Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of 'the flock.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that Christianity reduces individuals to a simplistic, submissive role within a group, rather than encouraging critical thinking and individuality.
Christopher Hitchens critiques Christianity by likening its followers to a 'flock,' implying that the religion promotes conformity over individuality. He argues that this imagery reflects a broader critique of religious belief systems that prioritize blind faith and submission over personal autonomy and critical thought. By using the term 'pathetic,' he emphasizes that he views this collective identity as a weakness rather than a strength, advocating for a more independent and questioning approach to spirituality and belief.
In practice
During a debate on the influence of religion in society, this quote could be used to illustrate the importance of individuality over conformity.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way β because itβs had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But youβve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
Society is held together by our need; we bind it together with legend, myth, coercion, fearing that without it we will be hurled into that void, within which, like the earth before the Word was spoken, the foundations of society are hidden.
When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.
I had a mind inquiring enough to question world events, as well as the passion fostered by my background to care, but I lacked the emotional maturity to process these things. That made me ripe for Islamist recruitment. Into this ferment came my recruiter, himself straight out of a London medical college.
What should move us to action is human dignity: the inalienable dignity of the oppressed, but also the dignity of each of us. We lose dignity if we tolerate the intolerable.
My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity . . . and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it. So now I do what pleases myself.
Form follows profit is the aesthetic principle of our times.
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