The Global Atheist Convention’s Tribute to Christopher Hitchens

It’s good but I could do without the background music, or at least lower its volume. It gets in the way of enjoying the video.

btw, the closing piece was from his debate with Dembski in Nov 2010.  The audience was a Christian Academy, hence his reference to “your age”.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7wU9QJ5mOQ“Nothing Hitchens does is every boring” (– Sam Harris’s wife) but he was especially fired up for this one.

 This video is truly inspiring.

I still have a hard time forgiving him for his stance on (and role in legitimizing) the invasion of Iraq. Any good he did as an Atheist was more than cancelled out by cheerleading that series of atrocities — and, remember, never admitting that he was wrong.

Listening to Christopher speak was always a profoundly joyful and educational experience for me. I didn’t always agree with him, and I occasionally needed to pause while I looked up a word I hadn’t been aware existed. He was charming, brilliant, ruthless and wonderfully flawed. What I wouldn’t give for an ounce of his eloquence. More than once, his verbal barrages raised the hair on the nape of my neck, like powerfully moving music. Without hyperbole, I can honestly claim I have never witnessed anyone who spoke as evocatively as Hitch. He will be sincerely missed, and I’m thankful to have his collective works safely archived. His tenacity and impetus will live on through those he continues to inspire, long after his death.

Hitchens may or may not have preached the overthrow of all despots, but his stated reasons for supporting the Iraq war were things which turned out to be false. And not once did he apologize or even acknowledge that he had been taken in.
He bought into the idea that Iraq was funding Osama bin Laden and also that Iraq had WMDs, both of which claims were transparently false even at the time the Bush administration put them forward.His justification was based on saving lives and making people’s lives better and also on the idea that invading Muslim nations would help to challenge Islam. The former was a pipe dream put forth by morons who conveniently ignored the evidence of pretty much ever war in the 20th century, and the latter was a pipe dream put forth by morons who conveniently ignored the evidence of every single instance of violence in the name of religious persecution, ever. Anyone with an ounce of sense and the examples of history could see that the invasion of Iraq was going to explode into a nightmare, and the fact that Hitchens not only could not see this but was an enthusiastic supporter says very bad things about Hitchens’ intelligence.

His exchange with Chomsky ended with a childish retreat and an attempt at mocking those who disagreed with him — in terms which were prescient; Ashcroft turned out to be a greater threat to the U.S., post-2001, than Osama bin Laden; even now our democracy is threatened by the despot-friendly measures which Ashcroft enabled, whereas bin Laden basically spent the remaining decade of his life on the run — which fact had nothing to do with Iraq, since he was never there.

And, as I say, from Hitchens, there was silence. If you make the claim, as Hitchens did (and I do, myself) that Atheism is a superior worldview to religion because it is based firmly in reality, then Hitchens’ support for the Iraq invasion made him a hypocrite and a fool. He was a modern Lysenko, making claims which had already been refuted and holding on for reasons of politics rather than reason.

Considering the number of people whose lives have now been utterly destroyed as a result of the invasion, and the shockwaves of instability which have spread throughout the region as a result, we owe it to future generations to discredit the fools who brought us to this point in the hopes that, when new fools of the same type arise — as they will — perhaps some people will remember and learn from our mistakes.

He was a war monger and brute who celebrated war and killing.