Hitchens to Undergo Chemotherapy

Some will say that’s God’s punishment for his actions.

To them, let’s reply that actually, when life gets though, it’s because God is afraid of your success.

Ah. I was going to see him speak in L.A. last Monday, and it was suddenly canceled two days before for “personal reasons.” I was wondering if there was a health problem. Maybe the health threat will convince him to stop drinking…? Well, I won’t hold my breath, but I wish him well, and I hope he recovers.

Diego is correct, the fundies will have a field day with this. If xtiananity is a religion of love then we should see them sending best wishes. Somehow, I do not think that will be the case. G-luck Hitch.

Kriss

What are the odds on how long it takes before some faith-head reports this, using the word “foxholes” in a sentence? I give it about eight hours from the time of Hitch’s statement.

I hate when people make these kinds of statements.

What, gallows humor? You’d prefer everyone was serious and somber about bad news, never so much as an attempt to break up the gloom?

#GetWellHitch I doubt Hitch will care, but let it never be said that we can’t show support for one of our own.

I’ve been reading his autobiography, which may be the best autobiography I’ve ever read (except for maybe after Bertrand Russell’s, which might beat him out by a hair). I don’t know of a way to contact him, but I do wish him well from one atheist with cancer to another.

Here’s hoping he beats it.

In the meantime, thousands of christians currently experiencing the debilitating effects of chemotherapy can tremble in fear with the knowledge that their God thinks of them as highly as a blasphemous infidel.

That’s so sad. I hope the chemotherapy is effective and that he’s well soon.

Knowing him, he’ll argue the cancer into submission.

Hopefully, he’ll keep fighting and not give up.

@Steve: I’m sorry to hear that you’re ill. Keep up hope and all the best.

Not to split hairs, but drinking rarely causes this problem.
The main problem is smoking. Drinking makes the smoking more dangerous because it removes the protective coating from the throat.
Of course, Hitch did both, and Christians will never stop reminding us of it.
But a snake-handler who dies from envenomation, well, it’s god’s will.
From what I’ve read, Mr. Hitchens’ odds are not good. I desperately hope he beats those odds.

I hope when this is over, someone asks him which is worse, Chemo or Waterboarding.

🙁 This sucks .I hope the treatments are successful. Get well soon, Mr. Hitchens!

Sad to hear.

I’ll sacrifice a goat for him.

I hope he gets well soon.

Diego is right that the Christians will enjoy this, but, as always, it is too easy to point out the flaws in their “logic,” since many “True Christians” also suffer from cancer.

And anyway, his cancer isn’t a punishment for atheism, it’s a consequence of smoking.

Rich Wilson, my mom went through chemo for a year and is dying anyway. I’ll bet she’d think that chemo is worse than waterboarding, but hopefully Hitchens won’t have all of the bad reactions she did.

I hope he gets well. I enjoy his wit, and I could sure use some happy news right now. 🙁

I hope it soon goes into remission.

ubi dubium:

And now, in his honor, I will go read a book.

Indeed – that’s probably one of the best ways to honor him. There’s nothing I read of his where I fail to come away in awe of his breadth of knowledge.

It’s a no-win situation for the religious.

Whether or not they pray for Hitchens to get better and he does, he’ll be around to make their lives miserable (Best option, of course).

If they pray for him to get better and he dies, then their prayers didn’t work.

If they pray for him to die, well, that just makes (or proves) them evil bastards.

Gee, I don’t know what to say. Let me try this…

As a Christian I wish him well, which is to say that I pray he suffers as little as possible, recovers soon, and finds a way to God when he, as we all must, finally passes away, and may that be a long time away.

I realize many here think I’m a moron for being a believer. It is what it is.

And I realize that there are indeed hateful Christians out there. But the predictions and descriptions of Christian behavior made here bear no resemblence to anyone I know or would care to know.

Anyone who thinks God gives anyone cancer for any reason is, well, not quite right if you get my meaning.

And anyone who thinks it is ever good for God to give anyone cancer is simply wicked.

