Richard Dawkins - Christopher Hitchens Tribute

In Defense of Richard Dawkins

FREE INQUIRY February / March 2012
By Christopher Hitchens

If you haven’t read it, you will almost certainly have seen it: the critique of Professor Richard Dawkins that arraigns him for being too “strident” in his confrontations with his critics. According to this line of attack, Dawkins has no business stepping outside the academy to become a “public intellectual” and even...

Read more (secularhumanism.org)

Illness made Christopher Hitchens a symbol of the honesty and dignity of atheism.

By Richard Dawkins

On 7 October, I recorded a long conversation with Christopher Hitchens in Houston, Texas, for the Christmas edition of New Statesman which I was guest-editing. He looked frail, and his voice was no longer the familiar Richard Burton boom; but, though his body had clearly been diminished by the brutality of cancer, his mind and spirit had not.


Read more: http://bit.ly/t0ONCz (belfasttelegraph.co.uk) 


richarddawkins.net:
We will be publishing a selection of Christopher Hitchens obituaries, and posting them all in this one thread. So please keep checking back, as it will be updated from time to time over the next few days.
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644246-christopher-hitchens-obituaries

Preview: Richard Dawkins interviews Christopher Hitchens

"Never be afraid of stridency"
Richard Dawkins: One of my main beefs with religion is the way they label children as a "Catholic child" or a "Muslim child". I've become a bit of a bore about it.
Christopher Hitchens: You must never be afraid of that charge, any more than stridency.

Read more (New Statesman)

New Statesman Christmas Issue

"Richard Dawkins has contributed an essay, written the New Statesman leader column, and travelled to Texas to conduct an exclusive interview with the author and journalist Christopher Hitchens. They discuss religious fundamentalism, US politics, Tony Blair, abortion and Christmas."

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/12/christmas-issue-dawkins

Stephen Fry and Friends on Hitch

Edited (45 minutes) version of the event.

Stephen Fry and Friends on Hitch, reviews

An evening for Christopher Hitchens
http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/blog/7380393/an-evening-for-christopher-hitchens.thtml

Stephen Fry and Co. on the Life, Loves and Hates of Christopher Hitchens http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/harry-cockburn/stephen-fry-christopher-hitchens_b_1085689.html 

Christopher Hitchens night: a review
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/11/christopher-hitchens-fry-penn

HitchFry Clips

Clips from the HitchFry event at Royal Festival Hall, Nov 9.

Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Richard Dawkins
http://www.newslook.com/channels/fora-tv1

Hitchens and Dawkins at the Texas Freethought Convention in Houston 2011

Texas Freethought Conv:
The Dawkins/Hitchens speeches and Q&A will be available soon in professional quality video. The actual conference DVD set will be on sale soon, but the Dawkins/Hitchens event will be a FREEBIE on behalf of the RDF, TFC, AAA and the professional film crew who make their living helping our movement.

Honouring Christopher Hitchens

Text of speech presenting the Richard Dawkins Award on behalf of Atheist Alliance of America, Houston, 8th October 2011

"Today I am called upon to honour a man whose name will be joined, in the history of our movement, with those of Bertrand Russell, Robert Ingersoll, Thomas Paine, David Hume. He is a writer and an orator with a matchless style, commanding a vocabulary and a range of literary and historical allusion far wider than anybody I know. And I live in Oxford, his alma mater and mine."

More: http://richarddawkins.net/articles/643452-honouring-christopher-hitchens

Hitch isn’t done yet

PZ Myers reports from the Texas Freethought Convention

"Christopher Hitchens was granted the Richard Dawkins Award tonight at the Texas Freethought Convention. He was looking frail and thin, his voice was husky, but he was amazingly strong."
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/10/09/hitch-isnt-done-yet/

Dawkins and Hitchens on stage: http://yfrog.com/hw2knvwj

2012 Global Atheist Convention

Tickets on sale now!
Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett
Lawrence Krauss..

http://www.atheistconvention.org.au/
http://www.facebook.com/atheistconvention
http://twitter.com/#!/atheistcon

Atheist Convention to present Christopher Hitchens with Richard Dawkins award

"At the Atheist Alliance of America (AAA) Convention, held in conjunction with the Texas Freethought Convention, AAA will present the 2011 Richard Dawkins Award to Christopher Hitchens for his outstanding contributions to freethought. The convention, with a theme of “From Grassroots to Global Impact”, will be held from October 7-9, 2011 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Houston, Texas."

Read More (godlessgradstudent.wordpress.com)

The Four Horsemen of the Anti-Apocalypse Reunite in 2012

The Atheist Foundation of Australia is excited to announce that the next Global Atheist Convention – ‘A Celebration of Reason’ will feature headline speakers Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens (health permitting).

The Global Atheist Convention will be held once again at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from 13 - 15 April 2012.

 More info: atheistfoundation.org.au and http://www.atheistconvention.org.au/

Christopher Hitchens: My Hero of 2010

A gentleman and a truly formidable debater, Christopher Hitchens is a giant of the mind and a model of courage
By Richard Dawkins

"I'm not much given to straight, irony-free hero-worship. The last time I did a "heroes and villains" piece I chose Pope John Paul II as hero, on the grounds that he was doing everything possible to discredit the appalling institution of which he was head." Read More (guardian.co.uk)

Vatican reaches out to atheists - but not to Dawkins or Hitchens.

The Vatican is planning a new initiative to reach out to atheists and agnostics in an attempt to improve the church's relationship with non-believers. Pope Benedict XVI has ordered officials to create a new foundation where atheists will be encouraged to meet and debate with some of the Catholic Church's top theologians. Read the article here.

The way I see it, they've watched the Intelligence square debate from last year and are scared shitless of Hitchens (and Dawkins). In an interview Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi says "Such atheists only view the truth with "irony and sarcasm" and tend to "read religious texts like fundamentalists".

Don't know whether to laugh or cry? I think I'll do the crying bit first and then have a good laugh.

The Four Horsemen: Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens (1/12)

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