Hitchens took a different path or two in his time didn't he.
Why Judge? Particularly; ‘post mortem’. Hitchens walked in his shoes. . .as does each individual. Some things are still free; as in one’s own conscience and self-determination. Whether by our own short-sightedness or otherwise.
Hey, he went to the smoking section for eternity. PC/
Hitchens used his time on earth to ask questions. He had every right to search for answers. By doing so - I am confident he provoked many to regain and strengthen their own belief in God and Christ.
It is not His methods or messengers we should question, but wonder at His results.
Thank you Christopher - may you RIP and in His embrace.
Mr. Ransom does not discuss the possibility of the actor being his own observer.
Hitchens was obsessed by God. He didn’t have to be. One can lead a perfectly irreligious life these days in New York, London, Paris and even Rome... It’s not like he was living in Saudi Arabia. Secularism is pretty domaninat.
Yet he spent more time thinking about Him than most religious people. Great Christians such as C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton started out as atheists, probably reasoning along the same lines as Hitchens.
It’s against my religion to condemn people to heaven and hell, but I like to imagine a longer-living Hitchens publicly coming to reality or at least in his last minutes suddenly thanking the Lord. Mercy on his soul.
At least he didn’t spend his days ignoring God, but putting up a fight. Like lots of saints and evangelizers.
If I’m going to spend any time reading the work of an atheist or agnostic, it’ll be written by Ann Rand.
I personally did not agree with Hitchens style of Atheism (he called it Anti-theism)...nor his backing of Obama for _resident. but he definitely was in favor of kicking the crap out of the Islamofascists that caused 9/11.
and he was interesting to listen to.
RIP Chris
“If Abraham Lincoln had merely been against the spread of slavery rather than also believing in the God-given equality of man, 45 million people could be in slavery today.”
Okay, now that was just stupid. Lincoln was a “classicalist” dedicated not to “equality”, but the preservation of the union. He seriously considered that the best resolution of things would be to ship the slaves back to Africa, but was informed that it would be logistically impossible.
Unfortunately, it ended there, because he was otherwise occupied. But had circumstances been more favorable, he would have ordered a repatriation program, as he feared that emancipated blacks would become “perpetual public charges”. Rather foresighted, that.
In truth, for the next 60 years, even many blacks thought that a voluntary return to Africa was a grand idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-to-Africa_movement
Prior to Emancipation, which was done during the war as an effort to undermine the South, and until the tail end of the war, slaves “liberated” by Union forces were done so not to become free men, but as “contrabands”, who could be used pretty much as chattels, to do things like improving Union fortifications.
Most Christians see the world as divided into “Christians and others”. The belief systems of Hindus, Buddhists, Jainists, Sikhs, and others don’t really count, even though those faiths likewise hold that the universe is created, not random.
I’ve been an atheist all my life. Yet I have been intrigued by Judaism, and by the Baha’i faith, to the point where I once looked at the conversion rituals of both. I wonder if you or the author of this article would rejoice if I were to have so converted??
Certainly not. Depending on your beliefs, you either go to heaven, where you spend the rest of eternity eating grilled hamburgers from frozen patties, Sam's Club potato salad, cole slaw and potato chips with a never-ending supply of Bud Lite, or you go to hell, where the devil sticks a pitchfork up your ass. The choice is yours.
Did Hitchens sin against the Holy Ghost ? You can shake your hand at God and Christ and say what you may. However, when you sin against the Holy Ghost there is no redemption?
Hitchens died fairly young....but all of us will die...eventually.
Where do some of you (here on FR) think Christopher Hitchens.... who profanes God.....attacks God....reviles God....and His son, Jesus Christ.....goes after death?
The Hitchens we know wanted no part of Jesus Christ, the Savior.
And unless....and I hope he did....repented even on his deathbed.....he is facing eternity without Christ...and not in Heaven.
Think of it this way.....If you had a friend or even a relative who hated you.....told lies about you....wrote untruths about you and tried to distort your name and good reputation....
..would you let him into your home, knowing full well he despised and rejected you as friend or brother?
I have a sister-in-law of many years (& who I love) who has a deep enmity against Christ....
..when my mother died, she would not even enter the church for the funeral..
..she sat outside in the parking lot
..she will not attend her beloved niece Christmas programs held in a church..
..she wouldn't even stand in the supermarket parking lot to listen to our choir's Christmas carols.....
..a deep enmity.
She is very ill now.....the next virus or pneumonia could take her, and she's only a couple years older than Hitchens...
..but still she rejects him.
Ask yourself the hard questions.....
Where do you say eternity is?....and are you ready to go there?
Just two days after Reagan’s death Hitchens felt the need to badmouth him. Not only is liberalism a mental disorder, it robs you of your self-respect.
“Your arms are too short to fight with God.”
Great article. I think this expresses it. Hitchens was just the village atheist. What happens to him now is up to God, and the Lord is known for His mercy, so while we should pray for him I don´t think he necessarily condemned himself to Hell. He will, however, have to pay for anyone he misled.
But imagine knowing that your intellectual contribution is going to be defined by little more than being like the shabby crank in the small town who defined himself by being the village atheist. The village atheist, like Hitchens, didn´t even have any convincing or intellectually interesting ideas. He was just a crabby old man who felt things hadn´t gone the way he would have done them if he had been God.
Hitchens could write and it´s a pity that he was reduced to this...by himself. And he will disappear soon from human thought - but ironically enough, he will never disappear from the mind of God.
A good description of FR and why I love it.
God is not great: Hitchens
Hitchens is not great: God