NRG,

Let me respond point by point:

“2nd paragraph (As…): Don’t you mean BEFORE he finally passes away?”

What I meant is that my hope is that he (and everyone) is united with God in the afterlife. I leave the timing up to God, but obviously the sooner the better.

“’I realize many here think I’m a moron for being a believer. It is what it is.”

It doesn’t have to be what it is – it can be what it can become, which may be even better!”

Not sure what you mean. Too many unattached third person pronouns between our two respective posts I guess.

“’Anyone who thinks God gives anyone cancer for any reason is, well, not quite right if you get my meaning.’

No – I don’t, actually. Is it given by someone else then? You don’t mean Satan, do you?”

I mean that anyone who thinks that way is not thinking right. Satan doesn’t factor into what I was writing at all.

“’And anyone who thinks it is ever good for God to give anyone cancer is simply wicked.’

What about giving it to an evil person? That would be good, wouldn’t it?”

No. Again, anyone who thinks it is ever good to give ANYONE cancer is simply wicked. Besides, I also think it wicked to label anyone evil.

“Doesn’t God do, or at least allow to happen (which is basically the same thing) everything? Cancer too, then…”

Well, God does allow all that has or will happen. But I disagree that His allowing something is the same thing as His causing something. I do believe in free will.

Best,
Nordog

1. My thinking about leaving the timing up to God is in regard the not knowing what exactly happens during death. Yes, one must accept Jesus to enter Heaven in the same way that one must accept walking down a road to get to the end of the road. I hold the hope and faith that God offers Himself to all of us throughout life, but at some point in time a rejection becomes “for keeps”. I don’t know when that point in time is.

2. Yes, I get it now. I’ll take that as a kind thought for my wellbeing.

3. No biblical quotes from me, what would be the point? When I was an agnostic a bible thumper tried to convert me with scripture quotes. I told him that I didn’t care about his Bible quotes because I had concluded that the Bible was false. He said, “But it says in the 1st Chapter of Romans that…” I told him, I don’t give a s**t what Romans says, I don’t accept the Bible. He said, “In Proverbs it says…” etc. etc. It was one of the most moronic things I had ever witnessed. So, no. No Biblical quotes from me to you, besides, I’m not even in the habit of quoting scripture to other Christians. No my bag man.

Now, if I find myself in a discussion with nonbelievers in which Church teaching and scripture is already being addressed I’ll discuss points of fact about what some teaching or passage does or does not say.

Labeling someone Wicked vs. Evil? Good question. That’s sloppy usage on my part. The distinction I failed to make with my sloppy usage is between the ontological nature of man (never evil) and really bad behavior seen all around us (wicked). When I call someone wicked I’m really thinking about their behavior and not the actual nature of the soul, or “heart” if you prefer.

In light of that, I consider it “wicked” (i.e. bad behavior) to call someone evil (a state of being that is totally corrupt to the core).

Now your actual question is #3 was, “Why is it wrong, and even wicked, to think that God could – and does – give anyone cancer for any reason?”

It’s not wicked to think that God can. What I should have written is that it is wicked to think 1) that God would do such a thing to someone as punishment, and 2) that so-and-so over there deserves it.

5. “By causing us to have free will, doesn’t that force Him to have to allow everything to happen that we choose to make happen?”

I think that’s true, sort of. He can certainly prevent someone from doing something without interfering with their free will. Even people prevent other people from doing things all the time without somehow overriding their free will. But I think your statement is true to the extent that God cannot override someone’s free will. So your other statement that I believe He can override free will is wrong.

The rest of #5 gets rather convoluted but, as I think I’ve written before, allowing something to happen is very different from causing something to happen. But I also think it correct for you to write, “…by not doing so (overriding free will) He [values] the free will more than the prevention of the apparently evil things that we choose to do…”

6. Yeah, I don’t have to say what you think. You ask, “How, by the way, are natural disasters caused by our free will?” I didn’t know that they were, in fact, the premise of your question is false. I don’t think you think that either, so there you go.

