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If the Qur’an was the word of God, it had been dictated on a very bad day.

Christopher Hitchens

Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Decent Human Religion
There’s been some research in cognitive science, I’m told, that discloses that there have always been perhaps 10 to 15 percent of people who are, as Pascal puts it, so made that they cannot believe. To us, when people talk about faith, it’s white noise.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Faith Noise People Research Science White
To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation – is that good for the world?
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Children Creation Goodness Hell Image Woman
If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Allow Children Different Quite Reason Religious World
There is no such thing as closure, and it wouldn’t be worth having if it were available, because all it would mean is that something that was quite an important part of you had gone numb.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Available Important Quite Worth Yourself
What do you most value in your friends? Their continued existence.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Existence Friendship Value Yourself
One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human pre-history where nobody – not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms – had the smallest idea what was going on.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

History Oneself Religion Small
High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Accomplishment Character Condition Moral
Some people say that without God, people would give themselves permission to do anything. [Yet] only with God, only with the view that God’s on your side, can people give themselves permission to do things that otherwise would be called satanic.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Devil God People Permission Side View
The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Mindset People Rejection Thinking Time
Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Happiness Risk Thinking Truth Way Yourself
Islamophobia: a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Coward Creation Religion Word
Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Agreement Man Religion Talk
I burned the candle at both ends and it often gave a lovely light.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Burn Candle End Light Love Myself
To ‘choose’ dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Experience Faith Reach Yourself
We have lived in a world where the discoveries of physics and genetics are far more awe-inspiring, as well as infinitely more liberating, than the claims of any religion.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Discover Inspirational Live Religion World
Mockery of religion is one of the most essential things… one of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Ability Authority Essential Oneself Religion
The gods that we’ve made are exactly the gods you’d expect to be made by a species that’s about half a chromosome away from being chimpanzee.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Expectation God Species
Those who want to be offended don’t have the right to try and close down the newspaper that offends them.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Offend Right
Thanks to the telescope and the microscope, religion no longer offers an explanation for anything important.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Important Microscope Offering Thankful
The violence in the Bible is appalling.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

One Liner Religion Violence
I say that homosexuality is not just a form of sex, it’s a form of love, and it deserves our respect for that reason.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Form Love Myself Reason Respect Sex Sexuality
I leave it to the faithful to burn each other’s churches and mosques and synagogues, which they can be always relied upon to do.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Each Other Faith Leaving Myself
The one thing that the racist can never manage is anything like discrimination: he is indiscriminate by definition.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Definition Management Oneself Race
Arguments that explain everything explain nothing.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Argument Explanation
The Koran shows every sign of being thrown together by human beings, as do all the other holy books.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Book Holy Human Togetherness
The faithful believe that certain truths have been ‘revealed.’ The skeptics and secularists believe that truth is only to be sought by free inquiry and trial and error. Only one of those positions is dogmatic.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Believe Faith Freedom Oneself Position Reveal Truth

If the Qur’an was the word of God, it had been dictated on a very bad day.

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If the Qur’an was the word of God, it had been dictated on a very bad day.

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