthPainJoyCertainReligionSongHellMysterySadnessAtheismLonelinessPositionAnd LoveAtheistGet UpParadiseMortalityDreadCreedsInsecureLeaving MeThere Is No GodCognitiveSirensTheistDissonanceThere Being No GodCognitive DissonanceSubtle AtheistSiren Song
Book:The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
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“The pre-history of our species is hag-ridden with episodes of nightmarish ignorance and calamity, for which religion used to identify, not just the wrong explanation, but the wrong culprit. Human sacrifices were made preeminently in times of epidemics, useless prayers were uttered, bogus miracles attested to, and scapegoats - such as Jews or heretics or witches - hunted down and burned.”

HumansMadeUsedReligionPrayerSacrificeIgnoranceMiracleDown AndSpeciesJewUselessExplanationWitchEpisodesBurnedCalamityEpidemicsHereticHuntedScapegoatCulprit
Book:The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
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“We are unlikely to cease making gods or inventing ceremonies to please them for as long as we are afraid of death, or of the dark, and for as long as we ­persist in self-­centeredness. That could be a lengthy stretch of time.”

LongSelfReligionDarkPleaseCeasePersistCeremonyUnlikelyInventingAfraid Of DeathSelf CenterednessLengthyCenteredness
Book:The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
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“Mockery of religion is one of the most essential things because to demystify supposedly 'holy text dictated by god' and show that they are man made and what you have to show [is] there internal inconsistencies and absurdities. One of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority... it is an indispensable thing people can call it blasphemy if they like, but if they call it that they have to assume there is something to be blasphemed - some divine work, well I don't accept the premise.”

PeopleIfsMenHumansWellsMadeShowsAbilityAcceptingLaughingDivineHolyEssentialsAuthorityAssumingAtheistInternalsAbsurdityIndispensablePremisesMockeryEmancipationBlasphemyInconsistency
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“Islam in its origins is just as shady and approximate as those from which it took its borrowings. It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or "surrender" as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing-absolutely nothing-in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”

TeachingDemandClaimsIslamSurrenderArroganceJustifyImmenseSubmissionMaximsBargainsAbsolutely NothingBorrowingPresumptionInvokeShadyDeference
Book:Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume
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“The teachings of Christianity - from vicarious redemption to the love of enemies, no thought for the morrow need be taken, that no thrift or care or family or society or solidarity is necessary - these are immoral teachings that have done and continue to inflict untold moral and physical harm on our species. And until we outgrow this nonsense, we have no chance of emancipating ourselves.”

NeedsDoneCareReligionChanceMoralChristianityEnemyTakenAtheismTeachingSpeciesHarmRedemptionNonsenseSolidarityImmoralMorrowThriftVicarious
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“[Religion] attacks us in our deepest integrity - the core of our self-respect. Religion says that we would not know right from wrong, we would not know an evil, wicked act from a decent human act without divine permission, without divine authority or without, even worse, either the fear of a divine punishment or the hope of a divine reward. It strips us of the right to make our own determination, as all humans always have, about what is and what is not a right human action.”

KnowsHumansSelfActionReligionEvilAtheismDivineIntegrityAuthorityDeterminationRewardsCorePunishmentDecentWickedSelf RespectPermissionHuman Actions
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“In our native terms, the ironic style is often compounded with the sardonic and the hard-boiled; even the effortlessly superior. But irony originates in the glance and the shrug of the loser, the outsider, the despised minority. It is a nuance that comes most effortlessly to the oppressed.”

HardTermStyleSuperiorsIronyNativeSunsetMinoritiesLoserIronicOutsidersOppressedGlancesDespisedNuanceSardonic
Book:Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere
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“Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would think-though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one-that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.”

ThinkingKnowsHumansChildrenSeemsTodayReligionOrderNaturalHellConnectionsFellowsEducatedMy ChildrenFoundersNatural OrderGod Is Not GreatUninterestedSubtle Atheist
Book:Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume
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“Religion has run out of justifications. Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, it no longer offers an explanation of anything important. Where once it used to able, by its total command of a worldview, to prevent the emergence of rivals, it can now only impede and retard-or try to turn back-the measureable advances that we have made.”

TryingMadeImportantRunningAbleScienceUsedTurnsOffersEvidenceImportanceCommandThanksExplanationJustificationRivalsWorldviewEmergenceTelescopesMicroscopesRetardGod Is Not Great
Book:Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume
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“Islam makes very large claims for itself. In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the prophet - who was only another male mammal - is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent.”

IfsHumansWellsArtFormOffersClaimsPrejudiceAbsolutesDancingIslamMalesAlcoholProofProphetWarningAggressiveRepresentingProhibitionPorkMammalsHuman Form
Author:Christopher Hitchens
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