Supporting Civil Rights for Atheists and the Separation of Church and State

Dec

2011

A Memorial To Christopher Eric Hitchens

Author: admin / admin's blog

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13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011

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There is no article here, just this picture. This is your blog today.

Feel free to add your thoughts, comments, memories, inspirations, etc.

Comments

Anonymous (not verified) / Tue, 12/20/2011 - 15:48

Even while many, many religionists said "ho-hum, old stuff, been there, done that, boring" regarding Hitchens and
others, they also sensed "something new was afoot!" I do hope that memory endures.

Gee whiz...Christopher..."cut him into little stars"...you will never know how many of us will miss you...Why did you not
cut back on the booze and smokes? Do you really want us to believe those substances stoked the fires that made
your genius possible?

I would lamely and faintly endorse you on this, but only if I reach back and endorse again what Dr. Fred Herzberg said
often when consulting with us at Cummins, "...you cannot take life cold turkey. Its got to be either religion, women or
booze!"

Even so, a celestial event, super novae or what, is the most magnificent when first seen bursting across the heavens. Very
little can really recall the initial grandeur. We will just have to live with the grief of that fact.

Anonymous (not verified) / Mon, 12/19/2011 - 11:32

I remember the moment I picked up God Is Not Great. I sat on my couch and I couldn't put the book down. It captivated me and enraged an anger within me that had been suppressed by the opposite that I preached for years, god is Awesome. I always knew god was not great, I saw the thousands who's prayers were ignored! I read this book and I identified with my mentor and my teacher. Then came the thunderous hitch-slaps that I will miss the most. You helped shape me and you taught me that I could treat religion with ridicule and scorn and be proud. Even though you aren't here, you live on in me and many others. I will follow in your footsteps and finish the work you left for us to complete.
Christopher, I raise my glass and say, "May the wind always be at your back and the sun upon your face. And may the winds of destiny carry you aloft to dance with the stars."
TheSaint'sRevenge
Ernest Perce V,
PA State Director

Anonymous (not verified) / Mon, 12/19/2011 - 09:43

On December 16th 2011 I read that Christopher Hitchens had passed the day before. I was devastated. He had lost in his resistance against esophageal cancer. For those of you who don't know who he is, for shame. I cannot begin to briefly describe who the man was or what he meant to the people who knew him, knew of him, and knew of his work. He was a beacon of light in a world coverd by the divine darkness.
In awe of his loquacious intensity and mastery I would often be for hours as I studied, and bathed in the flood waters of logic and common sense he filled the earth with. Any person who shares his or my ideas were filled with a bubbling and monstrous pride that he was our unofficial spokesmen. Never before in the history of society has a group, sect, or movement had such a gifted and intrinsic representative for its cause. Truly a champion of champions.

Anonymous (not verified) / Fri, 12/16/2011 - 08:37

Goodbye good man.

Anonymous (not verified) / Fri, 12/16/2011 - 13:43

A great man, he Shant be replaced. Glad we the world had a chance to see the likes of you.

Anonymous (not verified) / Fri, 12/16/2011 - 19:51

Your wit, fortitude and tenacity inspired many. You will be greatly missed.

Anonymous (not verified) / Sat, 12/17/2011 - 02:59

Well, this is the first time I've done
This kind of tribute for anyone, so
I hope you'll like it. But if not, duly
noted.

With the parents eagerness you
washed ashore from earths beautiful tide,
A child of innocence but with swept
wings you flew to the clouds so high,
Your snowstorms blanket their
mountainous monuments in a world of prejudice & lies,
For, Hitchens we mourn,
Now his sword we'll adorn,
A mind of clarity passionate & wise.

I know I'll never see you again, but
sleep well my friend.
You've brought so much fullfillment
into the lives of millions.

Thank you Mr. Hitchens & family

And I want to thank all my fellow
Atheists for even giving me the time of day.

