Unquotable: Hitchens

One of the more annoying behaviors I've noticed is an increasing number of people quoting other well-known, and possibly intelligent people in an effort to appear intelligent themselves.  Unfortunately, it seems to work, at least among other not-so-intelligent people.  Well, at least until someone with enough intelligence comes along and asks, "What does that mean?"  And the answer is, "I don't know… I just thought it sounded cool."  Or something similar.  One of my personal favorites is, "I can't think how to explain it," which really means "I don't understand it myself."  So, in an effort to stem the tide of false intelligence on the internet, this post marks the beginning of a series of posts to 1) explain the quote, and 2) explain what's wrong with the quote.

This first quote comes from Christopher Hitchens.  I actually had never heard of him until he died, which probably just shows how sheltered of a life I've lived.  I heard of him then only because someone decided to quote Mr. Hitchens as follows: "We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid."

I first saw this quote on someone's Facebook status, and hence was actually how I found out about Christopher Hitchens.  It was posted on or around Mr. Hitchens' death, when a lot of pseudo-intellects were running around mourning his death.  Of course, the status got a lot of "likes," at least until I happened on it, and responded with something like: "There is no such conclusive evidence at all.  There is only conclusive evidence that people are mean, selfish and stupid.  Religion just gives many of them an excuse."

I was summarily unfriended by this person.  The reason that I felt compelled to respond to this post was that the person who posted the status has never read the bible, and yet professes to be an atheist.  Indeed cannot even answer relatively simple questions such as why he believes in the nonexistence of God over the existence of God.  I personally think he has chosen atheism simply because not believing requires less effort, not to mention that atheism is seen by many as being much more awesome than believing in God.  After all, it appears to be way more brave when one is defying the almighty.

Now, in retrospect, I may have been a bit hasty in my response, because I see that the second part of the quote refers not to religion, but to faith, and in that regard the quote may have more truth to it than I originally thought.  Of course, faith can be defined in terms of religion and is often used that way, and this quote appears to imply that definition.  But, if we look at the more general definition of faith, the quote becomes something different, and in fact, becomes a statement of what I actually said in my response.  Faith: complete trust or confidence in someone or something.  The very act of acting out of faith will often lead to mean, selfish, and yes stupid actions because faith comes from emotional thought processes rather than rational thoughts.

So, there you have it.  What's wrong with the quote is that it's used as an argument against religious faith, but it is really a comment on humanity in general.  If there were no religion, people would find something new to hate each other for.