Quote by Christopher Hitchens
There are, after all, atheists who say they wish the fable were true but are unable to suspend the requisite disbelief, or who have relinquished belief only with regret. To this I reply: who wishes that there was a permanent, unalterable celestial despotism that subjected us to continual surveillance and could convict us of thought-crime, and who regarded us as its private property even after we died? How happy we ought to be, at the reflection that there exists not a shred of respectable evidence to support such a horrible hypothesis.
Summary
In this quote, the author challenges the notion that some atheists might secretly desire the existence of a divine being despite lacking belief in one. The author argues that it would be undesirable to have a tyrannical and all-knowing higher power constantly monitoring and controlling our lives, even after death. Instead, the author highlights the value of the absence of evidence for such a theory, suggesting that it should provide comfort and relief rather than regret.