Anonymous (not verified) / Sat, 12/17/2011 - 12:41

He should be a motivator to all of us atheists & freethinkers to be more outspoken about our thoughts so the religious don't think they are the moral majority.

Anonymous (not verified) / Sat, 12/17/2011 - 14:54

A good man who spoke out against the theists,he certainly had his facts about religion,he had alot of courage and fellow atheists should follow his example.

Anonymous (not verified) / Sun, 12/18/2011 - 11:18

I've nearly finished Christopher Hitchens memoir Hitch-22. The more I read the more I would have liked to have met this man. Sadly this will never happen now - following his early demise at the end of last week.

I have spent some of the last two days reading various tributes to him. And the praise has been plenty. So, I suppose I will have to continue getting to know him through his written works (of which there is plenty enough to keep me going). And its seems fitting that the written word is how he will continue living in us, and not in some sort of supernatural after-life, because he is no more. Pure and simple.

Richard Dawkins tribute mentions the Hitch as a fighter against totalitarianism. And this makes a lot of sense to me. Religion is a totalitarian concept, and, well, who would willingly accept living under a dictatorship, even a divine dictatorship?

So, I am sad to have missed an opportunity to meet this man, and sad also that I have only come to know of him in the last few years of his life

Anonymous (not verified) / Wed, 12/21/2011 - 12:45

He was wrong on the woman question, "Women Are Still Not Funny", but I decided to forgive him because popes dressed in itchy clothing that comes in grotesque colors are always funny and I was hoping Mr. Hitchens would be the one to write Joe Ratz's funeral obsequies or "funeral orgies" (see Mark Twain). Everyone should be able to do one card trick, tell two jokes and recite three papal obituaries, in case they are ever trapped in an elevator. Mr. Hitchens will be missed.

Anonymous (not verified) / Wed, 12/21/2011 - 15:42

Hi Everyone;
Since the beginning of time, people have either chosen to believe or not to believe in God. As a parent, I have been privileged to watch my children make choices. When they were very young, my husband and I would have to give them direction and guidance so that their choices would not in any way harm them. Obviously, if we thought a decision was going to hurt them, we would warn them to stay away from the danger.
As adults we are quick to remind people who have had too much alcohol not to drink and drive. We also believe that getting into the car with someone who drives drunk is unsafe, and could end up with devastating consequences, including losing our lives. We most certainly do not encourage anyone who is drunk to drive! Unfortunately, there are some who don’t understand the danger they face who choose to ignore this advice. Most of us have seen people getting pulled over for this very reason. They made a bad decision, and now they must pay the price.
Much of life is this way. We make decisions, we weigh the benefits and the risks, and sometimes our choices put us at risk of danger and real harm. Regardless, It is our choice to choose which path we follow.
Yet, these decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. We are influenced greatly by the people around us, and the version of the world we happen to live in. Let’s consider the person too drunk to drive again. If someone cares and loves you, they will do everything they can to help you; they would insist on doing the driving if you have had too much to drink. They would not wish to see harm come to you. They want you to be safe and well. People who love you will intervene.
Christ came here to help all of us, to do the driving so to speak when we are not capable of doing so. Not everyone will wish to believe. Perhaps they have lived a very difficult life, or they have suffered a myriad of losses. They just don’t believe God cares for them. Nothing could be further from the truth. God speaks to all of us, we just have to listen. If you return to Him, He will reward you richly.
So that you will believe, a Minnesota couple will be winning a very large lottery, if not one of the largest the largest. They will give thanks to Jesus Christ and proclaim His great love and mercy. This will not happen once, but twice to the same couple, within a short time period. They have been chosen because they believe in the one who has been sent Jesus Christ, even though they have both suffered much.
In the Bible it is written: He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. John 3:18
It is not too late to accept Christ. Return to Him, and He will return to you. For if you continue to deny Him, your actions and beliefs will force him force Him to deny you. You pay the ultimate price. Let Jesus take the wheel.

