To reflect upon the event horizon is a great deal more awe-inspiring than a burning bush or a wooden statue that weeps or pees or bleeds.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the profound awe inspired by cosmic phenomena compared to religious symbols.
Christopher Hitchens highlights the significance of scientific wonder over traditional religious symbols. He suggests that contemplating something as vast and mysterious as the event horizon of a black hole is far more impressive than biblical miracles, framing the universe's mysteries as a source of inspiration and reverence.
In practice
This quote can be shared at a science conference to spark discussions on the significance of understanding the universe.
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.
Too much has been forgotten in the name of memory.
It's a constant man-ego-check going on in the streets, in this world.
It meant nothing to him any longer, only a faint tinge of sadness--and somewhere within him, a drop of pain moving briefly and vanishing, like a raindrop on the glass of a window, its course in the shape of a question mark.
No one should question the faith of others, for no human being can judge the ways of God.
Viva Las Vegas with your neon flashin' and your one arm bandits crashin' all those hopes down the drain. Viva Las Vegas turnin' day into nighttime, turnin night into daytime. If you see it once, you'll never be the same again.
If God forbade drinking, would He have made wine so good?
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