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The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths.

Christopher Hitchens

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
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
If you think that American imperialism and its globalised, capitalist form is the most dangerous thing in the world, that means you don’t think the Islamic Republic of Iran or North Korea or the Taliban is as bad.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Bad Capital Dangerous Global Thinking Yourself
High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Accomplishment Character Condition Moral
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
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
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
If the Qur’an was the word of God, it had been dictated on a very bad day.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Bad Day God Word
I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Congratulation Learning Mindset Myself Open Tolerance
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Evidence Information
How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Country Day Escape Present
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 noble title of “dissident” must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Disagreement Risk Sacrifice Title
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
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 person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Certain Divine Infant Ourselves Person
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
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.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Argument Fair Grave Seek Silence Stupidity
The one thing that the racist can never manage is anything like discrimination: he is indiscriminate by definition.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Definition Management Oneself Race
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
It’s called faith because it’s not knowledge.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Faith Knowledge Wisdom
Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of ‘the flock.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Image Pathetic Religion
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
What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Form Stupidity Superstition Yourself
Those who are determined to be ‘offended’ will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Determination Enough Fantasy Mad Offend Possible
So there’s nothing more vulgar than the sound of someone saying, God Bless America, someone who doesn’t really believe it, but he thinks it will make him look good to other people. I think it’s the most nauseating spectacle.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Appearance Believe Myself Sound Talk Thinking
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

The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths.

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The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths.

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