Anonymous (not verified) / Wed, 12/21/2011 - 17:30

Since you decided to post your nonsense on Hitch's memorial page, it is only fitting to post some words from Hitch in reply:

... Christians, for example, declare me redeemed by a human sacrifice that occurred thousands of years before I was born. I didn't ask for it, and would willingly have foregone it, but there it is: I'm claimed and saved whether I wish it or not. And if I refuse the unsolicited gift? Well, there are still some vague mutterings about an eternity of torment for my ingratitude. That is somewhat worse than a Big Brother state, because there could be no hope of its eventually passing away.

In any case, I find something repulsive about the idea of vicarious redemption. I would not throw my numberless sins onto a scapegoat and expect them to pass from me; we rightly sneer at the barbaric societies that practice this unpleasantness in its literal form. There's no moral value in the vicarious gesture anyway. As Thomas Paine pointed out, you may if you wish take on a another man's debt, or even to take his place in prison. That would be self-sacrificing. But you may not assume his actual crimes as if they were your own; for one thing you did not commit them and might have died rather than do so; for another this impossible action would rob him of individual responsibility. So the whole apparatus of absolution and forgiveness strikes me as positively immoral, while the concept of revealed truth degrades the concept of free intelligence by purportedly relieving us of the hard task of working out the ethical principles for ourselves.

Anonymous (not verified) / Wed, 12/21/2011 - 18:21

"They made a bad decision, and now they must pay the price."

Now what does not believing in God, and more specifically the Christian God, lead to? It seems like a false comparison to me. While there is proven relationship between drunk driving and negative consequences such as getting into car accidents, there's not really any proven or foreseeable consequence to not believing in the Christian God vs believing in the Gods of any other religion or even not believing in any Gods at all. You speculate that people who don't believe in Jesus will go to hell, but then there are also Christians who believe that good people don't go to hell regardless of whether they believed in Jesus or not and even Christians don't even believe that Hell exists.

"Not everyone will wish to believe. Perhaps they have lived a very difficult life, or they have suffered a myriad of losses."

Or perhaps they merely looked for evidence, didn't see any, and thus don't believe. Or perhaps someone was born into a hindu, a muslim, or a jewish family and thus don't believe Jesus is God because they were raised to believe in a different idea of God. Or perhaps someone was born into an atheist family, looked for evidence, and never came to believe in God in the first place. There's tons of non-tragic reasons that one wouldn't believe in Jesus or in any God at all.

"They just don’t believe God cares for them."

Or that the God that exists isn't your specific idea of God. Or that God isn't Jesus. Or that God doesn't exist.

"Nothing could be further from the truth. God speaks to all of us, we just have to listen."

If this were true there would be few non-christian religions, fewer christian denominations, and even less false apocalyptic prophecies because God would tell people who is really right and who is really wrong.

"If you return to Him, He will reward you richly."

There are people worldwide, Christian and non-christian, who suffer from poverty, hunger, disease, etc. And there are good moral people of every religion. If a God really does exist and he chooses to reward only the people that were of the "correct religion" that believed in the "correct idea" of God rather than those who are truly in need or those who lived morally good lives that were not of the "correct religion", then frankly that says more about the vain character of your God than God's moral righteousness.

"So that you will believe, a Minnesota couple will be winning a very large lottery...This will not happen once, but twice to the same couple"

And yet if this happened 10 times in a row, this would still not be proof for the Christian God. This would be no more proof of the Christian God than the "Hindu Milk Miracle" was proof for the Hindu Gods, the light emanating from Buddhist statues was proof for the "enlightened-being" Bodhisattva, or the red heifer seen in 1997 Israel was proof for the coming of the Jewish Messiah. Something unlikely happening to a few believers of a specific religion does not mean that their religion, if any, is the correct one.

"They have been chosen because they believe in the one who has been sent Jesus Christ, even though they have both suffered much."

