Christopher Hitchen's Dead..

[brandonx76]

Sad to see him go...very though provoking he was...

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/ ... s-19492011

[G.I.Jim]

Sad to see him go...very though provoking he was...

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/ ... s-19492011

Never heard of him Brandon, but sad nonetheless.

[Rip Rokken]

GOD DAMMIT.... a real hero to me, and tonight I've been drinking his favorite whiskey, Johnnie Walker Black (Double Black, actually). So glad I got to meet him just a couple of months ago. Was front and center for his last public appearance.

[G.I.Jim]

GOD DAMMIT.... a real hero to me, and tonight I've been drinking his favorite whiskey, Johnnie Walker Black (Double Black, actually). So glad I got to meet him just a couple of months ago. Was front and center for his last public appearance.

Glad you at least got to see him before he passed Rip. Sad, and I know 1st hand how devastating cancer is. It's the worst form of death to endure (and I'm sure someone wishes it on me right now!). At least you're celebrating his life with his whiskey Rip.

[Rip Rokken]

He was phenomenal. Showed up to sign books for probably 2 hours, then talked for an hour. Totally unexpected, but he's a fighter.

Hitch on whiskey:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP51NnoVErA

[Duncan]

A sad day indeed. I'll have a wee dram in his honour tonight.

[parfait]

Aw for fucks sake!

[conversationpc]

Sorry to hear it...He's actually one of the few atheists I've heard giving credit to Christians for standing up for themselves by debating in the public arena.

[Enigma869]

Never heard of the guy in my life. Sorry to hear that he bought the eternal dirtnap

[Michigan Girl]

Heard of him, so sorry for those who loved and worshipped him, though!!
I suppose I could have some whiskey in his honor!!

[Rip Rokken]

Heard of him, so sorry for those who loved and worshipped him, though!!
I suppose I could have some whiskey in his honor!!

Take his recommendation - "Accept no substitutes."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP51NnoVErA

[Duncan]

Heard of him, so sorry for those who loved and worshipped him, though!!
I suppose I could have some whiskey in his honor!!

Take his recommendation - "Accept no substitutes."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP51NnoVErA

Breakfast of Champions.

[The_Noble_Cause]

This guy was a real pundit - could always back-up what he said, and even make you think.

[Michigan Girl]

Heard of him, so sorry for those who loved and worshipped him, though!!
I suppose I could have some whiskey in his honor!!

Take his recommendation - "Accept no substitutes."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP51NnoVErA

I have been toasted (shalom/shalam '''d), and toasted others, my entire life
to JW, I can smell it a mile away ...my father and grandfather's, known as the Josephs
stock/ed blue!!

Shalom ...peace ...be safe ...Prosperity
Wellness, Wholeness ...gulp, haaaahhhhhhh!!!!

[parfait]

This really sucks, especially considering that most of the rational, enlightened west is getting increasingly flooded by the irrational and religious. Hitchens really taught people how, and not what to think and helped to stem the tide against all things senseless.

[majik]

This really sucks, especially considering that most of the rational, enlightened west is getting increasingly flooded by the irrational and religious. Hitchens really taught people how, and not what to think and helped to stem the tide against all things senseless.

If it was possible to teach people how to think then one would never choose a bad thought again. Anyway, if the answer is to be found in thought surely it would have been found by now, so why keep looking to thought for answers, that is senseless. Mind asks the question and its mind that answers the question, then mind questions the answer.. forever. What did Hitch's ideas amount to... nothing. Challenge the authority of mind/thought instead of substituting concepts.

[DrFU]

A nice tribute:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/spi ... l?hpid=z11

[majik]

From universe to multiverse. It seems the big bang theory that apparently created the universe is outdated and may have been nothing more than a whimper in a multiverse. Interesting idea, to a mind that is.

Checkout this link,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39qmbl7mpJQ

Note.
Michio Kaku Professor of theoretical physics explains this new theory.

[artist4perry]

I bet now the answer is positive to him. The only time we will ever know for sure. The moment all truths come together. I wish him no ill will, and I am sad for his family.

[Duncan]

Hitchens letter to the American Athiest Convention in April this year. His own words make a fine eulogy.

