Our friend and frequent contributor Father Edward Oakes (see here, here, and here for recent “On the Square” articles), sends the link to his colleague Father Robert Barron’s Why Christians should pray for Christopher Hitchens. What Hitchens’ suffering means, and what God intends, he does not claim to know.
I have a suggestion, which I don’t make (thought it may appear so) facetiously. Catholics praying for Hitchens should ask soon-to-be-Blessed John Henry Newman for his intercession. A miraculous healing won’t help the Cause for the Canonization of John Henry Newman, but he seems to me an appropriate man to ask to help another passionate and courageous English writer who has in faithfulness to his principles stepped outside the bounds of establishment opinion. They are alike in that, if not much else.
And in our prayers, we should remember that there are other healings besides the physical. Atheism is something of which a man needs to healed, and more urgently than of cancer.
July 13th, 2010 | 4:52 pm
“Atheism is something of which a man needs to healed, and more urgently than of cancer.”
So true. Atheism is the cancer of the spirit.
July 13th, 2010 | 6:20 pm
The man has cancer. Where is your humanity?
July 13th, 2010 | 6:31 pm
And praying for his healing is inhuman how? The man has cancer. Where is your humanity?
July 13th, 2010 | 7:12 pm
Of course we should pray for him, that he is returned to good health. As to praying for his conversion, I wouldn’t presume.
July 13th, 2010 | 8:07 pm
Hitchens, is clearly, one of a kind. Michael Novak, has stated that, in some ways, he’s a national treasure. I think that this may be correct. Certainly, I found his attacks on Mother Teresa, to be outrageous, stange, and unfair.
But in many ways Hitchens is an honest, morally couragous man. I just finished reading a review of Hitchen’s lated book, in The New York Review of Books, and the reviewer quotes many passages from Hitchen’s where he give his opinion of Carter, and Clinton. I could not help but cheer, at Hitchen’s assessment.
July 13th, 2010 | 8:17 pm
Are you insane? Are you willing to use someone’s suffering to promote your superstitious crap? Where are your morals and principles? Yet more proof that humans are perfectly capable of being moral and principled with no religion at all. You make me sick.
July 13th, 2010 | 9:09 pm
At mass some time ago we prayed for, among many other things, “the peace and happiness of the Jewish people.” The question arises, where does that peace and happiness come from? For me, whatever peace and happiness I receive, comes from faith in Christ. It is human compassion, if not human nature, to pray that another not suffer. Although the answer is not always what we wish. As for praying for Mr. Hitchen’s conversion, I am willing to speculate that his brother Peter does not hesitate to do so. But, if anyone is a candidate for St. Augustine’s “agony of hesitation,” it would be Christopher Hitchens. It is the obstacle of the “brights” to borrow a word from a famous philospher. I would pray for Mary to pray for him. I would pray for God to watch over him. I think that covers it without presuming anything at all.
July 13th, 2010 | 9:12 pm
Pray that he converts, and if Hitchens does convert then I might as well. If he simply heals, then there no way to tell if praying actually helped.
July 14th, 2010 | 12:22 am
Of course, all people of faith should pray for Hitchen’s recovery from this terrible disease. And I don’t see anything wrong with praying for him to come into faith- hey, deism would be a start.
What I honestly cannot understand is the notion that being mired in atheism is somehow worse than being stricken with cancer.
July 14th, 2010 | 2:30 am
Everyone dies including religious people. No human is beyond tragedy despite their religious affiliation. Children in this world have cancer that should make humans a little humble about being so judgmental.
July 14th, 2010 | 2:48 am
Get Well, Chris.
Hope you have a speedy recovery, so take it easy for a while, but you can’t give up.
We need you here in this crazy fanatic religious world.
He must be cracking up at some of the comments some of the people here give.
No more cigarettes and booze, plenty of fruits and veggies and sunny fresh air, a bouquet of swell smelling flowers, a good book and a joyful conversations with family and friends are my recommendations for you.
All these God fearing people, with there doom saying, about a man they have never seen or heard and the whole world is fighting and killing each other for.