If this is true, it seems rather unfair that a Christian family in America gets to get free, easy money from the lottery twice while children all over the world, christian and non-christian, suffer and die from starvation in areas of poverty where disease and child-sex trafficking are rampant. If the God you believe in really does exist and that God lets a couple in the U.S. win the lottery twice as his "miraculous sign", then personally I think he needs to get his priorities straight and go for miracles that help some people who are truly in need.

"In the Bible it is written: He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. John 3:18"

And in Homers Iliad it says "If a man obeys the gods they're quick to hear his prayers", yet this is not good reason to believe in the Greek Gods. In fact, similar things are said in the Jewish Tanak and the Muslim Quran as well as in the books and stories of countless other religions. You lecture others on being condemned by the Christian God for not believing in Jesus, but you yourself are at risk of being condemned by millions of other possible Gods by not following the rules of their respective religions? Thats like calling someone on your cell phone while driving drunk so that you can tell them that they could get lung cancer from smoking.

"It is not too late to accept Christ."

Nor is it too late for you to accept Zeus, Thor, Allah, Vishnu, Osiris, etc.

"For if you continue to deny Him, your actions and beliefs will force him force Him to deny you."

And if the Christian God is real and denies good moral people because they believe in other Gods or they don't believe in Gods at all, then that says much more of his vain character than it does of the character of the good people he sends to hell. If Gandhi is in hell for not believing in Jesus despite all the good he did for the world, then your idea of God obviously doesn't have his priorities straight.

If your specific idea of the criteria for avoiding hell is simply "believe in Jesus as God" rather than "be a good person", "live as moral a life as you can", or "love your neighbor as you love yourself" then I doubt anyone who doesn't share your specific beliefs will take you seriously.

Anonymous (not verified) / Thu, 12/22/2011 - 12:48

"That's like calling someone on your cell phone while driving drunk so that you can tell them that they could get lung cancer from smoking." Brilliant! I will use that one, but give you no credit for it. I am, after all, an amoral atheist.:)

Anonymous (not verified) / Wed, 12/28/2011 - 07:58

Consequences, it just amazes me that Christians like you claim to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and yet do not do so in any way, shape or form. Rather, you and the flock follow the teachings of early church leaders who interpolated various translations and the infamous Jew hater Saul/Paul with his easy get out of jail free card. This is just more evidence that Christians do not truly read or know their holy bible anymore than what they have been indoctrinated with from their pastors and Christian leaders.

Although atheists do not believe a word of this nonsense Christians spew from the bible, we at least expect a Christian to know what their god allegedly believed and preached. At the very least, we hope that you would at least believe what your “godman” supposedly preached. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

The Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke say nothing about salvation by faith. Yet this is the foundation of Christianity. How can your faith stand when Jesus never said a word about this? Have you read your bible? Although we know these “authors” never wrote a word of these gospels, let us assume for sake of argument that they did. Well what do they report that Jesus allegedly preached about salvation? The Synoptic Gospels are best summed up with the following:

Matthew Chapter 19 - And behold, one came and said unto him: 'Good master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? ... And Jesus said: Thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; honor thy father and mother; and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Anything about salvation by faith? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Do you think the disciples just forgot to mention this rather important piece of information about salvation?

Consequences, you and your Christian comrades should be labeled as heretics preaching your salvation by faith nonsense. The words never were spoken by your so called messiah. Any and all references to this were added by early church liars, errr I mean leaders, and your true developer and leader of the faith Paul of Tarsus. Care to explain?

Anonymous (not verified) / Wed, 12/28/2011 - 08:25

Oh come on Buckeyenonbeliever. Next you'll be claiming that Jesus didn't check for citizenship papers and health insurance before he healed the sick. Or, that Jesus didn't support the death penalty or wars for oil. Or, that Jesus never mentioned abortion explicitly despite the fact that abortions have been performed since 1550 BC.

Anonymous (not verified) / Sat, 12/31/2011 - 12:39

I see you are still drunk writing though.
But I should thank you. The next religious leader that passes I am going to post some meaningless parable like yours and when they protest I am going to link them here. How's that for size?

