The very concept of the Judeo-Christian god encapsulates thoughtcrime. He is, as Christopher Hitchens so memorably phrased it, “an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thoughtcrime while you are asleep, who can subject you—who must, indeed, subject you—to a total surveillance around the clock every waking and sleeping minute of your life…before you’re born and, even worse and where the real fun begins, after you’re dead. A celestial North Korea. Who wants this to be true? Who but a slave desires such a ghastly fate?”43
