Remembering Christopher Hitchens | Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry, Douglas Murray, & Lawrence Krauss

[Music] hello and welcome to a special holiday edition of the origins podcast I'm your host Lawrence gruss this episode contains the video of a very special event that happened December 14th at the Royal geographical Society in London there we celebrated the life of the remarkable Christopher kit and I did it with three remarkable people on stage with me Steven fry Richard Dawkins and Douglas Murray at that event we celebrated Christopher's life through a series of reminiscences and then an open dialogue between all of us about modern topics trying to reflect on on on the thoughts

Christopher would have about what's going on in the world today and after that we took questions from the audience it was a remarkable evening celebr a remarkable man Christopher was a beacon of light in a world that was dark even then and maybe haven't gotten darker since then and in fact it was appropriate to celebrate what we call and by we I mean the origins podcast the origins project foundation in partnership with atheist U UK and also the how-to Academy in London we celebrated hitas after all Christmas really is adopts the celebration of the solstice

the Pagan celebration of the solstice bringing back light to the world as as the darkest night passed and each day got longer again and it seemed particularly appropriate to celebrate it for someone who brought such light to the world I know many many of you have been anticipating this video since I first announced the event and I'm incredibly excited to be able to provide it here for you as a special Hol H treat so with no further Ado please watch hitch Miss thank you all for being here it's a wonderful evening and and I want

to wish everyone a Merry hitas and uh the the the winter Solis you know provides Nature's promise to bring back the light and like everything else it was uh it was uh hijacked by Christianity but tonight we're going to celebrate another light the light of reason and that's exemplified by honoring and celebrating the light of the late Christopher Hitchens who is a friend to each of us on stage and um I'm really honored and happy to have my friends and colleagues here Richard Dawkins Ste [Applause] applaud uh a national treasur St [Applause] fry and and

douas Maring last but on [Applause] we so uh each of them has agreed to you know graciously to appear here we're going to do some reminiscences about Christopher and then I'm going to lead a uh a Roundtable discussion it was 13 years ago and even then the world had become a pretty dark place but 13 years ago tomorrow uh on December 15th 2011 Christopher died and his legacy lives on and that's why we're here to celebrate his life and this new holiday that we have created along with my Foundation the origins project foundation and atheist

United Kingdom and also the howto academy celebrating together and I want to get let you know what the program is going to be it's going to each of us on stage is going to give a reminiscence followed by the Roundtable discussion I'll raise some some questions for people and then there's going to be a brief intermission and you are invited before that to submit questions and I will go over them and choose some and then we're going to have a end with an auction for this lovely uh hand-done painting of Christopher um that's that's will

that we will sign on the back it'll be signed by all of us and the proceeds are going to benefit atheist United Kingdom so I'm going to I'm going to go first with the reminiscence and there'll probably be time for the others so I first got to know Christopher actually um because of this book here God Is Not Great I I I think I wrote to him and told him it was like a Mozart Symphony and any if any word was removed it would be worse and what surprised me is that he wrote me back

and said some nice things about my books which amazed me and we became fast friends but shortly after his death I was interviewed by CNN in fact the day after he died by a really clawing interviewer who I don't know if she's still on uh I won't mention her name she called him Chris which made it quite clear that she didn't know who he was um she said on the one hand he inspired the ideals of skepticism free inquiry and rational thought in many but at the same time he's been called a bullying lying opportunistic

cynical contrarian and she said that as if it was a bad thing and and I'm not being fous he he spoke his mind and did so forcefully and unfortunately as we'll dis discuss later to people today take forceful and eloquently stated opinions as bullying uh and of course nothing is further from the truth speaking your mind is an invitation for discussion not silence or offense in any case I be that as may it it also misses a central feature that that I never hear talked about with Christopher he was on a personal level perhaps the

most tolerant person I've ever known he could be in was close friends with individuals with whom he disagreed on about virtually everything and I've often reflected how hard it would be for me to be so intellectually generous and gracious he loved debate and discussion as much as he loved language literature history and science he was a beacon of knowledge and light in a world that constantly threatens to extinguish both he had the courage to accept the world for just what it is and not what he would like it to be and for me that's the

highest phae I can give anyone he understood that the universe doesn't care about our existence our welfare and epitomize the realization that our lives have meaning only to the extent that we give them meaning and for him this Credo came through that it guided his life the courageous defense of the simple proposition that skepticism rather than credulity is the highest principle that human intellect can use to en Noble our existence he was always willing to speak out against Injustice and ignorance wherever he sought no matter whose sensibilities he might ruffle in the process he was

a true contrarian and even and he even wrote a guide book for the rest of us how to follow his example the moment one entered his domain if you ever at his place you were overwhelmed by a single Obsession books books were everywhere on every avilable wall on the floor on tables on couches and bathroom counters but it becomes clear during the course of any evening with him unlike many of us who have a lot of books the books on Christopher's wall were far more than window dressing they they were arranged according to subjects and

ideas in a way that made it more than clear the books were regularly read and consulted and that the knowledge contained within them was used in a sense that few of us really adequately exploit it was humbling to witness when I was there and close up as an intellectual is so capable to surround a subject relish it explore it for its own sake and critically soak up everything that's worth knowing about it he was ever ready to incorporate that wisdom to shed light on Old ideas or critically examine new ones with the full weight of

a lifetime of intellectual exploration combined with the playful and curious excitement of a child in a candy store Christopher embodied the delicious possibilities of existence the profound satisfaction that intellectual exploration and integrity can bring especially with confronting power with knowledge even as he bravely recognized that stupidity Prejudice Superstition hatred power and money will generally win but beyond this it was his unadulterated Joy of ideas and The Human Experience the need for irony and humor along with the full banquet of human knowledge and culture that set hitch apart from so many of the rest of us

I always remain Guided by his example and before acting I almost always ask that simple question that guides so many people in other contexts I change one word and I asked myself what would Christopher do indeed that will form the basis for much of the discussion that follows after this the last time I saw him our discussions ranged over subjects that included the nature of nothingness quantum mechanics the obscenity that is capital punishment the madness that governs the religious fanaticism infecting both sides of the Middle East conflict the embarrassment that is Catholicism and the intellectual

laziness and pretentious nonsense that encompasses so much of religious faith and the theological noise in our popular culture he was not a scientist but he was fascinated by science not merely because of its possible impact on human Affairs but more importantly for him and for me because of the remarkable ideas that it generates he was wise enough to recognize that the universe is far more imaginative than we are and he was eager to learn from the universe as he was from The Works of the world's great writers philosophers and historians and through his questions and

Reflections he actually extended my own understanding of of my own work I described him the Dismal future of a cold dark and largely empty Universe which is implied by the remarkable discovery that our universe is expanding exponentially and Accel the expansion is accelerating in return He pointed on an argument that I adopted in that book he actually was writing the forward for the book Richard wrote the afterward uh before he became too ill and he pointed out that nothingness is heading straight towards us as fast as can be thus if someone ask that annoying religious

question meant to sty those of us who SE no need for God why is there something rather than nothing we can respond fimply by saying just wait there won't be for long that idea didn't terrify him he realized that knowledge is not to be gained for ACC companying our soul but for enhancing the awareness and the act of being alive and he continued to recognize that even as he bravely faced his own death With Dignity fortitude and passion in spite of what some religious apologists had hoped for and what some made false claims about to

the contrary before leaving his company the very last time I saw him in in one of those poetic accidents that makes life so unexpectedly enjoyable I was reading a newspaper piece the New York Times at his kitchen table about an emerging effort to ensure that young people at a lead institutions like Yale preserve their Catholic upbringing while in college when describing the Temptations to depart from piety the author wrote exposed to nii Hitchens coed dorms and beer pong some students are expected to stray I reflected on what a remarkable tribute that simple sentence really represented