These people have such a lack of commen sense.
What always amazes me too, lack of compassion, only for their own kind, the rest can drop dead. ( how ironic).
But Chris is, I bet a stubborn men, who won’t let this cancer knock him down.
For all the people who believe so in prayer:
Give up your medical insurance, keep that money in your pocket, just kneel down and pray, God will do the rest. I wonder, how come that does not seem to work.
July 14th, 2010 | 2:50 am
his opinion of Carter, and Clinton.
Don’t forget his put-down of Carter. After noting that Carter describes himself as a born-again Christian, Hitchens added, “For a guy like Carter, being born once is more than enough.”
I would never want to be on the wrong side of a guy like Hitchens. But he has developed a grudging respect for certain believers who don’t equivocate. And some believers have developed a certain respect for Hitchens. It all makes one have hope for the future of civilization. And also makes me hope Hitchens will be around a bit longer to enjoy this civilization and act as one of its most forceful modern defenders in writing.
July 14th, 2010 | 9:14 am
Mimi:
“For all the people who believe so in prayer:
Give up your medical insurance, keep that money in your pocket, just kneel down and pray, God will do the rest. I wonder, how come that does not seem to work.”
An utterly moronic straw man argument. No mainstream Christian doesn’t believe in the importance and power of modern medicine. You do a disservice to your fellow atheists.
Mark:
“I would never want to be on the wrong side of a guy like Hitchens. But he has developed a grudging respect for certain believers who don’t equivocate. And some believers have developed a certain respect for Hitchens.”
I totally agree. I’ve heard Christians who have faced him in public debates speak very respectfully of him, even though they disagree completely. There still is a possibility for real tolerance–meaning those who disagree, but will grit their teeth and tolerate those on the other side of the argument.
July 14th, 2010 | 9:17 am
“You make me sick.”
Actually, your own attitudes are making you sick. But what are you doing wallowing around here in the first place? Evidently, you are some sort of sado-masochist. Atheists are down the hall, second door to the left, next to the men’s room.
July 14th, 2010 | 9:28 pm
Mark: Hitchens is certainly a man deserving of respect, whether one agrees, or disagrees with him. With respect to his views of Jimmy Carter, yes, you’re right, this was mentioned in The New York Review of Books article. This article, which is a review of a quasiautobiographical book by Hitchens, points to out the rather extreme nature, of Hitchen’s beliefs. Whether it’s his formerly held Marxism, or his current belief that the Bush administration was correct to wage war in Iraq, there’s an almost evangelical zeal, of extremism, that he brings.
A lot of Hitchen’s assertions I completely disagree with. Some, like his assessment of Clinton’s terrible treatment of some women, vis a vis sexual matters, are right on track. Clinton has essentially gotten a free pass on the Jaunita Broadrick incident, that NO republican would get a pass on. The author of The New York Review of Books, review of Hitchen’s book, made it seem that Hitchen’s was baseless in his assessment of Clinton. This poor woman suffered tremendously due to Clinton’s behavior.
July 15th, 2010 | 11:43 am
Although I am not always in agreement with his comments and ideas, I believe Christopher is a true intellect and accomplished author. I admire him and wish him all the best. I will pray for his complete recovery.
July 15th, 2010 | 2:04 pm
[...] few readers of my Prayers for Christopher Hitchens made the astounding charges that praying for him, and for his conversion as well as his deliverance [...]
July 15th, 2010 | 5:23 pm
It’s funny: We learned as children how to pray in Sunday School. We learned to pray for others. We learned that sick people deserve our prayers. We learned that Jesus loves everyone no matter who they are or what they believe.
We learned as adults to despise those who don’t agree with us. We question whether a sick man deserves our prayers. We question which is worse: an awful disease or a man’s Atheism.
Jesus didn’t care: He said to pray for everyone. Period.
Children have it right. Just as Jesus said.
“Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow black and white, they are precious in his sight; Jesus loves the little children of the world.”
We are all Jesus’ children.
July 15th, 2010 | 8:22 pm
This has got to be the most arrogant, disingenuous and hypocritical thing from the faithful to say about a man who has been diagnosed with cancer. Yet I don’t think any of the rational (secularists) amongst us are surprised. This is just yet another pathetic attempt by the religious to forward their case for their theology for which there isn’t (and never will be) any evidence of the sort that it’s true.
So being unable to defend their position against Hitchens based on rationality, logic, historical and sociobiological evidence as well as philosophical critique, they attack him when he’s down and so ARROGANTLY wish that he would convert due to the anguish he must be going through. In other words, that he might give in to a fear of death that all religious ppl wear on their sleeve and is ultimately what makes them buy into any line of theological crap in the first place. Utterly disgraceful.
And how dare the faithful use this scientifically probable result (Hitchens never hid the fact that he was a heavy smoker) as a way to suddenly say, “ha! see! Hitchens has cancer therefore our theology is morally sound and academically correct”. The sheer ARROGANCE of people of faith to resort to this kind of smug, ala carte, irrational and desperate reasoning to disingenuously declare that now, because of this, their theology somehow holds weight, is about as intellectual dishonest and morally barren as you can get.
As for the hypocritical part: you want to pray to God to cure his cancer? Didn’t your ‘god’ give Hitchens cancer in the first place?
July 15th, 2010 | 9:45 pm
How on earth, Stephen, is it “arrogant”, to want the best for Christopher Hitchens? That is, if christianity is true, would it not be the kindest thing to pray for him?
And I guess I’m missing something, but where’s the “hypocrosy”? Have you ever heard of the notion that God does NOT micromanage nature? Therefore, the view that God “gave hime cancer”, is, forgive me, a simplistic notion, to say the least, but I have noticed that some atheists are prone to fudamentalistic, literal interpretations of theology, which may explain why they’re atheists in the first place.
July 16th, 2010 | 12:39 pm
Here’s a bit from an interview with Hitchens posted Wednesday. FWIW
Hugh Hewitt: The number of people I’m sure who are praying for you, including people who come up to me and ask me to tell you that, people like Joseph Timothy Cook, how are you responding to them, given your famous atheism?
CH: Well look, I mean, I think that prayer and holy water, and things like that are all fine. They don’t do any good, but they don’t necessarily do any harm. It’s touching to be thought of in that way. It makes up for those who tell me that I’ve got my just desserts. It’s, I’m afraid to say it’s almost as well-founded an idea. I mean, I don’t, they don’t know whether prayer will work, and they don’t know whether I’ve come by this because I’m a sinner.
HH: Oh, I…has anyone actually said that to you?
CH: Yeah, oh yes.
HH: Oh, my gosh. Forgive them. Well…
CH: Well, I mean, I don’t mind. It doesn’t hurt me. But for the same reason, I wish it was more consoling. But I have to say there’s some extremely nice people, including people known to you, have said that I’m in their prayers, and I can only say that I’m touched by the thought.
July 16th, 2010 | 12:40 pm
Stephen,
As a Christian, I do often experience some lack of understanding as to how God works in the world in the midst of suffering – why he seems to cure sometimes, but not all times. But this is a different question than does God exist or not.
So I am not wishing for a cure in order to shore up my own belief.
But to respond to one more of your points: With Christ, I don’t fear death.
Oddly enough perhaps from your point of view, it is this life which gives me more trouble than the next one will, but I also love – although there is suffering – this life as well as the next.
With no underlying motive of personal desperation, what do you think is the real reason I might pray for Mr. Hitchens?
