Christopher Hitchens: the atheist in the foxhole

Christopher Hitchens is dying, and he knows it. He's that proverbial atheist in a foxhole. And what's his response? "I'm not going to quit until I absolutely have to."

And what won't he quit? Well, if you've seen any of his debates, or even his speeches, you already know that. He won't quit poking fun at absurdity. When the emperor has no clothes, Hitchens will say so. He won't quit standing up for reason and evidence and human values.

This was Hitchens receiving the Richard Dawkins Award at the Texas Freethought Convention in Houston this week. Richard Dawkins himself presented the award, and his speech is here. There's also a very brief video clip of Christopher Hitchens answering a question from the audience.

Note that these seem to be rather amateurish videos. They all start in the middle of a sentence, and there's a lot of camera shake. Apparently, it was a spur of the moment idea to videotape them at all. If that's true, well, the convention organizers really fell down on the job.

But maybe better videos will become available later. At any rate, these are far better than nothing, huh? And it looks like we'd better cherish Christopher Hitchens while we still have him.