Im pretty sure Christopher Hitchens didnt care for the custom of celebrating a person on the day of their death as opposed to their birthday, and I feel the same way... so its certainly not celebration. Ill just call it an excuse to pass along some of his words. My religious friends will have to forgive my choice of themes for the day. He was very strong in the idea that nothing is beyond criticism, and especially applies to religion. Some people are very sensitive to that, and I hope I dont lose any friends over it... but hopefully theyre all open minded enough not only to tolerate the ideas put forth (or at worst, just ignore and continue scrolling), but to actually consider them. Feel free to comment... As far as I can remember, this is the first clip I stumbled across of Hitchens while in a search for answers to a lot of the questions spinning around in my head over the last couple decades or so. They were very personal and vexing questions that Im sure everybody encounters at some point in their life. I think theyre even more vexing for those who have never bought into, or were indoctrinated into, any established belief system where youre required to believe things that are simply beyond the reaches of your logic and reasoning. Hitch annihilated many of those questions I had in this single oration. Its not that I havent heard things like this before... but as you know if you checked out my previous post, nobody delivered a speech like Hitchens. I would almost say it was a spiritual experience. Definitely an alteration to my way of thinking. Again, as I mentioned in that post, he didnt tell me what to think. I was already thinking it. He simply put it in a much more direct way, and with an amazing speaking voice that was very difficult to get out of my head... almost like a song. Im sure his accent was a great help to that effect, but being a great orator is certainly a talent, regardless. I could listen to him reading the want-ads all day. My further explorations of his work in the face of high expectations based on this first introduction didnt disappoint. He made me realize Im far from being alone in not being able to suspend disbelief for what so many others believe, and gave me the courage to come out and voice my own opinions about it. That is in spite of the incredibly bad connotations that come with being an open atheist. People think we are nihilists or satanists. We torture small animals. We beat up old people. We want to destroy the world. We are the lowest of the low. Literal scum of the Earth.... Yeah... A lot of religious people I know make me look like an angel. We love just as deeply. We usually have a greater appreciation for the creatures we share the planet with. We dont assume the universe was created with us in mind, and we appreciate life a great deal because were not betting on having another one. Many of us, speaking for myself at least, even enjoy this time of year because we dont have to believe the legends to appreciate the spirit of the season... and many of us are actually quite spiritual. The end of this.video comes with a huge cherry on top in the form of Christopher eviscerating someone I think MOST of us wish would go away, whether youre religious or not...
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 22:07:13 +0000
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