7. “Read those last two paragraphs again. Then read them while trying to think not like a regular Christian, but like a regular thinking person.” I don’t know what regular Christian thinking is, nor what a regular thinking person is. I contend there is, as regards thinking, a rational process. I don’t think things are a certain way because I’m a Christian. Rather I became a Christian because (in part) I concluded things are a certain way.

I’m not sure what you really mean about different kinds of thinking, but don’t fall for the fallacy of thinking that “Christian” = “irrational”. I get it that the number of knuckle-headed irritating Christians is legion, and I get that you think Christians are wrong regarding all things supernatural, but even Galileo was a Christian.

Hemant: sorry for changing the tone of this thread away from Hitchens’ afflictchen – hope it’s alright. What do you think?

Mr. Hitchens, I hope and don’t pray that you have a complete, fast and painless healing. You’re important to a lot of us, and we’d like you to stick around.

I must say, Nordog – I’m impressed with your response (not that I agree with most of it)! I’ll try to respond some now (turned out to be more than some).

1. How do you know, or why do you have faith, in everything you wrote here? Specifically, that

a. One must accept Jesus to enter Heaven,
b. There is a Heaven to be accepted into,
c. God offers Himself to all of us throughout life, and that
d. There is a God to offer Himself to us, and
e. At some point in time a rejection becomes “for keeps”?

There are other ways to get to the end of the road besides walking. If the road even has an end…

2. It’s more than a kind thought for your wellbeing – it’s a kind suggestion and challenge to you to reconsider your way of looking at things.

3a. Commendable about the Bible quoting. But what made you “know” that Christianity is right, after having been an “agnostic” (one who doesn’t know)? I would also like to know.

b. You make a good distinction between “wicked” and “evil”. I assume, then, that you would say that a person can overcome their own wickedness by just changing their behavior. But they can only overcome an inherent evil nature (shared by all of us because of the Original Sin?) by accepting Jesus.

c. So since it’s behaviorally wicked to think 1) that God would do such a thing as giving cancer to someone as punishment, and 2) that so-and-so over there deserves it, all one has to do is change their opinion on those two points. I can understand applying that to 2), but how do you know that 1) is not right?

5a. So God can’t override a person’s free will. Don’t you mean that He just chooses not to? To say that he can’t, diminishes His omnipotence. But what He does do, according to you, is arrange things so that people exercise their free will the way that He wants them to. That makes sense (if God exists at all). That’s a lot of arranging to do, though – but I guess that that’s small “change” for God, since He can do anything…

b. I don’t see how causing something to happen is that much different from allowing something to happen that you could prevent. At least on God’s scale of things, where the two are indistinguishable as far as their ease of execution.

You agree that free will (FW) overrides apparent evil. But is the evil really just apparent, or is it real? If God wouldn’t inflict cancer on someone as a punishment, then what is cancer anyway? Is it an evil thing? And even if it would be inflicted as a punishment, would that make it any less evil?

There’s a lot of pretty evil seeming stuff in the world. Take Richard Dawkin’s example from his new book “The Greatest Show On Earth” about evolution. He says an amazing thing – that antelope, the natural prey of the big cats like lions, almost never die a peaceful death. When they eventually can’t keep up with the pack, they get chased down and killed violently, usually being eaten alive and filled with terror until they die. Is that only apparent evil? Why did God have to create the world that way?

6. You’re right – I don’t think that natural disasters are caused by our free will. But you, believing in God, believe that He at least allows them to happen. It would be more correct for you to say that He created the world in a way that they WOULD happen – and then “just” allows them to happen. You really believe that that’s alright? Why is that different than saying that God wouldn’t inflict cancer on someone as a punishment? Isn’t he inflicting these disasters on humanity, punishment or not?

7a. Are you claiming that you became a Christian as the result of a rational thought process? Possible, I guess. Can you describe some of that process? How is Christianity rational, and not basically just wishful thinking?

b. I think that being knuckle headed and irritating are unfortunately not the exclusive domain of Christians. But a lot of them did irritate you before you were one.

c. There’s no need to extend my attribution of irrationality to ALL things supernatural. It seem to me, as I’ve read elsewhere, that once a thing is demonstrated as being real, it leaves the realm of the supernatural. And even if it’s not demonstrated to be real, if it IS real, then it’s natural anyway, being part of the universe as it is, following its own portion of universal natural laws.

d. Just because Galileo was a Christian, doesn’t make it right. And a lot of non-believers then had to be officially Christian, otherwise they would be persecuted as heretics.

