Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.
Interpretation
The quote critiques how religions may appear benevolent while ignoring their historical wrongdoings.
Christopher Hitchens highlights the paradox of religions that seem to offer comfort and support in a benevolent manner, akin to a merchant in a marketplace. However, he urges us to remember their past actions when they held power and failed to act with compassion, suggesting that such historical perspectives should inform our current view of these institutions.
In practice
During a debate on the impact of religion on society, one might quote Hitchens to emphasize the need to critically evaluate historical actions of religions.
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.
Of all the grief's that harass the distressed; sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.
Again, it may be said, that to love justice and equality the people need no great effort of virtue; it is sufficient that they love themselves.
A boy's will is the wind's will.
Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.
Fair play with others is primarily the practice of not blaming them for anything that is wrong with us. We tend to rub our guilty conscience against others the way we wipe dirty fingers on a rag. This is as evil a misuse of others as the practice of exploitation.
I'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.
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