What do you miss about christopher hitchens??

I know hes not the most popular guy to many far-leftists but you cant say that he didnt contribute anything to the religious and political discourse and that he didn't impact and inspire so many people. I know his friend Sam Harris is a bit more problematic with his torture-friendly views, but Hitchens was at least more logical in his arguments, making him more popular, whereas i think sam harris is more moralistic.

so which were some of your best 'hitchslaps'??

He was good in his debate against his brother Peter Hitchens. He got sonned by Galloway though.

I think I would agree that Sam Harris is more preoccupied with excusing the US' actions and morally justifying them than ever analysing them. Which is why his historical knowledge is unsurprisingly poor. Just to pull out one example, he apparently had to be corrected by an anthropologist and told that there had, indeed, been Palestinian Christian suicide bombers, when he went on his tirade about Muslims' predisposition to suicide bombing. So he switched his argument from "Where are the Palestinian Christian suicide bombers?" to "There were only a few Palestinian Christian suicide bombers".

Hitchens may have taken a more logical approach in his arguments, but as if that helped any in his defense of American imperialism. I really don't understand how he just stood so firmly by his words even when evidence after evidence surfaced over the years revealing the utter criminality of the Iraq war. Very logical. I don't miss anything about the guy, good riddance.

I also didn't realize they were called 'Hitchslaps'. Can't roll my eyes harder at that one.

He was an interesting figure and I read his Slate column regularly. Politically he was awful of course, regressing from ISO faux-Marxist liberalism to an openly bourgeois liberal ideology which celebrated imperialism. His obsession with religion was also annoying, though he was of course the most likable of the New Atheists. So yes, I miss him as I miss any interesting public figure (and most of what was interesting about him had nothing to do with politics, and much less with religion).

Hitchens was enjoyable to read or watch when he was trashing simpleminded fundamentalist Christians. When he deployed the same arrogance in favor of American war criminals, it made you want to punch him.

I like Dawkins' The God Delusion. While its arguments are surprisingly unsophisticated, it functions as an enjoyable anti-religion polemic. Too bad he seems to be having a contest with himself to make the most asinine public statements imaginable.

Sam Harris is simply unfathomable. His arguments are those of a raving simpleton, and he is only taken seriously by those who tacitly approve of his murderous bigotry. He whines about being taken out of context, but there is no mistaking the fact that he wants innocent people to die because of their place of birth. He insists that he only condemns suicide bombers and other terrorists, but a nuclear first strike can't distinguish between people he approves of and those he disapproves of, and he knows that. The lives of people from the Middle East, for him, simple do not matter, and that makes him an apologist for the most disgusting, bloodthirsty white supremacist rhetoric.

The problem with "new Atheism" in general is the notion that religious ideas force people to act in certain ways. It's an utterly simple-minded way of looking at the world and ignores the fact that people respond to their material conditions, rather than being programmed to act by religious doctrine, which can and often does have an influence, but is certainly not the sole cause of people's actions.

i enjoyed watching him get waterboarded.

Nothing.

The pseudo-socialist contrarian? Uh... I miss... Ditto

Yep. He ended as a cheerleader for imperialism and American power. Fuck him.

You could at least provide a more mature, serious answer -_-

@everyone: Whether you want to admit it or not, Hitchens DID inspire many people and was respected by many. He didn't hold the best political views, but even then he knew how to intelligently articulate them in a way that made him stand out from the rest of the right wingers. Sam Harris is a bit more problematic, true, and usually has a hard time defending himself especially when his words are taken out of context, but Christopher Hitchens isn't a figure you can easily dismiss as someone who didn't know what he was talking about.

His politics were never particularly good and, like those of Shachtman, they got worse as time went on (although Shachtman was, at one point, a revolutionary, which Hitchens never was). He could be superficially clever, but it was often painfully obvious that he was out of his depth when discussing many subjects. The movement built partially around him was and remains quite irritating, both for the blatant shilling for American imperialism and bourgeois democracy and for the cult-like insistence that anyone who opposes them is a creationist, Islamist, whatever.

I don't think there is much to miss, to be honest.

he was marginally less odious as a nu-atheist figure than Dick Dorkins

I feel like we're being trolled here.

It was a mature and serious answer.

Activist atheists are incredibly annoying. idgaf about Hitchens or Harris.

Well while Hitchens was an out and out anti theist or whatnot he certainly had a much more well rounded resume than the usual activist athiest. And when it comes to atheist activism, I am glad somebody argued that bit about Mother Teresa because fuck it needed to be said.

William Buckley was my conservative intellectual of choice, though it is too bad there isn't one who doesn't come off like a racist moron or a twerp douche depending.

Brilliant mind ... kind of wasted. He realized somewhere along the line that Marxism was too cliche to build a reputation on. So he re-deployed all his energies into anti-theism. It worked---it got him the fame he wanted. But the whole thing got overplayed and turned into a wankfest. Ultimately he was an attention whore.

actually he was at least less disgusting than his brother, I'll give him that.

They don't annoy me as much as activist Christians. Activist atheists have no political representation. The same cannot be said for theists. All atheists have are words. Christians actually have political power--something particularly dangerous in the hands of those with unjustified irrational beliefs.

Atheists are the most hated of all groups. Even homosexuals and Muslims aren't as widely hated. So I don't blame atheists for being angry as fuck. They should be.

That sounds like the same kind of horseshit that comes out of people about feminists. They are annoying or whatever. :rolleyes:

His formidable debating skills will be missed. He was always quick off the mark and i can't remember him ever being caught flat-footed in a discussion.

That's because he didn't care what he said. He chose his opinions based on their ability to advance his profile.

He was a careerist piece of shit.

You have no business being angry because people believe in sun gods. I haven't seen any carpet-bombing of Athiest populations or the systemic banning of atheist garb. Wherever atheists are most angry are the safest places for religious freedom.

Activist atheism is about superiority. That's why the faces of the movement are narcissistic xenophobes like Hitchens and Dawkins.