8. BTW – and this is a BIG BTW – where did God come from? If God always was, how did that happen? We see, at least if you believe in biological evolution, that all higher intelligence evolved from lower intelligence. So how was it that all of a sudden, or eternally, there was/is/will be this huge, and in claimed fact, INFINITE intelligence, much greater than the highest intelligence that we are aware of – i.e. US (and dolphins, maybe)? Doesn’t seem “reasonable” to me.

NRG,
Thank you for the kind words, and thank you for the well thought out questions.

Unfortunately I must begin work shortly, and this evening I must prepare to fly to the East Coast for vacation. So, I don’t have the time to give all of your post the reply it deserves (especially the questions of the genesis (no pun intended) of my faith.

Perhaps I can come back to it this weekend, so please check back. And “sorry” to everyone else for this thread jack (if anyone else is still following this thread).

However, I would like to make a few quick points in response:

The analogy of the road is just that, an analogy. Some analogies are good, some are bad, and all are flawed if one looks to perfection instead of to the point trying to be made.

“You make a good distinction between “wicked” and “evil”. I assume, then, that you would say that a person can overcome their own wickedness by just changing their behavior. But they can only overcome an inherent evil nature (shared by all of us because of the Original Sin?) by accepting Jesus.”

Given that by “wicked” I mean a mode of behavior then, yes, changing that behavior from wickedness would overcome the wickedness. Seems like a tautology. I deny that anyone is inherently evil.

Original Sin does not mean inherently evil.

“So since it’s behaviorally wicked to think 1) that God would do such a thing as giving cancer to someone as punishment, and 2) that so-and-so over there deserves it, all one has to do is change their opinion on those two points. I can understand applying that to 2), but how do you know that 1) is not right?”

I hold that literalism should not be applied to much of the Bible, so I don’t hold that God actually punishes at all. For example, if there is a Hell, and there are souls in it, those souls have chosen to be there (non serviam and all that).

“So God can’t override a person’s free will. Don’t you mean that He just chooses not to? To say that he can’t, diminishes His omnipotence.”

And, “…but I guess that that’s small “change” for God, since He can do anything…”

I disagree. Omnipotence doesn’t mean the ability to do anything whatsoever. It means the ability to do anything that is possible to do. God, being uncreated, cannot create another uncreated being. Or to recall an old school boy joke, God cannot create a rock so big that he can’t pick it up.

“Are you claiming that you became a Christian as the result of a rational thought process?”

No. Faith comes by grace, and grace builds upon nature. Rationality is a natural process. The acceptance of that grace requires an assent of the will. As I said, my conclusions played a part in my being a Christian, but it can in no way “give” faith.

You will likely agree with me that reaching faith is not a rational process, though disagree with me that it’s no in opposition to rationality.

“Can you describe some of that process? How is Christianity rational, and not basically just wishful thinking?”

That discussion requires more time than I have at the moment, but I would be happy to do so.

“I think that being knuckle headed and irritating are unfortunately not the exclusive domain of Christians. But a lot of them did irritate you before you were one.”

Heck, most of them irritate me now.

“Just because Galileo was a Christian, doesn’t make it right. And a lot of non-believers then had to be officially Christian, otherwise they would be persecuted as heretics.”

I didn’t invoke Galileo (just one example) to “prove” the correctness of Christianity. Aristotle too believed in a supernatural or “metaphysics”. Having spent 4 years in college reading Aristotle I can tell you, he may have been wrong on things, but he was no dolt. Some for Thomas Aquinas. There are many examples from history.

The point was that being a Christian doesn’t make one an irrational dolt. My understanding was that Galileo did indeed have faith, as did his family. In fact his daughter was a nun and assisted him during his trials with the Church.