Dear fellow-unbelievers,

Nothing would have kept me from joining you except the loss of my voice (at least my speaking voice) which in turn is due to a long argument I am currently having with the specter of death. Nobody ever wins this argument, though there are some solid points to be made while the discussion goes on. I have found, as the enemy becomes more familiar, that all the special pleading for salvation, redemption and supernatural deliverance appears even more hollow and artificial to me than it did before. I hope to help defend and pass on the lessons of this for many years to come, but for now I have found my trust better placed in two things: the skill and principle of advanced medical science, and the comradeship of innumerable friends and family, all of them immune to the false consolations of religion. It is these forces among others which will speed the day when humanity emancipates itself from the mind-forged manacles of servility and superstition. It is our innate solidarity, and not some despotism of the sky, which is the source of our morality and our sense of decency.

That essential sense of decency is outraged every day. Our theocratic enemy is in plain view. Protean in form, it extends from the overt menace of nuclear-armed mullahs to the insidious campaigns to have stultifying pseudo-science taught in American schools. But in the past few years, there have been heartening signs of a genuine and spontaneous resistance to this sinister nonsense: a resistance which repudiates the right of bullies and tyrants to make the absurd claim that they have god on their side. To have had a small part in this resistance has been the greatest honor of my lifetime: the pattern and original of all dictatorship is the surrender of reason to absolutism and the abandonment of critical, objective inquiry. The cheap name for this lethal delusion is religion, and we must learn new ways of combating it in the public sphere, just as we have learned to free ourselves of it in private.

Our weapons are the ironic mind against the literal: the open mind against the credulous; the courageous pursuit of truth against the fearful and abject forces who would set limits to investigation (and who stupidly claim that we already have all the truth we need). Perhaps above all, we affirm life over the cults of death and human sacrifice and are afraid, not of inevitable death, but rather of a human life that is cramped and distorted by the pathetic need to offer mindless adulation, or the dismal belief that the laws of nature respond to wailings and incantations.

As the heirs of a secular revolution, American atheists have a special responsibility to defend and uphold the Constitution that patrols the boundary between Church and State. This, too, is an honor and a privilege. Believe me when I say that I am present with you, even if not corporeally (and only metaphorically in spirit...) Resolve to build up Mr Jefferson's wall of separation. And don't keep the faith.

Sincerely,

Christopher Hitchens

[majik]

Hitchens letter to the American Athiest Convention in April this year. His own words make a fine eulogy.

Dear fellow-unbelievers,

Believe me when I say that I am present with you, even if not corporeally (and only metaphorically in spirit...)

Sincerely,

Christopher Hitchens

[Peartree12249]

Although I don't believe in a deity, I do have a problem with radicalism in any form whether it be pro or anti religion. I have no problem if my community wants to put up a nativity scene at Christmas on public property, let kids at school celebrate Halloween or have a Christmas party. It doesn't threaten me. I do feel that like some radical religious extremists, radical athiests have felt it their right to force their beliefs or lack thereof on all the rest of society. I believe in live and let live. Let people make up their own minds.

[Michigan Girl]

Although I don't believe in a deity, I do have a problem with radicalism in any form whether it be pro or anti religion. I have no problem if my community wants to put up a nativity scene at Christmas on public property, let kids at school celebrate Halloween or have a Christmas party. It doesn't threaten me. I do feel that like some radical religious extremists, radical athiests have felt it their right to force their beliefs or lack thereof on all the rest of society. I believe in live and let live. Let people make up their own minds.

I do believe in a deity, but this is beautifully stated and I very much agree with you ...

Also, I've read CH in VF, and although I agree very little w/his opinions,
I appreciated/enjoyed his straight forward approach/candor and intellect ...as I do w/most
humans!!

[Duncan]

Although I don't believe in a deity, I do have a problem with radicalism in any form whether it be pro or anti religion. I have no problem if my community wants to put up a nativity scene at Christmas on public property, let kids at school celebrate Halloween or have a Christmas party. It doesn't threaten me. I do feel that like some radical religious extremists, radical athiests have felt it their right to force their beliefs or lack thereof on all the rest of society. I believe in live and let live. Let people make up their own minds.

I do believe in a deity, but this is beautifully stated and I very much agree with you ...

Also, I've read CH in VF, and although I agree very little w/his opinions,
I appreciated/enjoyed his straight forward approach/candor and intellect ...as I do w/most
humans!!

Radical athiests? To compare athiests to religous extremists is completely misguided. I don't see any athiests strapping bombs to themselves or condemning novelists and catoonists to a sentence of death. I don't see athiests picketing the funerals of fallen service men & woman. I don't see athiests trying to stifle scientific research that could reduce human suffering.

