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Merged Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)

I thought I would go to the Prayer and Reflection room at work, and read from Hitch 22 in his memory. However, there was someone in there already, standing on a magic carpet. What would Hitchens have done?
 
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There was no one who could express so well in a few choice sentences why religion and theism was not to be respected or believed but to be opposed. He fearlessly said what many of us deep down thought and said it better than most, if not all of us.

Ironically this Christopher (bearer of Christ) didn't get to see one more xmas.


Earllier thread here;
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=179403
 
One of his quotes which I hadn't seen before, tweeted by Robin Ince (@robinince) Favourite Hitchens - on death of a TV evangelist "if you gave him an enema he could have been buried in a matchbox"
 
This is truly a big loss to the world. I will now deal with it in true Hitchens fashion with a glass of Black Label, cheers mate.
 
Oh ****, I just heard. Well, let's have a drink as he would want, insist.
 
Sad, but not unexpected. Cancer, after all, is a bitch.

We have not heard the last of Hitch. I suspect that he has written quite a bit of material that has not been published, Some of them might have been withheld for posthumous publication or because they relate to events that have not occurred. It would not surprise me, for example, if we see an obituary for Billy Graham written by Christopher Hitchens, even though Graham had the "good fortune" of outliving Hitchens. It would not surprise me to see an essay by Hitchens about the end of the Iraq occupation. It would not surprise me to see an essay, perhaps written over a very long period of time, about last-ditch efforts to convert him to some form of creed.
 
RandFan said:
Here's to you. A life lived well.

[qimg]https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s320x320/388536_326941644000651_100000544551015_1231235_1118233742_n.jpg[/qimg]
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Yes. I'll raise a drink to that.
 
The fundies on Twitter started freaking out today when #GodIsNotGreat started trending. Didn't get it at all, thought there was an atheist putsch underway or something. It was pretty amusing to watch :D
 
A great loss to the world. I will celebrate his life in the traditional fashion with a large glass of good wine.
 
bit_pattern said:
The fundies on Twitter started freaking out today when #GodIsNotGreat started trending. Didn't get it at all, thought there was an atheist putsch underway or something. It was pretty amusing to watch :D
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There is a suggestion the Twitter have suppressed that hashtag from the Trending list. I don't know what the algorithm is, so I don't know if it would have just dropped off the list anyway.
 
I had a strange vision. Christopher Hitchens appeared to me and uttered these words:

"In my life, I have said that I would not undergo a 'deathbed conversion' to any religious creed. This, my last promise that I could possibly have kept, I kept indeed.

"To those who say that I did not keep my word, I say this: A deathbed conversion is of no value whatsoever. Even if such a conversion does occur, what does it prove? It certainly does not prove the validity the faith to which the new adherent swears his brief allegiance, nor does it prove the invalidity of any competing faith to which the dying person chose not to convert. The validity of religious tenets must surely be established by their merits and their effects, not by the number of dying men who suddenly attest to them.

"Such a conversion may easily be attributed to fear or a loss of mental acuity, both of which often precede death. Or it may have done as a courtesy to the family, who fear that the departing loved one will be lost in the afterlife, unless words of conversion are uttered. To the dying person, it may be like a perverse Pascal's Wager, except that the payoff is not eternal life but rather is less pointless worry by loved ones.

"I suggest that a far more potent conversion is the post-death conversion. A person who has died, and who thereby may have acquired knowledge of use to those still living, may relate that knowledge so that conversion may be made to the correct faith in the proper course. In my life, I was aware of no instances in which post-death knowledge was imparted to the living. The play of Hamlet, in which such knowledge plays a pivotal role, is of course fiction.

"Nevertheless, in the event I find that I was wrong, I shall make an effort to correct my error. I shall make a post-death conversion and will try to relate what I have learned. I shall do my best not to be as terrifying as the ghost of Hamlet's father.

"But don't stay up late at nights just to wait for me."
 
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