A side note: my understanding to the Galileo affair is that his problems came not from teaching the theory of heliocentrism, but from teaching that heliocentrism had been demonstrably proven.

“BTW – and this is a BIG BTW – where did God come from? If God always was, how did that happen?”

If God exists, and if He is eternal and uncreated (I believe all three), then nothing happened. If a supernatural realm exists, it is a realm outside of time.

Time is a function, or aspect, of the natural realm.

Though I think your question is still a good and difficult one insomuch as Christians do believe in created supernatural beings, angels. What does it mean to be created outside of time? Given that I’m not created outside of time myself, I don’t have enough of it to delve further into what would be a very long discussion.

I do like your approach. Often I’m confronted by atheists who challenge me on issues that seem more snark and sarcasm than real challenges. I’ve long thought that the real difficult questions to ask a Christian are like…

How can petitionary prayer affect an immutable God?

What did God do for the eternity prior to the creation of the universe (Augustine jokingly and snarkily answered, “He was creating a special place in Hell for people who ask that question.)

If you like I’ll try to answer the rest later.

Best,
Nordog

Nordog: I couldn’t respond till now, and now not much. Will get back to you and Margaret later…

NRG,

I don’t know, nor do I know her.

Margaret, thank you for your support, but I’ll be fine. Even if NRG is simply toying with me, it is good to be challenged, especially at my age when the ol’ brain cells need to exercise more.

NRG,

Yes, I took your posts in the spirit (can I use that word 😉 ) you describe.

I did check out the web link you posted, but was underwhelmed. It seemed to be arguing against positions I don’t hold.

Best,
Nordog

Grab the anthologies edited by Gordon Stein and Christopher Hitchens.

Brush it up with some basics from Epicurus. And add Feuerbach, mostly because he does not appear in either of the above anthologies.

This will give you a very good cross-section of some great thinkers on the matter.

As atheism is virtually content-free, many essays are rather short. So you can cover a lot of ground with anthologies.

Remember atheism is simply the rejection of a belief in deities.

So there is no positive content to analyse, no need for hermeneutics or close textual reading and all the stuff that emerged for scriptural religions, specifically Christianity.

After that have a look at Hitchens, Dawkins and Dennett. And grab Hemant’s ebay book!

No I’m not related. I use the handle because I like Hitchens colorful yet insightful style of arguing.

Let’s not remember that this is the same pig that spit on the grave and mocked religious figures such as Mother Theresa and Jerry Falwell when they died and even went as far as to curse Mother Theresa by saying “if there is truly a hell hopefully she is burning in it.” This guy is obviously a sociopath and has too much time on his hands. It’s funny how he spends countless hours attacking Christianity and their works yet I do not know one atheist organization that does any good works especially Hitchens himself. Also to you pig headed hateful atheists out there…there have been more people killed under atheist regimes than all organized religions combined. And don’t even say that “Oh atheism isn’t a belief.” Since all you always push the fact that religion is dangerous etc….. I can say that the 3 worlds biggest mass murderers committed atrocities against humanity because they were atheist. So before you all slam religion think about what your relatives have done….. NOTE: I’m not even religious.

Well nrg… This is not ranting. I’m just saying that hitch seems to get a free pass for his hate. If falwell was intolerant which he was then what is hitchins? He has made it clear that he’s hostile to all people of faith. And yes I have seen his interviews and he had some good points about mother theresa… But come on its not like she was living a life of pleasure. She may have been off in left field a little but for that jerk hitchins to go as far as calling her a whore and evil after she died is downright hateful. Being a little cuckoo has nothing to do with evil. That’s not the right word for her. I mean nobody can deny she still did the dirty work. And last time I checked “whores” get laid which she obviously didn’t do much of that. So to wrap this up…I remember all the cheers from atheists after falwell died yet you all seem ok with the hitch spewing his hate and calling all people of faith crazy. I mean a lot of you say religion causes hate and wars so I’m just demonstrating how dangerous he is. So how is the hitch any different than a wacko evangelist? He has an agenda and forces on others for momey? I defend those religious figures because I see the double standard. I’m not religious but I think we should play fair.

