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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

What do you most value in your friends? Their continued existence.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Existence Friendship Value Yourself
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
We live only a few conscious decades, and we fret ourselves enough for several lifetimes.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Enough Life Live Time
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
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
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.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Discover God Myself Peace Return
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
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
It is only those who hope to transform human beings who end up by burning them, like the waste product of a failed experiment.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Experiment Failure Hope Production Transformation
Your favorite virtue? An appreciation for irony.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Appreciation Favorite Irony Virtue
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
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
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
Skepticism rather than credulity is the highest principle that the human intellect can use to ennoble our existence.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Existence High Principle
No one has the right to tell me what to do because he has a divine warrant.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Divine Himself Oneself Right
Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of ‘the flock.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Image Pathetic Religion

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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