127 books
—
105 voters
Christopher Hitchens Books
Showing 1-50 of 251

by (shelved 47 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.96 — 111,567 ratings — published 2007

by (shelved 33 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.12 — 29,207 ratings — published 2012

by (shelved 31 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.02 — 22,331 ratings — published 2010

by (shelved 28 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.20 — 9,871 ratings — published 2011

by (shelved 23 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.06 — 11,641 ratings — published 1995

by (shelved 21 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.13 — 12,710 ratings — published 2001

by (shelved 19 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.03 — 18,871 ratings — published 2007

by (shelved 18 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.94 — 3,858 ratings — published 2005

by (shelved 16 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.95 — 4,142 ratings — published 2002

by (shelved 16 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.96 — 4,517 ratings — published 2001

by (shelved 15 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.89 — 2,848 ratings — published 1999

by (shelved 14 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.99 — 2,897 ratings — published 2006

by (shelved 9 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.96 — 1,816 ratings — published 2013

by (shelved 9 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.74 — 420 ratings — published 1990

by (shelved 9 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.80 — 481 ratings — published 2011

by (shelved 8 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.11 — 1,956 ratings — published 2004

by (shelved 8 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.89 — 1,174 ratings — published 2011

by (shelved 8 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.73 — 440 ratings — published 2003

by (shelved 7 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.84 — 885 ratings — published 2008

by (shelved 7 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.12 — 1,061 ratings — published 2011

by (shelved 7 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.86 — 988 ratings — published 1990

by (shelved 7 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.10 — 341 ratings — published 1993

by (shelved 7 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.90 — 246 ratings — published 1987

by (shelved 6 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.97 — 189 ratings — published 2008

by (shelved 6 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.98 — 213 ratings — published 1988

by (shelved 6 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.02 — 279 ratings — published 2000

by (shelved 5 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.97 — 183 ratings — published 1984

by (shelved 3 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.71 — 70,834 ratings — published 1988

by (shelved 3 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.02 — 305,059 ratings — published 1947

by (shelved 3 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.28 — 72 ratings — published 2011

by (shelved 3 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.96 — 28 ratings — published 1994

by (shelved 3 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.49 — 39 ratings — published 2002

by (shelved 3 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.00 — 11 ratings — published 1981

by (shelved 3 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.70 — 25,258 ratings — published 1984

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.11 — 318 ratings — published

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.97 — 4,630 ratings — published 2019

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.28 — 1,042,104 ratings — published 1866

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.30 — 212,818 ratings — published 1949

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.30 — 8,013 ratings — published 1941

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.04 — 255,104 ratings — published 1850

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.05 — 45,977 ratings — published 1919

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.21 — 18,584 ratings — published 1939

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.93 — 415 ratings — published 2007

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.75 — 31,685 ratings — published 1954

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.76 — 2,747 ratings — published 2002

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.22 — 2,639 ratings — published 1941

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 4.11 — 175 ratings — published 2016

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.76 — 435 ratings — published 2010

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.80 — 597 ratings — published 2009

by (shelved 2 times as christopher-hitchens)
avg rating 3.57 — 11,248 ratings — published 1973

“Let's say that the consensus is that our species, being the higher primates, Homo Sapiens, has been on the planet for at least 100,000 years, maybe more. Francis Collins says maybe 100,000. Richard Dawkins thinks maybe a quarter-of-a-million. I'll take 100,000. In order to be a Christian, you have to believe that for 98,000 years, our species suffered and died, most of its children dying in childbirth, most other people having a life expectancy of about 25 years, dying of their teeth. Famine, struggle, bitterness, war, suffering, misery, all of that for 98,000 years.
Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks 'That's enough of that. It's time to intervene,' and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person.
Why am I glad this is the case? To get to the point of the wrongness of Christianity, because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral. The central one is the most immoral of all, and that is the one of vicarious redemption. You can throw your sins onto somebody else, vulgarly known as scapegoating. In fact, originating as scapegoating in the same area, the same desert. I can pay your debt if I love you. I can serve your term in prison if I love you very much. I can volunteer to do that. I can't take your sins away, because I can't abolish your responsibility, and I shouldn't offer to do so. Your responsibility has to stay with you. There's no vicarious redemption. There very probably, in fact, is no redemption at all. It's just a part of wish-thinking, and I don't think wish-thinking is good for people either.
It even manages to pollute the central question, the word I just employed, the most important word of all: the word love, by making love compulsory, by saying you MUST love. You must love your neighbour as yourself, something you can't actually do. You'll always fall short, so you can always be found guilty. By saying you must love someone who you also must fear. That's to say a supreme being, an eternal father, someone of whom you must be afraid, but you must love him, too. If you fail in this duty, you're again a wretched sinner. This is not mentally or morally or intellectually healthy.
And that brings me to the final objection - I'll condense it, Dr. Orlafsky - which is, this is a totalitarian system. If there was a God who could do these things and demand these things of us, and he was eternal and unchanging, we'd be living under a dictatorship from which there is no appeal, and one that can never change and one that knows our thoughts and can convict us of thought crime, and condemn us to eternal punishment for actions that we are condemned in advance to be taking. All this in the round, and I could say more, it's an excellent thing that we have absolutely no reason to believe any of it to be true.”
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Heaven watches this with complete indifference. And then 2000 years ago, thinks 'That's enough of that. It's time to intervene,' and the best way to do this would be by condemning someone to a human sacrifice somewhere in the less literate parts of the Middle East. Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there. This is nonsense. It can't be believed by a thinking person.
Why am I glad this is the case? To get to the point of the wrongness of Christianity, because I think the teachings of Christianity are immoral. The central one is the most immoral of all, and that is the one of vicarious redemption. You can throw your sins onto somebody else, vulgarly known as scapegoating. In fact, originating as scapegoating in the same area, the same desert. I can pay your debt if I love you. I can serve your term in prison if I love you very much. I can volunteer to do that. I can't take your sins away, because I can't abolish your responsibility, and I shouldn't offer to do so. Your responsibility has to stay with you. There's no vicarious redemption. There very probably, in fact, is no redemption at all. It's just a part of wish-thinking, and I don't think wish-thinking is good for people either.
It even manages to pollute the central question, the word I just employed, the most important word of all: the word love, by making love compulsory, by saying you MUST love. You must love your neighbour as yourself, something you can't actually do. You'll always fall short, so you can always be found guilty. By saying you must love someone who you also must fear. That's to say a supreme being, an eternal father, someone of whom you must be afraid, but you must love him, too. If you fail in this duty, you're again a wretched sinner. This is not mentally or morally or intellectually healthy.
And that brings me to the final objection - I'll condense it, Dr. Orlafsky - which is, this is a totalitarian system. If there was a God who could do these things and demand these things of us, and he was eternal and unchanging, we'd be living under a dictatorship from which there is no appeal, and one that can never change and one that knows our thoughts and can convict us of thought crime, and condemn us to eternal punishment for actions that we are condemned in advance to be taking. All this in the round, and I could say more, it's an excellent thing that we have absolutely no reason to believe any of it to be true.”
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“...to experience a furious disillusionment with ‘conventional’ politics, a bit young to be so cynical and so superior, you may think. My reply is that you should fucking well have been there, and felt it for yourself.”
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