no it's to be so ubiquitous and cultural impact that you can be mentioned without explanation in such a piece is one thing but to be sandwiched between nii and beer pong it's it's really an honor that few of us can so hope to achieve and perhaps the most appropriate way that Christopher would want to be remembered but I'll add my own personal memory to conclude there was not a single time that I would leave Christopher's apartment usually late at night always drunk when I wouldn't walk out the door and say what had I possibly done

to deserve the Friendship of that remarkable human being I miss him almost every day thank Youk Richard I I'll turn to you next I once wrote can you hear me yes I once wrote If you are in invited to debate against Christopher Hitchins decline we've lost not only a dear friend 13 years ago but the most powerful Heavy Artillery piece in our rhetorical Armory perhaps the finest orator I ever heard not a ranting shrieking demagogue not a tremolo voiced preacher not a folksy fireside chat Merchant hitch was an aitor of the rational thinking sort appealing

to the Mind beguiling the audience with literate wit erudition worldly knowledge and that incomparable voice I didn't know him especially well I was not one of that inner literary Brotherhood Martin Amos James Fenton salon rashy and others nor did I know him in his Young Manhood at Oxford when he someh managed to combine unshaven trotskyist Rebellion as Chris with loose Society diners at All Souls where as Christopher his youthful Beauty doubtless appealed to the warden the notorious John Sparrow he was proud of his membership of Bayo College home of radical fire Brands and future Prime

Ministers for at least a century and he publicly alluded to the fact that b was something he and I shared with his literary accomplishments he would probably have loved Hiller Bello's poem to the Bor men still in Africa which begins years ago when I was at bail B men and I was one swam together in Winter Rivers wrestle together Under the Sun Bello's poem was about the bore War but who today could read the subsequent lines without irresistibly thinking of hitch the Intrepid War correspondent The Fearless traveler to every troubled spot in the world here

is a house that armors a man with the eyes of a boy and the Heart of a ranger and a laughing way in the teeth of the world and a holy hunger and thirst for danger that gets Christopher to a tea whatever a tea might be far from shunning foxholes as atheists are proverbially supposed to do hitch sort them out danger spots all around the world his laughing way in the teeth of the world was not fool Hardy or wanton like that of the young Winston Churchill in the bore war or the northwest first Frontier

his holy hunger and thirst for danger was not jingoistic like Churchills but was born of selfless solidarity with the victims of tyranny that was why he journeyed year after year to some of the world's most dangerous places as he himself said without leaving the letter B Belfast Bombay Belgrade Beirut Baghdad that was why he put himself through ordeal by water water boarding to verify that the word torture was indeed Justified that was why he went to North Korea real life embodiment as he regarded it of his hero George Orwell's 1984 dystopia and hereabouts we find

the Deep motivation for his anti-theism whereas my motivation is primarily scientific Christopher's was political he passionately hated dictators and tyrants and the most tyrannical of all dictatorial tyrants was the god of Abraham Mau or Stalin or Saddam Hussein or Kim msung could make your life a misery but at least you could Escape by Dying God the ultimate dictator would according to the beliefs of his followers Never Let You Escape for me an especially memorable encounter with Christopher was the recording of the Four Horsemen DVD together with Dan dennit and Sam Harris for which he kindly

made his Washington Apartment available and he and his wife gave us all including the camera crew a lovely dinner afterwards a final memory I was invited to guest edit the Christmas issue of new Statesman in 2011 and my centerpiece was my interview of him it was in Houston Texas where he was undergoing experimental treatment of his cancer and living in a magnificent loan man afterwards he hosted dinner with his family Christopher himself was too ill to eat but he nevertheless managed to entertain us all with his unabated sparkling conversation I believe that interview turned out

to be the last one of his life I began by asking him to reminisce about his own early days as a journalist when he was employed by new Statesman but he characteristically said he would rather talk about topics of current interest especially our shared fight against religion I was pleased about this it was a long interview more a conversation we didn't touch on areas of disagreement for example the Iraq War and abortion the fact that some of us are labeled strident came up in conversation and Christopher said to me you must never be afraid of

that charge you see your discipline being attacked and defamed and attempts made to drive it out stridency is the least you should must it is the shame of your colleagues that they don't form up ranks and say listen we're going to defend our colleagues Christopher himself had a robust pugnacity of delivery which rose above any accusation of stridency ha what an incredibly stupid question and anyone else that would have sounded arrogant but he got away with it the day after that new Statesman interview we had attended the conference of the atheist Alliance International in Houston

they had chosen to present him with what I'm embarrassed to say they called the Richard Dawkins award I had to make a speech after which he graciously but with sadly fading voice and some coughing gave a long and wonderfully moving extemporary address I want to end by quoting the final words of my speech in his honor every day he relies the claim that there are no atheists in foxholes hitch is in a foxhole and he's dealing with it with a courage and honesty and a dignity that any of us would be and should be proud

to be able to master and in the process he showing himself to be even more deserving of our admiration respect and love thank you I think next I'll turn to someone who's been at fox holes recently or close to them and uh I often think of I have to admit I often think of Christopher when I listen to you lately Douglas so Douglas well thank you lawen actually one one of the pieces of advice of christas which I have always kept in my life was he had a piece of advice for journalists which is you

should always try to go to a dangerous country every year I've sometimes overdone it but uh uh yeah um I remember the first moment I actually heard the name Christopher Hitchins I was a a callow undergraduate at Oxford at morling college and I just published my first book a biography of Lord Alfred Douglas and I was 20 I suppose and uh the president of my college wonderful man Anthony Smith who's known uh Christopher since Oxford days came running out of the president pres lodgings waving a copy of a paper that turned out to be the

New York Review of Books and he was shouting something and I couldn't discern what it was he was shouting and as he got closer it was he said to me uh Christopher Hitchens has been nice about you in the New York Review of Books now I was an undergraduate in those days so of course I didn't read anything and uh let alone the nyrb and I gave something a little too close to a shrug and Tony said Christopher Hitchens has been nice about your book in the New York Review of Books you don't understand Christopher

is never nice about anyone and and then I thought oh I'll look into this chat uh and um subsequently I heard from Tony a version of what Richard just said to Tony said to me sometime later he said there's only really one rule in public speaking never speak before with or after Christopher Hitchens and I I remembered it years later in a very small event at the University when I was about to start talking on stage with Christopher I thought why do we not learn um but anyway uh yes I did look into him and

I fell in love with his writing and then we became uh again fast friends I think our first lunch was not far around the corner from here and it was one of those true proper Hitchin lunches where he informed me that my suggestion that would I should have scotch and soda before lunch was nonsense because you had to specify the scotch and if you didn't they just pour it from a bucket behind the bar so that was a life lesson already and um I can't all I remember is that we talked about everything that we

both loved um we talked about poetry we talked about Woodhouse about war we were quoting Shakespeare sonets at each other by the time they were trying to kick us out and um and I do remember that I went home uh under fairly heavy head cloud and um and went to bed and I knew that Christopher was going off to his hotel room to write his uh column uh which he did and I read it the next day and it was a superb column as ever but what graded with me more was that I turned on

the television as I was starting to come to in the evening and there was Christopher on news night being just as excellent as he'd been at lunch so so I've never drunk at lunch since actually in the knowledge that you just can't keep up with that um I was enormously fond of him and he uh the fact that he took a great interest in Young Writers and he took interesting so many is I can't tell you it's very uncommon in um in my profession uh people very often turn to people they know can turn in

copy and all that sort of thing there not many people are actually encouraging and Christopher was one of the most encouraging people in my early career and I'll always be grateful to him for that among many many other things we might get on later to disagreements one could occasionally have with him which still sometimes can cause one to wake up in the night in a sweat but um but but one of the things I always found interesting in him was that a lot of uh writers including some of his contemporaries wanted very much to impress

their readers and the longer I knew Christopher the more I realized there was something particularly unusual about him as a writer which was his readers wanted to impress him which is a very special quality not only did that he brought out the best in his reader um that's a very unusual quality he made them want to be more Curious he wanted to he wanted us his readers to know more and to care about more to think more and um I suppose I just say finally that there's much much else we'll have to discuss this evening

but I was uh as everyone knows Christopher's great fan Martin Amos died recently and um there was a passage in Martin amos's Memoir uh which always stuck with me I think it's one of Martin's greatest books a stunning stunning book um experience there's an extraordinary bit in that where martinus talks about the funeral of a cousin of his who died under very terrible circumstances and there's a beautiful phrase which uh Amos says about the funeral he says uh he says this is where we go when we die into the hearts of all that love us

and all our hearts were bursting with her and I think it's an enormous tribute to Christopher many years after his death now and a whole new generation has discovered him via YouTube and much more to say that he's one of those people who are our hearts I think still burst with thank you hi there it's Lawrence Krauss and giving you a brief break from our wonderful hitch mess celebration video to talk about an application that I've talked about before that I really love brilliant brilliant is an an app that allows you to basically have self-learning

