"Unrepentant Christopher Hitchens is now roasting in hell!"

[LAGC]

That's how I found out about his passing this morning on Facebook, from one of my extended family members who I wasn't aware was even very religious.

I simply replied: "Stay classy." and promptly un-friended him.

The only good thing about events such as these is that it really brings them out of the woodwork so you can identify them and take the appropriate action.

I now know whose funeral I won't be attending if he passes before me. He may like to grave-dance, but I have no interest.

R.I.P. Chris.

[BiggJawn]

1. Saw a "I'll bet he believes in god and the devil NOW" post

on my facebook from a friend of a friend.

Bet they're just giggling over their wit.

[RC]

12. Send them this.

[PassingFair]

13. That cartoon is demeaning to women.

Just so you know.

[truebrit71]

19. Come on, really?

Did you forget the ?

[PassingFair]

20. No, I really find it offensive.

I didn't alert on it or anything.
This is the second time I've
seen it and as a woman and
part time "slut", I find it offensive.

[iris27]

24. No. The last panel is pretty terrible. n/t

[RC]

25. After thinking about it, you are correct. The original could have been better.

I don't know about copyright stuff, but I fixed it for them.

[PassingFair]

26. Thank you!

Women prefer to be accorded full human status!!

[CrispyQ]

28. Nice. -nt

[CrispyQ]

27. It is.

And if calling women sluts wasn't bad enough, God is a man, of course.

One of my first issues with religion was that the holy trinity only depicts men. I can't believe that doesn't send up a red flag for more women.

[kdmorris]

2. He was so young.. 62 is really young in my book

I don't get how people can hate someone so much that they laugh about his death and react like that.

R.I.P

[PassingFair]

3. Half genius and half "gin-soaked popinjay"...

He WAS hateful at times.

[Ian David]

5. Who isn't? n/t

[PassingFair]

6. LOL!

[Ian David]

7. But the very same people who are good sometimes are the very same people who are bad sometimes.

“Sometimes people are good, and they do just what they should. But the very same people who are good sometimes are the very same people who are bad sometimes. It's funny but it's true. Its the same isn't it, for me and . . .” -- Fred Rogers
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/29225

[Armin-A]

17. Classy

[trotsky]

11. DU Jurors.

Their judgments are always free of bias and desire to punish.

[kdmorris]

9. Yeah - I can be a complete bitch at times, too

(if I'm a DUer and say that, am I calling myself out??)

I'm hoping that when I die, everyone remembers all the good things I did and not all the times that I just wasn't good.

[trotsky]

10. 62 is looking younger to me every day!

[kdmorris]

14. Yeah.. 20 years ago it seems "reallly really old!!" :) n/t

[dmallind]

4. Somewhat torn on the responses

Certainly expected gleeful Christian pratings, so no worries there.

On the vitriolic nature of them, I have always considered it deceitful, cowardly and facile to respond to someone a day after their death any differently than you did the day before. I considered Falwell for example an evil, vicious charlatan when he was alive and said so readily when he was dead. The idea of "respect" for the recently deceased, regardless of how much respect you had for them ante mortem is as artificial a custom as insisting that anything but high tea precisely at 4pm is booorish and low class. I don't mind believers saying they loathed the man if they said the same before he died.

Where I do find them wanting is in the insistence that he must now see the truth of their invisible friend. That's not honesty but guesswork and superstition. By all means hate a guy after death you hated before his death, but it's tacky at least and quite possibly psychotic to try tospeak for him while you are doing it.

[TZ]

8. Wasn't a big fan of his

The whole Iraq war thing was unforgivable for someone that intelligent in other areas.
However, I'm waiting to hear the first story about his deathbed conversion to belief you know like Darwin. Isn't that how it goes? :rolleyes:

[ChadwickHenryWard]

18. I never understood that.

He never changed his mind on Vietnam. If it was wrong for a bigger, stronger nation to attack a smaller, weaker one of false pretenses in the 1960s, why was it okay in 2003? And don't start about Islamic extremism. Hussein was a secular dictator - there are more violent religious extremists in Iraq now than before the war. Further, it's deeply disingenuous to suggest that George W. Bush was in some way promoting rationality and freethinking. It's just not true.

[PassingFair]

21. Sam Harris was the same.

Both are/were not impartial on the "middle east situation".

[TZ]

29. One thing though

Unlike a certain idiot minister on FB, while I disliked some of Hitchens stuff I did not go onto a liberal friends wall who expressed sadness at Hitchens death and call him basically a genocidal neocon totally responsible for the Iraq war. Proving to me once more that there are little difference between "liberal" Christians and Fundies. Both are hateful towards atheists. I told this liberal Christian that they sounded like Pat Robertson

[pokerfan]

15. I remember when Sagan died

There were tons of disgusting posts on USENET from disgusting Christians gleefully cheering the fact that Sagan the pagan was burning in hell. I'm not normally a fan of kill files but I plonked many that day.

Yeah yeah, those weren't True Christians yadda yadda. Whatever.

[OswegoAtheist]

16. There was a war on Twitter this morning...

http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474980917773

The hashtag #GodIsNotGreat began trending internationally shortly after the sad announcement that Hitchens had passed away from complications linked to esophageal cancer. The tag is, of course, in honor of Hitchens' best-selling book God Is Not Great, where he lays out his argument for atheism. God Is Not Great is a foundation of the modern atheist movement, and makes a compelling case for the uselessness of religion and the non-existence of any deities.

Many Christians on Twitter, apparently unfamiliar with the book (and, unsurprisingly, unfamiliar with the act of researching something before shooting off at the mouth about it) began frothing at the mouth when they noticed the hashtag. Rather than recognizing it as a reference to a book they took it as an attack on their religion (again totally unsurprising, especially when you consider the ridiculous 'Christian martyr' syndrome popular in American Christianity). Their responses were brilliant in their idiocy and hypocrisy.

Oswego "#GodIsNotGreat and his followers are worse" Atheist

[Quartermass]

22. I fully expected this, but I still find it disgusting.

[lindysalsagal]

23. "He who is without sin can cast the first stone."

"Turn the other cheek"
"Do unto others"

Why do the most "devout believers" never follow the commandments?

[awoke_in_2003]

30. therein lies the problem...

those are not commandments- commandments are old testament ideas. Back when god was a jealous, vengeful bastard. The axioms you list are new testament ideas, which came about after junior came around (and god evidently started chilling out because he finally got laid). Most "christians" I know are big fans of the ideas of the OT, but not so much the NT. In their eyes, the title "Prince of Peace" is kind of weak and wimpy.

[JI7]

31. but Hitchens didn't believe in Hell

if you don't believe in God and Heaven you can't go to heaven. but if you don't believe in hell you still go there ?

[iris27]

35. For any version of Christianity that believes in Hell, most definitely.

Hell is where everyone goes who doesn't believe that Jesus died and came back to life, and that this somehow provides them with the forgiveness they need for failing to live up to God's expectations, which no human could possibly meet on their own ('all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God'). Without that forgiveness, apparently what every human "deserves" is an eternity of burning torment.

But don't forget..GOD is LOVE!

[RueVoltaire]

32. Says a lot about people who believe in hell.

You have to be sadistic to believe.

[laconicsax]

33. Or masochistic

After all, no torture is so bad that it can't be fetishized.

[MarkCharles]

34. And religious believers are "offended" and "insulted" when we ask them to stand up and

publicly announce what they believe in, and why?

Sounds like religious belief gives those believers license the insult and affront any non-believer with more absurd mythology, "God send you to Hell because he loves you!" bullshit.

Yet asking religious believers to stand up for their beliefs, is being a "horse's ass"?