Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)

Christopher Eric Hitchens was an English author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career spanned more than four decades. He was a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the Hoover Institution in September 2008. He was a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits and in 2005 was voted the world's fifth top public intellectual in a Prospect/Foreign Policy poll. He was a champion for atheism, skepticism, science, history and common sense. He will be sorely missed.

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• Christopher Hitchens
• hitch
• Hitch-22
• Letters to a young contrarian
• atheist
• atheism
• agnostic
• the thinking atheist
• Atheism Agnosticism

[arabie2006]

Hitchens always owned them like a sir!

[topshelfrybread]

The most high functioning drunk in history

[drstrangelove09]

@PHOSPH3R Yeah, Hitch was great wasn't he?! Glad you like the movie Dr. Strangelove too! My favorite movie.  :)

[PHOSPH3R]

@mysticresistence Do you have any favorite works of his - recommendations? And Kierkegaard is on my to-do list as well, so I can't say anything of him. Also, what is your reasoning for the existence of a God? Not being rude - message me if you want (as the comments section is limited), I'm interested.

[mysticresistence]

@PHOSPH3R He was a genius...I hate many of his ideas, but I still respect his consistency and his uniqueness. Granted, I believe in God, and am more a fan of Soren Kierkegaard, who was the father of modern religious existentialism.

[PHOSPH3R]

When the bones of prehistoric animals began to be discovered and scrutinized in the nineteenth century, there were those who said that the fossils had been placed in the rock by god, in order to test our faith. This cannot be disproved. Nor can my own pet theory that, from the patterns of behavior that are observable, we may infer a design that makes planet earth, all unknown to us, a prison colony and lunatic asylum that is employed as a dumping ground by far-off and superior civilizations. -CH

[PHOSPH3R]

@drstrangelove09 Same here, I think I've about watched every bit of camera that's been put in his face that's available. Let's keep this party going for him, cheers! Only commented bc I saw your username - one of Kubrick's best in my opinion.

[PHOSPH3R]

@mysticresistence What is your opinion of Nietzsche? I have never read any of his works (on the to-do list with about 50 other thinkers), and I've heard both good and bad things about him.

[sensibleadult]

@mysticresistence The reason it seems to work for some and not others is that there is true and false religion. There is even true and false Christianity. If you try to make the false work, it's impossible. Just because the false one you tried does not work doesn't mean it is all false or that you can make the blanket assumption that no religion "works" .for you or that you are justified in renouncing God.

[mysticresistence]

@freedomofthought1000 and existential atheist is someone like Nietzsche, who denied god on a personal level & was against religion, not because science was better or his obedience to reason made him believe as such (like Hitchens) but because he renounced it because it did not work for him in his own existence. That is true justification for renouncing God: it doesn't work for you. At the same time it may work for someone else. Scientific evidence is irrelevant in this case

[mysticresistence]

@freedomofthought1000 not "unusual username," but an oxymoron of a user name: how can you support "freedom of thought" if you suggest that thought should be enslaved by reason & science? And yes, if you deny personal belief, intuition, consensus reality etc and believe that conclusions can only come from science & reason, you are a slave to science & reason. No doctrine stands for sure, INCLUDING the doctrines of science & reason.