Yesterday was the 4th year anniversary of Christopher Hitchens' death. One of the most brilliant mind of our time. He has inspired millions, and still is inspiring millions with his thought-provoking style.He wasn't afraid of anything, not even death. Always eager to challenge even the most commonly accepted ideas, in genuine pursuit of truth, and never one to run away from an argument. Debating ideas for their own sake, on the stage until his last breath. He enjoyed life more than anyone,fully aware that it was perhaps what led him to an early grave, but with no regrets.
You are deaply missed Mr. Hitchens, humanity lost a great man on december 15,2011.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILPM0M7Ck8w

Is this the origin of your name? Just curious.

yes, Christopher Hitchens was so famous for his ability to obliterate his oponnent's argument in one quick and witty statement, that it became his trademark: the hitchslap :)
google it you'll find tons of video compilation of hitchslaps

tbh I think he's hella overrated- a good portion of his Iraq War "debates" belong on /r/cringe

His stance on Irak War only indicates that he was like us a mere mortal, and he wasn't always right. It is a bit ridiculus to reduce him to this though, and wether you agreed with him on anything, it is obvious that he was a genius with words.

Oh wait is this the same Hitchens related to Peter Hitchens, the paleoconservative and non-interventionist?

HOLY COW. Those two are brothers. Lol they must have had some crazy Christmas dinners. Literally at the farthest ends of the political spectrum. Wow you learn something new everyday.

haha yeah, and they have debated each other many times throughout the years! i'm astonished that you knew about peter hitchens and not about christopher. Though to be honest i don't know much about peter hitchens, i should read more about him. I've never watched a whole debate they did against each other, only 1 or 2 interview they made together.

edit:
i'm gonna watch this debate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XHv7IQCg-w
I have a feeling i'm gonna agree with Christopher on religion, and with Peter about the war, either way, i'll be rooting for a Hitchens :)

Edited 12/17/2015 00:43:32

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJj-9yuZNao

HAHA. No I'm a real nerd. I remember watching a CSPAN video where they were both present...except it was so long ago. I only recalled Peter, but I realize that Christopher was the more famous brother.

Is there anything involving him where he's not bashing Christians?

Honestly, the only think I don't like about Athiests is that they seem to spend most of their time arguing with Christians...

Didn't he do anything to advance philosophy or something good?

Is there anything involving him where he's not bashing Christians?

He's also quite a neoconservative (although he still claimed to be a Marxist/socialist, so you can find some hilarious videos of him offering justifications for the Iraq War or attacking other religions (most commonly Islam).

Hitchens was not a philosopher (and was, while eloquent, an intellectual lightweight) but he did make certain contributions to the study of certain public figures and politics.

Hitchens was also very decidedly an antitheist rather than just an atheist- he saw Islam as a sort of "fascism" and also authored stuff like God is not Great (which is more or less an extended version of the sort of screed you'd find in the comments section of /r/atheism).

I don't think he should've been idolized the way he was, but it makes sense as the whole "New Atheism" thing is also not a very intellectual movement and more or less a manifestation of identity politics, a resistance to both multiculturalism and the religious right, and contrarianism.

So he basically wrote a lot of stuff- interesting stuff, but no field today can claim to have been revolutionized by Hitchens (putting him in kind of an odd position, as Dawkins advanced evolutionary biology (and the study of memes >_<), Dennett has made some important philosophical arguments (especially about thought, memory, and free will), and Harris has contributed to the "science of morality" (which, although dubiously grounded on Harris's deriving an is from an ought, is still a field in some sense)).

Ok, I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought this, I just wanted to check if I was missing something he did. The way he idolised Socrates made me think maybe he was more into that sort of thing, I know about "God is not great" but I didn't know he was the author. This makes a lot of sense, thanks for the synopsis vitriol :)

To all: I don't deny he is good with words and quips, and I certainly am not belittling him, I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression, and to be honest, if you're offended all I can retort with is "Yes, and what's the point your making?" :)

neoconservative

So his critics say, but the only thing I can think of that he might have agreed with neocons on was whether the US should invade Iraq*. Note, that he did not agree on the reasons. Neocons went with WMDs as reasons, Hitchens stuck with his view that overthrowing Saddam Hussein was the reason the US should go. So even on that, he was not a neo-con. [FYI: I also disagree with his views on Iraq, just want to clarify what they were.]

* Oh I do remember now that he was a bit pro-'advanced interrogation techniques', but when he voluntarily underwent waterboarding, he had nothing good to say about it afterwards.

Hitchens was a journalist and political activist, not a scientist. He didn't theorised new ideas to make advances in some scientific or philosophic field, because that was not his job. What Hitchens did was making sharp analysis of the world we live in, based on his extensive knowledge of it (geopolitics, religions, literature, etc). He probably wrote about every political and public figure of his time, and even on some of the past (Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, etc). Reducing his work to "bashing christians" is not fair. He only started focusing on religion in the last 10 years of his life (basically since 9/11).

Calling Hitchens a neocon is moronic, in the same way people call sam harris a neocan. As soon as you tackle moral issues like war, terrorism, barbarism, etc, if you are not a complete hippy about it, and try to approach it rationally (even as a pure thought experiment), some people (i'm starting to think the regressive left is a thing) are going to brand you a neocon. At the end of his life, he said that even though he wasn't a socialist anymore, he was still very much a marxist.

^Hitchslap is 100% right. The entry into neocon into our lexicon is so vague it requires a greater debate. At this point you can call every presidential candidate a neocon by the standards set up by the media and political pundits. Even the inverse (isolationism) is thrown around so arrogantly as a pejorative that its infuriating. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are no more isolationists than President Obama is deserving of a nobel peace prize.

Edited 12/19/2015 17:10:09