Christopher Hitchens – Defiant in the Face of Death
The following is a letter penned from well-known New Atheist, Christopher Hitchens, addressed to this year’s American Atheists Convention. Hitchens, currently fighting a battle with oesophageal cancer, was prevented from attending the April 2011 convention for health reasons. In his stead, he sent this letter of encouragement to attendees at the Convention. It shows that Hitchen’s is defiant in his anti-theism, even in the face of possible death.
Dear fellow-unbelievers,
Nothing would have kept me from joining you except the loss of my voice (at least my speaking voice) which in turn is due to a long argument I am currently having with the specter of death. Nobody ever wins this argument, though there are some solid points to be made while the discussion goes on. I have found, as the enemy becomes more familiar, that all the special pleading for salvation, redemption and supernatural deliverance appears even more hollow and artificial to me than it did before. I hope to help defend and pass on the lessons of this for many years to come, but for now I have found my trust better placed in two things: the skill and principle of advanced medical science, and the comradeship of innumerable friends and family, all of them immune to the false consolations of religion. It is these forces among others which will speed the day when humanity emancipates itself from the mind-forged manacles of servility and superstitition. It is our innate solidarity, and not some despotism of the sky, which is the source of our morality and our sense of decency.
That essential sense of decency is outraged every day. Our theocratic enemy is in plain view. Protean in form, it extends from the overt menace of nuclear-armed mullahs to the insidious campaigns to have stultifying pseudo-science taught in American schools. But in the past few years, there have been heartening signs of a genuine and spontaneous resistance to this sinister nonsense: a resistance which repudiates the right of bullies and tyrants to make the absurd claim that they have god on their side. To have had a small part in this resistance has been the greatest honor of my lifetime: the pattern and original of all dictatorship is the surrender of reason to absolutism and the abandonment of critical, objective inquiry. The cheap name for this lethal delusion is religion, and we must learn new ways of combating it in the public sphere, just as we have learned to free ourselves of it in private.
Our weapons are the ironic mind against the literal: the open mind against the credulous; the courageous pursuit of truth against the fearful and abject forces who would set limits to investigation (and who stupidly claim that we already have all the truth we need). Perhaps above all, we affirm life over the cults of death and human sacrifice and are afraid, not of inevitable death, but rather of a human life that is cramped and distorted by the pathetic need to offer mindless adulation, or the dismal belief that the laws of nature respond to wailings and incantations.
As the heirs of a secular revolution, American atheists have a special responsibility to defend and uphold the Constitution that patrols the boundary between Church and State. This, too, is an honor and a privilege. Believe me when I say that I am present with you, even if not corporeally (and only metaphorically in spirit…) Resolve to build up Mr Jefferson’s wall of separation. And don’t keep the faith.
Sincerely
Christopher Hitchens
The letter reminds me of a quote from one of the grandfathers of the New Atheists, written in the same vein of indignant defiance:
The world which science presents for our belief is even more purposeless, more void of meaning… That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast depth of the solar system, and the whole temple of man’s achievementmust inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy that rejects them can hope to stand.
(Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian, 1957, p.107)
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
I fully expect Hitchens, like Russell, will remain steadfast and defiant in his atheism and anti-theism to the very end. I cannot envision Hitchens allowing himself, at least publically, to submit to a death-bed conversion – his British bulldog determination to save face will certainly ensure that outcome. Privately however may be a different matter – we will probably never know, and rightly so I guess. I wish Hitchens all the best and hope his decisions in this life serve him well.
Neil Mammen
on April 25th, 2011
“To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee; For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee”
This was the same thing Stalin did, he shook an angry fist at God and fell back to die.
Win Corduan
on April 25th, 2011
Thanks for this excellent post. These two quotations, juxtaposed, go a long way to illustrate the difference between earlier atheism and the “new atheism.” (BTW, Russell’s quote is from his essay “A Free Man’s Worship,” which is usually included in one of the many anthologies entitled >Why I am not a Christian,philosophesphilosophes< because the world they describe, in which the Church rules and atheists are allegedly persecuted outcasts, does not exist in too many places with which I'm familiar.
Hitchens, referring to the tenets of atheism, which is allegedly based on experience versus illusion, states, "It is these forces among others which will speed the day when humanity emancipates itself from the mind-forged manacles of servility and superstitition." The evidence, if he studied history, is severely against him. Thorough-going atheism leads to persecution. When Hitchens asserts that "it is our innate solidarity, and not some despotism of the sky, which is the source of our morality and our sense of decency," Bertrand Russell (and Nietzsche and Sartre) would have laughed at that polemic. Let us lay aside for the moment to what extent these people were "decent" as human beings; Nietzsche had too many migraines not to be decent, and I don't know about Hitchens' life, but neither Sartre nor Russell were. Regardless, the traditional atheists knew that no genuine morality (with a solid sense of "ought") could arise out of such subjective prattle. And what unanalyzed verbiage is it that Hitchens brings up when he assures his fellow non-believers that he will be with them, not corporeally (so far so good), but metaphorically (still holding up) in spirit (crash!)? What spirit? Russell would have been the first to acknowledge, in the light of his theory of descriptions, that such talk is, not just meaningless, but false.
