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“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
#Jesus #Father #Teaching
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“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
#Strong #Would Be #Alive
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“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
#Religious #Children #Age
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“One can't live without fear, it's a question of what is your attitude towards fear? I'm afraid of a sordid death. I'm afraid that I will die in an ugly or squalid way, and cancer can be very vigorous in that respect.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Attitude #Cancer #Ugly
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“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
#Religious #Atheist #Church
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“If people I've never met or don't know say that what I've written or done or said means anything to them, then I'm happy to take it at face value, for once. It cheers me up.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Cheer #Mean #People
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“High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Character #Accomplishment #Moral
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“I'd like to prove to other people that it's not the end of everything to be diagnosed with cancer.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Cancer #People #Ends
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“Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Uplifting #Strong #Atheist
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“I have a strong constitution which has served me quite well, though if I hadn't had such a strong one I might have led a more healthy life perhaps.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Strong #Healthy #Might
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“What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Racism #Stupidity #Superstitions
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“If you've led a rather bohemian and rackety life, as I have, it's precisely the cancer that you'd expect to get. That's a bit of a yawn.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Cancer #Bohemian
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“Human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Animal #Patterns #Conspiracy
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“The thing about religion is that it's the first and the worst. The worst because it's the first.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Firsts #Worst
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“Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. 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. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Courage #Selfish #Science
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“Religion makes intelligent people say and do wacky things, believe and affirm crazy things.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Crazy #Believe #Intelligent
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“A virgin can conceive. A dead body can walk again. Your leprosy can be cured. The blind can see. Nonsense. It’s not moral to lie to children. It’s not moral to lie to ignorant, uneducated people and tell them that if they only would believe nonsense, they can be saved. It’s immoral.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Children #Lying #Believe
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“If asked my opinion about virginity, I would say, "I'm opposed to it." I don't think it deserves to be celebrated, at any rate. Or at least, if I'm not opposed, I'm very highly skeptical and critical of it.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Thinking #Opinion #Rate
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“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
#Real #Iran #Iraq
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“I'm not very impressed by people who yell "traitor" and "communist" and other less printable things. I don't like it.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#People #Communist #Traitor
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“I would say that if you don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you're really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Christian #Meaningful #Jesus
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“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Atheist #Religion #Atheism
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“It's a curious thing in American life that the most abject nonsense will be excused if the utterer can claim the sanction of religion. A country which forbids an established church by law is prey to any denomination. The best that can be said is that this is pluralism of a kind.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Country #Atheist #Law
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“As the cleansing ocean closes over bin Laden's carcass, may the earth lie lightly on the countless graves of those he sentenced without compunction to be burned alive or dismembered in the street.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Lying #Ocean #Alive
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“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
#Silence #Stupidity #Sake
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“MT [Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Mother #Empowerment #Suffering
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“The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that 'if English was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for me.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Jesus #Texas #Taught
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“I suppose that one reason I have always detested religion is its sly tendency to insinuate the idea that the universe is designed with 'you' in mind or, even worse, that there is a divine plan into which one fits whether one knows it or not. This kind of modesty is too arrogant for me.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Atheist #Ideas #Mind
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“How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape.”
-- Christopher Hitchens
#Country #Atheist #Atheism
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“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
#Real #Party #Thinking
