Christopher Hitchens
Journalist and literary critic. God Is Not Great (2007) is the sharpest of his polemics against the moral authority of religion.
Ideas
- Hitchens's razor
- What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. The burden of proof sits with the claimant.
- Anti-theism
- He did not just doubt religion but was glad it is false, because he saw it as a totalitarian claim on conscience.
- The independent mind
- He prized a way of thinking that follows no party or faction, and he picked fights with the left, the right and the powerful.
In their words
“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”
“The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.”
Start with
- Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001)
- God Is Not Great (2007)
- Hitch-22 (2010)