Again, thanks for calling our attention to this letter. The juxtaposition with Russell really makes it go.
Win
Win Corduan
on April 25th, 2011
Correction:
Thanks for this excellent post. These two quotations, juxtaposed, go a long way to illustrate the difference between earlier atheism and the “new atheism.” (BTW, Russell’s quote is from his essay “A Free Man’s Worship,” which is usually included in one of the many anthologies entitled Why I am not a Christian, but if you look through the essay by that name, you won’t find it there. ) Both of these quotes are about hopelessness, but Russell’s is about the hopelessness and despair of the atheistic position, acknowledging that human existence is essentially meaningless, whereas Hitchens’ statement is yet one more accusation against the supposed crimes of religion against humanity. Russell was a good philosopher, and a logician whose formal work most people outside of mathematical logic still do not even attempt to read. Nietzsche, Sartre, and Russell, to name just three, were willing to admit that their atheism was denying a part of their humanity, but were willing to resist in the face of their personal defeat to life. On the other hand, the “New Atheists” are not thinkers, let alone good ones (which is why I’ve had a hard time interacting with their thought). There is a lot of the mindless screeching against Christianity and the church, reminiscent of the philosophesof the French enlightenment. In fact, a lot of their rhetoric seems as though it is copied from the philosophes because the world they describe, in which the Church rules and atheists are allegedly persecuted outcasts, does not exist in too many places with which I’m familiar.
Hitchens, referring to the tenets of atheism, which is allegedly based on experience versus illusion, states, “It is these forces among others which will speed the day when humanity emancipates itself from the mind-forged manacles of servility and superstitition.” The evidence, if he studied history, is severely against him. Thorough-going atheism leads to persecution. When Hitchens asserts that “it is our innate solidarity, and not some despotism of the sky, which is the source of our morality and our sense of decency,” Bertrand Russell (and Nietzsche and Sartre) would have laughed at that polemic. Let us lay aside for the moment to what extent these people were “decent” as human beings; Nietzsche had too many migraines not to be decent, and I don’t know about Hitchens’ life, but neither Sartre nor Russell were. Regardless, the traditional atheists knew that no genuine morality (with a solid sense of “ought”) could arise out of such subjective prattle. And what unanalyzed verbiage is it that Hitchens brings up when he assures his fellow non-believers that he will be with them, not corporeally (so far so good), but metaphorically (still holding up) in spirit (crash!)? What spirit? Russell would have been the first to acknowledge, in the light of his theory of descriptions, that such talk is, not just meaningless, but false.
Again, thanks for calling our attention to this letter. The juxtaposition with Russell really makes it go.
Win
Justin
on April 26th, 2011
I expected this, but I see complete hatred in this man. The funny thing is how he ends this letter in similar, but opposite, form and fashion as Paul did in writing to the Corinthians:
“ For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 5:3
The funny thing is that it’s quite opposite of each other.
Shalom
David
on April 26th, 2011
I second (and third) Win’s remarks (very well said!). -I also agree with Justin and likewise find Hitchens’s remarks ironic. I assume Hitchens intentionally wrote his letter in such a way.
-)n the other hand, if ‘this’ is what the New Atheists have to showcase, it is a very (very) poor showcase indeed. May Christopher Hitchens find the grace to fight the greatest demon he has ever known (himself) before it is too late for him to do so.
Reggie Ramos Jr
on April 30th, 2011
Hitchens, Dawkins, and the host of New Atheist use rhetoric, strawman arguments, and ad hominum tactics against belief and those who hold to such. In doing so they use the very tactics that believers are accused of using. Even a cursory reading of their works demonstrates their hate and disdain for God. They display bad philosophy and worse theology; they have to resort to “God talk” to make themselves understood. Yes, Mr. Hitchens, “only metaphorically in spirit” is God talk and therefore meaningless by your standards.
God has called humanity to “come and let us reason.” Yet Hitchens refuses to take God up and will most likely refuse until the very end. He has attempted to present himself as the ultimate “existentialist.” The Nietzschian ubermensch who, by the power of his own will, stares at the meaninglessness of existence and the futility of life and allows it to engulf him as the final darkness of death overtakes him, yet he dies with his eyes open, bravo!
Neil, your quote works well in summing up Hitchens. Just as Kahn realized the futility of his struggle against Kirk, all he had left was hate toward the one. (Yes, I know that it is Moby Dick but it was wonderfully reinterpreted in The Wrath of Kahn.) This is also a wonderful epitaph for these New Athiest.
I know that Hitchens has refused the prayers of the Saints, but we continue to pray for him, not so much his physical condition but the spiritual.
The Apologist's Pen
on May 12th, 2011
[...] following letter by Christopher Hitchens is posted on Roger Morris’ Faith Interface blog. It is a letter that is addressed to this year’s American Atheists Convention. Hitchens, [...]