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you go to it you'll find It's a Wonderful compliment to our podcast and a really fun way every day to learn something new now after that brief break back to hitchmo in London thank you after Christopher died there was a a memorial service held in New York and um there were a lot of famous people there and for some reason I was there and um and uh I I gave a a memorial and and I and I was amazed at how I won't mention but all these people that were really well known how poor their

their their their conversations were but there's only one person that I thought gave a wonderful um discussion and that's a person that I would listen to read the phone book and that's Stephen Fry so I shall now let you down and disappoint you all um I I feel a little bit of a fraud in the sense that you all probably knew Christopher better than I did um I like like Don didn't really know who I was when I was young I wish i' had read him when I was a boy and when I was growing

up um it I caught up eventually um and we should remember that perhaps it's right to say that he was first and foremost a writer even though we all remember his debates and his astonishing orry his books still do Sparkle with Brilliance and what he's a writer like his hero all well to some extent and maybe grahme green and there are others whom you always forget how they do it you think I I don't know what his style is exactly and then you pick it up and you read it you go yes it's there it

just carries you through through arguments with such energy and yet without any apparent sort of ego but within the force field of his personality which I first encountered at the hey on why literary Festival when I was introduced to him by Peter Florence who who who ran the festival um I kind of almost Ste back I could just feel this extraordinary Charisma coming off him and his amiability he had the gift that many great people that we most love and value have of having a very special language or relationship with each person he knew so

he had his own nicknames for his friends and with me it was always old horse which is um a wood housian reference uh Stanley fanore ukd one of the Lesser known of the woodh housian cannon called people old horse and for some reason he called me old horse and he did it straight away ah fry old horse yes um and we start he started talking about you know things that he knew I was interested in it was extraordinarily generous because we were going to debate together with Tina Brown um and I was very nervous because

I didn't know what I was going to say it was about religion and um I didn't know that he was going to become one of the four horsemen of the atheistic apocalypse with Sam and Dan and Richard um so I I didn't even know which side he was on to be honest uh he was in a sear sucker suit uh with a large glass of what I thought was flat beer turned out to be whiskey and of course a cigarette as I had at the time CU I was still a smoker then uh and he

put an arm on my shoulder and said we'll absolutely slay them and I said are we on the same side and and whatever it was the the difference between him and me which is enormous in all kinds of ways but my pusillanimity if I can call it that I'm soft left Center hand ringing em forer sort of a person there's not much real drive and and uh ferocity in my politics I'm always oh I don't really know and I'm sort of wearing carpet slippers uh somehow um and he was very other and so I said

I want to preface my remarks by saying that I have nothing but the deepest respect and understanding and and and nothing to say against the individually Pious and devout religious person and he immediately on my side said that's nonsense why but we had a fabulous time at that and then afterwards we had a fabulous time as well and and he I discovered this amazing range of knowledge I was staggered by how much he knew not just of politics by that time I it was clear that his his politic his political knowledge was was wide ranging

in in all directions both ideological knowledge and the fabulous um uh he laughed so much at the intricacies of the left and the language of the left um someone once when we were I can't remember we were doing a signing or something somewhere and someone said I I was a Trotsky i' like you I was never a Trotsky I was a trotskyist do you not even know the difference and uh I I told him a story uh about my friend Tony Robinson of all people who played Baldrick in the Black Adder series you might know

who I mean but who was on the executive of the labor party for a time and uh was very leftwing indeed when he was young and and was part of equity and Tony had the story which I thought uh Christopher would enjoy about going up making speech to a fringe Equity meeting of hardle people um and as Tony sat down in his seat again someone hissed in his ear Pablo white and as Tony said I had no idea what heresy I had committed and I so I explained this to uh Christ and Chris said well

if he was indeed a Pablo white then he should be burned and I think he was always aware of the extraordinary parallels between that world of the left that he was involved in to some extent when he was a trotskyist and then an international socialist and then sort of moved away into to being the the Christopher Hitchin we most recognize but never sort of left the the the the idea of of of what he believed him when when younger and what the world how the world was divided when he was young um and the the

parallels between that and Catholicism I think amused him as well he he we did a debate together um in which we opposed the the mighty Cannons of an whum and an African Bishop uh who were not really the best that the Catholic Church could provide I assume but um uh he was on such magnificent form and he said afterwards he said uh he said I know exactly why and how the Catholic Church fails because it is it is the negative reflection or the positive reflection which whichever way you look at it of Communism they are

of of they are so similar in their doctrines and the and their heresies and the and their attitudes and and I was brought up understanding how that works and I think that's true and and um the other thing you have to remember I suppose about Christopher uh as is alive in his books and in his YouTube presence uh and young people as Dr said love to go uh on a on a whole sort of afternoon following hitch slaps as they're known when he puts people down in debate and it is wonderful usually in that slightly

American way of calling them sir first if they're a man well sir I would say um he was and he valued he humor he was very funny he was one of the funniest people you could ever meet extraordinarly witty and he loved humor in others and his friendship group that Richard uh alluded to Clive James and James Fenton the poet and Martin Amos the novelist and they they they as much as anything met and continued to meet as regularly as they could because they made each other laugh so much and I suppose one of the

most extraordinary experiences I've had in my life not just in relation to Christopher was uh I was asked to host a most bizarre and potentially embarrassing and difficult even at the Royal Festival Hall in which I stood at electon and talked about Christopher and Richard came along cuz he was uh in England at the time but live on screen in his hospital bed in Washington was um was Christopher not really able to speak to the microphone and Martin nus was with him and James Fenton was with him and the audience was asking questions and we

were using Twitter I think it was to to get messages in in real time instantly back and forth and actually it was it was a very charming and extraordinary experience I don't know if you remember it well Richard it was it was sort of ghoulish in a way I was thinking should we be doing this but he wanted to do it he he was very very keen to do it he was um he he he was a magnificent cancer patient having been one myself in a smaller way uh I know it isn't always easy to

be a good cancer patient if he wrote that article was it for Vanity Fair or the Atlantic I never remember which of those he wrote for but ibe he wrote for them both but the topic of cancer it was called obviously um but yeah he he he to to to the end he like Martin famously he he was at war with the cliche he he would unpack every cliche possible and and so as he was dying he was saying I am not battling this disease I'm not battling it I am lying back and submitting to

doctors who are telling me what to do how how do I battle it do I shake my f do I say do I talk to it do it's nonsense my fight with it's not a fight it's something else think about what it is and in that sense everything about Christopher was this don't trust what you hear examine it find out what the thing itself is that is being talked about whether it's a war whether it's an opinion whether it's a faith whatever it might be that he did have one big hole one huge hole I

