Christopher Hitchens' Address to the American Atheist Convention 2011

Link to Pharyngula article, including full text source:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/04/hitchens_address_to_american_a.php

Christopher Hitchens' cancer has progressed to the point where he does not have the use of his voice, so he was unable to speak at the AAC. I thought his address was an eloquent statement of his position, and a hopeful message for a secular person.

This channel is not about atheism, but it is about opposing dogmatic extremism. I usually read essays about science by renowned scientists, but I'd like to make an exception in this one case. Mr. Hitchens is an intriguing person, and a master of ruthless honesty in pursuit of truth.

I hope you enjoy this short essay. Fluoride and High Fructose Corn Syrup are in production, and I'm writing scripts for Alcohol and Cell Phones. Work has kept me busy lately, so bear with me.

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[bsrk7]

A smart man, but an overrated one. Though I would prefer he didn't die, his death is the result of his own (quite illogical) lifestyle choices, and I refuse to feel sympathy for a man who had no sympathy for anyone else, as ignorant and stupid as they may have been.

He devoted too much of his argumentation to petty, ad hominem attacks for me to admire him as an intellectual or an orator. I feel that he cheapened the Atheist and Critical Thinker brand and did more harm than good. So it goes.

[C0nc0rdance]

@bsrk7

You have to judge people by the measure of their actions, but I tend to think that really elegant prose is independent of the author of the words. Thomas Jefferson has much to answer for as well, but his writing can still inspire and enlighten.

I think criticism of leaders like Hitchens is a good and right thing (and I suspect he would approve, contrarian that he was), but don't let it detract from his really good ideas and eloquent speeches.

[bsrk7]

@C0nc0rdance Very true, but I think there are many other sources from which to find the exact same ideas that he has espoused over his lifetime--which is all the more reason for me to wonder why HE was so magnetic to the atheist crowd. Contrarian though he was, he was not an original--he was merely more popular than other, more respectable people (often predecessors) who had similar ideas and philosophies. I (dis)credit him with cultivating a bad reputation for atheists everywhere.

[C0nc0rdance]

@bsrk7

"Contrarian though he was, he was not an original"

Come on... if ANYTHING, the man was a complete original.

Here are some lovely words from Hitchens on Wikiquote:

"Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it."

"Principles have a way of enduring, as do the few irreducible individuals who maintain allegiance to them. "

"The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths."

[theetrue]

If you pray to God for forgiveness and accept Christ as your Lord

and Savior, you will accept Hitchens' deathbed conversion and see him

in eternal Heaven after Judgment; are you interested in converting?

[C0nc0rdance]

@theetrue

LOL.

[C0nc0rdance]

@JRBendixen

Goodbye, Hitch. You pissed off all the right people, and you looked amazingly cool the whole time.

[TwistedMind6969]

I will miss this man, I will miss this genius.

[ForYeensSake]

@bsrk7 Well yes, now that you mention it that was a straw man. Sorry for that. However I don't think we see hitchens as a creator to be honest. But I've yet to find somebody who can disagree with me with this much panache.

[bsrk7]

@ForYeensSake I didn't say he fully copied anyone or that he should be ashamed to take these ideas from his predecessors. I just said that he was derivative. He is not the originator of these ideas. Secular morality, humanism, atheism, empiricism, they all predate Hitchens by a long shot. He was simply the the most prominent advocate of our generation for these things--he was not their creator.

[ForYeensSake]

@bsrk7 Could you name 5-10 people who hitchens copied shamelessly and fully ? Not just based on ofcourse, but really copied?

[bitphr3ak]

@R0WMaC - Hopefully the college students will be intelligent enough to make their own choices in life, good and bad. To blame Hitchens for the college culture of drinking to excess is a rather strawman attempt at insulting a brilliant man.

As Hitchens himself has said a number of times, and he made no apologies for it (and none are required); he may very well have burnt the candle at both ends...but if gave off a lovely hue!

He is missed!

This man helped a lot more than

[R0WMaC]

This guy helps the cigarette and alcohol companies more than their advertising does. The amount of college students who will go out and light up or 'drink enough to stun a mule' is huge and they all do it in the name of their Holy Lord Hitchens. It's a wonderful paradox, simple and elegant yet entirely telling of the hypocrisy we see day in day out in the 'learned'.

[kullaceae]

Brilliant. 

[bsrk7]

@C0nc0rdance Excuse the textification of Thomas Jefferson's prose lol This character limit is oppressive! Anyway, Thomas Jefferson is just one of many examples of less divisive, prickish, petulant sources for equally good (or better) writing on such topics : )

Plus he really throws a wrench in the whole Tea Party ethos, which depends so much on justifying its ignorance and stupidity with quotations from the Founding Fathers! Quoting Jefferson to conservatives can be quite fun.

[Akhotnik]

I never got the chance to meet Hitchens, but I miss him more everyday it seems.

[bsrk7]

@C0nc0rdance T. Jefferson: Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear

But it does me no injury 4 my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg

Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity