Stephen Fry & Friends on the Life of Christopher Hitchens 

I'm only 23, and I became familiar with Christopher Hitchens around 2022, and the impact he's had on me is so great that it's almost inexplicable. I've bought all his books and read almost all of them more than once, and I've learned more from him alone than I have from reading other intellectuals for years. Christopher was really in a league of his own. It's hurt to know I'll never be able to meet this great man, and I really hope you appreciate how lucky you've been, not only to meet him, but talk to him personally.

...encyclopaedic knowledge, wit, linguistic majesty and critical thinking... YES!

Stephen Fry can

Oratory wise Stephen is if not his equal, better imho. His catholic speech is nothing short of breathtaking . Not a single useless word .

Often makes me try to guess at the number of people that have possessed incredible wit and the ability to speak so concisely, who have come and gone entirely without even one word committed to paper, or stone, or memory. How many brilliant candles burning radiantly from both ends have gone out, leaving us neither smoke or ash as evidence that they were once there casting light?

@@mihaimoldo methinks if it not born of conversation with Hitchin

+Hussein Ali So, you're a closet atheist?

Jack bassman He hasn't replied so I guess he is outspoken.

damn son! ya, hopefully maybe he just didn't feel bothered. but i fear you may be right. Respond amigo! let us know you're still kickin' secularism and sanity around the desert! all peace always amigos

Yes gentlemen I'm a closet atheist, because otherwise I could get killed here.

Internet high-five for being alive! the humorous tone is to lighten the seriousness of a shitty situation

the Omega Concern Now take a look at some other intellectuals that maybe don’t reinforce your own biases.

👍

I discovered Hitchens through RU-vid when I was coming as age in Catholic school; he changed my views on life for good. A remarkable man

Same 👌🏼

@@Hugh_Morris More faith is needed to believe God didn't do it than to believe he did.

I'm most sad that I've only recently stumbled upon his brilliance. I'm only 20, but I wish I had known who he was when he was alive so that maybe, as a 14-15 year old, I would have been able to have my life changed much sooner and maybe even have met him at some point. I may have no right to miss him as I didn't know of him when he lived, but I truly do have a feeling of sadness and pity for the world that he is no longer with us.

".....why don't you accept this wonderful offer, why wouldn't you like to meet Shakespeare..... the only reason i want to meet Shakespeare or might even want to, is because i can meet him any time because he's immortal in the works he has left behind...." -CH, from one of his best closings. Hitchens is indeed immortal in his works.

i think you are very lucky still, i followed him for more then 10 years but i wished i would have known him when i was 20, i guess i lost 15 years compared to you

Man that's one way to look at it. All about perspective.

Gullible idiot.

my thought exactly! So heartwarming to know he saw and heard every word. So much more comfort than last rites I imagine ;)

Agreed.

If anyone deserved such a send off it was Hitch.

@Jazzkeyboardist1 Chrissy? Was that an accidental or intentional typo?

@ Jazzkeyboardist1 Dude, what's your problem? I get that you disagree with Hitch, but repeating the name Crissy in EVERY sentence makes you look like a kid who is throwing a temper tantrum. You completely undermine your own credibility.

Agreed. I've known of Hitch for a lot longer than 3 years but still only discovered him *after* he had passed. I hadn't a clue for a long time that he had passed as well. Felt so sickened when I found out. I so wish I had discovered him while still alive and that I had been able to attend some event he spoke at.

Yeah, I discovered him two years after his death. He lives on in our memories.

And very unfortunate... me, a dumb truck driver from Saskatchewan had found out about him 20 some years ago 😊

Jennifer Morris May there always be Catholics to point out the error of your ways Jenny .The three pundits you site , share your intellectual vacuum.

@@fredarcher7264 Catholics are great at pointing out the errors of my ways, and the ways of everyone else. They've made that their stock in trade for 2000 years, manufacturing guilt for profit. They're less great at pointing that lens inward and acknowledging the paucity of their dogma, the MASSIVE damage their religion has done to the world and the feebleness of their apologies. I find committed Catholics in this day and age utterly ludicrous. How can you possibly still believe in and practice your backward ideas when there exists so much evidence as to why those ideas are ignorant and socially harmful? It baffles me. Don't preach to me about Catholics - your church is one of the worst of the lot. And it's Jennifer. I'm nobody's Jenny.

@@fredarcher7264 Standard fare from a believer in fairy tales. Hypocrisy, spite, vengefulness and stupidity - some of the building blocks of Catholicism highlighted once again by a small minded minion.

@@fredarcher7264 Does a belief in an ancient invisible, sadistic psychopathic sky fairy make you intelligent then FA? 🤣

@@tinaa9231 Jesus loves you Tina A , does the A stand for arse hole ?

Why?

@Jazzkeyboardist1 It's rather amusing seeing you commenting on almost every single video and ecery single comment about Christopher, not Chrissy. Do you not have something better to do?

@Jazzkeyboardist1 There are so many flaws in that comment, not sure where to begin. Let me ask you a simple question : Are you religious?

@Jazzkeyboardist1 Okay well I am sorry to say this, but you do truly seem deranged, and to put it mildly, not quite right in the head. The fact that you can make so many incorrect statements in so few sentences is truly extraordinary. I know consider this conversation over.

Jacob Paulson Hi Jacob, don’t worry about Jazzy anyone who uses a moniker rather than their actual name is a complete troll, of course he or she has the right to criticise but if you criticise someone without any evidence or facts it shows that he/she is envious of that person’s intelligence. A recent example would be the attacks on Jordan Peterson.

Ditto.

.....tit

ggh

ff@20

Well said, my friend. I feel just the same way, even though he's no longer with us.

I was thinking that today. Between the alt-right and the regressive left controlling discourse, we need people like Hitch to break them down into the cretins they are.

We ourselves need to be a part of this change as well. Well-meaning people can be corrected.

Godo i would't give a single hair to hear anymore from that delusional man

Your the deluded one you muppet

He clearly said, repeatedly, before he died to keep the Islamists out.

@Daniel Chen rather patronising and heading towards being rude. I'm not good with punctuation. That comes from my poor education. I don't know or mean to suggest that is the situation with this gentleman but if someone said that to me and I was still "hung up" about my lack of education I'd find it very dismissive and unkind. I believe the sentiment was completely clear and understandable and any poor punctuation didn't detract from that.

@Jazzkeyboardist1 and yet again you don't have the ability to "read between the lines" of what I was saying and yet again you try to use your flawed thought processes to belittle me and for whatever silly reasons you believe you have to try to belittle Hitchens. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO INSULT ME WITH. I KNOW WHO I AM. YOU HAVE NO IDEA OF MY AGE. YOU HAVE NO IDEA OF MY LEVEL OF EDUCATION. YOU HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT ANYTHING Now answer the question I put to you. You claim to help support "gay" rights. How do you think the "gay" people you claim to support would feel if they saw the way you speak about Hitchens and the two Tory ministers? Do you think that's the way to speak about "homosexuals" "bisexuals"

@Daniel Chen "sediments"? Instant karma.

Great comment 🤜🏻🤛🏻

DUST BUDDIES!

he was Irrational ..

@@srbscientist6663 Ah. So by your own admission, he 'was' an idiot, whereas you 'are' and remain one.

@@mmcfarlane001 I cannot be because i said the truth.

@@srbscientist6663 So provide some evidence? (Spoiler alert: that's how discourse works).

@@mmcfarlane001 First of all i have seen them alot Mocking up onto religions, I belong to monotheism type of religion, and The reason God exist are several reasons a couple of them are the existence of Universe , now we do not see Universe at planet and we must concentrate on small things such , as stones, soil, water, Mountains rocks, we yet have not seen Science discovering or creating even a copy of these existing components or an example nearly to them, so these things with a great diversity cannot just exist from nowhere , Some one has created it and when Humans cannot create that for example" Science" means there was something. This was an instant sequence of answer to Stephen Another example is the Human Being ourselves,if Science is Truth and God isnt(God Forbids) so then how come Science yet have Not discvovered to Create a Human being, Im not talking about saving them by creating machines and hospital of birth But to create them , Create nerves, Create Blood, Create cells in blood, create an heart or even Brain or any bones. As Fry and Dawkins claims Humans were plants whichwere evoluted by Time and become Animals and later by evolution become Humans. If that is So Why not Those animals still not converting to Humans , Just put an Plant or Animal into Observation and wait for them to evolute into Human , Why it has stopped has Evolution lost its battery? or Memery?. And they deny Human As Adam the First Man and Eve first Women technically your parents too as you all are his decendants ,Adam and eve which give birth to a Human So why there are not any signs of Animals in shape still in them not by characterstics because i beleive most humans are animals that butcher an kill for jealousy. So this is one of the Reason i consider them Idiots :))

:)

well said

alltapedup d

panterasux22 m

alltapedup And humour

And wonderful that he was able to watch this tribute from home.

Oh? So you think particles to professors is how the world came to be? All with the handy dandy magic wand of TIME, eh? Pathetic.

He so loved words, and has inspired me to love them also.

Interesting...I find Sam Harris to be very obtuse compared to Christopher Hitchens

Let’s face it, the British tradition of sending away their little boys at the tender age of eight fosters the formation of good old boys clubs as they mature, no “girls” allowed. You can be sure their marathon dining table discourses were not considered appropriate for feminine ears.