thought which I was quite pleased to which was that he didn't really seem to value or understand that much and maybe you'll put me right here about music and and I I when he you know we were sort of emailing when he was first diagnosed and I was saying I can I suggest some music you should listen to maybe while you're while you're having these things dripped in these poisons dripped into you and he said no you're going to say Vagner or betan or bar or something I'm not interested what you're going to talk about

blues and jazz and and he didn't and and that's not a failing necessarily it's just clearly um one of the greatest heroes I have in the world Samuel Johnson also was completely deaf to music in every sense he had know didn't value it uh I think what it was was that so much of his brain and his processing power went into language the understanding of language and the unpacking of Concepts in empirical and rational ways and his gift for that is what what remains I'll leave it there thank you so [Applause] much thank you well

that that those that was wonderful and and you're another person one shouldn't speak after but in any case um I what we're going to have a sort of a little discussion i' I've sort of assembled some questions for each of my friends and each one involves a quote from from from Christopher and I'll begin with you Richard um the one of my favorite quotes from from his which was related to wisdom to religion not wisdom um the opposite um the the uh and and he borrowed a quote from a poem which I was going to

read and I thought I'm on stage with these three gentlemen who all read poetry better than me but anyway I'll read it um it's a wearisome condition of humanity born under one law to another bound vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity created sick commanded to be sound and the quote from from Christoper about religion was it makes us objects in a cruel experiment whereby we are created sick and commanded to be well I'll repeat that created sick and then ordered to be well all over us to supervise this is installed as Richard was talking about

a Celestial dictatorship a kind of divine North Korea greedy exigent I ex exigent I would say more than exent greedy for the uncritical praise from dawn until Dusk and Swift to punish the original sins with which it is so tenderly gifted Us in the first place however let no one say there's no cure salvation is offered Redemption indeed is Promised at the low price of the surrender of your critical faculties now Richard you have bravely in my opinion and correctly spoken about the nonsense lately regarding sex and gender and hitch wrote that piece in the

context of organized religion yet to me these words bring out a more modern kind of secular religion which I've called uh woke fundamentalism and um and it's of the type you've been fighting I've argued it has the same characteristics heresy excommunication surrender of critical faculties the one thing it doesn't have is salvation but um I wanted to ask you in terms of of the nonsense that's going on now which is more pernicious at the present time do you think in the United Kingdom uh Visa free speech and reason religious fundamentalism or woke fundamentalism there is

a interesting parallel actually um with specifically Roman Catholicism um transubstantiation using the Aristotelian distinction between the the substance the true the true substance and the accidentals and the the thing about um transexualism is that it's exactly the same artian distinction the the the true substance of the of the of the trans person is is what they really feel um and the the fact that they've got a penis although they're they're they're a woman is the um accidental so it's it's a very very similar thing to the to the Roman Catholic um transubstantiation um what you

were saying about the um what he was saying about the um original sin um I think that that is one of the nastier if not the nastiest aspect of Christianity the idea that every every baby is born in sin every baby inherits the sin of Adam who of course never existed but never mind about that um but nevertheless all all born in sin and the only way you can escape sin is by is by is by Redemption there's something truly horrible I think about that that idea I think um but let let me ask you

I'm not going to be provocative here but I see those original sins too I see people being for example in many places being white or male as an original sin as being seen by certain certain groups and and and I see that it's it's a close parallel yeah yes and do any of any comments for you know I'm going to piing up provocative subjects so feel free to to uh com normally with the provoc we're jumping ahead a little here because I suppose one of the questions that certainly hangs over the over this Splendid uh

lecture hall or whatever uh the RGS calls it this this marvelous room is what would Christopher be thinking about current you know exactly and I that was my next one and I yeah exactly so no go what do you what would I mean I've often thought what I often think how lucky Christopher is not to have to to deal with what Happ exactly I don't know I mean he would be pulled as a as terrible centrists like I am pulled like me am pulled um uh P pulled between a a a wish for people not

to be bullied and harassed and um uh and discriminated against um and a desire for the group that's supposedly representing the discriminated not to shriek in such unmannerly ways and to destroy their own argument I mean I am really nothing more than an empiricist I just want people not to be righteous but to be effective and and so often the the problem with the left the left that that that Christopher was so long associated with is it it would rather be right than effective um and and it's a it's a mess that that that that

should be the case but he would where he would sit I don't his resistance to belonging to any actual group of people that represented particular area of thought I think would stop him from being an an anti-woke warrior in the way that some people are seen to be now in all good faith and conscience and they do it well um on the other hand he couldn't see what was going on in the campuses and around the world of our University and elsewhere without exclaiming I mean his one of his great phrases was his definition of

what an educated mind was which was one that understood the limits of its own knowledge and that that's the very best that a a university can do to you is to teach you the limits of what you know um and uh I think he would be of course absolutely horrified by the certainty and the um animosity and the the ferocity of the language and the certain it's the certainty I think because although he came across as certain he was very able to to to establish doubt in the areas and indeed he could be certain about

doubt but he would always call out nonsense yeah but when to ask all of you I mean we are living in interesting times and and and um and there's religious fundamentalism and there is these other kind of fundamentalisms and in the UK uh I know at universities I well actually I see both kinds of of uh intolerance of late and I wonder what your perspectives were Douglas do you well I'll just say briefly that the um Christopher's brother Peter and his uh very moving reminiscence of his brother just after his death a complicated relationship I

think we can agree um said that he remembered as boys once they would they were clambering over roofs of houses together and the young Christopher at seven or eight leapt from one roof to the next and turned around and said to Peter jump and for Peter this was he said after his brother's death this was the image he had most of him and I think there's something so true about that that actually the fundamental when you go deep down it was about courage it was about about courage and that means the courage to say what

you think the courage to defend your views the courage to stand up for your friends yes wasn't easy when Salmon rushi you know would stay at his apartment in DC and so on but it was not a question for Christopher um and all of that but also the courage to say that what I think is true is true and my own voice is enough in defending that so yes I think that whatever whatever he would have thought about any of the things that have gone on since that would have been the main abiding thing which

would have been not just courage but also a contempt for the utter H that most of us have to spend our lives wading [Applause] through in in his book H22 he he prints a questionnaire that he answered what what about himself and one of the questions was something like what quality do you most value in a person courage was was the was the number one thing and he was asked um what do you most like doing and he said going to dangerous places um exactly and I and I and and as I say that's one

of in fact I think that's a good segue because I want to go to Douglas who's been going to Douglas dangerous places and I want to go to dangerous places here I want to talk about religion and politics and all the things you're not supposed to um so uh Douglas as I you've bravely defended Israel and Jews against anti-Semitism and and so prevalent now in the streets of the UK and in universities and you've defended Israel's right to self-defense and respond October 7th hamos attacks by attacking back so I want to read you some quotes

from Hitch and ask you to respond because um so um here's one quote actually and this was where I began to seriously be uncomfortable such some such Divine claim underway not just the occupation but the whole idea of a separate state for Jews and Palestine take away the Divine warrant for the holy land and where are you and what were you just another land Thief like the Turks or the British except that in this case you wanted the land without people and the original Zionist slogan a land without a people for a people without a

land disclosed its own negation when I saw the densely populated Arab towns dwelling Sol under Jewish tutelage you want irony how about Jews becoming colonizers at just the moment when Europeans had given up on the idea if that's not bad enough I'm going to read another one I I I'm not I'm an anti-zionist I'm one of those people of Jewish descent who believes that Zionism would be a mistake if even if there were no Palestinians I think Zionism is a stupid idea to begin with it's a bad idea a Messianic idea a superstitious idea and

it's a waste of Judaism many states are founded on stupid ideas it doesn't mean that anyone can come in and evict or destroy them it guaranteed a quarrel with the Arabs because it meant we're going to take away land from what from what is most precious your land it guarantees an injustice to the Arabs which now anyone can see and is now entering its fourth generation of Palestinians brought up either in Exile or dispossession or under occupation and humiliation and now we know something that has to be done to address what is part of the

original sin or conception last sentence I'm been writing in favor of a Palestinian Homeland all my life and I'm now no less or more in favor of it than I was before it should be a matter of principle if Jews born in Brooklyn have a right to state in Palestine then Palestinians born in Jerusalem have a right to a state in Palestine anyone who doesn't agree with that principle is suspect comment well one of the um one of the funny things about your friends dying if they're well known is that a type of person emerges

in the Years afterwards and tries to hold your late friend's words against you yeah I have no special love for that um it will Amaze you to hear that Christopher and I disagreed when he was alive and disagree when he's dead and that's part of the nature of friendship is I mean somebody said to me recently in an interview how can you you be friends with ex a certain person and I said because I'm not a child no okay and um uh I was always very moved by by Christ's attitude towards friendship my late friend

