Of the Four Horsemen of the New Atheist Apocalypse, I rate Christopher Hitchens highly. (Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, not so much.)
One of Hitchens’s last public appearances was at the Texas Freethought Convention where he was presented with the Freethinker of the Year Award by Richard Dawkins.
When I watched this, I was struck by a few things Christopher Hitchens had to say.
If Jesus wasn’t the son of God, he was a hideous, wicked imposter whose words were vain and empty and intended to deceive.
Isn’t that the main premise in C. S. Lewis’s well known argument (Lewis’s Trilemma) for the divinity of Jesus?
In conversation with a young freethinker whose copy of his book Hitchens autographs, he pays respect to Jesus and reminds his young fan to heed Christianity’s central message.
This is getting worse and worse. She’s floored me twice now. This is like the rabbis confronting Jesus outside the temple, you know …
Lots of love, take it easy. Remember the love bit, also.
RIP Christopher Hitchens.
The materialist believes life is merely ‘an attunement’. That it is like the tuning on Strings of a banjo… when the Banjo breaks the attunement disappears into the chaos. On this theory The reasoning, caring, passionate being that we knew as Christopher Hitchens was merely the vibrations of a series of Atoms… nothing more… and it is quite plausible that should we arrange another set of atoms in just the right juxtaposition that another Christopher Hitchen will materialize and carry on preaching atheism!…. This is absurd and devalues the Human individual to Zero. Atheism is a tragic Delusion. As Dr Shuller says “Atheism is Pessimistic, and flows from ‘Impossibility thinking’
Theistic Dualism says the body is but a house we (our soul) inhabits. Our soul is in essence derived from the Great Spiritual Being Himself… The Non-physical Deity. We are not merely Chemical reactions. not merely machines. The Individual Soul is absolutely Unique…and of infinite value. God Breathed life into Mankind. We are not merely an accident. We have been put here as part of a Divine Purpose. We have been given our life from God. We have The God given right to life. Christian Theism Raises Mankind above mere Matter/ materialism and gives Human individuals their dignity.
The Christian Faith is Life affirming . In the Words of Dr Schuller… Theism is Optimistic, the positive vision of a possibility thinker.
On this theory … it is quite plausible that should we arrange another set of atoms in just the right juxtaposition that another Christopher Hitchen will materialize and carry on preaching atheism!…. This is absurd
Not absurd, Tim. According to Christian physicalism, that’s pretty much what happens at the time of the Resurrection of the Dead. God arranges another set of atoms in just the right juxtaposition, Christopher Hitchens re-materialises … and thinks, “Oops!”