Christopher Hitchens Has Cancer? Praise the Lord!
Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair and Slate columnist and author of the no-holds-barred God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, has been diagnosed with esophageal cancer.
This sad news is made even sadder by that fact that religious folks will surely find ways to bend this information to suit their purposes. Take, for example, the recent “NJ Voices: Opinions from New Jersey” blog post by George Berkin, entitled “God is great to Christopher Hitchens.”
The most infuriating and nonsensical points of this blog are, in no particular order:
1) Berkin has the utter audacity to argue that this cancer is some sort of a gift to Hitchens, being that it is “…cancer which God didn’t “give,” but certainly permitted.” Let’s ignore, for a moment, the silly idea that there somehow exists a wide difference between God’s GIVING cancer and PERMITTING one to have cancer (one imagines that it’s all the same to the actual cancer patient). The assertion here remains that god is somehow responsible for Hitchen’s cancer, and that this cancer is the best thing that could have happened to Hitchens. What on earth could be the diluted reasoning behind that, you wonder? Why, just that , “if God really wanted to ‘get’ Hitchens, God would just ignore the man, and let him go his blissful way, unchallenged, to a peaceful death. ..At which point Hitchens would stand, face-to-face and unreconciled, with that very God.” In other words, by striking Christopher Hitchens with a potentially deadly disease, God is giving Hitchens a chance to have one of those death-bed conversions, which would allow him to get into heaven when he died. See what a wonderful god this is?
2) Berkins, who is clearly a believer himself, claims that Hitchen’s atheism is baseless, partially because it all began “…in childhood, when [Hitchens] heard a religious person say something that, even to a child, came across as dumb.” Berkins then goes on to utter this mind-numbing, hypocritical sentence, “For me, there’s something inane about an adult beginning to base their adult worldview on something wacko recalled from childhood.” Excuse me, Berkins, but what about all the religious adults who base their worldview on the beliefs fed to them as tiny children, before they had the capacity to reason or decide things logically? Isn’t this how most people acquire their beliefs in the first place? I myself have spoken to several people who claim to have “accepted Christ” at bible camp between the ages of nine and twelve; can we agree that THIS is “inane”? At any rate, Hitchens—who has himself has spoken out against religious indoctrination of children—should have been commended for having the perception as a young boy to see through his religious mentor’s ridiculously self-centered assertion that God made the sky blue because that color was soothing to human eyes.
3) Like so many religious folks, Berkins assumes that a person must doubt God’s existence because that person has “pride in being different from the run-of-the-mill mortal.” Sure, those atheists just need to stand out from the crowd. Berkins goes on to say, “Atheism is a fun game (and profitable, too) when you’re healthy, because there are no really serious consequences. Not so when you might be terminally ill, because then you’re about to make an eternal bet.” His implication here is, of course, that Hitchens just MAY decide last minute that God does exist, after all. Well, if Berkins is a betting man, I’d be happy to lay money on Hitchens going to his grave (hopefully not too soon, of course) as a skeptic and atheist. Hitchens has a lifetime of experience with the suffering and pain caused by religion, as well as a keen intellect which demands that extraordinary claims be met with valid evidence. He does not strike me as a man who could throw all that away, simply because an unsubstantiated belief in an afterlife might make him feel better in a tough situation. Some people don’t base their understanding of reality on what feels warm and fuzzy to them. I only wish that you understood that, Mr. Berkins. I wish all religious people understood that.
All in all, Berkin’s article comes across as a very convincing case for how religion “poisons everything.” At least, it has poisoned Berkin’s worldview to the point that he believes potentially-terminal cancer in a fellow human being might be the best thing to happen to that person. Thank god for “permitting” cancer!
Skeptical Monkey won’t be praying for you, Mr. Hitchens, but of course we are hoping that you have a speedy recovery.
You should follow us on twitter.
If Berkin’s belief is that a potentially-terminal cancer in a fellow human being might be the best thing to happen to that person, then “Barkins bellef” could be a belief in either karmic inevitability or Christian punishment.
Karmic inevitabilityy and Christian punishment pose no problems for materialism. They pass each other by. But Christian punishment leaves an unsavoury aftertaste in its wake.
So did God give John Paul II parkinsons disease?
Some religious folks will bend this information to suit their purpose, but most (I believe) including Berkin, genuinely believe in the after life and are concerned about the destination of every man’s soul. If you saw a blind man walking towards a cliff and had the opportunity to stop him wouldn’t you? Or would you just turn away and say “It’s none of my business and he deserves to fall”. I don’t understand why Berkin’s comments bother you so much, He’s not a suicide bomber, or encouraging anyone to drink poisoned kool-aid. He’s simply praying for a man who stands for the opposite of everything he stands for. Maybe it’s a waste of time but it’s his time to waste, and no less beneficial, and perhaps no more, than your hoping for him. Christians (the real ones) don’t spread hate, or condescension atheists do.
And just as religious folks will bend information to suit their own purposes, you have bended the information in this article to suit your response. Either that, or you just didn’t read it too carefully.
You say, “I don’t understand why Berkin’s comments bother you so much.” I gave three reasons why, but the one that bugs me most is this: Berkins says that God’s “permitting” Christopher Hitchens to get cancer is the best thing that could have happened to him. In other words, Berkins is practically thanking god for Hitchens’ cancer. Yes, I get that he’s thanking god because he hopes that cancer will lead Hitchens to salvation–still, I take issue with any belief system that thinks that cancer is the best thing that could happen to a man.
This attitude goes beyond simply praying for Hitchens–and incidentally, no where in the article do I criticize Berkins for just praying for Hitchens. Whether Christians are praying that Hitchens gets better, or that he becomes an Christian himself, I have not criticized anyone for that–and I get your “walking off the cliff” analogy. But thanking god for Hitchens’ cancer is a different situation entirely. Twisting the cancer into, “look how kind God is being to Christopher Hitchens!” disturbs me greatly.