Christopher Hitchens passes away at 62

Christopher Hitchens died Thursday in Houston. He was 62. The legendary writer was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2010. His death was announced by Vanity Fair, for whom Hitchens had written several columns in the past. Hitchens was involved in several acrimonious debates of the 21st century including tearing apart Mother Teresa and Henry Kissinger. As news comes in of his death, many are still coming to terms with the news. Gawker however had this to say on the news that Hitchens had passed away,

He left his language in far better shape than when he found it, and the world is in worse shape at his passing. Pedants and sophists rest easy tonight, and  heartless manipulative frauds like Mother Theresa will flourish in his absence. Whoever  wrote this is a monster.

He was known to be an ardent supporter of the Iraq war, had debated Noam Chomsky on the issue of the war and had long maintained that deposing Saddam was America’s responsibility. The fact that Hitchens passed away as on the same the day that marks beginning of the end of the Iraq war is seen by many as symbolic. [caption id=“attachment_157777” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Christopher Hitchen in this file photo. Getty Images”]  [/caption] His best known work is God is not great, where he disputed the existence of god and took on even his brother in an animated debate. Hitchens had also been a trenchant critic of what he had called the three great monotheists religions basically referring to Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Even Mother Teresa had not escaped his sharp wit. In a piece that appeared in Slate , he said,

“She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions,” he wrote.

He was also writing his memoirs called Hitch-22. Watch video of Hitchens debating Shashi Tharoor