The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Re: Farewell to C.H.

Re: Farewell to C.H.
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Saturday, December 17 2011, 5:13:40 (UTC)
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...the criticisms of Hitchens seem accurate from what little I know of him. I too found his jingoism disturbing if only because any fool could see what the United States was really up to...but I have to disagree that the fight over religion was over 500 years ago. That said I believe that the decades long resurgence of evangelical Christianity is more than likely its death throes, not really a great surge forward...but still, even after Voltaire stomped all over God the old bastard hung on and came roaring back to murder and stunt and thwart...so maybe Hitchens was determined to drive a final nail in his coffin, and that's always a good thing.

...in any case I found his views refreshing, his ability to express them with wit and a knife's edge exceptional....plus it was nice to find someone taking the fight out from behind closed doors and cloisters and onto teevee, of all places where it was most necessary.

..it's true that Hitchens had a penchant for turning on old colleagues and friends and that might be most true in the case of God. Hitchens seems to have a barely disguised fondness for at least some of the trappings of Christianity...you almost sense that he wishes he could believe and is mighty pissed that God didn't do more to convince him....but even here he says that he would not want God to be a reality because he demands servility and a slave-like devotion. I can easily believe that because I can't see Hitchens bowing to anybody, not even God.

Still, there is a lingering whiff of the disappointed altar boy...like they say, no one is more passionate than the convert...

I have NEVER understood the belief in Gods....and Jesus never meant a thing. Neither did Thor, Osiris and the rest...they are all so obviously man-made as it shouldn't take a debate to prove...but it has and it does. This god-disease has to be fought wherever it pops up because it is killing us...it always has. Whatever his motives, whatever his personality, Hitchens took the fight to God and did it where mere mortals could bear witness...and for that I am very grateful.



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