Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011)
English-American, Literary Critic, Journalist, Author,
Essayist, Polemicist, and Outspoken Anti-theist
The gods we have made are exactly the gods you would expect to be made from a species about a half a chromosome away from being chimpanzee.
The divide in our society is not between rich and poor, or Catholic and Protestant, or Christian and Muslim, but between those have faith and those who have reason. . . Those who accept the idea of god tend to divide the world into believers and atheists. Yet that is incorrect. Atheist means “without god” and one cannot be without something that does not exist. . . But a more reasonable and neutral description of the two world views would be theists and rationalists (or humanists, take your pick). . . his hubris and conceit of human superiority as the only creature close to god is not benign, leading to catastrophic consequences for humanity. The species-centric arrogance of religion cultivates a dangerous attitude about our relationship with the environment and the resources that sustain us. Humanists tend to view sustainability as a moral imperative while theists often view environmental concerns as liberal interference with god’s will.
Fascism and the Catholic Church
RD The people who did Hitler’s dirty work were almost all religious.
CH I’m afraid the SS’s relationship with the Catholic Church is something the Church still has to deal with and does not deny.
RD Can you talk a bit about that – the relationship of Nazism with the Catholic Church?
CH The way I put it is this: if you’re writing about the history of the 1930s and the rise of totalitarianism, you can take out the word “fascist,” if you want, for Italy, Portugal, Spain, Czechoslovakia and Austria and replace it with “extreme-right Catholic party.”
Almost all of those regimes were in place with the help of the Vatican and with understandings from the Holy See. It’s not denied. These understandings quite often persisted after the Second World War was over and extended to comparable regimes in Argentina and elsewhere.
In this context, fundamental Christians are those that believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God. Fundamentalists (“fundies”) include the Pentecostals and Southern Baptists. Anyone else who does not take a literal interpretation is not a ‘true’ christian.
It’s disheartening, really. Pathetic, even, that a vast majority of United States citizens are blinded to how advanced we could be in the sciences, medicine, economic growth and foreign policy if religion were completely eradicated from government in all forms. . . Our children are dumbed-down by stubborn uber-religious teachers and administrators in our public schools who insist on “teaching the controversy” (read: lying to our kids)[. . .] The United States Government has no business invoking any god, gods, goddesses or anything else even remotely connected to religious belief. Our government is not in place to placate anyone’s religious beliefs, period. There should be no references to the religious beliefs of our politicians.
Paul Zachary “PZ” Myers (born March 9, 1957)
Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Minnesota Morris, Author of the Pharyngula Freethought Blog, Public Critic of Intelligent Design, and Outspoken Atheist
It seems to be an obligatory opinion of people who believe in mockable and ridiculous things that they will oppose mockery and ridicule. I’m afraid there is no magical exemption — there isn’t a set of stupid beliefs that you get to set on a pedestal and declare that no one can call them stupid.
Check out this video of an octopus literally crawling out of the water and dragging itself across dry land in pursuit of a meal. A family with a camera was lucky enough to be on the scene and captured the whole thing on video:
Always Question Authority 