God or No God - A Debate

Christopher Hitchens debates Larry Taunton, Executive Director of Fixed Point Foundation.
October 19, Billings, Montana. 7pm. More (fixed-point.org)

Is Obama's Foreign Policy Working?

September 22, 2010. Elebash Recital Hall, New york. CH, Peter Beinart, George Packer.

The panel discusses America's position in, and relationship to, the rest of the world under Obama and whether or not his foreign policy has been effective.

Hitchens debate sparks controversy

By Alex Olson, Sept 27, 2010.

Noted journalist Christopher Hitchens squared off against College of William and Mary government professor Lawrence Wilkerson on U.S. Middle East policy Monday night. The Sadler Center’s Commonwealth Auditorium was packed to full capacity with students and faculty, who gathered to hear the Vanity Fair columnist and author debate Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell.  Continue reading (flathatnews.com)

God's Bigmouths

Men like Bishop Eddie Long are fouling the legacy of the civil rights movement.
By Christopher Hitchens
"Passing through Union Station in Washington, D.C., last week, I made my usual nod to the statue of A. Phillip Randolph."Continue reading (Slate)

CH, Honorary PhD In Heresy

During the luncheon prior to the "Atheism Poisons Everything" debate held September 7th, 2010 in Birmingham, Alabama, Logidea U.'s Dean of the College of Heresy, R. H. McCargar presented the very first Honorary PhD In Heresy™ cum laude in Reason and Logic, to Christopher Hitchens. McCargar also gave an embroidered AntiTheist™ cap as well as two shirts: PhD In Heresy™ and AntiTheist™ to Mr. Hitchens. Read more (doctorofdisbelief.com)

Thank goodness for Christopher Hitchens!

By Daniel Dennett.

"Those of us rooting for Christopher Hitchens in his contest with cancer are an open-minded multitude; we wish him the best, not just because we appreciate his great contributions in the past and his talent for giving delight, but because we need him for our future endeavors."

Read more (washingtonpost.com)

CH Skipping Prayer Day in His Honor

Divine Impulses: Christopher Hitchens on preparing for life, and death (1/5)

CH talks to On Faith's Sally Quinn. A week long series with Hitchens.
 Part 2-5 here (washingtonpost.com)

From the N-Word to Code Words

The evolution of the race card in American politics.

By Christopher Hitchens

"At the beginning of the summer, my conservative friend David Frum made a joking remark that stayed with me. The evolution of right-wing abuse of President Barack Obama, he said, was not unlike the evolution of American pornography."

Read more (Slate)

To Pray Or Not To Pray

Pray for me? Christopher Hitchens?
By Christopher Hitchens

"Even the nicest and most caring religious people are often unaware of quite how rude they are being."   Read more. (The Washington Post)

Atheist Hitchens skipping prayer day in his honor.
By Jay Reeves (Associated Press)

 

Does Atheism Poison Everything? Debate

Watch the debate: Does Atheism Poisons Everything with Christopher Hitchens and David Berlinski on C-SPAN2 here.


Hosted by the Fixed Point Foundation. Moderated by Larry Taunton.
Duration 1 h. 7 min.

Christopher Hitchens Still Doesn't Believe in the Afterlife

Walter Owen reviews the "Is there an afterlife?" debate between CH and Shmuley Boteach at Cooper Union on September 16, 2010.

Read his review here. (Vanity Fair)

Shmuley and Christopher

A rabbi and an atheist walk into a room …

"But Hitch, being Hitch, sauntered out onto the stage at Cooper Union’s Great Hall wearing a beige suit, tailored to his newly chemo-svelte frame, and smiling beneath his new cue-ball dome. He carried a bottle of water, and a plastic cup filled with brown liquid that probably wasn’t medicine."

Read more (tabletmag.com)

Almost Noble

Tony Blair’s memoir reveals him to be neither a cynic nor an innocent, but a man of some principle.
By Christopher Hitchens

WHEN I WENT to interview Tony Blair, the newly elected leader of the opposition in the House of Commons, in 1994, I wanted to ask him about his membership in the Christian Socialist Movement, a very traditionalist affiliate of the British Labour Party. I had, I told him, by now read all his speeches since he had become leader, and could find no trace of any such commitment in his rhetoric. With the very disarming open-faced grin that so many people would later come to dislike, he replied that this was because he couldn’t stand the sort of politician who exploited religion for electoral purposes.

Continue reading (The Atlantic)

Washington Ideas Forum 2010

The Atlantic, in conjunction with the Aspen Institute and the Newseum, will host its second annual Washington Ideas Forum in Washington from September 29 through October 1, 2010.


