“I don't see how you can be saying this. Look. You want to take…you want your god to take responsibility for the huge number of collapsing stars and imploding galaxies and destroyed universes and failed solar systems that have left us in this tiny corner on the one planet in this petty solar system that can support life some of the time on some of its surface. And you want a creator who filled this earth with species, since life began 99% of which are now extinct already…and this is some design, isn't it?”

— Christopher Hitchens

2000s, 2007
Source: Hannity's America, May 13, 2007 interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWoHh4_rVdg http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Sean_Hannity_Christopher_Hitchens_Hannity%27s_America_May13%2C_2007?venotify=created

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Christopher Hitchens 305

British American author and journalist 1949–2011

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“Life can exist on other planets, in other solar systems, in other galaxies and universes.”

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“An observer studying the Solar system dispassionately, and finding himself capable of bringing the four giant planets to his notice, could reasonably say that the Solar system consisted of one star, four planets, and some traces of debris.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

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“Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Variant translation: In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of "world history" — yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.
One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened.
On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened.

“Look at the solar system, and look at the Earth. On Earth, there are many intelligent species, but only one has achieved technology. Right here in the journey of our own solar system, there is a very, very powerful message that says here's how we should look for alien life, small and big. So yeah, microbes are talking and we are listening, and they are taking us, one planet at a time and one moon at a time, towards their big brothers out there. And they are telling us about diversity, they are telling us about abundance of life, and they are telling us how this life has survived thus far to reach civilization, intelligence, technology and, indeed, philosophy.”

Nathalie Cabrol (1963) French American astrobiologist

Source: How Mars might hold the secret to the origin of life https://www.ted.com/talks/nathalie_cabrol_how_mars_might_hold_the_secret_to_the_origin_of_life (March 2015)

“Take movement for example. Forces acting up, down, or from side to side. You make theories to explain it all, but you might well remember that it was you that invented them all. For Mach there was no reason to believe the rest of the cosmos was doing what your little bit was doing, so science should only describe not try to explain. Even description is relative. Am I moving or is the back ground? Or take the position of a star. It depends on the position you see it from, which depends on the date and time, which in turn depends on the position of the earth, in a solar orbit, in a solar system, moving around the edge of a Galaxy which may be moving away from other Galaxies. Say that you've decided that I'm moving and the background is standing still. Is the background moving relative to something else?”

James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer

The Day the Universe Changed (1985)

“If I first see a tree in the winter, I might assume that it is not a fruit-tree. But when I return in the summer to find it covered with plums, I must exclaim, 'Excuse me! You were a fruit-tree after all.' Imagine, then, that a billion years ago some beings from another part of the galaxy made a tour through the solar system in their flying saucer and found no life. They would dismiss it as 'Just a bunch of old rocks!' But if they returned today, they would have to apologize: 'Well - you were peopling rocks after all!'
You may, of course, argue that there is no analogy between the two situations. The fruit-tree was at one time a seed inside a plum, but the earth - much less the solar system or the galaxy - was never a seed inside a person. But, oddly enough, you would be wrong.”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 74

“Now Everybody has some secret goals in life… Sometimes you can get what you want and what you need at the sames time.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“Just stare up at the stars at night, and you'll have those corny thoughts like we all do. How can you look at the galaxy and not feel insignificant? How on earth can we be it? It doesn't make sense. … It doesn't matter how much faith you have or don't have. I just don't buy the idea that we're alone. There's got to be some form of life out there.”

Ridley Scott (1937) English film director and film producer

Esquire interview (2012)

“I believe the creator may have a specific reason for wanting a universe that has life in it, and, indeed, as you say, for wanting multiple sentiences to emerge simultaneously. But it seems clear beyond dispute that the creator takes no interest in specific individuals.”

Robert J. Sawyer book Calculating God

Source: Calculating God (2000), Chapter 17 (p. 170)

“There is a limit to how much the country can take; you don’t want us to collapse. You don’t want our economic plans, our economic reform to be disrupted . . . You don’t want Jordan to be destabilised.”

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Abdullah Ensour, the Prime Minister of Jordan on Syrian refugees entering Jordan, quoted on Ft, "Jordan seeks international aid in deal over Syrian refugees" http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/37d35b58-c8c3-11e5-a8ef-ea66e967dd44.html#axzz41ZFvNw7K, February 1, 2016.

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Christopher Hitchens 305

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