Skip to content
Guest Thinkers

Hitchens “Anti-Theist”

“(Richard) Dawkins and co. are appalled by the belief in God, (Christopher) Hitchens is far more appalled by the idea that anyone would want to obey Him,” observes Ross Douthat.
Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

“Whereas Dawkins and co. are appalled by the belief in God, (Christopher) Hitchens is far more appalled by the idea that anyone would want to obey Him,” writes columnist Ross Douthat, who is reading Hitchens’ memoir, “Hitch-22”. On “the wild disproportionality of Hitchens’ antipathy toward religion,” he says: “By ‘disproportionate’ I mean that the roots of his God-hatred are more mysterious than they are for, say, a Richard Dawkins.” “Every true romantic needs…a villain to whose destruction he can consecrate himself. Never one for half measures, Hitchens just decided to go all the way to the top.”

Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

Related
The hospital where Rainn Wilson’s wife and son nearly died became his own personal holy site. There, he discovered that the sacred can exist in places we least expect it. During his talk at A Night of Awe and Wonder, he explained how the awe we feel in moments of courage and love is moral beauty — and following it might be the start of our spiritual revolution.
13 min
with

Up Next
“When you need to have a meeting, have a meeting…The rest of the time, do the work wherever you like.” Seth Godin lists the reasons that the office is (nearly) dead.