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

Form Stupidity Superstition Yourself
I’m not afraid of being dead, that’s to say there’s nothing to be afraid of. I won’t know I’m dead, would be my strong conviction. And if I find that I’m alive in any way at all, that’ll be a pleasant surprise. I quite like surprises.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Afraid Death Myself Quite Strong
It’s called faith because it’s not knowledge.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Faith Knowledge Wisdom
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
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
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
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
No one has the right to tell me what to do because he has a divine warrant.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

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

Important Microscope Offering Thankful
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.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Acceptance Divine Father Himself Record Truth
I burned the candle at both ends and it often gave a lovely light.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Burn Candle End Light Love Myself
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
I’m not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Atheist Harmful Hold Maintain Myself Positive Religion Truth
The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Politics Religious Secularism Simplicity Truth
Well, to the people who pray for me to not only have an agonising death, but then be reborn to have an agonising and horrible eternal life of torture, I say, ‘Well, good on you. See you there.’
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Death People Prayer See Yourself
The finest fury is the most controlled.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Angry Control Fine
I am absolutely convinced that religion is the main source of hatred in this world.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Hate Myself Religion World
I’m not particularly a feminist, but if you get women off the animal cycle of reproduction and give them some say in how many children they’ll have, immediately the floor will rise.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Children Feminism Reproduction Rise Woman
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
Skepticism rather than credulity is the highest principle that the human intellect can use to ennoble our existence.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Existence High Principle
The search for Nirvana, like the search for Utopia or the end of history or the classless society, is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Anxiety Dangerous End Escape History Search Society
I have always found it quaint and rather touching that there is a movement [Libertarians] in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Enough Myself Selfish Thinking Touch
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.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Islam Murder Radical Reaction World
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
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
Who are your favourite heroines in real life? The women of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran who risk their lives and their beauty to defy the foulness of theocracy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi as their ideal feminine model.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Ideal Life Live Modeling Reality Risk Woman

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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