great quotes from Christopher Hitchens' book

"In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than any man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind old men as guides."
-Heinrich Heine

One thing I always remember is what Milan Kundera once wrote, that we uses quotes because we can't express these feelings ourselves. Maybe we're unable, not confident enough, or just lazy to say it in our own words...creatively.

Whatever the case, I don't think it is necessary for me to embrace this need to invent a new way of saying what's already been said just because i'm insecure as a quote copy and paste-r. What's nice about the quote is not simply the skeletal point of the quote. We probably already know that old methods are for old times and new times with new and more effective ways should be taken when they come without romanticizing with the obsolete ways and striving to retain them. What's great about the quote is the analogy and literary "style", also likely the fact that it is a quote, and moreover, a quoted quote.

More blatant taking of quotes. Too many quotes. I'm taking them all almost...not even compiling a select group. Why minimal-ize? This is not some high school teaching of academic writing which prescribes the criteria of 3 quotes, a bibliography, intro, middle, conclusion, structure, balanced arguments for and against, paraphrasing...

let's digress


check out 3:10.
Also, the irishman-englishman thing is hilariously...well...i'll let you choose your adjective...

You might be thinking...what the hell is so funny anyway...this author doesn't even argue that he HAS citations or evidence. This is not good journalism. This is not good science and if you are on the side of Hitchens, then you can't argue that intelligent design has no evidence! This is just plain bad and untrustworthy nonsense!

That's a good thought. If it sparks your interest, i'm glad.



"I am a man of one book."
-Thomas Aquinas

and that's why you are your followers are stuck with the blind man crossing a freeway when an overhead bridge has been built.

"Reason is the Devil's harlot, who can do nought but slander and harm whatever God says and does"
-Martin Luther
(Not Martin Luther King Jr.)

So the reason why i'm not dying in infancy to diseases is because of the devil's works in science and medicine. The reason i'm not condemned to be practically blind since the age of 13 is because the devil craftily introduced the reasoning leading to concepts of changing the direction of light through satanic glasses to bring my image into focus. Yes, the fallen angel had worked against God's divine punishment which I had brought upon myself for maybe watching too much TV or reading under dim lighting.


fair enough, i'm picking on old scholars who couldn't have known better.

"I had no need of that hypothesis."
Laplace to Napoleon on why Laplace's theory of the solar system had no mention of the Creator

finally, let's compare and contrast the quotation above from Heine (in orange) with this:

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me."
1 Corinthians 13:11