Philosophy
I've just learned that the prolific essayist and inimitable public intellectual and agitator Christopher Hitchens has succumbed to the cancer he's been battling over the past year.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that Hitchens was a force to be reckoned with. Whatever the subject, at the very least he always had something interesting and thought-provoking to say.
In the following excerpt, Hitchens argues for the motion that "We'd be better off without religion." Now that he's gone, we can think of these ideas and realize that while he was with us, the world was a better place because of his eloquence, his courage, and his wit.
And because it would be totally appropriate on this occasion, I'm stealing the following picture from The Friendly Atheist to make a humble toast to Hitch:
- The Fact That We Didn't Find Any Means They Probably Were There
David Corn on Christopher Hitchens: "When he did address the issue of the absent WMDs in Iraq, he took a strange turn. 'Doesn't anything ever strike you as odd," he said, "about the figure of zero for [WMD] deposits found in Iraq? ... Isn't...
- Christopher Hitchens - The Never-ending Party
Death is one of those things we all have to confront at some point. In fact, the 20th century German philosopher Martin Heidegger thought that the very essence of human nature (or Dasein, as he called us) is our being-toward-death. Obviously, once you're...
- Christopher Hitchens - Philosophy And Booze
If you're familiar with the late Christopher Hitchens, you probably know that besides being a prolific writer, social commentator, public intellectual, fierce debater and a master rhetorician, the man loved his booze and his smokes. In the following...
- Christopher Hitchens & Tony Blair Debate On Religion
In a civilized and thought-provoking debate that took place just this past week in Toronto, former British Prime Minister and recent Catholic convert Tony Blair defended the motion that religion is a force for good in the world. Opposing the motion with...
- Stephen Fry - The Importance Of Philosophy And Unbelief
While I'm somewhat suspicious of actors--always pretending to be someone else :), I do tend to admire the good ones for their ability to convey and explore the spectrum of human possibilities. Still, they're not usually the first group to whom...
Philosophy
Christopher Hitchens - We'd Be Better Off Without Religion
Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that Hitchens was a force to be reckoned with. Whatever the subject, at the very least he always had something interesting and thought-provoking to say.
In the following excerpt, Hitchens argues for the motion that "We'd be better off without religion." Now that he's gone, we can think of these ideas and realize that while he was with us, the world was a better place because of his eloquence, his courage, and his wit.
And because it would be totally appropriate on this occasion, I'm stealing the following picture from The Friendly Atheist to make a humble toast to Hitch:
- The Fact That We Didn't Find Any Means They Probably Were There
David Corn on Christopher Hitchens: "When he did address the issue of the absent WMDs in Iraq, he took a strange turn. 'Doesn't anything ever strike you as odd," he said, "about the figure of zero for [WMD] deposits found in Iraq? ... Isn't...
- Christopher Hitchens - The Never-ending Party
Death is one of those things we all have to confront at some point. In fact, the 20th century German philosopher Martin Heidegger thought that the very essence of human nature (or Dasein, as he called us) is our being-toward-death. Obviously, once you're...
- Christopher Hitchens - Philosophy And Booze
If you're familiar with the late Christopher Hitchens, you probably know that besides being a prolific writer, social commentator, public intellectual, fierce debater and a master rhetorician, the man loved his booze and his smokes. In the following...
- Christopher Hitchens & Tony Blair Debate On Religion
In a civilized and thought-provoking debate that took place just this past week in Toronto, former British Prime Minister and recent Catholic convert Tony Blair defended the motion that religion is a force for good in the world. Opposing the motion with...
- Stephen Fry - The Importance Of Philosophy And Unbelief
While I'm somewhat suspicious of actors--always pretending to be someone else :), I do tend to admire the good ones for their ability to convey and explore the spectrum of human possibilities. Still, they're not usually the first group to whom...