dead Christopher Hitchens

[Andy Garcia 1]

I like Hitch; I hope he survives this.

[Spade_Cooley 9,527]

Hitchens failed to meet his deadline for the Slate column he's been writing since 2002 this week. The website says he's undergoing radiation treatment, but surely he was undergoing that and still writing last year? Where's your God now... oh yeah.

[Guest Guest]

Hitchens failed to meet his deadline for the Slate column he's been writing since 2002 this week. The website says he's undergoing radiation treatment, but surely he was undergoing that and still writing last year? Where's your God now... oh yeah.

Look slike he's near the end.It's a shame.I admire his independent minded thinking

[Spade_Cooley 9,527]

Hitch in Vanity Fair on what it's like to lose your voice to cancer.

 

Like so many of life’s varieties of experience, the novelty of a diagnosis of malignant cancer has a tendency to wear off.

[notaguest 16]

I thought he was on this years list

!

[Magere Hein 1,400]

I thought he was on this years list

!

He's not. I'm afraid he should have been.

 

regards,

Hein

[Spade_Cooley 9,527]

He's apparently still healthy enough to take his dick out and smack it around David Mamet's skull repeatedly.

[themaninblack 2,112]

He's apparently still healthy enough to take his dick out and smack it around David Mamet's skull repeatedly.

 

 

Glengarry Glen Ross was shit anyway...

 

As for Mr Neoconservative himself attacking Mamet's rightward turn, I can only think of this:

 

[notaguest 16]

Christopher Hitchens has lost his voice

[Windsor 2,233]

Christopher Hitchens has lost his voice

 

This was reported in this very thread on 9th May 2011...a post which you replied to...

[sympathyforthedevil 11]

Christopher Hitchens has lost his voice

 

This was reported in this very thread on 9th May 2011...a post which you replied to...

 

Yes, Hitch losing his voice is old news...

[Spade_Cooley 9,527]

"Some of these articles were written with the full consciousness that they might be my very last" sez the intro to his latest compilation of essays.

[notaguest 16]

"Some of these articles were written with the full consciousness that they might be my very last" sez the intro to his latest compilation of essays.

This is the mo st interesting quote.. 'About a year ago, I was informed by a doctor that I might have as little as another year to live'

 

lets start the countdown clock then!

[Spade_Cooley 9,527]

Hitch had a "medical emergency" at the weekend that's caused him to cancel public appearances. This has to be the endgame, surely?

[Spade_Cooley 9,527]

Now he's saying he will be healthy enough to collect the "Freethinker of the Year" awards at the Atheist Alliance of America Awards on October 8th. And who could turn down the chance to hang out with 1,000 neckbeards in that confined a space?

[Guest Guest]

I work in a cancer ward and in my professional opinion judging by his current physical condition Mr Hitchens probably has at least 6 months left to live but maybe another year to 2 years if he is lucky.

[Rotten Ali 600]

I work in a cancer ward and in my professional opinion judging by his current physical condition Mr Hitchens probably has at least 6 months left to live but maybe another year to 2 years if he is lucky.

Thanks for you insight - jolly good show. The very sort of guest we need as a new member. And lets take a note of how right you will be in the fullness of time.

[Spade_Cooley 9,527]

http://blog.chron.com/partisangridlock/201...ance-in-months/

[Spade_Cooley 9,527]

Bad news for white people, the "who can feel more smug about not believing in God" talk-off between Hitchens and Stephen Fry has been cancelled as Hitchens has been struck down with pneumonia and will not be able to fly. Hitch's place will be taken, inevitably, by Richard Dawkins.

 

As a side thought: Douglas Adams, Linda Smith and Stephen Jay Gould were all struck down at a young age, and Hitchens and Terry Pratchett are both on the way out. Is being a professional Outspoken Atheist a good way of ensuring you won't live to see 65? Should we be shortlisting Dawkins and Ricky ******* Gervais for our teams next year?

[themaninblack 2,112]

If Ricky Gervais got struck down then there really is a God!

[Magere Hein 1,400]

As a side thought: Douglas Adams, Linda Smith and Stephen Jay Gould were all struck down at a young age, and Hitchens and Terry Pratchett are both on the way out. Is being a professional Outspoken Atheist a good way of ensuring you won't live to see 65? Should we be shortlisting Dawkins and Ricky ******* Gervais for our teams next year?

