I heard just yesterday, as I was driving home from work, about the death of Christopher Hitchens. The show I was listening to, was on Sirius Satelite radio, the show called Kresta in the Afternoon, (read about it here at this link) which can be heard on Sirius 160 on the EWTN channel. You know, Sirious channel 160 which is the EWTN channel? It's the channel all Sirious Catholics listen to!
You may know or have heard of the name Christopher Hitchens, the "athiest" Christopher Hitchens. Some time ago, Al Kresta had interviewed Hitchens and last night on his radio program, Kresta re-played excerpts from that interview he did after Hitchens wrote a book titled, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Really? Poisons "everything"?? I listened to this interview and thought, how can anyone have such a jaded, poisoned and misguided view of God? God is knowable. How can one know God in the way Christopher Hitchens knew God. How can one know God, when one declares, there is no God. Now that is a question for the ages. Also a puzzlement to me, is how athiests are always so depressed, depressing, glum, negative, unhappy.....miserable perhaps is a better word, but then again, it really isn't a puzzlement when you think about it. I've heard Hitchens and statements he's made about the Church, about Priests and Religious, about the Pope. Let's just say, Christopher Hitchens in my estimation, is not so great himself. That is about the nicest thing I can say about him.
Sadly Christopher Hitchens is and will likely always be known as Christopher Hitchens the Atheist. Terrible thing to be known for. Not Christopher Hitchens the great statesman, or Christopher Hitchens the great humanitarian, and unlike other great minds, unlikee other great men and women, he will be always remembered as Christopher Hitchens the atheist. Let's face it, we never will see a devout atheist dedicate their life to helping the poor and impoverished in Calcutta India, as Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Do we ever see atheists dying for their 'faith' or dedicate their lives to comfort the dying, the sick, the lonely or the unwanted? By what measure do we measure the impact of a devout atheist?
Perhaps the devout Cult of Atheists worldwide mourn the loss of this giant atheist among Atheists everywhere, if atheists indeed mourn the passing of anyone. Perhaps Atheists will call for his being declared an atheistic saint among the members of the religion of Atheism. Let's face it, for Christopher Hitchens to hold to his unbelief in a God, it takes what must be declared heroic atheistic virtue.
Well now, what am I saying? Can it be called "heroic virtue" to be an avid, devout, and long time Atheist? Let's think about that for a moment. If one believes in an "All Powerful", "All Holy" and "All Good" God, then one must also believe that all Goodness comes from God, all Virtue is of God and all Grace has it's source in God. So, logically one can conclude that for a person to deny the existence of God, then one must also deny the existence of the source of all Good that comes from God; and deny also the existence of all virtue and surely deny the existence of Grace.
One thing I find funny, hilarious even, is for any self proclaimed Atheist to talk about, to write about and to live for denying the existence of God; to shout the evangelism of unbelief from the highest height. That is like proclaiming the denial of the existence of invisible things. Like saying, look, there, where you don't see anything, well that proves that invisible things don't exist and it is ridiculous to believe in invisible things. I tend to agree with the logic of the famous Catholic convert G.K. Chesterton when he says: "If there were no God, there would be no atheists".
Now, think for a moment about the book that Hitchens wrote. Why write about someone you do not believe in? Why then when you write about this person you do not believe in, why do you also say about this person you do not believe in that He is not great? It makes no sense to me. For example, do you see any people writing books saying, "Zeus was not great", or "Apollo was not great" or even or even for that matter that Peter Pan was not great?
This reminds me also of the anti Christians who hate Christ so much, that they appear this time of year every year to proclaim that Christmas is a myth, or say the Nativity did not happen and that God did not become Man, they deny the incarnation, and that people should just be good for goodness sake. If it is a myth, they why attempt to disprove it. Do you see anyone attempting to put up a billboard saying, the tooth fairy is a myth? Of course not, because for the reason that the tooth fairy is a myth.
So, Christopher Hitchens had cancer and he went to his horrible death dying from esophageal cancer holding onto his atheism, knowing that his greatest atheistic achievement, his final claim to fame was that he wrote a book entitled...God is not Great: Religion Poisons Everything.
I wonder, what in his final moments were the thoughts of Christopher Hitchens? Was he waiting for his meaningless existence to finally slip into the blackness of nothingness and existancelessness? For, if there is no God, then life is meaningless, everything is nothing and therfore everything is worthless. Even so are the claims of atheism worthless if there be no God.
Or just maybe I thought, as Christopher Hitches lay dying, was Christopher Hitchens praying for the first time in his life. What was that prayer of his? Was he praying that there was no God? For if there was a God, then how would Christopher Hitchens face Him when he finally died? How would Hitchens explain to that God, why it was that He was not a Great, God as Christopher Hitchens had written in his book? Just imagine the final torment of the thoughts and soul of Christopher Hitchens in the last seconds of his earthly consciousness. I thought of this, just before offering a prayer for the soul of Christopher Hitchens.
Yes, I prayed for Christopher Hitchens, that the Greatness of God to be revealed to him just at the moment of his death, as Christopher Hitchens' soul would then face the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for eternal judgement, to stand before the only Son of God, to be Judged by the Lord of Lords. It will be then that Christopher Hitchens will realize the true Greatness of that Infinite and Majestic God, for to the bare and stripped naked soul of Hitchens, all truth shall be revealed to his soul in one great shining moment of clarity. It will be then, that Christopher Hitchens will know the real and terrible truth of it all. God's Mercy is no doubt greater than Hitchens own opinion of God's Greatness. Hitchens will also find that the Justice of God is also Great. Perhaps Richard Hitchens did not know how Great God really is. He knows now.
