I have been called arrogant myself in my time, and hope to earn the title again, but to claim that I am privy to the secrets of the universe and its creator - that's beyond my conceit.
Interpretation
The speaker acknowledges their arrogance but distinguishes between personal arrogance and claiming divine knowledge.
In this quote, Christopher Hitchens reflects on the nature of arrogance and the limits of human understanding. While he admits to being called arrogant, he asserts that it is a different matter entirely to claim knowledge of the universe and its creator, suggesting that such claims are beyond mere human conceit and delve into the realm of the unknowable or the divine.
In practice
During a discussion on humility and expertise, this quote could underscore the limits of human understanding.
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 — because it’s had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But you’ve 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.
I take it that what all men are really after is some form or perhaps only some formula of peace.
When I became a monk, it didn't feel like I was giving up that much. I actually felt like I had made the best decision, because anyone who hadn't focused on building themselves up was the one losing out.
Realization is not knowledge about the universe, but the living experience of the nature of the universe. Until we have such living experience, we remain dependent on examples, and subject to their limits.
One man may read the Bhagavata by the light of a lamp, and another may commit a forgery by that very light; but the lamp is unaffected. The sun sheds its light on the wicked as well as on the virtuous.
The idea that we have the right to inflict suffering and death on other sentient beings for the trivial reasons of palate pleasure and fashion is, without doubt, one of the most arrogant and morally repugnant notions in the history of human thought.
Civilizations come and go; they conquer the earth and crumble into dust; but faith survives every desolation.
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