Very few athiests (Hitchens certainly didn't) would deny the right of anybody to believe anything they like. It is only when there is theocratic encroachment on free society that there becomes an issue.

[Michigan Girl]

Although I don't believe in a deity, I do have a problem with radicalism in any form whether it be pro or anti religion. I have no problem if my community wants to put up a nativity scene at Christmas on public property, let kids at school celebrate Halloween or have a Christmas party. It doesn't threaten me. I do feel that like some radical religious extremists, radical athiests have felt it their right to force their beliefs or lack thereof on all the rest of society. I believe in live and let live. Let people make up their own minds.

I do believe in a deity, but this is beautifully stated and I very much agree with you ...

Also, I've read CH in VF, and although I agree very little w/his opinions,
I appreciated/enjoyed his straight forward approach/candor and intellect ...as I do w/most
humans!!

Radical athiests? To compare athiests to religous extremists is completely misguided. I don't see any athiests strapping bombs to themselves or condemning novelists and catoonists to a sentence of death. I don't see athiests picketing the funerals of fallen service men & woman. I don't see athiests trying to stifle scientific research that could reduce human suffering.

Very few athiests (Hitchens certainly didn't) would deny the right of anybody to believe anything they like. It is only when there is theocratic encroachment on free society that there becomes an issue.

Yeah, when you compare them to religious wackos, such as those you described ^^^(god help them), it may seem mild.
Perhaps she's referring to the likes of Dan Barker and his crew from WI who force people in TX take down nativity scenes because it
may offend an atheist ...who knows!! Mind your own business, believe what you like and leave everyone else alone, is all she is saying ...
that goes for the bombers and picketers, as well!! She did not discriminate ...and I agreed!! She does not believe in a deity
and I do ..

[Duncan]

Although I don't believe in a deity, I do have a problem with radicalism in any form whether it be pro or anti religion. I have no problem if my community wants to put up a nativity scene at Christmas on public property, let kids at school celebrate Halloween or have a Christmas party. It doesn't threaten me. I do feel that like some radical religious extremists, radical athiests have felt it their right to force their beliefs or lack thereof on all the rest of society. I believe in live and let live. Let people make up their own minds.

I do believe in a deity, but this is beautifully stated and I very much agree with you ...

Also, I've read CH in VF, and although I agree very little w/his opinions,
I appreciated/enjoyed his straight forward approach/candor and intellect ...as I do w/most
humans!!

Radical athiests? To compare athiests to religous extremists is completely misguided. I don't see any athiests strapping bombs to themselves or condemning novelists and catoonists to a sentence of death. I don't see athiests picketing the funerals of fallen service men & woman. I don't see athiests trying to stifle scientific research that could reduce human suffering.

Very few athiests (Hitchens certainly didn't) would deny the right of anybody to believe anything they like. It is only when there is theocratic encroachment on free society that there becomes an issue.

Yeah, when you compare them to religious wackos, such as those you described ^^^(god help them), it may seem mild.
Perhaps she's referring to the likes of Dan Barker and his crew from WI who force people in TX take down nativity scenes because it
may offend an atheist ...who knows!! Mind your own business, believe what you like and leave everyone else alone, is all she is saying ...
that goes for the bombers and picketers, as well!! She did not discriminate ...and I agreed!! She does not believe in a deity
and I do ..

Is Dan Barker really doing that? I just had a look at this clip on youtube and he seems to be a pretty reasonable guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXVZsAMupos

[Duncan]

Just found out a bit more about this nativity scene issue. I think Dan Barker is wrong becuse although on stste property it was a public funded display and as long as other groups are not precluded from putting up there own displays there should be no issue. It is a matter of free speech. It would be different if the local authority had paid for the display.

[Rip Rokken]

I met Dan Barker just last month, and he is a very cool and sincere guy. I've only heard a bit about the nativity scene issue but thought they were only trying to see if a freethinking message could also be included - equal time, basically - but the state was resisting. That would go along with what he spoke of at Skepticon IV. I'll read more about it.

[Beau Tox]

GOD DAMMIT.... a real hero to me, and tonight I've been drinking his favorite whiskey, Johnnie Walker Black (Double Black, actually). So glad I got to meet him just a couple of months ago. Was front and center for his last public appearance.

"Johnnie Walker Black, accept no substitutes."
--Hitch

[Rip Rokken]

I've been getting wayyyy to used to the Double Black, and need to remember it's limited quantity. Will miss it...