Not all POAs die young. May I present Feuerbach (1804-1872), Edison (1847–1931) and Huxley (1887–1975) as counterexamples. The life of Sagan (1934–1996) is, unfortunately, a data point for the Other Side.

 

Gervais may still be a good candidate.

 

regards,

Hein

[Ulitzer95 12,620]

What silly chat about nothing. I could pull out just as many devout Christians who have died before their time. Dawkins and Gervais appear to be in excellent health.

 

As do most other Atheists, namely Daniel Radcliffe, Hugh Laurie, Mark Zuckerberg, Sir Alan Sugar, David Gilmour, Gary Numan, Pat Condell, Woody Allen, Ian McKellen, David Miliband, Jodie Foster, Larry Flynt, Ron Reagan, Harvey Fierstein, Vivienne Westwood, Derren Brown, Eddie Izzard, Jim Broadbent, Nigella Lawson, Ken Livingstone, Alan Davies, Louis Theroux, Ben Elton, Alan Cumming, Russell T. Davies, Johann Hari, Richard E. Grant, Stewart Lee, Peter Tatchell, Roger Waters, Alastair Campbell, David Starkey, Alan Johnson, Jimmy Carr, Emma Thompson, Simon Pegg, Dame Helen Mirren, Stephen Fry, Christopher Eccleston, Ross Noble and James Cameron. (interesting note: most are considerably more intelligent people than their bible bashing counterparts)

 

Sir Ludovic Kennedy was 89. Sir Arthur C. Clarke and Quentin Crisp both saw 90, respectively. James Callaghan was 92. Diana Mitford was 93. H. J. Blackham was 105.

 

Carl Reiner (89) and Nicolaas Bloembergen (91) are more likely candidates if we're to go by age...

[Magere Hein 1,400]

What silly chat about nothing.

 

Of course it's silly, silly. We're just killing time, rather than pray for mr Hitchens' survival into 2012.

 

As do most other Atheists, namely

[snip list]

(interesting note: most are considerably more intelligent people than their bible bashing counterparts)

And so we turn to a much more interesting question: do atheism, agnosticism and general disbelief coincide with intelligence?

 

The politically correct answer is: there's no reason to think so. I know quite a few clever theists and several atheists who are thick as a brick. I don't sympathise with those godless heathens who call themselves brights.

 

Oh fuck PC, there are reasons to assume that there is a correlation:

• I know several people who were raised on religion, who, through reason, discovered that religion is nonsense. It takes quite some intelligence to get there. Additionally, it takes courage to tell your relatives and friends about your apostacy.
  
• I live in a society in which the importance of organised religion is fading (Islam possibly excepted), but I'm well aware that in many places being an atheist openly isn't the easiest way to go through life, if not impossible. As a teenager I lived in a part of the Netherlands that was (and is) predominantly Roman Catholic. At school (run by Franciscan monks) I had a daft conversations after a classmate noticed I didn't join in morning prayer. It went like this:
   
  Classmate: "Hey, don't you pray?"
  I: "No."
  CM: "Why?"
  I: "I'm not a Catholic."
  CM: "Oh, so you're a Protestant, then."
  I: "No."
  CM: "Ehrm.... I got it, you're Jewish!"
  I: "No."
  CM. "Huh?"
  I: "I'm not religious."
  CM. "How can that be? You've got to be something!"
  I: "No."
  CM: "You're weird."
   
  Strangely enough, the boy I had this conversation with wasn't half clever and one of the best pupils in my class. Yet even at this young age he showed all the narrowmindedness of the True Believer. I never saw him after I left school, so maybe he got better, but I doubt it.
  
• And of course: the way many people let themselves be fleeced (or worse) by their priests is of an stupidity beyond belief.
  

 

Back to normal. Several believers I know are very nice people. I rather doubt the moral virtue of people who need the carrot of heaven and the stick of hell to do the right thing, but if it turns them into nice people, I won't complain.

 

regards,

Hein

[Guest derek brown]

reuters reporting death of Christopher Hitchens from pneumonia.link still unvailable

[Phantom 2,533]

I see nothing reported on Reuters so far. last report seems to be about him battling pneumonia