I’m a member of no party. I have no ideology. I’m a rationalist. I do what I can in the international struggle between science and reason and the barbarism, superstition and stupidity that’s all around us.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENSReligion makes kind people say unkind things: “I must prove my faith, so mutilate the genitals of my children.” They wouldn’t do that if God didn’t tell them to do so.
More Christopher Hitchens Quotes
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I am absolutely convinced that religion is the main source of hatred in this world.
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
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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.
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Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.
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Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.
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The noble title of “dissident” must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement.
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Mockery of religion is one of the most essential things… one of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority.
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Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.
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Philosophy begins where religion ends, just as by analogy chemistry begins where alchemy runs out, and astronomy takes the place of astrology.
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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.
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My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can’t prove it, but you can’t disprove it either.
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I sympathize afresh with the mighty Voltaire who, when badgered on his deathbed and urged to renounce the devil, murmured that this was no time to be making enemies.
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Those who want to be offended don’t have the right to try and close down the newspaper that offends them.
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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.
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Even if I accepted that Jesus – like almost every other prophet on record – was born of a virgin, I cannot think that this proves the divinity of his father or the truth of his teachings. The same would be true if I accepted that he had been resurrected.
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The man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct god how to put them right.
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I learned that to be amusing was not to be frivolous and that language – always the language – was the magic key as much to prose as to poetry.
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Ever since I discovered that my god given male member was going to give me no peace, I decided to give it no rest in return.
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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.
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I have no time to waste on this planet being told what to do by those who think that God has given them instructions.
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It’s called faith because it’s not knowledge.
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Today I want to puke when I hear the word ‘radical’ applied so slothfully and stupidly to Islamist murderers; the most plainly reactionary people in the world.
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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.
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To ‘choose’ dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.
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Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.
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What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS