Rex Dixon > Rex's Quotes

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#1

“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.”
― Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel

tags: atheism, death, inspirational, life

751 likes

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#2

“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.”
― Christopher Hitchens, The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

tags: affection, atheism, cats, dogs, food, god, pets, religion, shelter, water

3371 likes

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#3

“Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay.”
― Christopher Hitchens

tags: books, christopher-hitchens, humour, literature, writing

1187 likes

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#4

“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, Letters to a Young Contrarian

tags: rational-thought, science

1072 likes

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#5

“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

tags: atheism, humanism

1077 likes

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#6

“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

tags: birth-control, empowerment-of-women, mother-teresa, poverty, poverty-alleviation

474 likes

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#7

“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

tags: dumb, english, translations

347 likes

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#8

“[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

526 likes

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#9

“Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely soley upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

394 likes

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#10

“What do you most value in your friends?
Their continued existence.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

tags: death, friends, friendship, life, proust-questionnaire, rushdie

600 likes

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#11

“To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world?”
― Christopher Hitchens

tags: atheism, child-abuse, children, feminism, hell, religion, religion-and-children, rhetorical-questions, sexism, women, women-and-religion

1511 likes

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#12

“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. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would like to think—though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one—that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

262 likes

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#13

“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

tags: evidence, skepticism

393 likes

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#14

“Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and—since there is no other metaphor—also the soul.”
― Christopher Hitchens

157 likes

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#15

“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, Hitch 22: A Memoir

tags: antitheism, arrogance, atheism, modesty, religion, solipsism

465 likes

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#16

“What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

tags: atheism, dislikes, racism, religion, scepticism, stupidity, superstition

719 likes

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#17

“Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

294 likes

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#18

“What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.”
― Christopher Hitchens

67 likes

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#19

“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.”
― Christopher Hitchens

tags: atheism, cruelty, ethics, ethics-in-religion, morality, morality-without-religion, religion, selfishness, stupidity

760 likes

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#20

“Who are your favorite 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, Hitch 22: A Memoir

tags: afghanistan, ayaan-hirsi-ali, azar-nafisi, feminism, heroes, heroines, iran, iraq, islam, religion, role-models, taliban-treatment-of-women, theocracy, women, women-and-religion, women-in-afghanistan, women-in-iran, women-in-iraq, women-in-islam, women-s-rights-in-iran, women-s-rights-movement-in-iran

192 likes

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#21

“If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox.”
― Christopher Hitchens

tags: death, religion

111 likes

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death
inspirational
life
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