Revised: Christopher Hitchens: God, Cancer & Faith

[JM]

On Aug 17, 7:36 am, "Marko Amnell" <marko.amn...@kolumbus.fi> wrote:
> "Just Me" <jpd...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> 491ff0da-e14e-4d05-ac48-6bd853968...@t20g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
>
> > I'm sitting here thunderstruck -- have you heard the news on
> > Christopher Hitchens? Cancer. Got a chance to talk to him on C-SPAN
> > Washington Journal one morning--what a Gent.
>
> > Here's a movie length interview conducted at the Hitchens home, with
> > Charlie Rose, recorded just five days ago. The chemo has really done a
> > job on him, and you will be alarmed, yet it hasn't affected his wit
> > and erudition in the least . . .
>
> >http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11168
>
> "God is dead." -- Nietzsche
> "Nietzsche is dead." -- God
>
> "God is not great." -- Hitchens
> "Hitchens is ... " -- God
>
> But seriously, I had not heard the news until
> now,  but if you are a lifelong chain smoker
> and hit the bottle heavily for years (and are even
> proud of indulging in these vices), should you
> really be surprised that you have significantly
> increased your risk of cancer? Should one
> really be thunderstruck at the news?

Hitchens is not. He speaks of having lived, well knowing of the risk,
and living well thanks to it. Yet there are multitudes such as myself
who looked forward to his every appearance, experiencing the threat of
this loss like a bolt out of the blue, nonetheless.

Some smokers and drinkers live to be centenarians. It's cancer of the
esophagus, a tumor probably due to an inflammation from chronic
coughing. In his last appearance on BookTV, just before the news came
out, and the chemo began, when he was still looking in the pink, even
so, his conversation was interrupted by one quite intense coughing
spell, and many another pause to clear phlegm from his throat.

I both smoke and drink, but reserve the latter to the weekend. Other
than I keep my vices to a dull roar, generally doing my best to resist
advice from the friends of Job to "curse God and die." I wonder now,
which of those vices seems the riskiest, or the quickest to prove
fatal.

No, not that God would be like that, not at all. Man is like that
without faith: he curses himself if he should deprive himself of that
source of strength for the final face-down with mortal adversity--
whether it should buttress hope for recovery, thus to aid it by
staving off doubt's deep depression, or lend bravery for the last
battle, to face whatever might come, and say let come what may.

Hitchens himself, toward the end of that interview, when reminded of
the prayer vigil that is being held for him, showed a side of himself
one has not seen before. Yet standing firm in his atheism, he said it
would be churlish of him to treat with disdain those who felt
themselves to be acting for his good. And it was clear that this
gesture of compassion toward him from those whose faith he had so
grandly disparaged had touched him in a way that I'm sure has
surprised Christopher Hitchens more than any.

> ***
>
> I liked _God is Not Great_ and have a special
> fondness for Hitchens's book about Cyprus,
> _Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans
> to Kissinger_, because I lived on the island for
> several months during 1974 and saw the
> coup and war first-hand, which led to the division
> of the island. If the subject of Cyprus comes up,
> I now regularly tell people Kissinger's
> marvelous joke about President Makarios of
> Cyprus, which I learned from Hitchens's book.

Who on earth goes to Cyprus in 1974 other than a fifth column
journalist, a Sicilian smuggler of Marsala, or an agent of SMERSH?
--
JM