The Four Horsemen: The Discussion that Sparked an Atheist Revolution

by Christopher Hitchens

But I think there’s a place for the sacred in our lives, but under some construal that doesn’t presuppose any bullshit. I think there’s a usefulness to seeking profundity as a matter of our attention.

There is a difference between using your attention wisely, in a meaningful way, and perpetual distraction. And traditionally only religion has tried to enunciate that difference. And I think that’s a lapse in our—

But you’re sure you want to see the churches empty? You can’t imagine a variety of churches, maybe by their lights an extremely denatured church: a church which has rituals and loyalty and purpose and music, and they sing the songs and they do the rituals, but where the irrationality has simply been laundered out.

HITCHENS: Because of the surrender of the mind. The eagerness to discard the only thing we’ve got that makes us higher primates: the faculty of reason. That’s always deadly.

HITCHENS: Well, that’s why I think the moment where everything went wrong is the moment when the Jewish Hellenists were defeated by the Jewish Messianists – the celebration now benignly known as Hanukkah. That’s where the human race took its worst turn. A few people re-established the animal sacrifices, the circumcision and the cult of Yahweh over Hellenism and philosophy. And Christianity’s a plagiarism of that. Christianity would never have happened if that hadn’t happened and nor would Islam. I have no doubt there would have been other crazed cults and so forth, but there might have been a chance to not destroy Hellenistic civilization. HARRIS: You’d still have the Dalai Lama to worry about.