One of my favorite Hitchen's moments:
Moderator: "Part of what we are talking about tonight is providing
common ground for our public deliberations.
And how can your perspective... "
Hitchen: "Now
let's not over do that"
Moderator: "Right, that's right. Let's be tasteful. Yeah. How
can your perspective provide that common ground if dismisses a large majority
of the population as irrational as stuck in what you call, in your book, 'the
infancy of our race'. I mean, doesn't
that any remove a room or incentive to try to reason together?"
Hitchen: "Not at all. I
mean, religion is a private matter in my opinion. I phrase it like this in my book, I just say
if you think that there is a creator who has made you especially, and who
watches over you and supervises you, who cares about you, wants you to do well
and even wants you to survive death, I have to say, I think it's a preposterous
proposition because I have to be honest.
And irrational one, a fatuous one and a sinister one, because the idea
of want a father who never dies and won’t quit is infantilizing. But suppose you did think that, shouldn't it
make you happy? It doesn't make them happy. It doesn't make them better at
all. They won't be happy until I believe
it too. So the first principle is, let's separate that. Keep it to yourselves. Go to any church you like. Build any church you want. Do it with your own money. Don't ask the government to teach this stuff
to my children in a government school.
We won't have that."
“I don’t when I offended by filthy articles I read about
atheists and Jews and secularists, I have bombardments of this stuff all the
time, I don’t go out and burn down the nearest mosque because I’ve been
offended, do I? Don’t be ridiculous. But
I’m supposed to respect those who do such thing. I’m supposed to treat them with an extract
delicacy. Why should I be doing
that? Who’s the offended one here
really? I’m not going to make a big
point about my feelings being hurt. I
have a thick skin. I have a broad
back. I’ve studied Socrates and the Socratic
Method is more convincing, but you act as if I’m the one who is offending them
by saying I find your beliefs rather unconvincing. And in any case, I’m not going to have them
forced on me. Now is that finally
clear? IS IT? I hope so.
Good.
