The human wish to credit good things as miraculous and to charge bad things to another account is apparently universal.
Interpretation
People naturally see good events as miracles while blaming external factors for bad events.
This quote by Christopher Hitchens captures a fundamental aspect of human psychology: our tendency to attribute positive outcomes to extraordinary forces or luck while seeking to rationalize negative experiences by placing blame elsewhere. This reflects how individuals navigate the complexities of their experiences, often favoring a worldview that highlights benevolence in fortune while dismissing personal responsibility in misfortune.
In practice
This quote can be used to illustrate a point in a psychology class about cognitive biases.
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.
It stands to reason that if sacrifices are being given, somebody is collecting sacrifices.
Freedom from labor itself is not new; it once belonged among the most firmly established privileges of the few. In this instance, it seems as though scientific progress and technical developments had been only taken advantage of to achieve something about which all former ages dreamed but which none had been able to realize.
Religion has very little to do with the number of babies per woman. All the religions in the world are fully [able] to maintain their values and adapt to this new world.
A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life.
In the Middle East, the conflict today is a matter of generations and not of cultures.
The Secretary-General must be a determined advocate for the values of tolerance and solidarity - universal values that are shared by cultures and religions around the globe.
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