Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way โ because itโs had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But youโve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
Christopher HitchensThe easiest way to establish a dictatorship is to claim you are God's representative on earth.
Christopher HitchensThe fragility of love is what is most at stake hereโhumanity's most crucial three-word avowal is often uttered only to find itself suddenly embarrassing or orphaned or isolated or ill-timedโbut strangely enough it can work better as a literal or reassuring statement than a transcendent or numinous or ecstatic one.
Christopher HitchensShe's got no charisma of any kind [but] I can imagine her being mildly useful to a low-rank porn director.
Christopher HitchensWe know of no spectacle more ridiculousโor more contemptibleโthan that of the religious reactionaries who dare to re-write the history of our republic. Or who try to do so. Is it possible that, in their vanity and stupidity, they suppose that they can erase the name of Thomas Jefferson and replace it with the name of some faith-based mediocrity whose name is already obscure? If so, we cheerfully resolve to mock them, and to give them the lie in their teeth.
Christopher Hitchens