Thank You, Christopher Hitchens

As I'm sure you know, Christopher Hitchens died yesterday and the world is a little dimmer.

There have been some great articles written about him, and I don't feel I can even come close to them, so I will just say a few thoughts.

Christopher Hitchens was ferociously intelligent, erudite, passionate, eloquent and outspoken. He was one of the Four Horsemen, a tour de force for critical thinking, not just an atheist but an anti-theist.

His shoes can never be filled, but it is our responsibility to take up the mantle he dropped, to stand on his broad shoulders and continue his work, each in our own way, together.

He lived his life fully and completely. He wrung every drop of essence out of the time he had. He never wavered, never backed down from a challenge, his scythe of reason ever ready to cut down bullshit.

Let us rally together, stand up, be counted, come out, speak out for what we believe in, for what matters to us; for justice, truth and reason.

I am a better person for what Hitch taught me, for how he enlightened me. If in any small way we can pass on the bright light of reason he shone on us, his legacy lives on and grows.

2 comments:

  1. Excellent tribute!

    I concur. I have even forgiven him for the Iraq War (!) and his ungenerous thoughts on Muslims (which he made from time to time).

    He was a writer to be read now and for decades, and I felt his light dim in my life when he died.

    Thank you for your words of comfort.

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  2. Thanks, Suzan. Yes, some of his opinions were controversial, but overall he was a great man.

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