“If I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does.”

Source: 2010s, 2011, Mortality (2012), p. 91.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If I convert it's because it's better that a believer dies than that an atheist does." by Christopher Hitchens?
Christopher Hitchens photo
Christopher Hitchens 305
British American author and journalist 1949–2011

Related quotes

Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Swami Vivekananda photo

“He is an atheist who does not believe in himself.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

The old religions said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion says that he is an atheist who does not believe in himself.
Call to the Nation

Ray Comfort photo
Paul Kurtz photo
H.L. Mencken photo

“I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

"What I Believe" in The Forum 84 (September 1930), p. 139; some of these expressions were also used separately in other Mencken essays.
1930s
Context: I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind — that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.
I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty and the democratic form is as bad as any of the other forms.
I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.
I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech — alike for the humblest man and the mightiest, and in the utmost freedom of conduct that is consistent with living in organized society.
I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.
I believe in the reality of progress.
I —But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

Miguel de Unamuno photo
Alice Walker photo

“Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

Source: Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology

Richard Dawkins photo
Ray Comfort photo

“Atheists don't hate fairies, leprechauns, or unicorns because they don't exist. It is impossible to hate something that doesn't exist. Atheists — like the painting experts hated the painter — hate God because He does exist.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think (2009)
Source: You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, But You Can't Make Him Think: Answers to Questions from Angry Skeptics

J. Michael Straczynski photo

“As an atheist, I believe that all life is unspeakably precious, because it’s only here for a brief moment, a flare against the dark, and then it’s gone forever.”

Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 : "Passing Through Gethsemane : jms speaks" (13 July (2004) http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/048.html.
Context: As an atheist, I believe that all life is unspeakably precious, because it’s only here for a brief moment, a flare against the dark, and then it’s gone forever. No afterlives, no second chances, no backsies. So there can be nothing crueler than the abuse, destruction or wanton taking of a life. It is a crime no less than burning the Mona Lisa, for there is always just one of each. So I cannot forgive.

Related topics