@Shenonymous

I look forward to the Moth article thanks but the Hedges quote is taken from another interview.  (There was no love lost between them I understand…)

Being a progressive Christian I took much of Hitchens’ rant against belief in God as anger from a deep source he was not willing to share with everyone just yet.  Having an open mind does not always mean “willing to share”. 

Still, for me, his way of ripping someone to shreds, even religious people,was a work of art.  You cannot be honest about your convictions unless you are willing to listen to the intelligent take you to task.  And that is why his rants were different.

The intellectuals on the right, such as Peggy Noonan and George Will, spent much of the early Republican primary defending its candidates.  I often thought that they must have gone home each night and become ill.  I never had that thought regarding Hitchens.  Whether it was his disdain for Bill Clinton, whom I like, or for Christianity, which I love, I always admiredthe honesty and artistic beauty in which he voiced it.

@Leefeller, “5th century Middle East, which Hitchen’s played so damn well right like a concert kazoo, making those seedy natives jump around like puppets”

I don’t need to say more apparently. Your neofascist rhetoric says it all.

Christopher Hitchen’s was always a very good read did not matter if I agreed with him or not and sure, he was incendiary in his approach on topics like women’s rights, good old believers of the 3000 year old goat headers manual and especially his approach to the still living in the 5th century Middle East, which Hitchen’s played so damn well right like a concert kazoo, making those seedy natives jump around like puppets, ... I see they still are, he obviously was a much better writer then I had thought, ... Damn I only which I had known him personally even through his works I will miss him!

@Shenonymous, “However, by the time he got around to dying, he
had reconsidered the value of that war and what it cost both sides.”

Where’s the proof? Pretty much until his death he supported bombing Iran. He never recanted on Iraq, or Afghanistan, or even on supporting racist laws in Europe against Muslims, just watch his last Bill Maher appearance with Salman Rushdie.

People who want to be hip and “enlightened” hide behind the postmodern jargon of “yeah his political ideas were disgusting, but he liked to piss on religion, which pretty much everyone is doing these days, so that makes him important and grand.”

@Heather, an intellect lacking in you apparently considering you cannot participate fully in a discussion.

M’thinks Egomet Bonmot you didn’t pause long enough.  The
reporter was not Hedges, it was George Dawes Green, Founder
of The Moth.  And it was anything but deeply antagonistic.  Click
on the “Read more” button at the end of the article above.

Reporter:  What was your relationship with Hitchens like?
Hedges:  [long pause]  Deeply antagonistic.

But Robespierre115, March 25 at 11:42 am you feign ignorance. 
Gasbag Hitchens was often questioned about his early support of the
war, and he just as often explained his revulsion to the 9/11 attacks.
So it was no secret.  However, by the time he got around to dying, he
had reconsidered the value of that war and what it cost both sides. 

You might read more of what “he” said instead of believing second-
hand reports particularly by religious partisans.  I don’t mean to
assume that is what you do, but he’s given many interviews on his
views.  I did not agree with his support the war(s).  But I did think he
was most lucid and precise in his views of religion.  I don’t really care if
someone wants to believe in a deity.  I just don’t want, and would fight
against it, were anyone to try to force me to their beliefs. 

Also, Robespierre115, all atheists are not alike.  Did you know
there were conservative atheists as well as liberal ones?  An eye and
mind opener was Chris Hayes, MSNBC program UP this morning
that dealt with atheism.  You might catch it online at MSNBC if not
today then soon as I think all their programs are available online.

If one can find respect in disagreement, they may be on the way to enlightenment.

It appears some people sound as clones of George Bush “You are against us or you are with us” I hear this from the left and the right, such sad comment as myopic thoughtlessness from both sides seems to me.

Any person who agrees with any one person on every topic should be construed as either a simpleton or a moron! (I can expand on this)

I happened to like Mark Twains works, but may not agree with every one of his opinions and stands on all issues and everything under the sun, nor do I feel inclined to feel threatened, jealous, envious or insulting in expressing my disagreements towards Twain on some issues, I eminently respected his work and enjoyed his writing, guess the same can be said for Hitchens from my point of view, if I did not like Hitchens or Twain and any other work for that matter I would not read them.

Hitchens expressed his opinion on many things not just on one topic, this does not mean he speaks for all Atheists any more than any one person speaks for all of everyone about anything, never the less   Christians, Muslims or any other topic for that matter.

Hitchens wrote ‘God is not Great’ I found the book a good read and not indoctrinating or threatening, apparently some people did?

Like most of the rest of us, he despised people for falling so far short of what he
knew they could be—including himself.  It’s as difficult to love willful idiots as to
love their critics.

One more note: Hitchens up until his death supported bombing Iran, if that’s the world the New Atheist movement wants then let them gang up with John Hagee and the apocalyptic End Timers, while real progressives can at least side with more level-headed deists opposed to more war and the creation of new bloodlands.

@Shenonymous, of course if all those atheists “coming out in droves” take their inspiration from Hitchens’ brand of thinking then nothing will differ from what we currently have. You still can’t explain why gasbag Hitchens was so devoted to defending the war campaigns of the very religious gasbag Bush II. If you want to piss on religion for whatever pety reason that’s fine, but let’s stop glorifying neocons and lunastics just because they happen to piss on religion too.

I see TD is canonizing the well put “neocon gasbag.”  Evidently, the need to
idealize and immortalize the dead and death isn’t confined to only the religious! 

Yeah, that’s really cool and macho how his alcoholism was on display during a
public speaking gig.  Hitchens is an anachronism of the elite intellectual and
Norman Mailer verboseness.  Get over him! 

I’ll take Karlin over HItchens anytime for an atheist spokesman. One spoke a raw
truth with humor to everyman and woman, while the other brown-nosed to the
neocons’ barbarism in an effete, elitist manner.

Never understood the appeal of this guy, if I want to listen to a drunk asshole full of hatred and bigotry I can do down to the local townie bars and at least play keno while I do it.

Robespierre:  That, too ... but ...

Robespierre115, Such bitterness,... one should not stand on jealousy alone to criticize someone like Hitchens, just dig a little bit deeper into that apparently closed mind and you may be surprised of comes out.

And the neolib Robespierre115, March 24 at 9:11 pm
incessantly keeps gassing on and on and on and on and
on…...........

In this week of atheists coming out of the closet in droves, it
is a great service to be reminded of Hitchens’ “detestation of all
religious flummery…”

Get over it Truthdig, the neocon gasbag is dead. Let’s worry about the ongoing wars he helped sell and promote with his bizarre, cultish rhetoric about Muslims etc.

Norman Finkelstein on Hitchens, he says it all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgB20YmqN6A

wonderful! I quite miss him.

Ever-conscious of himself as the center of the universe—which is one way to be sure you are truly alive—Hitchens both amuses and insults in the same breath, waiting just long enough for us crude Americans to have time to appreciate the nuances of his “funny English” before receding into silence.