Posted on 12/16/2011 5:22:24 AM PST by markomalley
Cancer weakened, but did not soften Christopher Hitchens. He did not repent or forgive or ask for pity. As if granted diplomatic immunity, his mind’s eye looked plainly upon the attack and counterattack of disease and treatments that robbed him of his hair, his stamina, his speaking voice and eventually his life.
“I love the imagery of struggle,” he wrote about his illness in an August 2010 essay in Vanity Fair. “I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient.”
Hitchens, a Washington, D.C.-based author, essayist and polemicist who waged verbal and occasional physical battle on behalf of causes left and right, died Thursday night at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston of pneumonia, a complication of his esophageal cancer, according to a statement from Vanity Fair magazine. He was 62.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
That is bullshit
NOBODY deserves heaven. It is only by the grace of God. Nobody knows who goes where.
I am a Christian. I refuse to believe that heaven is an arrogant country club full of people that think exactly alike. If we get there, we will be stunned when we see some people there who we would least expected. In short, nobody knows exactly who is going where.
When in heaven, all that are there WILL think exactly alike.
You should be sad because you are an incredibly stupid bigot.
A person with your obvious lack of intelligence couldn't possibly understand Hitchens, and you certainly would have no idea how I feel about Jesus.
You're certainly an abysmal representative of Christianity.
Were you drunk when you wrote that post? Or am I right that you are just an incredibly stupid dolt?
Thanks for posting that.
I’m a fan of Hitchens. May he rest in peace.
I think it is depraved for anyone to rejoice in the thought that some poor soul is going to be eternally punished. Depraved. And the opposite of the Mind of Christ. Tagline.
It is absolutely forbidden for us to think we can judge another person's soul. That is why the Church canonizes but does not demonize.
It is good to honor people by name for living faith-filled lives with heroic virtue, dedicated to the Good Lord and receiving the gift of Himself.
But it is never permitted to say "I know that this (named) person is damned to hell." Nobody knows that. The Church doesn't have a "doctrine" on the damnation of anybody, not Hitler, not Stalin, not Judas.
Why? Because none of us knows the heart.
And He who knows the heart, judges justly. Did you ever notice that ALL the people in Matthew 25 at the Final Judgment, seem suprised?
Bless you.
Am as well; and agree.
Excellent post. Nothing worse than the smug, sanctimonious bible-thumpers and their “everybody but us is going to hell” baloney.
He took a full look at Mother Teresa, beyond all the marketing and found her a hypocrite and thought she caused more poverty and did not help it.
“She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go? The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been—she preferred California clinics when she got sick herself—and her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries, all bearing the name of her own order. Excuse me, but this is modesty and humility?”
How about those religions older than Christianity? Are they merely ABC, as you so say. In fact, there are a number of parallels between Vishnu and the Christian god Jesus that some consider are so strong that Christianity is merely an extension or replication of Hinduism.
All religions are “manufactured” and are just humans trying to make sense of life. No way to know which is right or which is wrong.
Fantastic post! bttt
I suspect you confine yourself to horizontal thinking, consequently, my answer would make no sense to you. bttt
My favorite is the ‘Intelligent Design’ argument for the deistic origins of life.
“Intelligent” — or “dumb”? Since we have nothing to compare it (life organisms) to, how do we know if it’s relatively ‘complex’? It is what it is, basically. Totally begs the question. My husband and I love that particular defense. Very entertaining.
Take care,
4L
We don't bother gloating because unlike you, we don't have any illusions of the "nyah-nyah, now you're sorry, shoulda listened to ME, ha ha ha" variety. We know that just as there was no "you" before you were born, no fetus-soul floating in space thinking "wish my parents would hurry up and conceive" there is no adult soul anywhere going "Wow, I'm dead!"
You will never know you wasted your life curtailing your brain power and preventing yourself from asking hard questions. Happily, anyone who'd accept these stories probably has little to waste. But as I said, if you'd have the manners to refrain from making your remarks, you'd avoid hearing from those of us who think you are ill-bred fools. If you don't like hearing from us, don't make us hear from you.
Otherwise, deal with it.
You could have just said “Bah, Humbug”.
I have wasted no time. I live in the present with God as my lifeline. And, speaking of curtailing things. I could add a lot to that about what you are obviously missing in the joy of life department. You are quite bitter for someone who is on the right path in life.
And, if you had refrained from commenting, you would not have had to read this comment back at you. Something to consider.
But if you can't even pretend to have the class to stay off a thread about a dead atheist (because there ARE no protected, dissent-is-not-allowed threads for us) then you deserve to be told when you come across like a tacky, gloating creep.
I'm running off to sing, so I don't have time for long rebuttals, but this is simply factually wrong. The Catholic Chuirch is the single largest non-state educator of women in the world, and most particularly in the poorers countries in Africa and Latin America where the Church''s education of women has been outstanding, and to this Church Mother T. donated all those "funds" dear brother Hitch was so worried about.
Moreover, Mother T's nuns have taught tens of thousands of women about Natural Family Planning, the only method of familiy planning which costs nothing, works well (World Health Organization says, compatable to oral contraceptives), requires thoughful responsible cooperation from the woman and the man, fosters respectfor women and for communication and equality in marriage, has no negative environmrntal impact, and cannot be used coercively by the State.
When I come back from singing, I can document that.
Good day to you! And peace to Christopher Hitchens, a man who so enriched and bothered us all.
When I read Hithchens' lament that he was relegated to terminal patient status instead of doing something more noble and important, I thought of the bravery of ordinary people who don't whine, but just keep teaching and inspiring with their dignity and grace.
Here is a young lady who was handed a great sorrow that cut short her ordinary young life. I read her blog every day and she uses her suffering (which is immense) to praise others for their service to her and to call attention to the spiritual needs of others.
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/carriemaniscalco Hitchen's spiritual poverty denied him the grace of finding meaning for his life at its end and a way to stay connected to others who would survive him. Now he will mostly be remembered not for his works, but as "a brilliant dead atheist" I'd like to think he experienced the same awe as did Steve Jobs at his final moment of passing, and was able to enter into it.
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