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In the ordinary moral universe, the good will do the best they can, the worst will do the worst they can, but if you want to make good people do wicked things, you’ll need religion.

Christopher Hitchens

Philosophy begins where religion ends, just as by analogy chemistry begins where alchemy runs out, and astronomy takes the place of astrology.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Astronomy End Philosophy Place Religion
Endless praise and adoration, limitless abnegation and abjection of self; a celestial North Korea.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

End Limitation Praise
Arguments that explain everything explain nothing.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Argument Explanation
Take the risk of thinking for yourself.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Risk Self Love Thinking Yourself
Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Evidence Faith Give Up Ourselves Poison Reason Religion Respect
Terrorism is the tactic of demanding the impossible, and demanding it at gunpoint.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Demand Impossible Terrorism
The true essence of a dictatorship is in fact not its regularity but its unpredictability and caprice; those who live under it must never be able to relax, must never be quite sure if they have followed the rules correctly or not.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Correct Essence Quite Rule True
Jesus makes large claims for his heavenly father but never mentions that his mother is or was a virgin, and is repeatedly very rude and coarse to her when she makes an appearance.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Appearance Father Heaven Herself Repeat
I burned the candle at both ends and it often gave a lovely light.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Burn Candle End Light Love Myself
No school of philosophy has ever solved this question of whether being determines consciousness or the other way around. It may be a false antithesis.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Around Conscious Fake Philosophy Question Way
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
Religion is not the belief there is a god. Religion is the belief god tells you what to do.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Belief God Religion Yourself
The finest fury is the most controlled.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

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

Decent Human Religion
One of the most repellent spectacles at election times is the pretense of piety on the part of people running for office.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Election Oneself People Run Time

In the ordinary moral universe, the good will do the best they can, the worst will do the worst they can, but if you want to make good people do wicked things, you’ll need religion.

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In the ordinary moral universe, the good will do the best they can, the worst will do the worst they can, but if you want to make good people do wicked things, you’ll need religion.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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