Anonymous (not verified) / Sat, 12/31/2011 - 19:21

"So that you will believe, a Minnesota couple will be winning a very large lottery, if not one of the largest the largest. They will give thanks to Jesus Christ and proclaim His great love and mercy. This will not happen once, but twice to the same couple, within a short time period. They have been chosen because they believe in the one who has been sent Jesus Christ, even though they have both suffered much."
That's fallacious reasoning. How many times has that happened, over the last decade? Maybe once? Now, tell me, how many people have bought tickets in the lottery? I don't know the exact number, but when you really think about it, that's not very spectacular. Also, this event has no relevance to god. Just because something good happens to you doesn't mean god is rewarding you or something. Now, that's just wishful thinking.
"For if you continue to deny Him, your actions and beliefs will force him force Him to deny you. You pay the ultimate price. Let Jesus take the wheel."
I'll let you know when I actually start "paying the price".

Anonymous (not verified) / Thu, 12/22/2011 - 09:05

Hi everybody, there is a petition to create a monument of Christopher Hitchens in London. The petition is as www.atheist-reference.org please sign and share as much as you can as we're going to need a lot of signatures to get there.

Anonymous (not verified) / Thu, 12/22/2011 - 14:16

Dear consequences if that was true by just believing, people wouldn't need to worry how they live because it is all paid for by jesus.But here is the clincher ,I see no forgiveness in reality just consequences of people's actions,you believe in a fairy tale that is all.

Anonymous (not verified) / Thu, 12/22/2011 - 21:02

To consequence : 12/12/11 at pm 8:42

Hi everyone ;
Reply :
Well hello to you too, Remus.
Quote :
(Since the beginning of time, )
Reply :
I'm sorry, consequence ; but I cannot agree with your statement as you profess that "man has been around since the beginning of time, " when that's clearly wrong & with absolute certainty.

Science has already proven
your so-called (good book)
to be in error through
(Archaeology ) which shows
mankind to be far older
then the people who had
written the texts in your
Bible, & even older, still,
then the (Mesopotamian
Eden that predates Genesis)
from the Akkadian Cylinder
Seal, {2330-2150} B.C.E.
which shows, without
doubt, that Genesis is
nothing more than a
borrowed story.
Wow. How unoriginal.

And, if you care to look,
consequence ; there are cave drawings in
(Europe) that have been dated up to (40,000) years
ago, &, we homosapiens
have been around for at
least (200,000) years.
Consequence, our own
human species has also
been dated, from archaeological evidence,
to be about (7) million years old.

Now, while that may sound
old, consequence; life on
Earth's shown through
(geological) evidence & has
been proven to be at least
(3.9) billion years old.
And the Earth, again,
through (geological &
astronomical evidence
shows the Sun, Earth, &
everything in our (Solar
System's) about (4.6) billion
years old.
And everything sure as hell
wasn't made in six days.
So, can you please spare us
from your moments of
lunacy?
In closing, I want to say
that my only hope, &
intention, for you was to learn something from this,
consequence. But if not, then you only have yourself
to blame, since it's self-evident that you've allowed
others to do, your, thinking
for you.

Good day, consequence; &
be safe throughout your
(Winter Solstice Holiday) your friend :

Erebus Priest

Anonymous (not verified) / Mon, 12/26/2011 - 12:41

Terrible loss to all thinking, rational people, especially in these United States of America, with the electoral season and the onslaught of the Religious Right.

Thank you for your insights, guidance and corrections. It's been an honor and a joy. Rest now. You will live forever in our hearts and minds.

May the Dogs be with you!

http://www.from-the-doghouse.com/CANINE_QUOTES/Anasagasti/Anasagasti-Bla...

Anonymous (not verified) / Sat, 12/31/2011 - 12:43

It's been a few days now and while I am certainly happy I can go to youtube and conjure up a young, biting Hitchens whenever I want, it seems impossible to me that we are not going to benefit from his ongoing commentary.

Hitch, you will be missed.