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 ...
It’s not that we are passing judgment. The Lord says those who refuse Him are judged already. Merciful God has given us the means and information for salvation. This is merely an opportunity to meditate upon the sadness of a death without hope of redemption, be thankful that God has made Himself known in Christ, and to repent once again and plead for His mercy.
You only imagine the Bema Seat is not a time for administering penalties. In fact, differentiating between “The Great White Throne” and “The Bema Seat” creates a sort of doctrine not otherwise supported.
Well obviously I wasn’t referring to you!
“Christians should only reflect sorrow when a defiant one has entered eternity separated from Christ forever”
So true. But unfortunately, too many of them sound downright gleeful in their conviction that the man who rejected their version of eternal salvation has been damned. Where’s the sadness and humility? Very unchristian behavior...
You posted:
Now comes the march of those who absolutely cannot stand anyone who can’t be bullied into kow-towing to their Imaginary Friend. How dare the man have the dignity to ignore all those threats of Hell — the spiritual equivalent of “pass on this chain letter or you’ll have bad luck.” But some people just can’t be intimidated by the myths of any culture, and it really galls those who are.
***
I cannot let your post go unanswered(And I suspect there’ll be others as well.). I can agree with you that I hate to see some of the snarky comments submitted in posts by those who hold themselves out as Christians. That said, the statements of faith by Christians in their God (whom you denigrate by calling “Imaginery Friend”) only would seem to be bullying by those who have some doubt in their own lack of faith. There is no ongoing Inquisition today— no one is forced to believe, or to say that he believes, in God. A true atheist would never regard statements/claims about heaven and hell as “threats” unless he thought that there MAY be something to it. (I don’t personally like the use of “or else you’ll go to hell” evangelism, as there is so much more reward to gather from the positive elements of faith.)
Is Christianity a myth? You may claim so, as is your right; but I wonder why anyone else’s “myths” would prompt you or anyone else to have to affirmatively state your disagreement. I don’t believe in Norse mythology, but I seldom give it a thought, and until now, never post anything about it. That others might believe in it bothers me not at all (except for my hope that they will come to believe what you say is my “myth’).
I support and defend your right not to believe, while I wonder why it matters so much to you to say so. Perhaps the “threats” of hell you hear are simply truth, and to paraphrase Harry Truman, you just think it’s a threat of hell.
Your very comment says you do. God has already spoken on this. If you believe in Christ, you live eternally in heaven. If you do not believe in Christ, you live eternally in hell. God in His Word is so very clear on this. There are no second chances AFTER death. It is too late then. Being “good” doesn’t cut it.
Did he mock the almighty, as much as he mocked the man-made institution of Religion? Let’s face it, mankind has invented religions throughout the ages, to cynically use the concept of God to advance their own personal ambitions.
It's hard to discern just how one could accept Mohammad as "maybe" a true prophet without offending against right reason in the matter of discerning good from evil.
We know --- if the hadiths are true --- that Muhammad was a highway robber / caravan raider, a rapist of captured women, a collector of jawari who acquired a little child to sexually molest when she was 6 and have intercourse with when she was 9, a tyrant who set up the assassination of his political critics, a war criminal who massacred disarmed men who had surrendered, a raver who experienced (or faked) abnormal mental states in which he was possessed by a bodiless entity who spoke through him, and who incited and approved of his deeds.
You're familiar with the sunnas which to this day approve of such behaviors, I suppose?
If one who professed the Good Lord Christ were to affiliate also with this lecherous, bloody-handed charlatan, I think it would indicate not only that they had lost their Faith, but that they had lost their minds.
Now you and I both know that you have NOTHING to lose by saying that Mohammed was one of the many prophets and facing East while praying to God, as long as you still believe in Jesus. But you won't do it. Even though you have nothing to lose. Ask yourself why.
We are studying ilsam and that religion in my adult Bible class. Why does mo ham ed quote the same as lot about the early prophets as is in the Bible and actually use the same parts as in the Old Testament and say that they were muslimes? Yet, islam was not established until 600 something AD. As far as facing towards mecca, if a muslime is one mile east of mecca, why does he / she not face west to pray since it would be much closer to that black rock?
Hitchens was no conservative. However, he was a vastly talented writer, a clear thinker, and in many ways a seeker after truth. As such, he may be in better circumstances than those who so arrogantly claim to know his ultimate disposition.
My estimation of Christopher Hitchens is schizophrenic. I saw him as a man who was intelligent but not wise, principled but not good, and admirable without being particularly likable.
I suspect he would have found great delight in knowing that he confounded me so.
I also think he would be endlessly amused by the bickering on this thread over the final disposition of his soul.
But wait! Can you be a Christian and a Muslim both at the same time?
No!!! I can’t.
LOLOLOLOL!!!! Calm down my FRiend.
Saying “Maybe it would be a good idea to stay off these threads today” is not “stay off these threads” Reading your post is like reading the NYT.
And stating this...
“Now comes the march of those who absolutely cannot stand anyone who can’t be bullied into kow-towing to their Imaginary Friend” makes that poster insulting to the Majority of FReepers. We have God on the front page here. FRee Republic is not anti-God.
You must have missed the TX message board a few months ago. My daughter teaches in the Katy ISD. I posted something about teacher bashing on the message board and got several FReepmails about how bad the school systems are and teachers are scum.
>>kow-towing to their Imaginary Friend<<
Is God imaginary?
>>I also think he would be endlessly amused by the bickering on this thread over the final disposition of his soul.<<
You’re right.
I’m not going to have the Anti-Christians on this thread, nor the self-righteous “I know the word of God” people ruin my Advent. May God have mercy on CH.
Merry Christmas, my FRiend.
*Personally, I liked him. When sober, he was intellectually entertaining. His rabid disdain for God will cost him eternal torment. I can only hope that he didn’t influence too many others to accept his views.*
It’s a shame how many people will wind up in Hell because they listened to people like him.
My wife and I were watching Dawkins and noticed who he talks like a kindly grandfather, the kind of a guy you might have a pleasent dinner with. However, his ideas are as ugly and vile as any hideous dipition of Satan that’s ever been drawn or painted.
My wife said that Dawkins is probably how Satan would present himself if you were ever to see him in human form.
If one who professed the Good Lord Christ were to affiliate also with this lecherous, bloody-handed charlatan, I think it would indicate not only that they had lost their Faith, but that they had lost their minds.
Thanks for the re. and a brilliant deduction.
Perhaps if he were a seeker after THE Truth (and not just lower case truth) Christian and non-Christian alike could feel as hopeful as yourself in Hitchens’ ultimate disposition. I just get the feeling that the born-again, Spirit-filled Christians on this thread, exercising the discernment that comes with having “the mind of Christ” (see 1Cor. 2) have come to understand something of what it means to belong to Christ THEIR savior.
From the Gospel of John, Chapter 3
There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:
The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?
Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.
If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
If we will not reflect on the Gospel of Christ at this time of the season, when then?
If some person thinks God shines a special glow on them, fine. But they should refrain from ranting at other people who just might not care what a great Christian they are. Hitchens, like all humans, fell far short of perfection. But let's leave the judgement to God and not to a bunch of self-appointed, modern-day Cotton Mathers.
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