July 16th, 2010 | 10:22 pm
@ Bret
To pray for someone is all well and good, but in reality it simply equates to “wishing well”. However in ur mind what ur doing is asking a supreme being to magically cure him of a disease, thereby implying that a) something is listening to u, b) this being has the ability to intervene in nature at whim, and c) a plea (or multitude of requests) is REQUIRED for His neglect in this manner to be overturned. You are inadvertently suggesting that a supreme being has the power to change nature. So the question is always begging: why does he have cancer in the first place? There is arrogance in assuming that specifically YOUR pleas will get Hitchens off the hook, and hidden in ur request is the blatant ignoring of the fact that this “loving and supreme being” needs to be begged to correct…what? His own mistake? His own neglect of protection for his children? His own maliciousness in bringing cancer into the world in the first place? Is God not aware of what is plaguing Mr Hitchens? (I thought he was everywhere and knows everything?) Why u unnecessarily grovel at the feet of a cruel, malicious and indifferent dictator is beyond me, and I stress, totally unnecessary.
Cancer happens because this planet is teeming with microorganisms, other life, and we are in a competing struggling to survive. And the ONLY way that we are able to advance beyond inevitable doom, like the 99.9% of species that have EVER existed on this planet (great ‘design’ by the way) is through human ingenuity in technological advancement; not pleading with the heavens.
July 16th, 2010 | 10:33 pm
PS
“Have you ever heard of the notion that God does NOT micromanage nature? Therefore, the view that God “gave hime cancer”, is, forgive me, a simplistic notion,”
Sorry Brad, but you can’t have it both ways. By praying u r saying God can destroy Hitchen’s cancer, but doesn’t create it in the first place? Either God doesn’t interfere in nature or he does. The Bible is explicitly clear that God, “created all under the heavens”, including the subject at hand: cancer. You cannot have it both ways and merely attribute all good things to God and saying all the bad stuff is not his responsibility. That is both theologically dishonest and logically underhanded to make such an assertion merely for the convenience of pushing ur preconceived notion of a “loving God”.
July 16th, 2010 | 11:05 pm
@JDD
“As a Christian, I do often experience some lack of understanding as to how God works in the world in the midst of suffering – why he seems to cure sometimes, but not all times.”
You are creating difficulty when there need not be. Supposing there is no God, there is no complication in understanding this at all (also funny how religion in all its ‘glory’ has never been able to explain this phenomena despite thousands of years of power, mind-numbing appeals to the, “God works in mysterious ways” edict and a magical book that supposedly describes God’s will…)
“With Christ, I don’t fear death”
Exactly, you’ve proved my point. It’s a crutch for you; a cozy narcissitic blanket to calm your fears. In other words, without Christ u WOULD fear death.
“…what do you think is the real reason I might pray for Mr. Hitchens?”
Bcoz you’re probably a genuinely compassionate person who would not wish harm on others and you genuinely want him to get better. Again, you “wish him well”, and I think that’s great. See above for my critique on prayer.
July 17th, 2010 | 2:36 am
Stephen: One could argue that God allows cancer to develop. But that does not entail that he specifically gives certain individuals cancer. That may not seem like a difference to you, but it’s a big difference.
what you’re hitting on is the larger “problem of evil”. No one has an answer for that Stephen. You seem to think that unless every problem, theologically, is answered, religious belief is unwarranted. That’s an understandable view. But certainty cannot exist in any human endeveor. And theology, like empirical science, is fallible.
I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers here. But what’s wrong with praying for Hitchens? If there’s no God, as you assert, why should anyone care?
July 17th, 2010 | 3:19 am
@Bret
The “problem of evil” as they put it, is only a problem when you introduce the ASSUMPTION of a loving God controlling everything. You aren’t making things easy on urself – you’re artifically creating philosophical difficulty where it needn’t exist. And if no one can answer the artificial problem you’ve created (it’s no wonder given there’s no evidence for it), then the rational, logical thing to do is to remove the unnecessary assumption.
It’s like saying, “The existence of flowers causes problems in light of the existence of the invisible flower-hating demon Hera, but I’m sure Hera’s intention to leave the flowers alone will be revealed sooner or later”.
What’s MORE probable: that Hera isn’t able to destroy flowers for some reason, or that Hera doesn’t even exist?