Roger scrutin was very very far to the other side of politics to Christopher Hitchens but I remember saying once when I told uh Christopher when we were in DC once I said you know Rogers just moved to Virginia with his wife and he said oh could you give me their number I'd love to see them yeah now that that that it's it's an important life lesson that sort of thing and when you're starting out as I was then it's also the sort of thing you want to pick up on um yes we we did talk

about this sometimes uh Christopher noted even then that I was a Zionist some somewhat preter naturally in his View and I do remember when his own politics were shifting in the 2000s and they definitely did shift to some extent everybody always says I didn't leave the left the left left me and then maybe Bill Mah and about two other people that's true of but most of the time it's that people also move a bit and Christopher moved a bit but he didn't find uh he didn't he he once said to me about Israel he said

that's that seems to come to you naturally in a way it doesn't to me MH he was complicated on that subject and things have changed a lot since he was writing about it he was of course very close to Edward SED and then rather cruy waited till s was done dying to then attack him on his deathbed in a magazine but um but the you know I I think of those I I think of what he would think about this of course and I would say that he would have the courage and intelligence to realize

among other things there was a reason why Christopher Hitchens didn't need Zionism but uh he had the Good Fortune to be born in England in the latter part of the century and not every other Jew did and let alone somebody who discovered late in life they of Jewish Heritage um he his friend salmon rushy said something recently that I can't help thinking is something that Christopher might have come up with as well Salman rushi said I've spent my entire life supporting the the statehood for the Palestinian people but he said I can't deny the fact

that if there is another Palestinian State given to them it'll be another Hamas state or an Iranian satellite state in the Middle East and I don't think that's a good thing I think that's a perfect reasonable but but to get on to a slightly lighter note since you decided this Christmas table we will address all of the things you're not meant to talk about at Christmas we will do religion politics we should talk about sex probably um and I just say one other thing because I I was I was thinking about this on the way

in here this evening it's an example of the way one one can have disagreements with with dear friends this was a site of very very John Gordon will remember this this is a site of a wonderful occasion years ago where my friend benad Levi and Christopher were both doing a twoand him there were very many wonderful things that happened that day one was that Christopher had a great crack when they came on stage because Bernard was standing the flowing open shirt as EV at some point sort of rolled up his sleeves and threw his jacket

into the front row I can't remember but but and remember when they came out on stage Christopher looked at the audience and he said um so wonderful to see so many women who've turned up to see me and the the audience laughed a lot and then Christoper said ladies and gentlemen laugh but not that much leave me with some self-esteem but anyway but I remember that I remember the day also because as it happened uh uh uh uh I had had breakfast that morning in London with Henry Kissinger who many people know was not a

friend of Christophers but I always found Dr krer fascinating and learned a lot of wisdom speaking with him anyway it happened that I was a small group of people who had do Dr kisser for breakfast that morning and he had said something this was about 2004 he' said something that I thought thought Christopher might agree with and it was about Iraq and one of of the problems about Henry Kissinger was that quite often one would look through one's notes afterwards and they weren't as profound as they sounded from the man because Dr kiss was amazing

at saying things like the thing is that we live in a very complicated world and you go God that's great and you and and then you look at your notes afterwards and think it's all right anyway this was the only occasion that Christopher launched at me was in in this building because at drinks afterwards I I said to him look uh there's something I wanted to tell you I saw Dr Kissinger this morning for breakfast and the moment I said it I just knew I was in trouble and I wanted to be helpful I want

I thought I could share this insight and and as I was telling the story of what he had said the Insight of Dr kiss just be just fell apart in front of me it became less and less interesting it went from quite useful and profound to utterly banale and I could see it and Christopher's eyes were lowering and lowering and there was this terrible portal that was opening up and eventually he just snapped we didn't need Dr Kissinger to tell us that maybe I shouldn't have mentioned anything but yes okay well you know it's funny

that I always admired one thing kisser said and I discovered it wasn't his which he said you know academics just disputes are so vicious cuz his Stakes are so small and but it wasn't even his that was you know I learned that was he he borrowed that from someone else didn't know that but uh I have to say I mean I I presented you with a hard ball quote there there were later quotes there was well there were later quotes from Richard where he talked about his concerns about the direction the Palestinians were going in

and why it had nothing to do with their what they were concerned about was had nothing to do with their mistreatment it was more um you know this vicious antism if if he had live lived long enough to see what happened in October 2023 I mean that changed everything as far as I was concerned it would have been interesting to see I you know I keep thinking what what would he be doing then and and in in all deference to you Douglas I do mean this with great seriousness when I see you on TV talking

about this I do think of Christopher I think your bravery and your courage and directness really and now and now to the last question before for the before we take a break and you come up with your own questions to Stephen this another quote from Christ Christopher which is you know anyway one of my other favorite quotes where he says my own opinion is enough for me and I claim the right to have it defended against any consensus any majority anywhere any place any time and anyone who disagrees with me can pick a number get

in line and kiss my ass now as you have said numerous times it with me and other and public publicly and privately correctly being offended confers no special privileges and yet today thanks to the onerous hate speech laws here in the United Kingdom where condemning fundamentalist Islam for example can apparently get you arrested I was really hoping we'd get arrested tonight but we'll we'll still see there's still time um what do you what do you think hitch would have said or done about about these ridiculous laws and the where they're being enforced here this country

well yes I mean it is an extraordinary thing to here our current government thinking about bringing back certain blasphemy laws when we've only just got over having to get rid of them it is uh deeply worrying and I think he'd be extremely angry and passionate and funny and engaged about them and of course everyone can get in line to kiss my ass is is a great phrase but actually he got up three you know you know night after night after night to go to debates to talk on small channels like C-SPAN in America and things

like that or msbc SE 2B scn or whatever they're called and um he he actually wanted to talk he wanted to raise things he wanted people to understand he wasn't you know he wasn't afraid to go out and speak it wasn't just that this is what I think kiss my ass he actually said here is my ass do you want to kiss it you want to beat it you know this is what it is um but he's yeah I mean he and I I I it would be impertinent for me to try and second guess

what he would think because well I've asked you to do so but you yeah but so I will try and do it but I but I do it in all you know in all sense that it's just you know putting out an idea that many people would want perhaps to disagree with and say no he would never think that but I think he would be yes he would be very very very strong against the kind of um talk in Academia and in in in closing down um hate speech uh in in the ways that H

has been on in social media and somewh we haven't even discussed what he would have thought of social media um he was not great technically uh he didn't even understand it when I mocked him for having an aol.com email address he didn't see why that that was a mockable offense and so I me it took him a long time to get used to email as as you know um uh so what he would have thought how he would have negotiated this idea of Twitter which was 5 years old when died um five or six years

