We’ll have a few more days of readers’ tributes to the life of Christopher Hitchens.

This one is from Dominik Miketa:

This photo was taken in the Lindsay Bar of Balliol College, Oxford, where Hitch spent his undergraduate years reading Philosophy, Politics and Economics. People at Balliol are so proud of the great man: you can see my friend Emily kissing Hitch’s picture on the wall. We intend to toast to Christopher when we go back to Balliol after the holidays and somehow I expect the bar will run out of Johnnie Walker on that night.

Here’s a drawing and some words from Henry McQuale:

For Hitch, who didn’t make me an atheist, but who made me a non-pusillanimous one.Thanks to him I realized that disbelief is not enough and that harshness is sometimes necessary, because there are far worse things than disrespect towards cherished beliefs: just as it is immoral not to urgently warn who is about to drink poison thinking it will quench his thirst (specially when the bottle is passed promising the freshest of waters), now I know that the pusillanimity of being quiet about the evils of religion is an act of unforgivable negligence towards mankind, for as Hitch brilliantly showed, there are few poisons deadlier than religion, and religion poisons everything.

From k.m.:

Here’s my submission in honour of Hitch. I chose a few of my favourite photos of him, mounted them on cork (for obvious reasons), and hung them on my xmas tree. A cheeky nod to this great man. I’ve cried too much in the last couple of days to include myself in any photo, so I hope this will do.

And from Aja, who wanted to thank Hitch for his “mental illumination:

Hitchens always made observations that cast an issue in a new light.  I would read his books and essays and it was like a light went on.

From reader Jacobus van Beverningk:

This is a picture I took in January 2007 at James Randi’s TAM5 (The Amazing Meeting #5), in Las Vegas. It’s as if he’s in debate with his own projected image. Fond memories!

We already had “Hitchslap,” but now The Urban Dictionary has adopted  a new word coined by Anne Crumpacker:  

Here’s the third installment of the readers’ tributes to the life of Christopher Hitchens.

From Sigmund, who’s also put this one on his Sneer Review:

From Cameron:

“For Hitch. Not great but original and done with love.”

From Rich and Barbara Sammons:

The contagion of your insights, courage, and humor will forever energize us.

From Dermot C.

I attach a photo for your blog’s memorial of photos/drawings; you wouldn’t want a picture of a maudlin Irishman, descended , according to Chris Stringer, from the Neanderthals.  So here’s a metaphorical one instead.

[I’m having trouble seeing this picture on the post; if you can’t, click on the icon in the empty box and it will show up.]

And from Rod C.:

My modest contribution…. me teaching my  grandchildren about day/night, eclipses, summer/winter etc with a globe and a flashlight. I think that Hitch would agree, teaching our kids well is a worthy tribute.

Finally, here’s a link: “A modest proposal,” Stephen Fry’s suggestion, on his website, about a proper memorial for Hitch.

Dan Dennett’s “eulogy” for Hitchens, “A lessons from Hitch: When rudeness is called for,” is up at the Washington Post‘s “On Faith” section.  It’s about his experience with Hitch in a debate at the Ciudad de las Ideas conference in Publa, Mexico. I was that meeting, but had to leave right before the debate began. I’ll always regret that, for I missed my one chance to see Hitchens on the platform.

Dennett is known as the “nicest” of the Four Horsemen, but he sometimes regrets his lack of “rudeness” in debates. I’ll reproduce his last four paragraphs, for they ring so true:

We have all heard, endlessly, about how angry and rude the new atheists are. Take a good hard look at their work, at the books and talks by Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris, and you will find that they are more civil, less sneering, less given to name-calling than such religious apologists as Terry Eagleton or Alvin Plantinga or Leon Wieseltier. It is just that many people are shocked to see religious institutions, ideas, and spokespeople challenged as intensely as we expect banks, big pharma, and the oil industry to be challenged.

Of all the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” Hitchens was clearly the least gentle, the angriest, the one most likely to insult his interlocutor. But in my experience, he only did it when rudeness was well deserved–which is actually quite often when religion is the topic. Most spokespeople for religion expect to be treated not just with respect but with a special deference that is supposedly their due because the cause they champion is so righteous. Then they often abuse that privilege by using their time on the stage to misrepresent both their own institutions and the criticisms of them being offered.

How should one respond to such impostures? There are actually two effective methods, and I recommend both of them, depending on the circumstances: you can follow Hitch and interrupt (“Liar, liar, pants on fire!” or its equivalent). Or you can try something a little bit more diplomatic: You can call the person a faith fibber, my mock-diplomatic term for those who are liars for God. If you are sure your interlocutor is just another religious bully, go Hitch’s route: Call him a liar, and don’t stop until he stops. If you think your interlocutor may have been lured a little over the line of truth by otherwise commendable zeal, you can ask them if they aren’t indulging in a little faith fibbing. That works on occasion too.

The main point is this: Don’t let anybody play the God card in these discussions as if it were a “Get Out of Jail Free” card that excuses misrepresentation. Hitch would not hesitate to call out the pope, or Mother Teresa, or anybody else. Honor his memory by following his example.

“Hitch,” a eulogy by Sam Harris, has just gone up on Sam’s website.

The response was greater than I expected: we have about 40 tributes to Hitch, and they’re great.  Rather than putting them all up at once, which I’m told could clog some people’s blog readers, I’ll do them five at a time over the next week or so.  Often the words that accompany the photos are very moving.  If you have a photo/drawing, send it to me ASAP—there’s still time.

The first is, appropriately, from Mason Crumpacker and her mother Anne. Mason, you’ll recall, was the girl whom Hitchens provided with a reading list at the atheist meetings in Houston, and here she’s holding one of the books Hitch recommended.  (The messages provided by the readers, as with this one, will be indented.)

Our tribute photo: Hitchling locked and loaded:

Reader Bala created some images in memory of Hitchens; here’s one:

From Kurt Lewis Helf, an ecologist:

From “yesmyliege”:

Attached is a photo of Atlas confronting the Church, which I took in Rockefeller Center, which I thought might be an appropriate symbolic essay on Hitchens’ important literary contributions for atheism. From Wikipedia on Atlas: “Atlas continues to be a commonly used icon in western culture, as a symbol of strength or stoic endurance…. Atlas is used as a metaphor for the people who produced the most in society, and therefore “hold up the world” in a metaphorical sense.”

And from Chuck O’Connor:

This is a photo that captures for me the legacy Hitch leaves me with. It is a snap-shot of my son at the Peggy Notebart Nature Museum butterfly house. It embodies the honest sense of legacy Hitchens often spoke of in his relationship with his children and the best response of our natural world, learning about it. My son is the only connection I have to life after death and sharing with him the wonders of nature is the only worship I want to enjoy.