Posted on 12/16/2011 7:32:57 AM PST by SeekAndFind
How can a conservative commentator and an orthodox Catholic like me possibly admire Christopher Hitchens?
He hated the Pope, smeared Mother Teresa viciously. He even published a book four years ago defending his militant atheism called God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Then Christopher Hitchens debated around the world on that very topic. Then he co-wrote and edited a book about the debates.
In between those two books, there was a third one, about the war in Iraq and his support of it - which had caused him to break with many of the friends of his youth. All in all, Christopher Hitchens wrote 17 books, including his collected essays, Arguably, which was re-issued this year. He was 61.
I believe Hitchens' good deeds -- and if Hitchens was right, the only thing left of him now are his deeds -- more than compensated for his militant atheism and his occasional bad manners. Usually he was bitingly funny, even coruscating. Sometimes he was a good deal more than that.
Perhaps the best defense might be to say with Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass:
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
First, there was the man's work ethic, already mentioned above. In fact, the book total doesn't do full justice to Christopher Hitchens' output. He was, for many years, a working journalist too. And a weekly columnist. After his move to the United States in 1981 -- and especially after the emergence of cable -- Hitchens also became a TV regular.
Then there's the quality of his stuff.
Christopher Hitchens was, in the best sense, a public intellectual -- but he was also un homme engage. Hitchens took part in the public controversies of his time.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I refuse to believe in a God who throws His creations (or those that have arisen from His creation; same thing) into a vast milieu where forces can militate against them coming to a profession of some kind of belief system without which they get discarded like so much trash into an eternity of suffering without hope of surcease. That's one of the reasons I'm not a Christian, although it isn't the only reason. Supposing there is some kind of materialistic paradise where good people "go" to be rewarded (highly unlikely, in my opinion), I would fully expect to share it with guys like Hitler, Stalin and even Ted Kennedy.
I will mourn anyone who understood the threat of Islamo-Fascism, atheist or not.
Most of the people burned at the stake were in fact Christians. They were victims of a corrupt established church which savored its monopoly status and was in bed with a corrupt secular state.
Yup. Just like Islam is a religion of peace and the suicide bombers are just really confused folks that have nothing to do with Islam.... I mean I'm sure some people buy that nonsense, but most people with a lick of common sense think that Catholic Christians burnt Protestants (and Muslims, Jews, etc.) and Protestant Christians burnt Catholics and other Protestants. You have to be pretty out of touch with reality if you honestly believe that forced conversions haven't been conducted by Christians of all stripes. Look at black Americans today -- do you really, honestly think their slave ancestors came to the US as AME baptists? Of course not. Christians have practiced forced conversions on each other and on non-Christians for 2000 years and that practice continues in some places til present day.
I’d like to think that Hitchens’ beef was more with man-made Religion, than with God.
Well he really nailed Clinton in his book “No One Left To Lie To”
Yeah there’s not a day that goes by when you don’t hear of the Lutherans torching an atheist or the Presbyterians killing Quakers.
There was one belief that butchered people recently. That was state-sponsored atheism in the Soviet Union.
He now knows Truth, and I hope God is merciful on his soul for his recognition at how wrong he was all these years.
I think the point is that MAN fell from grace by choice and through willful action, God did not ‘throw’ man into anything.
God responded by sacrificing HIS SON to create a reconciliation and a path of salvation for man.
The question is whether we will seek God to escape from the consequences of our own misdeeds.
Man didn't "fall" from anything. He's always been what he is.
And in the end, we really don’t know for certain which camp Chris was in.
From my reading of the Bible, it is clear to me that God is loving and despairs of even a single person going to their death with their sins unatoned for.
As far as being 'more forgiving' than God is, it isn't up to me to 'forgive' the late Mr. Hitchens. His sins, like all of ours, are committed ultimately against God.
When any of us act like God either doesn't matter or doesn't exist in our lives, he's more than ready to let us go on in that same mind-set for eternity.
I wouldn't wish that on anyone - no matter how much we think that, based on how they've lived their life, deserved it.
What makes someone a Christian? Do you know?
If that's what you're saying, then I commend you. I wouldn't send him there either.
Look up ‘sick’ in the dictionary. I saw a face there.
I am praying that God will speak to your heart. The Bible says that He is not willing that any should perish. We have a free will to choose God or not.
Please read the book of John
Maria
re: “Of course not. Christians have practiced forced conversions on each other and on non-Christians for 2000 years and that practice continues in some places til present day.”
You are, unfortunately, correct that at times, some Christian groups killed, tortured, brutalized people trying to “punish” them on God’s behalf, or force them to become “Christians”. I don’t know of such a thing being practiced in the past few hundred years, but, regardless, it should never have happened in the first place.
However, there is one difference between such crimes on the part of Christians as opposed to other groups who continue to practice such things. And, that is, the Christians who did such things, did so in direct opposition to the Scriptures they claimed to believe and follow. Search the New Testament and find such commands for forced conversions. No where does Jesus or any of the Apostles ever command “forced conversions”? It isn’t there.
This isn’t true of other religions’ scriptures.
This means that those people who did such things broke God’s law and violated the teachings of God Incarnate - Jesus Himself - who said, “Love your enemies - do good to those who persecute you”. They will be judged by God for their actions - plus the fact that these acts they committed they did in God’s Name thus bringing shame on His holy and righteous character making it difficult for others to believe in Him. This is a gross sin against God and man.
Jesus once said that evil acts will happen, but God’s judgment will be especially harsh on those through whom these evil offenses come. He also said that anyone who causes one of His “little ones” to stumble (turn away from God), it would be better for them to have a millstone hung about their neck and tossed into the sea. He’s not just talking about small children - He was talking about any who were caused to turned away from God because of the acts of some individual - that individual will be held accountable for that.
Our God? I take it you do not believe in God.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.