old when he died but it hadn't really acquired the critical mass that it the Arab Spring was happening actually around the time that Christopher was ill and and all the way from you know um from Tunisia to Yemen and Syria uh the the you know the square public squares were being filled with uh voices and things seem seemed hopeful and Free Speech seemed to be very alive in in a way that suited us it was free speech that that suited U people who talk for a living and claim to think for a living and so

on I hesitate to use the I word intellectual certainly not of me but of you know of intellectuals generally it all seemed to be going in the right direction the Free Speech was actually working it was very very quick that it closed down and it was very soon after Christopher's death was it suspiciously soon after his death well that's Wonder almost You could argue Christopher died the brexit campaign started Trump came to power Elon Musk Rose and Rose and Rose um on on that side and on the left uh the the you know the trumpeting

of of of uh gender peculiarities and everything else that uh have perplexed confused embarrassed and caused us all to wonder and for some people to be angry and offensive and rude about it and others just like me to want to crawl into a hole and die uh because you know I'm I'm just not the kind of who likes to offend anybody despite what I've said about offense I don't like offending people then it upsets me to see offense in people's eyes but on the other hand we are living in a world where people are talking

such horseshit as Douglas rightly put that you know people you feel almost need to be offended and and that those of us who do believe in in in free speech uh but not for a political reason for the reason of itself um have to have to be louder and and uh I think it would have been great to have had Christopher around as a champion waving that flag and encouraging us all on because certainly Douglas is brave and Richard is brave uh um and there are figures you can point to and say these these people

speak up in and don't mind being screamed down don't mind being threatened physically don't mind having that you know having to have security because of what they're saying and and that is unbelievably valuable and needs to be rewarded and uh I think Christopher would have been happy to stand by your side when when you were threatened even if he disagreed with you still on Israel I think he would have been outraged by the the kind of things that have been said against you um and would he have been willing to speak out and go to

jail and if he' in defense of free speech in this country I think so I mean even I I mean when I did yeah I spoke I I I gave what was a very lame and well trodden argument theodicy uh in in in ital in Italy in Ireland um you can see how my mind works I see the letter I and then I just read off my mind and it came out wrong um I I and someone suggested I go to prison because i' I'd broken Ireland's blasphemy laws by saying what I would say to

God if it turned out that I woke up remember that yeah um and uh um I I I thought of myself pale and Resolute in the dark gripping the dock and standing saying yes I send me to prison for My Views send me now I I you know and and I was picturing myself as this kind of hero but uh whether I would have been or not but but Christopher for sure I mean I think he would have loved being in prison yeah I think you're right I think we well we also have we also

have what I regard us his perhaps his against very strong competition his best speech which is one he gave in Canada in about 2008 at a university where he said you have blasphemy laws in this country now effectively and watch me break them just watch me and I remember it was a pretty hair raising speech because friends of Christopher and mine were in some serious uh trouble at the time the Danish cartoonists the French cartoonists and other Ayan a lot of Christopher my friends were in really bad position and I remember watching that speech immediately

it was out and it's where he he really he says you know I mean of course you know all religions can be bad in certain times we've got a particular problem with Islam at the moment and let me tell you what I think about Islam and you can hear hear the whole Hall go and then he explains that it was an illiterate Tradesman who badly you know borrowed from the Old and New Testament and you know what's more likely that an archangel came and gave a badly plagiarized version of other scriptures to illiterate Tradesman or

that he made it all up yeah and and I remember and I remember watching this and I wrote I remember I I was thinking in preparation for tonight to go back and read my emails with Christopher and I just thought it would make me feel too sad so I didn't but I do remember writing an email to him a media after watching that saying I love you I adore you that was superb but please be careful because it I knew exactly the cliff that he was on and indeed had jumped over but that that was

what he was like again it goes back to him as a boy always willing to take the leap yeah yeah absolutely and he would have loved yes he would have if if he was willing to go to Canada and insult them for their poy little laws then yeah he would have done it here yeah I think he would have I agree I would have loved it well I I I there's so much I wanted to touch a bunch of delicate subjects and we did um and I when I when I was when we were thinking

about running this I thought well how can one appropriately celebrate Christopher and and I thought of the three people that I would most admire to do that and I was so happy that they agreed to be on stage so we'll take a break now and we'll thank all of you and we're now you're going to have to come up with some good questions thank you very [Applause] much well much to my dismay there were many good questions um it's hard to know where to begin with but I kind of like this one this is for

for everyone there's some for that I'm going to direct to specific people um free sex free speech free association are the three goding principles of young hitch can any of the panel recommend an appropriate fourth to this Trifecta I thought it's a great question it's a hard answer does any does you have to begin with free because no it's interesting because free speech is of course and it's a subject with talking about we all believe in but I I keep wondering especially when comparing myself to America an and our culture in Europe and Britain compared

to America where free speech is the end point it's what you have to achieve um and for us free speech is an end point because it leads to something which is even more desirable and that is equity fairness Justice decency peace all those things are more important are the most important and free speech is an absolutely vital step towards them but it isn't the end point the end point is Justice and of course you can't say justice jce now because people think of Justice Warriors and and and and and it's become a dirty word almost

but whatever we mean by fairness uh um you know in Australia a fair shake they call it and it's a simple phrase but it it covers an enormous amount uh in treating people equally with equal dignity according to their character and so on um and free it you can't reach it without Free Speech but free speech is not as I say the final step and so I suppose I would put I don't know what word it is to cover it um but the the thing you aim for the actual peak of the Mountain uh is

something else that's excellent okay any anyone else have any so what was it free speech free love free sex free speech free association free association doesn't have to be free as as our as as we've now you know that c i i i was yeah okay why don't you go and I was thinking I'm not sure it would have been the young hitch and it's certainly ridiculous coming out of my mouth but I would have said humility um as as because you know I think that in a sense also Christopher embodied that in spite of

it he didn't appear to but the willingness to be wrong and the willingness to to recognize that you didn't know yeah knowing the limits of his knowledge exactly yeah to know the limits of knowledge anyone else okay not endless humility was that not endless humility no no no not not not and not free I mean humility about something you don't know about but not about something you do and if you're debating with an ignoramus you should not be humble but I think he would he also had the view that a lot of people do that

the free sex is only possible when it's nearly free which is when you pay for it U but if if you're not paying for it the price of it iser absolutely I no I'm biting my tongue okay um uh I I'm going to there's a question I'm going to answer and I'm going to ask you too be uh Richard because you just did something with him and I've spent some time it's it's an interesting question do you think Christopher could possibly become friends with Jordan Peterson arguably they'd have some things to agree on despite their

apparent differences and I I want to answer that first I i' I've spent time with Jordan and done two podcasts with him and and um and U first of all I think the answer is yes Christopher was deep friends with Justice Galia and if you could be friends with Anton Anton Scala Jordan Peterson would be easy but I think he would have enjoyed as I do um making fun of Jordan when when I'm with him especially publicly Jordan um as I've said to him so I'm free to say it here when I when I was

younger I used to watch a lot of TV and and I watched The Dick Van dijk show which to me was the source of all wisdom and um and there's a famous line that Carl Riner said in it which is what on the surface seems vague is in reality meaningless and I've said that to to Jordan many many times um and so in any case uh Richard you had some you just had a you also just did a little discussion with Jordan I've done yes I've done two uh discussions with him um the the most

recent one was in um Arizona and um this time I did manage to get a word in edgeway [Laughter] uh the first time I hardly did that was in Oxford and it was just private room but recorded and um I think the only word I got in was to chide him for his ridiculous idea that DNA is a yian archetype which um which is which wait it gets better um uh primitive peoples have had knowledge of DNA as you can tell from their art where they have serpents oh around in a in in a sparrow

and and he thought that they had some kind of inner eye that looked inside their own cells and could see their own DNA wow yeah I know wonder I didn't listen to that none of which would matter and I think Christopher would immediately leap to that point if Peterson with whom I've also I debated with him once in Toronto on the same side oddly enough um and and I've done podcasts and things with him and um all the things he says haven't nonsensical they might be fine but he's actually an influence on young people and