Confirmed newsmakers: White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Ahmed Chalabi, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, filmmaker Spike Lee, authors Elizabeth Edwards, Christopher Hitchens and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Craigslist's Craig Newmark, and The Carlyle Group founder David Rubenstein.


More info (mediabistro.com)

Watch Hitchens vs Berlinski on C-SPAN 2

Debate: How Atheism Poisons Everything with Christopher Hitchens and David Berlinski.

Saturday, September 18th, 7pm ET.
Sunday, September 19th, 8am & 10pm ET

Program Information (booktv.org)

A Call for Earthly Justice

Holding the Catholic Church accountable for its crimes.
By Christopher Hitchens

"Reading Diarmaid MacCulloch's extraordinary and limpid new work Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (a history informed by a general, if Anglican, sympathy for its subject), I came across the following passage from Cardinal John Henry Newman's classic statement of belief, his Apologia Pro Vita Sua:"
Read more (Slate)

‘Atheism Poisons Everything’: A Report

By Larry Taunton

A few days ago, Fixed Point Foundation sponsored its eighth major debate, our third in Birmingham, Alabama.  The participants on this occasion were Dr. David Berlinski and Christopher Hitchens.  The topic of the debate was this:  Is a purely secular society preferable to a religious one?     Read more (fixed-point.org)

Photos from the event (photos.al.com)

Also

My Father's Debate with Christopher Hitchens
By Claire Berlinski

Read her article here. (ricochet.com)

Hitchens Returns to the Arena

By D.B. Grady (The Atlantic)

" Hitchens is currently undergoing his fourth chemotherapy treatment, which, he is pleased to report, has shrunken his outer tumors. He is now consulting with doctors over the equally perilous choices of irradiation or surgery, or whether, he says, "I am wasting my time."
Read more

Does Atheism Poison Everything?

Christopher Hitchens debated David Berlinski in Birmingham, Alabama on Sept. 7, 2010.

"Hitchens, author of "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," defended atheism as a moral stance in a debate attended by about 1,200 at the Birmingham Sheraton Hotel with David Berlinski, author of "The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions." Read more. (blog.al.com)



Hitchens spoke at a luncheon with David Berlinski, author of "The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions."  Read more (blog.al.com)


Pre-Order 'Does Atheism Poison Everything? DVD here. (fixed-point.org)

Free Exercise of Religion? No, Thanks.

The taming and domestication of religious faith is one of the unceasing chores of civilization.
By Christopher Hitchens


A recent blizzard of liberal columns has framed the debate over American Islam as if it were no more than the most recent stage in the glorious history of our religious tolerance. This phrasing of the question has the (presumably intentional) effect of marginalizing doubts and of lumping any doubters with the anti-Catholic Know-Nothings, the anti-Semites, and other bigots and shellbacks. So I pause to take part in a thought experiment, and to ask myself: Am I in favor of the untrammeled "free exercise of religion"?
Read more (Sept. 6, 2010, Slate)

Hitchens' verdict on Tony Blair's memoir

"The righteous will evidently never tire of the pelting and taunting of Tony Blair."


Read more. (The Guardian, Sept 5, 2010)

From A Friend To Hitchens

Hugh Hewitt posts an email sent to him following "Unanswerable Prayers".

Christopher Hitchens in his column in the new Vanity Fair dismisses those who have been praying for him. He adds that on September 20th, somehow designated "Pray for Hitchens Day", no one should bother to "trouble deaf heaven with your bootless cries. Unless, of course, it makes you feel better". He is quoting from Shakespeare's Sonnet # 29.
Read more.

No 'Collision' in Ottawa Pub

By Kenyon Wallace

An Ottawa pub has refused to host an Anglican church group’s film night, fearing the movie’s debate over the existence of God may offend religious pub-goers.

The Heart & Crown pub says it decided to pull the plug on St. Alban’s Anglican Church’s showing this week of the movie Collision — a documentary featuring well-known atheist Christopher Hitchens and evangelical theologian Douglas Wilson — after seeing a pamphlet advertising the film.

Read more: http://life.nationalpost.com/2010/09/03/pub-refuses-anglican-movie-night-because-relgiousanti-relgious-nature-of-feature/#ixzz0yYdI9o86

Unanswerable Prayers

What’s an atheist to think when thousands of believers (including prominent rabbis and priests) are praying for his survival and salvation—while others believe his cancer was divinely inspired, and hope that he burns in hell? Related: The first in the series, “Topic of Cancer,” by Christopher Hitchens.

Continue reading. (Vanity Fair)

Coming Up: Hitchens vs Rabbi Shmuley

"Is There An Afterlife"? CH debates Rabbi Shmuley in New York on Thursday, September 16, 2010.

Followed by a press conference to discuss the debate, and a book signing.

For tickets and info click here.