Skepticism rather than credulity is the highest principle that the human intellect can use to ennoble our existence. — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
Religion attacks us in our deepest integrity by saying we wouldn't be able to make a moral decision without it. — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
If I was told to sacrifice something to prove my devotion to God, if I was told to do what all monotheists… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human pre-history where nobody - not even the mighty Democritus who… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“Religion invents a problem where none exists by describing the wicked as also made in the image of god and the sexually… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“Nothing proves the man-made character of religion as obviously as the sick mind that designed hell, unless it is the sorely limited… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“The basis of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. In other words, religion is the self-consciousness and… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
Gullibility and credulity are considered undesireable qualities in every department of human life - except religion ... Why are we praised by… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“if he had said otherwise. To admit that a thermonuclear catastrophe would be the end of civilization and of the biosphere would… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
God did not create man in his own image. Evidently, it was quite the other way about, which is the painless explanation… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
It is a horrible idea that there is somebody who owns us, who makes us, who supervises us - waking and sleeping… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“You allege some considerations in favor of a Deity from the universality of a belief in his existence. The superstitions of the… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“All religions must, at their core, look forward to the end of this world and to the longed-for moment when all will… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“In other words, that the discussion about what is good, what is beautiful, what is noble, what is pure, and what is… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“When the Washington Post telephoned me at home on Valentine's Day 1989 to ask my opinion about the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwah ,… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“[Religious belief] is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“It is notorious that the news of the Emancipation Proclamation was kept from the people of Texas and not celebrated until 'Juneteenth'.… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“So this is where all the vapid talk about the 'soul' of the universe is actually headed. Once the hard-won principles of… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“We can always be sure of one thing—that the messengers of discomfort and sacrifice will be stoned and pelted by those who… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
I suppose that one reason I have always detested religion is its sly tendency to insinuate the idea that the universe is… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
This huge and terrible industry [the slave trade] was blessed by all churches and for a long time aroused absolutely no religious… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“the ministries of the Church are regarded by the masses merely as dignities, her offices as posts of emolument—in short, popular religion… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
There's been some research in cognitive science, I'm told, that discloses that there have always been perhaps 10 to 15 percent of… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
People are frightened of death, and the central lie of all religion is that there’s a cure for this and an exception… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
It's a curious thing in American life that the most abject nonsense will be excused if the utterer can claim the sanction… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“I have often wondered, that persons who make a boast of professing the Christian religion, namely, love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“In The Future of an Illusion, Freud made the obvious point that religion suffered from one incurable deficiency: it was too clearly… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
I think it was David Hume who put it slightly vulgarly, this was again about the virgin birth I think. Which is… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
If I could do just one thing, it would be to dissociate faith from virtue, now and for good, and to expose… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
What they [the 9/11 attackers] abominate about 'the west', to put it in a phrase, is not what western liberals don't like… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“One of the very many connections between religious belief an the sinister, spoiled, selfish childhood of our species is the repressed desire… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
I'm not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
Religion of every kind involves the promise that the misery and futility of existence can be overcome or even transfigured. One might… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“Our most holy religion is founded on faith, not on reason; and it is a sure method of exposing it to put… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
[Religion] attacks us in our deepest integrity - the core of our self-respect. Religion says that we would not know right from… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“I regard anti-Semitism as ineradicable and as one element of the toxin with which religion has infected us. Perhaps partly for this… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“I am not one of those who believes—as Obama is said to believe—that a solution to the Palestinian statehood question would bring… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“So I close this long reflection on what I hope is a not-too-quaveringly semi-Semitic note. When I am at home, I will… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share Image
“The spirit of our accurate and exact philosophy is outraged by conclusions that contradict each other so glaringly.” — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
“Many governments employ torture but this was the first time that the element of Saturnalia and pornography in the process had been made so… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
It's [Los Angeles] mostly full of nonsense and delusion and egomania. They think they'll be young and beautiful forever, even though most of them… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
To be against rationalization is not the same as to be opposed to reasoning. — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
[Religion] attacks us in our deepest integrity - the core of our self-respect. Religion says that we would not know right from wrong, we… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
“In the very recent past, we have seen the Church of Rome befouled by its complicity with the unpardonable sin of child rape, or,… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
It's surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends. — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
Suppose there were groups of secularists at hospitals who went round the terminally ill and urged them to adopt atheism: 'Don't be a mug… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
There are, after all, atheists who say they wish the fable were true but are unable to suspend the requisite disbelief, or who have… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
“It isn’t so long since a test of Anglican orthodoxy was applied to anyone seeking to study or teach at Oxford and Cambridge universities.… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
Gullibility and credulity are considered undesireable qualities in every department of human life - except religion ... Why are we praised by godly men… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
It's true that obscenity is a matter of taste and in the eye of the beholder. — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
Writing is what's important to me, and anything that helps me do that - or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument… — Christopher Hitchens Copy Share
![“[Religious belief] is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who can subject you - who must, indeed, subject you - to total surveillance…” quote by Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/d02/christopher-hitchens-117_dead-man_religious-belief-is-a-totalitarian-belie_2768846.jpg)
![“This huge and terrible industry [the slave trade] was blessed by all churches and for a long time aroused absolutely no religious protest. . . . In the eighteenth century, a few dissenting Mennonites and Quakers in America began to call for abolition, as did some freethinkers like Thomas Paine.” quote by Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/3b5/christopher-hitchens-117_abolition_this-huge-and-terrible-industry-the-slav_2271791.jpg)
![“What they [the 9/11 attackers] abominate about 'the west', to put it in a phrase, is not what western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state.” quote by Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/c3e/christopher-hitchens-117_inquiry_what-they-the-9-11-attackers-abominate-a_2508594.jpg)
![“[Religion] attacks us in our deepest integrity - the core of our self-respect. Religion says that we would not know right from wrong, we would not know an evil, wicked act from a decent human act without divine permission, without divine authority or without, even worse, either the fear of a…” quote by Christopher Hitchens](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/ab6/christopher-hitchens-117_action_religion-attacks-us-in-our-deepest-integ_23299.jpg)