tells them how to live it's like watching someone with no teeth uh giving advice on dentistry and just but hang on physician heal thel hang on hang on hang on hang on hang on it's easy to criticize I will say the one thing that's always impressed me about the well the one thing that's always impressed me about about Jordan is when I is is that he he has been curious and and and and you know when we talk about things and and also when I I think I point out he's wrong he's willing to at

least for the moment say that and those are two characteristics that I think are are very important yes and also if I can say so as Jordan's a very good friend of mine I I love him and uh he is a very disagreeable person in a way that quite a lot of our friends are and there's nothing wrong with that and sometimes disagreeability recognizes disagreeability and has a whale of a time um and and I think Jo I think G Christopher would have enormously enjoyed uh the new type of challenges in ideas that Jordan would

have brought in front of him yes there's there's there's not much there's not much fun in debating the same adults night after night you know actually when somebody comes forward with a different set of views a new way of approaching it something that's been forgotten for a while Yung was sort of disappeared from the world of ideas as far as I can remember for 70 years or so pretty much Jordan has helped bring young back in a rather large way um I think that that Christopher would at least benefited from that and enjoyed it he'd

have enjoyed the tussle that's for sure and he'd have enjoyed the fact that he was somebody willing to defend their opinions robustly as well um so I don't agree that he's a man without teeth and I I I hugely admire his courageous stand against the Canadian laws yeah mandating the use of stupid pronouns that's how he got well known in Canada also courageous and also by the way the life advice thing if I can just say so quickly the the life advice thing is actually it's a very interesting thing in our time that a lot

of people who read Jordan's first book for instance friends of mine who read it said things like well it's obvious what he's saying and I always said the same thing no might be obvious to you there's many people who have been brought up in an utter vacuum in an utter vacuum and they need to be told basic truths about how to organize their lives and I for one think that what Jordan has done on that has brought visible Improvement to the lives of many many people and anyone who's interested in ideas should care about that

excellent okay good um there there's some questions that I think can get quick answers um this one I'm going to give a quick answer but other people could J Jump in it's from a 17-year-old how does one make philosophy a career and the answer is please don't anyone else want to uh comment on that well it used to be um um a path to An Elegant Tweedy poverty um but then starting about 5 years ago particularly ethicists and bioethicists were getting six figure salaries as entry salaries in biotech and Tech and Silicon Valley um but

what was interesting is that philosophy is uh a subject that asks awkward questions and continues always to ask questions and Silicon Valley has now decided that it's had enough of paid philosophers and Google fired its ethicists uh chat GPT has done similar things so the idea that you could be a practical philosopher and also Pete singer's particular you know all the the the uh what's it called his um altruism the the the effective altruism movement got very tied up with rather peculiar Sam pangman and Freedman whatever his name was uh so yeah it it seems

to have shrunk and retreated a little back to Academia and platform speeches from the idea that it was going suddenly to become a practical uh applied study that you could bring to Industry and to particularly to the technical sector uh that seems to have changed but I don't know what uh uh what the question is driving that exact well I think he's a young man interested in philosophy I mean study it I think and it's a great subject there's no it's a great subject and then you then you you can do physics after that and

and have substance no you the the 17-year-old has been carried is to pursue philosophy if it's their passion and if they're good at it and um know that you're dealing with the substance that's fire and uh that's a good substance to be dealing with and uh I I sightly disagree with Steven's analysis about the free speech and the purpose of it I don't think that free speech is I not I think I hope I'm not Mis representing the way you said it but I don't think it is about arriving at Justice and fairness I think

it's simply about arriving at truth and that truth is the single thing that you should Orient yourself towards in your life whether you're a scientist a philosopher mathematician whatever else and that if you see that and you're lucky enough at the age of 17 to see a way through to do that in your discipline you should run all the way with it well I agree but wa applaud but um I I think look to be less vicious I think it's really important for a young person to study philosophy and philosophers because it's the beginning it's

the awkward it's the questions philosophies for asking questions and and and and then one can move beyond that but asking critical questions I think is is incredibly important but I I think that but as a scientist I I sort of worry about this thing for truth you you you you're trying to avoid falsehood but science can never reveal the absolute truth about the world it's there's no absolutes in science there really aren't there's always the possibility of going beyond that so you just you just try not to be wrong and not to be false and

find out and it's like Sherlock Holmes who I we were talking about we sort of get rid of the things that are known false and you get closer to truth I think some of the cleverest people I know have been philosophers and my feeling is what a shame they they didn't turn their cleverness to science yeah exactly no exactly it's I've always asked why weren't you a scientist um let let me there's some other quick questions and I think maybe I'll have to ask begin W out of deference to You Stephen the the question is

who's your favorite Greek god and why it's not to you but I everyone can answer but I think once you answer the rest of us won't have anything to say oh I no I no definitive solution to the question it's one I'm often ask because I've been writing about the subject lately um and I tend to answer Hermes because he's the god of storytellers and liars and thieves and Rascals uh and and uh and CH and and spreading spreading stories spreading news so probably and he was impertinent and cheeky and rather attractive if you are

to believed onello and various other artists who who've given versions of him so I'm uh I would certainly say Hermes stroke Mercury if you want the Roman version yeah her Mer anyone El Aphrodite aphrod you have to you have to say why that's enough that was okay okay um well from there I I I I don't know why this I couldn't resist what's your favorite dinosaur does anyone have an answer to that the last question came from some who was 17 did this one come from one someone who's five okay well then let's let's move

parasaur I think rannosaurus Rex is my favorite but I don't know it's parasaur alus is my grandson's favorite dinosaur in honor of him i' oh okay absolutely okay anyone else there's that one that conted in packs so I like that one yeah um they are I was someone said to me that the um the earliest allosaurs were further in time from the T-Rex than the T-Rex is from the iPhone which was so there was a lot to choose from is B what I'm saying but in the Cretaceous T-Rex because as a child that's the one

you played with yeah yeah okay well I couldn't resist that one but um let's move to apparently hitch's favorite writers were Orwell and wood hos what does the panel think of these two writers you start well where to begin um uh well allwell was was obviously the the presiding journalistic Genius of his era and that was because he was willing to uh always follow things through to the next stage of inquiry and thought and uh uh had a a borrowing mind and curiosity which is uncommon among journalists and uh and of course he gave us

at least two of the great Parables of the 20th century which is is that's something on its own um Christopher was interested in all well in the same way every journalist is interested in all well you just have to be um Woodhouse is just uh as Steven is often written eloquently about is simply like a bath in the middle of a horrible World um I think evim War said that it's a a sort of prelapsarian world where uh even even even carnal Embrace is not there none of the characters are sexual in any way they're

sort of delightfully joyously free of certain of the human constraints he loved it I just throw one other in there though Christopher like me was a huge admirer of evil in war and just adored and we would sometimes do it over lunch or something compete with reciting passages from some of War's novels because of the sheer ability of War to say things that were incredibly true uh but which pierced through every imaginable uh uh human Folly and also every human decency and remember there's one passage in I think it's in Black Mischief for a handful

of dust where there's a reference to the fact that the natives in a particular area have been moderately civilized by the Catholic church but the Catholic church has had to make an agreement because the area in question has been indulging in eating each other for a long time and so it explained that the Catholic church has come to an agreement with them whereby the the consumption of human flesh is not to to to occur except on occasional feast days and only then with special dispensation from the bishop and and I remember chistopher saying you have

to really know your Catholic theology and human beings and much more to come up with something like that any anyone else no I agree I mean Woodhouse yes exactly and of he valued the the the pros Genius of of Woodhouse the Innocence the sunniness even before the fall is absolutely right but Al just simply his ability to put one word in front of another in a way that is balanced and joyous and makes you kind of gasp with pleasure makes you want to rush out and show somebody things like um he was so fat that

