Religion is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn’t there. Atheism is being in a dark room and not looking for a black cat because there isn’t one.
The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.
I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.
It’s not enough to be compassionate. You must act.
The burden of proof is not on the atheist to disprove the existence of God, but on the believer to prove it.
I’m a connoisseur of truth, not a carnival barker of bullshit.
The essence of tyranny is not iron law; it is capricious law.
The four most over-rated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex, and picnics.
One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on.
I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves.
Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.
I’m well aware that religion is not the enemy of morality; it is morality’s obnoxious self-proclaimed monopoly.
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Christopher Hitchens Quotes part 2
The religious punishment may be less cruel in that it insists on burning the heretic to death before it is too late, whereas the secular judgment is more cruel because it incarcerates the heretic while it is still possible to change his mind.
The danger of religious faith is that it allows and even encourages people to do things on the basis of their presumed certainty about the world that they would not otherwise do.
I think all the great religions of the world – Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Communism – both untrue and harmful.
Religious faith is, precisely because we are still-evolving creatures, ineradicable. It will never die out, or at least not until we get over our fear of death, and of the dark, and of the unknown, and of each other.
Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself.
We have, in this country, for far too long allowed the ‘religious’ to think that they may act with impunity, as though they held the greater good in their own appointment books.
Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.
The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.
I do tangent a bit to get a laugh or because something strikes me as funny, but truth and accuracy are the mattress and pillow of a journalist, and I’ve fluffed them up and made the floor them since day one.
Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.
I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.
The most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
You have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.
Parents, and especially fathers, like to think that they can shape their children. In fact, children reshape their parents.
I try to deny myself any illusions or delusions, and I think that this perhaps entitles me to try and deny the same to others, at least as long as they refuse to keep their fantasies to themselves.
I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.
We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.
God exists if only in the minds of men.
Being a writer is what I am, rather than a profession that I go to each morning.
Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.
I’m a connoisseur of truth, not a carnival barker of bullshit.
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.
The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre.
Heresies are experiments in man’s unsatisfied search for truth.
Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.
We are not immune to the lure of wonder and mystery and awe: we have music and art and literature, and find that the serious ethical dilemmas are better handled by Shakespeare and Tolstoy and Schiller and Dostoyevsky and George Eliot than in the mythical morality tales of the holy books.
The essence of tyranny is not iron law; it is capricious law.
The people who must never have power are the humorless. To impossible certainties of rectitude they ally tedium and uniformity.
Beauty should be a criterion for morality, because it shows that creation is superfluous and essential at the same time.
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