“One could argue that God allows cancer to develop. But that does not entail that he specifically gives certain individuals cancer. ”
Completely nonsensical. It’s obviously created knowing that human beings will be infected. (Your God is also omniscient as well as omnipotent and can see the future) So WHY? It still doesn’t absolve any blame. If someone releases anthrax in a subway station and 50 random people die, is the culprit still responsible for those deaths? YES.
“But certainty cannot exist in any human endeveor”
Couldn’t agree more. Yet that humility is eerily absent from the pulpits of mass on Sundays (ever hear of a priest saying, “It’s POSSIBLE all this didnt happen”?)
Science is supported by evidence; theology is not.
Science changes when new evidence is discovered; the fundamentals of theology NEVER changed and were never meant to be challenged.
Science produces results and testable predictions to confirm its authenticity; theology produces nothing and by definition, CANNOT be tested (how convenient…)
Philosophy is questions that may not be answered; religion is answers that may not be questioned.
July 17th, 2010 | 7:58 am
Stephen: I have to respectfully disagree with you, when you assert that the problem of evil is an artifact, of religion. There is evil in the world, whether God exists or not. Surely you believe that, for example, mass murderers are evil?
Indeed, your whole objection to the prayes for Hitchens, and religion generally, is that it does not meet some moral standard, that you think it should.
Theology does change. Theology accepts certain premises derived from revelation, and then reasons philosophically from there. The knowledge, derived from faith, stays the same, but the reasoning from there may change,based on new information, obtained from empirical science, and different insights. It’s not as “irrational” as you presume.
One can question religion. But certain things are accepted on faith, in conjunction with reason. The two always go together. One must never “blindly” have faith in something. Also, we all have faith. You have faith that your brain experiences reality correctly, but where’s your proof? Even atheists have faith that their senses are not decieving them, and that their brains are accurately providing them with memories of what actually occurred in the past. But where’s the proof? The question is not, should, or do humans have faith, but, what should they have faith in.
You seem like an intelligent person. and I empathize with your concerns. Honesty demands that I say, regretfully, that I cannot answer your questions. I wish I could. But some things that seem ridiculous to us, are not, in the greater scheme of things. It’s like judging a play, or movie, one fourth of the way through. At best, it will be a distorted conclusion. I believe, and hope, that your questions have legitimate answers, that coincide with God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence.
I believe that God welcomes, and encourages you, and all of us, to ask these questions. He did give us reason, after all.
Does God control everything? I don’t know, but I believe that, although He could, He does not, to allow for free will, and to allow for creation to be distinct from Himself.
July 17th, 2010 | 8:23 am
Stephen: Also, there are some excellent, rational, defenses out there, for religious faith. Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Pascal.
Recent examples are Francis Collins, Peter Kreeft, C.S.Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, among many others. Simply google “Christian apologetics”.
July 17th, 2010 | 6:04 pm
“There is evil in the world, whether God exists or not. Surely you believe that, for example, mass murderers are evil?”
Of course, you are right. With or without God, there is and will always be evil in this world. But what I’m saying is, that’s not a problem to be solved in a Godless world. People with evil motivations will do bad things. Simple. We and we alone are responsible for our actions, good or bad. Cancer and disease exist because of the nature of life on this planet. No problem at all. The PROBLEM of evil is only in light of the God assumption who has the ability to control nature and prevent evil. That’s what I’m saying. I think it’s best summed up by Epicurus:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
To be honest Bret, I don’t have a problem with you praying for Hitchens, like he says himself I think it’s nice that you’re thinking of him in that way. I just think the nature of prayer in its actuality of who you’re praying to is a bit pointlessly servile. We shouldn’t have to pray to the divine leader to release someone from suffering when he could theoretically do it at anytime on his own accord (or prevent his illness in the first place).
“The knowledge, derived from faith, stays the same, but the reasoning from there may change,based on new information, obtained from empirical science, and different insights. It’s not as “irrational” as you presume.”
