A Hitchmas Gift For All -Audio Version
The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss
Lawrence M. Krauss
4.4 • 592 Ratings
🗓️ 25 December 2024
⏱️ 99 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A year ago, John Richards the head of the Atheist UK approached me about the idea of celebrating Christopher Hitchens with a Hitchmas event, near Christmas, and on or about the anniversary of Christopher’s death, on Dec 15, 2011. I realized that to do it right would require time and organization, and the proper panelists. I was thrilled that Christopher’s friends and mine, Stephen Fry, Richard Dawkins, and Douglas Murray agreed to be part of the event, and that the HowTo Academy, which organizes wonderful events in London, several of which I had done before, agreed to coordinate the logistics with The Origins Project Foundation. A year later, the sold-out event happened, and we decided in advance to record it appropriately, with 5 cameras, and to have Gus and Luke Holwerda, who directed and filmed The Unbelievers, and with whom I began The Origins Podcast, edit the final product.
As a special Holiday gift, we are making the advert free video version available to both paid and free subscribers here on Critical Mass. This post has the audio version for those who prefer that. If you want to watch the video, open the other Critical Mass post we are releasing this morning. Our YouTube channel will also host the video, and I encourage you to subscribe to that channel as well if you wish. No matter how you watch it, or listen to it (we will make the audio available on iTunes etc), we hope you find this set of reminiscences and the ensuing discussion a wonderful reminder of a remarkable man, and that it inspires you as much as Christopher inspired us. Happy Holidays to you all.
Lawrence M. Krauss
Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to a special holiday edition of the Origins Podcast. |
| 0:13.0 | I'm your host Lawrence Krause. |
| 0:16.0 | This episode contains the video of a very special event that happened December 14th at the Royal Geographical Society in London. |
| 0:24.6 | There we celebrated the life of the remarkable Christopher Hitchens, |
| 0:30.6 | and I did it with three remarkable people on stage with me, Stephen Frye, Richard Dawkins, and Douglas Murray. At that event, we celebrated Christopher's |
| 0:42.9 | life through a series of reminiscences and then an open dialogue between all of us about modern |
| 0:48.1 | topics trying to reflect on the thoughts Christopher would have about what's going on in the world today. |
| 0:54.0 | And after that, we took questions from the audience. It was a remarkable evening. on the thoughts Christopher would have about what's going on in the world today. |
| 0:56.4 | And after that, we took questions from the audience. |
| 1:01.1 | It was a remarkable evening celebrating a remarkable man. |
| 1:06.2 | Christopher was a beacon of light in a world that was dark even then, and maybe haven't gotten darker since then. |
| 1:09.5 | And in fact, it was appropriate to celebrate what we call, |
| 1:13.0 | and by we, I mean the Origins Podcast, the Origins Project Foundation, in partnership with |
| 1:20.1 | Atheist UK and also the How-To Academy in London, we celebrated Hitchmiss. After all, Christmas really adopts the celebration of the |
| 1:32.8 | sultist, the pagan celebration of the sultist, bringing back light to the world as the darkest night |
| 1:38.9 | passed and each day got longer again. And it seemed particularly appropriate to celebrate it for someone who brought |
| 1:46.0 | such light to the world. I know many, many of you have been anticipating this video since I |
| 1:52.6 | first announced the event and I'm incredibly excited to be able to provide it here for you |
| 1:58.2 | as a special holiday treat. So with no further ado, please watch Hitchmiss. |
| 2:04.6 | Thank you all for being here. It's a wonderful evening. And I want to wish everyone a Merry Hitchmess. |
| 2:20.3 | And the winter solstice, you know, provides nature's promise to bring back the light. And like everything else, it was hijacked by Christianity. But tonight we're going to celebrate another light, the light of reason, |
| 2:36.0 | and that's exemplified by honoring and celebrating the light of the late Christopher Hitchens, |
... |
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