Try Thinking For a change, if there is any evidence of no god than that is it

@@thedad7828 good call

Only the good die young!

@@KillgoreTrout43 He was 62.

@@Jay-oy5zs Well he looked a lot younger, easily ten years, what a mighty fine man.

@K C If 'good' is defined by your God's morals, then maybe I don't want to be good. "Go to Heaven for the climate. Hell for the company." Mark Twain.

@K C When we die we just die. We stop to exist as concious beings and become just biological matter to feed those who would be born after us, including plants and animals and later even other humans (in the same way that we today eat plants and animals who fed on the flesh of our ancesters).

@K C its a pretty messed up system if I have to live with pedophiles and terrorists just because I don't believe in higher being that has presented no evidence of his own existence. And I don't need Jesus to take on my disgrace. I can take responsibility for my actions.

@@AlexandraTasha have you got a link for the evidence for that? I’m fascinated.

@@loganharris2166 pedophiles? Lovers of feet?

Absolutely. What makes me smile is wondering what's going on if there is actually a heaven and he's in it haha

@@zeitakulobusta9708 If there is a heaven there is a hell also.what if he is in hell then?

@@user-sx3yy5wg3i it was just a humorous idea, I see no reason to think either exist. If you're right and he's in hell (don't know why he would be though) then I'm 100% sure he'll appreciate the irony for all eternity.

What, the invisible world has credibility? Substance? It only serves the hustlers who prey on the rubes. Courts don't recognize the existence of the supernatural world. Hustlers are always looking for rich rubes. Spokane had most of it's Jehovah's Witnesses ripped of by religious confidence men, around 15 years ago. The greasy slimeball people in these religious videos, are without a doubt a perfect example of supernatural salesmen, who find rubes and get their souls. And their cash. Never forget, hustlers NEED cash. For hookers. The sleaziest slimiest creatures that God put of this little green earth. Folks, there is a tourist agency that gets you on tour buses and pisses on dead preachers graves. But only the slimy ones that got caught for a crime. It's called, "The Urinating on Criminal Preacher's Graves Tour." Find it online. Party Hearty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A great mind, but sadly wrong

@@ndorphin2564 You cannot argue with the dead... well you are welcome to try ... but don't expect a personal response.

@@ndorphin2564wrong about what…

That thought just "hit" me last week. It was much like the instant of complete awareness that one (not this 'one' so far) achieves in Vipassana Meditation. There was the thought of Hitchens and my kind of sharing this journey with him, and then for an instant everything made sense. It wasn't long though before I heard Donald Trump on TV, and all was chaos again.

I am very thankful for RU-vid for the same reason

Everything you said there applies to me too, although I'm a little further ahead in working through those great books. I'd advise adding in Lawrence Krauss (A Universe From Nothing) to the list too though.

I'll learned about Christopher only a few months after he died. But I learned about him the same way, debating videos and some q & a. A wonderful English gentlemen that man was, and i will borrow his phrases and character till the day i die.

bladewed As far as I'm concerned, Lawrence Krauss should be the leader the "Four Horseman" look up to.

Adam Powell Agreed. The man is a genius.

Read his books...too complex for me to understand :(

I DOUBT THAT CHRISTOPER WOULD HAVE HAD ACCEPTED ONE!

Hitchens would not have accepted it.

@@vernonrobinson4504 even so then he would have still had recognised honor

he would not have accepted knighthood

Guess you don’t really know Hitch then.

slip of the keyboard : intent on giving...........

Yes their Mothers 🌹

JPV JPV it is possible to edit your 1st comment, just click on the three little dots

I know it's a very old comment, but isn't pretty much everything by Mr. Fry just superb? ;)

Still goin' strong

He looks like he just hanging on from antipsychotics and probably anxiolytics. I feel for the man.

@@colonelbf He's in a very good place now in his personal life and I'm glad for him. As my Grandma used to say , "if you're happy I'm delighted ". Fry is always a delight.

colonelbf.....you may well have a point there. Please look for my very recent comment I threw into this post albeit with a different twist!

Really? There's some celebrity worship right there. The woke Holly wood is a worry. Fry talks of an app for picking up fellow...Enjoyed hell's angel and others but should be focusing on assange n snowden etc. Who controls the past...

@@andrewsmith4257lol #ReligionPoisonsEverything 😊

Listenning to these wonderful free thinkers,I find difficult to understand the craven support for the Nasty ideology peddled by the Exclusive European Settler Immigrant State, allegedly Exclusive Jews. Thankfully these erudite free thinkers,intellects are no fans of the nasty State.

+Swinford Mctaggart Garvey Hear Hear!

He became a spokesman advocating for Bush to invade Iraq so why is he being spoken of with accolade.?

It's called the Queen's English nowadays.

