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Hitchens: 'The great cultural project... may very well be to rescue what we have of the art and aesthetic of religion while discarding the supernatural.'
The Four Horsemen: The Conversation That Sparked an Atheist Revolution | 
Hitchens: 'The great cultural project... may very well be to rescue what we have of the art and aesthetic of religion while discarding the supernatural.'
pickVery good!
HITCHENS: No religious person has ever been able to say what Einstein said--that if he was right, the following phenomenon would occur off the west coast of Africa during a solar eclipse. And if it did, within a very tiny degree of variation. There's never been a prophecy that's been vindicated like that. Or anyone willing to place their reputation and, as it were, their life on the idea that it would be.
DENNETT: Somebody plays the faith card. They say, 'Look, I am a Christian, and we Christians, we just have to believe this, and that's it.' At which point--and I think this is the polite way of saying it--you say, 'Well, OK, if that's true, you'll just have to excuse yourself from the discussion, because you've declared yourself incompetent to proceed with an open mind.'
HITCHENS: I have the faculty of humour, and some of it has an edge to it. I'm not going to repress that for the sake of politeness.
DENNETT: It‘s a sad fact that people won't trust their own valuing of their numinous experiences. They think it's not as good as it seems unless it's from God, unless it's some kind of proof of religion. No, it's just as wonderful as it seems. It's just as important. It's the best moment in your life. That's it! And that‘s wonderful. It doesn't add anything to say, 'Golly, that has to have been given to me by Somebody even more wonderful.'
The fact that sane men and women can often be found doing good for God's sake is no rejoinder here, because faith gives them bad reasons for doing good when good reasons are available.
--Sam Harris
I never knew that. Her input would have also been very interesting.
pickIn 2007, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett sat down over cocktails and had a filmed discussion about atheism and religion, a conversation that quickly went viral on YouTube. A transcript of the conversation is now available in book form, along with new material from Harris, Dawkins, and Dennett, and an introduction written by Stephen Fry.
You're welcome.
