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Christopher Hitchens Dies At 62

An anonymous reader sends this quote from the NY Times: "Christopher Hitchens, a slashing polemicist in the tradition of Thomas Paine and George Orwell who trained his sights on targets as various as Henry Kissinger, the British monarchy and Mother Teresa, wrote a best-seller attacking religious belief, and dismayed his former comrades on the left by enthusiastically supporting the American-led war in Iraq, died Thursday at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He was 62. He took pains to emphasize that he had not revised his position on atheism, articulated in his best-selling 2007 book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, although he did express amused appreciation at the hope, among some concerned Christians, that he might undergo a late-life conversion. Mr. Hitchens's latest collection of writings, Arguably: Essays, published this year, has been a best-seller and ranked among the top 10 books of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review."

9 of 910 comments (clear)

  1. And now he finds out ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    ... whether or not he was right.

  2. Ode to Hitchens by UglyTool · · Score: 5, Funny
    He raised all our IQs a notch.

    Idiocy fell on his watch.
    We all know that Hitch
    was nobody's bitch,
    so let's thank him by raising a scotch.

  3. Re:The Atlantic by Rogerborg · · Score: 5, Funny

    Fail. "Computer scientists" don't write code, they write books explaining why all existing implementations are wrong.

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  4. Re:Not all religions are bad by IICV · · Score: 4, Funny

    He did, they call it Islam.

    Then apparently he clarified even more, and they call that Mormonism.

    It's a pity that God's definition of "clarity" seems to be the exact opposite of ours.

  5. Re:Not all religions are bad by MonsterTrimble · · Score: 4, Funny

    So what you are saying is that God needed to add Automatic Updates into religion?

    Actually, I would prefer a changelog.

    --
    I call it 'The Aristocrats'
  6. Re:Not all religions are bad by Zephyn · · Score: 5, Funny

    This biblical passage is a stub. You can help Christianity by expanding it.

  7. Re:Not all religions are bad by Creepy · · Score: 4, Funny

    this reminds me of a debate I had with a Jehovah's Witness (normally I wouldn't, but she was cute, and I needed some eye candy at that time in my life). She was definitely set in her ways and me mine...

    me: so how do you justify Dinosaurs?
    her: the Devil put them there to deceive us on how old the world is
    me: why would Satan do that? Seems like a total waste of time
    her: to sway your belief
    me :I don't see how the age of the earth and belief in God have anything to do with one another, but ok...
    her: see? It has already swayed your belief
    me: no it hasn't - I don't believe the world was made in 7 days either, but to me that is figurative
    her: no, it's real
    me: (shaking my head and looking up a verse in her Bible) hey - there's missing verse here, and this is strangely interpreted
    her: there is nothing missing or incorrect in our Bible
    me: so you're saying your mistranslation of a translation of a translation of a Bible doesn't have any mistakes?
    her: it's not a mistranslation, God made sure our translation was perfect
    me: so what is my Bible then?
    her: a mistake.

  8. Re:Thank you, sir... by ShakaUVM · · Score: 1, Funny

    >>You were a rare man. Thank you.

    Yep. He's in heaven now.