I’m glad to see you are honest about this, but the line between the dotes you have rightfully pointed out is that theology doesn’t change BECAUSE OF theology. It tries to mould itself (unsuccessfully) to the new discoveries of science, and takes credit for modern day values that have evolved because of secular reasons, in spite of the Bible, against God’s initial teachings, and only progresses by ignoring some of the unchangeble verses in the Bible. Adam and Eve never happened; evolution has disproven it. But for 1900 yrs the church said it was so until the scientific evidence couldn’t be denied anymore. Then, suddenly they declare, “ok evolution happened”. So you just have to ignore that part of the Bible now, or do what most slippery and disingenuous apologists do and declare it’s an allegory or a metaphor (always done in retrospect of contradictory evidence and never before). Slavery is heavily endorsed by the Bible, and nowhere in scripture is it lambasted as an evil and oppresive institution. Many slavers used Biblical theology to justify keeping slaves, and finally in the 1800′s humanity morally evolved and overthrew this practise. And the Christians hypocritically declared it was because of faith that they overthrew it.
Unfortunately Bret, it IS irrational. It presents unfounded answers without critical analysis, it asks you to simply believe on faith alone (do you or do you not think Jesus died and was raised to life again only to fly off into some ethereal plane?), by its nature it is rigid and inflexible despite new evidence to the contrary (the Bible is never rewritten) and it is disingenuous as it takes responsibility for secular moral reasoning when religious doctrine teaches the opposite (according to the Old Testament, you should have killed me by now 2 Chronicles 15:12-13, Deuteronomy 13:13-19, Leviticus 24:10-16 and many others)…and yes, Jesus condones this (Matthew 5:18-19, 2 Peter 20-21).
Thanks for the christian apologist references, but I am very aware of their arguments (they’ve been around for centuries) and no amount of big words strung together ameliorates the problems we’ve discussed or can provide evidence of such a being.
I really appreciate your honesty in this discussion Bret, it’s been great chatting with you and I hope I’ve at least given you something to think about. Apologies if my critique on prayer itself seemed harsh, and I sincerely think it’s a very warm sentiment that Hitchens in your thoughts. We obviously both hope (and pray) that Hitchens has a speedy recovery.
July 17th, 2010 | 11:00 pm
Stephen, thanks so much for your honest, intelligent, and helpful comments. I understand where you’re coming from, and I believe that God very much wants you, and anyone to be as critical, and skeptical, as possible. He is a loving creator, and wants the best for all of his creation.
We both obviously admire and respect Christopher Hitchens, and want the best for him.
You seem like a very good hearted, decent person. Take Care.
July 20th, 2010 | 1:52 pm
[...] last item on the subject of praying for Christopher Hitchens, which I discussed here and a few days later here. The idea enraged some of our atheist readers and baffled even a few [...]
July 21st, 2010 | 4:31 pm
Stephen,
I’ve caught your response five days later and perhaps you’re still reading…
You’ve responded to all of my points but one – the point that belief in God does not hinge on being able to explain suffering.
In your responses, may I point out assumptions on your behalf: You wrote “You are creating difficulty when there need not be. Supposing there is no God,…”
See my first point. I’m not trying to explain suffering. I’m responding to it. The difficulty is there to begin with and is not ‘brought into existence’ by belief in God. I say this, by the way, as an engineer and scientist. There are two assumptions you’re asking for in this sentence – one, that there is no God, and two, that the universe is fully discernible by a finite mind such as you or I. What if the underpinnings of suffering are not fully understandable?
I wrote “With Christ, I don’t fear death” and you responded: Exactly, you’ve proved my point. It’s a crutch for you; a cozy narcissitic blanket to calm your fears.”
If God does not exist, I might actually agree with you. So your downstream reasoning is sound, but you’re starting from an atheistic assumption that I don’t share based on both reason and faith experience.
I wrote “…what do you think is the real reason I might pray for Mr. Hitchens?” and you responded: “Bcoz you’re probably a genuinely compassionate person who would not wish harm on others and you genuinely want him to get better.”
Thanks, but does it bother you at all that in debates such as this one, all of your analysis of myself and others’ viewpoints and actions needs to flow from your original assumption which is unprovable – that God doesn’t exist?
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