@@jeanpull1 No it isn't. From what I understand the term is not used to indicate which monarch is in tenure at the time. Rather the term which is an RP has been used by writers interchangeably. I however prefer the term Kings English, which mind you found a lot of syntax errors in my own stuff now that I read it. Regardless, I prefer the term Kings English because of the Fowler brothers 1906 published book on the topic of English grammar. A great reference and shout out. That said, Queens or Kings, can both be used and there is no correct term, however, Kings English is the traditional and often most used more poetic wording.

@@surgicalglitch3265 Fair enough, call it what you want. I wasn't trying to start an argument. All I was saying is that in England, we all call it "The Queen's" now. When someone says "The King's" it's a throwback to WWI&II / Colonial times. It's acceptable but tends to be more of a deliberate stylistic choice. PS That book has served you well, nice Oxford comma!

The ironic thing is that it's people like Hitchens that make you truly WISH there was an afterlife. I didn't discover him until a week ago (I'd heard of him but never checked him out), and I now feel deeply affected and saddened. There was something about him that was very endearing. One of the very few humans I never knew personally that I actually grieve for when they die.

I don't think so, James. After all, you said, "...makes me wish for an afterlife...." You didn't say anything about actually believing in one. And, of course, there's that moment that will live with me for whatever time I have left, because it reveals a quality of the man that I had completely missed up until that point. This quote is taken from Ed Pilkington in New York@edpilkington: "At the end of the Gibney film(A short memorial film by Arthur Gibney), Hitchens - his head by now bald from chemotherapy-induced hair loss - is heard insisting that there is no after life. 'I will never change my mind on that. Never change my mind," he says. After a pause, he adds: " I do like surprises.'"

Doug Wild That is a wonderful. I had never heard that Hitchens comment before and it, in itself, was a wonderful surprise. Thanks for sharing.

He did equally pour scorn on the wish of an afterlife too, if it was a religious one, for such a wish and the implications thereof - the wish to be a slave etc.

Yes, this is one of my favourite Hitchslaps... Inspired.... 💚🇮🇪

My favourite reply to ''I'll pray for you'' is, ''fine, i'll talk to my cat for you. expect the same results''.

.

+Helga Danielsen ...I think, Helga, Christopher himself may have mentioned it once or twice! lol.

Did he? Actually one does know when one is sexy, that is true. So, I love him even more..

lol...me too...and Im a hetrosexual male!!

+Secretsofaddiction I think you can be whoever you are. We are humans above all, male or female, or whatever (not disrespectfully), we can love each other. Why not? And thanks for the RU-vid. Going to watch it later, have to have lunch now. 13.00hrs here now. Love H

And what a gain for you 🙂

you have a lot to watch and to admire about him.. have fun!

💯💯💯

+melancholiac That phrase stuck with me too.

+Paul L And I am still wondering whether that phrase is itself true or a lie.

+melancholiac In a world where perception is fundamental, it's absolutely true.

melancholiac Hahaha I read this comment RIGHT BEFORE Fry said that.

melancholiac also, "Their is no bad weather, just bad wardrobe." Dress appropriately.

Incredibly stupid if you ask me.

Arsjaad Poese noone did

Inconvenient Consequences No one is asking you I can assure you.

Only two?

@@RealTalk-uk3yw I haven't seen anyone ask you anything

Hello from the UK. I hope you are well. I am impressed that you have the intellectual integrity and curiosity to hold your own in an apparent sea of bigotry and ignorance, I am assuming that you have access to the BBC World service in order to counter the nonsense of Fox?

Incredible story.

Thank you for offering your thoughts.... so valuable to anyone with compassion.

You have chosen your inspirations wisely, good luck James. 👍

Will never ever be another Christopher Hitchens 😥💯🇮🇪

He's a fancy-pants socialist, who doesn't have to live with the consequences of what he advocates for the rest of us.

He was poison for all powerloving lying idiots

Glad you mentioned that as I assumed this event happened after Hitchens died.

The Collector wrong......I no longer need to try.......

The Collector wrong again...... We learn from what we could not know ourself or learn by ourself.......The reason why you don’t get it was explained by your last statement

The Collector for continuing this conversation with someone whos mindset is clearly that if an imperialist I will kindly bail out and say for the third time you were wrong again...... but at least you’re trying.....

The Collector i’m not sure why you seem to believe you have jurisdiction over me my opinions or the way that I would even choose to use my native language in order to specifically offend you but I suggest you try doing this........Get a life you will find there are many wonderful things out there beyond the superior niceness of yourself .....which clearly exhibits through the very presence of your narrative .....get a life I say eat more bacon smoke more cigarettes have more sex hell I survived heart surgery and believe it or not apart from the old cliche of everything being a gift it is still a living pleasure to put up with halfwits such as yourself......