Good job trolling and flaming. Officially designated by whom – you? Nice of you all to wait over two months for your prayer day, not that it will help anyway, although you think it will (if this is serious at all).

As usual, you win either way. If he dies, it’s because even your prayers couldn’t save him, because he’s just too evil. If he lives, then it’s because of your prayers. Clever thing, this religious stuff!

BTW, how can you “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”?

Oh Jay. He would of course do no such thing. He is a polemicist, clearly people have forgotten what that means because noone even reads Mark Twain anymore. It’s all Falwell or teletubbies. I think you should go out more, a little bit of sun might help unfreeze your brain a litte 😉

“As usual, you win either way. If he dies, it’s because even your prayers couldn’t save him, because he’s just too evil. If he lives, then it’s because of your prayers. Clever thing, this religious stuff!”

NRG,

You may very well be summarizing a view of prayer held by some belivers, but it is nonetheless a childish and erroneous view.

Hitchens will die. We all will die.

I’m not one to hold that prayer is all about curing people. In fact, I hold that cures are rarely brought about by prayer, and that prayer is really about something else entirely.

But even in the case of prayer playing a role in healing, grace builds on nature, and nature requires we do what we can naturally, e.g., eat well, go to the doctor, surgery, medications, etc.

The idea that someone is too evil to benefit from prayer is wrong on so many levels even in the Christian point of view.

We all suffer, we all die, and while I do pray that people suffer less and live longer, primarily, my petitionary prayer for others is no more complicated than to ask that the person has what they need most. I don’t presume to know what they need in every specific case, but most of us need strength and wisdom to deal with the trials of life and death.

Many have mentioned studies that prove prayer has no effect on healing the sick. This does not surprise me in the least. While I do believe in miracles, I belive them to be very rare. Prayer is not a miracle delivery system: input data here; pick up miracle there.

Hmmm – nice generalizations, John and Corky!

It’s not insecurity with ourselves – it’s feeling insecure in a world where most people (at least Western religious) are willing, and even look forward to giving up this world for the Next One. And therefore trying to do something about it (us and them). They welcome the End of Days; we’d rather push it off as long as we can. Although it looks like it might be coming sooner than anyone thought – GOD has arrived (Gulf Oil Disaster)!

Nordog: nice post there, even though I don’t agree. I’ll get to that later.

Let me just address the question about whether I think prayer could help Hitch. Without out a doubt yes.

Hitch has said he found the prayers for him to be very touching (or words to that effect). Doctors will tell you that attitude is crucial in fighting cancer. Psychosomatic effects are well known in science.

So, even though Hitch has no religious faith, the good will shown to him, and his apparent acceptance of that good will can indeed have a positive impact on his fight against cancer.

This is of course a purely naturalistic observation, and depends neither on miracles nor religious faith for Hitch.

“So what you must really mean by a person having “what they need most” is one of those two things.”

What are the two things you think it must mean?

What I mean is that I have no clue what a person really needs in their life; I leave that up to God.

As I’ve written here before, the idea that people are inherently evil is not true, nor is it proper Christian doctrine. People are, by their very existence, inherently good. The doctrine of Original Sin is not that people are evil, but that they are in a way broken and imperfect.

“Do you really think that your asking God to give anyone what they need most will cause God to grant it? And He won’t unless you asked?”

No, and no.

Hi John. No need to get all upset. But from what I recall, historically it was the religious who persecuted, constrained and indoctrinated the non-believers. And intimidated and terrorized them with threats of a horrible Hell.

Actually, atheists did it to believers, too. Whomever had the ability, did it to whomever they wanted. Human nature.

Atheists are often associated with Free Thinkers. That means allowing oneself to be open to all possibilities, and to be free to learn about an pursue them. Seems to me that most religious people have enslaved their own minds to believe what they believe. Maybe you should stop taking away your own freedom!

Nordog: So if God could and will help someone regardless of whether you pray for it, why pray for it then? Just to engender compassion in yourself? Actually not a bad thing, although you don’t need God for that.