Here’s a very good video of the late Christopher Hitchens’ talk and subsequent on-stage interview at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney, 2009. It’s called Religions Poisons Everything and deals with the same topic as Hitchens’ book God Is Not Great that had been published a year or so earlier. It is a long video, but worthwhile viewing.
There’s a lovely “encore” right at the end (101:02) when Christopher sings the Pythons’ Bruces’ Philosophers Song.
Bruces’ Philosophers Song
Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table
David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel.
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.
There’s nothing Nietzche couldn’t teach ya
’Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy, was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away—
Half a crate of whiskey every day
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle;
Hobbes was fond of his dram.
And René Descartes was a drunken fart:
I drink, therefore, I am.
Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed—
A lovely little thinker,
But a bugger when he’s pissed.
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