tailor would measure him just for the exercise oh there was another one who as if nature had poured him into his poured him into his clothes and forgotten to say when that's right what that there but one of the one of the golf novels as I was only introduced to recently by a friend cuz I said I don't like golf I'm totally uninterested in golf and she said no not about golf at all makes it wonder and one one of the golf novels somebody is on the is on the the the uh the the green

or whatever they call it and uh and a man says accuses another of the men from the club of having uh um tried to run off with his girlfriend and he say that if if you knew the in question it's like accusing somebody of running off with the Albert Hall all night there was a great great golf one as well where one of those gols who blamed any side uh uh distraction for the fact that they played a rotten shot and and he plays a shot and blames it on the Uproar of butterflies in an

adjoining Meadow well we anyway we could go on okay I'm going to ask some questions we only have a few more minutes so I'm going to try and run around let's see one Richard it says Richard if the god of the Old and New Testament was described as a seemingly nice guy would that change your opinions on religion and the idea of God as a whole well I mean I don't really care so much whether he's a nice guy or a terrible one he is was um but is does he exist that's that's the thing

I constantly come up against when arguing with So Many religious people they don't seem to even care about the question of Truth yeah it's all a question of of morality is it good is it consoling is it comforting is is is God good is God bad is is um whereas what I want to know is is it true yeah The two scientists that I think that's our thing is a religion the 10 of of organized religion are manifestly in contradiction to to to the evidence of Science and so it's whether it's true or not well

not whether it's good or bad or whether one should use it and it although it is you know there are other reasons and Christopher as much as anyone else described the moral reasons why organized religion is repugnant but but I you know but but I think the point is is it true I think is there are people who will say that they're they're religious and I'm thinking of one person in particular particular favorite of Christopher I wouldn't mention her name um and it's be it's because of of of moral considerations or comforting considerations and I

cannot get her to MH I know answer the question do you actually believe it's true and she says well I choose to believe well you can't choose to believe something I you do or you don't I I would okay I would pass to the whole panel but I want to give everyone a chance to have ask one more question so I'm going to give this one to you because this will give you a chance to blaspheme like you did I think in in in Ireland and it's will give I think a wonderful answer that you

gave but it said if you had a numinous well it's not for you but in any case the question is if you had a numinous experience what would you say to God repentance or rejection and I think you I remember you saying something absolutely spectacular about well yeah I was asked by gay burn the the Irish chat show host who then did a sort of Sunday religious program and to to go on his program where in fact it was in number one Maran Square where we did the interview which is where Oscar grew up and

it was rather pleas but anyway he said at the end he said no you've sort of expressed your atheism quite strongly he said um he said but suppose you die and then when you open your eyes there's God what do you say to him and I said how dare you uh exactly bone cancer in children what were you thinking of or whatever I mean this isn't the argument from evil or the argument you know problem with pain you know it's been written about since time IM Memorial and and it was but but it caused a

bit of a fuss but you know I I think Richard's point is is absolutely right empirically you can say well obviously the idea of a holy beneficent God is is nonsense in a world full of such unjustified pain and and misery and he should have organized things better and why would he make you know burrowing parasitic creatures that whose whole life cycle is to is to dig into the eye of a child and make them blind and lay eggs inside them that wasn't necessary so you know you could rewrite all things bright and beautiful was

all things foul and and hideous did did there go there you are exactly I mean it's yeah my Lord God made them all and uh uh but but the question is yeah is simply and there we should pay homage to Hitchins razor as I believe it's called in in philosophy classes to this day the the the Hitchin razor which unlike oam's razor it basically says I think uh anything that can be uh attested or claimed without evidence can be dismissed and uh repudiated without without evidence exactly that's okay I I would love to go on

but I'm going to give uh Douglas a chance you can choose between these two questions for a short answer one um the two questions are how do you think hitch would have voted in the 2024 us election and and the other you and the other one is what do you think of Christian nationalism or just religion coinciding with the political world you choose which one you want to answer there the wh ifs are impossible somebody referred to that earlier the one thing I I I could it's it be audacious to say anything about how he

would have voted or quite hard sometimes to work out at the time how he voted um I know he wouldn't have gone for the easy laughs one of the Striking things things about his response to George W bush is he used to say you know I can do all that stuff I can do the stuff about how close his eyes are to together practically use a monocle as a pair of glasses I can do all that I can do all that but that's the easy stuff there's no point one of my other great Heroes nor

McDonald always said this he said don't do the easy stuff anyone can do that any standup two bit comic and do a Donald Trump riff or with W find find them more interesting more difficult the the the thing that other people aren't doing and uh and as for the other bit what was it again well the with the election and Christian and Christian Nation Christian nationalism well he wouldn't have liked Christian nationalism at all and nobody will be surprised to hear that I mean the the uh I mean the interesting thing about that the post

911 atheism was of course is that it really went into the mainstream in such a big way because really violent religion was was back in a way that Europe had not had for a long time and um some people said well why do do you why do I why do Christopher why Rich why others object to this and I think I can safely say we all said the same thing which was that if if if another form of religious nationalism or religious extremism was on our streets trying to behead people I can absolutely guarantee you

we wouldn't be on board with that either you know if the Mormons suddenly descended on London and threatened to decapitate everyone who didn't agree with the Book of Mormon we wouldn't give them a free pass either it's a general standard okay excellent well there's one for me which it says to Dr gr could you elaborate on the idea of nothing having particles popping in out of existence when matter cannot be created or destroyed the answer is I could but we really don't have time um and uh uh but but the last question I want to

um I want to uh uh it's right in front of you uh um well I guess I I'm I'm going to answer because we're going to get to this auction which closes in 8 minutes do you miss him more as an ally or a friend I'm going to I think speak on behalf of all of us I admire Christopher not because of an ally just like I admire the gentlemen on this stage not because they're Al allies because I admire them as human beings and for what they do and I think it's not so much

I admire people who aren't my Al I and I I think I think it's absolutely true of Christopher and I think I would be surprised if any of you would disagree that it was the it was the friendship that we felt so lucky with and the admiration for him as a as a as an intellect and human being is that would that totally yes he saw things he you know like what TS Elliott said about Webster he saw the skull beneath the skin you know he he he he showed you things he made you and

his audiences and his readers see things they hadn't seen see them in ways they hadn't seen and it's up to them to interpret what they had seen but he actually made things visible and that's the greatest thing that and and so do Richard and so does Douglas they and so do you know the the the best uh of our public intellectuals if we're going use that awful phrase is that they are serious enough in the French sense of know not in pompous you know self-regarding ways but in seror sort of ways they care enough about

every action of humanity and every move on the board of our the game of our life to analyze and to to show us how it can be different and how it once was and how it it how it really is and and he could do that he could show you things I just add one tiny thing to that which is I think in my experience of like all everyone in life is not exclusive to any of us everyone in life loses everyone they love at some point and uh it's a very interesting distinction between people

of when people are summoned up the remembrance of the things past is summoned up again the people who you still feel you feel the warmth of their memory and sometimes there are certain people Clive James is another for me who when somebody particular student says did you know did you know C did you know Christopher they go it's never irritating it's always just ah yeah we've got him back for a second yeah exactly and that's a very special thing with human beings and I suppose everyone should aspire to be such a person and to spread

such a warmth even years after they've gone and that's the reason we're doing this tonight this is was a celebration and a wonderful time of year for about a wonderful human being and and it's been a particular pleasure for me to share the stage with these wonderful human beings and also to thank you for your remarkable questions and and it's I hope uh I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did thank you very much thank thank [Music] you hi it's Lawrence again as the origins podcast continues to reach millions of people around the

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