Celebrate Hitchmas in Dublin
Celebrate the life of Christopher Hitchens in Dublin.
Atheist Ireland are pleased to announce that we will be co-hosting the annual Hitchmas celebration.
“Christopher Hitchens loved parties: “Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration.”
Equally, he hated Christmas, which he likened to “living for four weeks in the atmosphere of a one-party state” that “imposes a deadening routine and predictability.” He insisted that the practise of celebrating the miraculous birth of our saviour—a festival of sycophantic fawning over two-thousand-year-old delusions of illiterate desert tribes—is not only in “compulsory bad taste” but, more importantly, perpetuating the self-limiting idea that we are in need of saving.
To Christopher, one of the greatest challenges of dying was being “tapped on the shoulder and told, not just that the party’s over, but slightly worse: the party’s going on—but you have to leave.”
And so, Dear Christopher, we have Hitchmas. A posthumous and human gift to you: a party that isn’t merely going on without you, but because of you.
Hitchmas is a promise to continue “the discussion about what is good, what is beautiful, what is noble, what is pure and what is true.”
A promise to reject certainty, the kind offered by religion and without evidentiary support. Never to respect it but to deeply suspect it.
A promise always to be thinking for ourselves and—buzzing and inspired in that state—always to be thinking of you.“
Bring your favourite Hitchens quotes and passages to share on the night.
The event is open to members and non-members of Atheist Ireland and is free to attend, but voluntary contributions to help cover the room hire cost would be welcome.
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