Why did so many people admire Christopher Hitchens?

[IanAG]

Agreed wholeheartedly. I didn’t even begin to agree with him, but he was very intelligent, he expressed it well, and wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. I pray for his soul, but I did grudgingly admire the man.

Is that how we measure a man these days, by his ability to speak his mind regardless of the consequences?

 

[IanAG]

Something that always confused me about the Four Horsemen of Atheism was that Dawkins has a very credible background in biology and associated studies, Harris is very intelligent in the medical field of neuroscience, and Dennett is educated in the study of psychology and philosophy, but what was Hitchens’ background?

A third class degree from Oxford in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and a career in journalism.

 

[BornInMarch]

This video by Bishop Robert Barron should provide some insight.

If you didn’t watch the video, this Catholic Bishop says that he was impressed by Hitchens’ unique prose, by his refusal to censor himself, and by the fact that he had a strong passion for justice.

 

[IanAG]

I watched it.

I’m a great admirer of Bishop Barron, but felt on this occasion that he was being far too charitable.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

Agreed wholeheartedly. I didn’t even begin to agree with him, but he was very intelligent, he expressed it well, and wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. I pray for his soul, but I did grudgingly admire the man.

Is that how we measure a man these days, by his ability to speak his mind regardless of the consequences?

Just from a purely secular standpoint, that is actually not a bad way to “measure a man”. I want to know what’s on a man’s mind. Everyone comes to different conclusions about things. Everybody’s different.

A third class degree from Oxford in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and a career in journalism.

Sounds like a pretty decent education and career to me. Maybe not the highest education in the world, but demonstrates that he was basically a fairly intelligent, educated man.

I’m sorry that Hitchens was an atheist. I hope with all my heart that the Divine Mercy reached him at the very last instant of his life, and showed him that despite his best intentions, he failed to believe as he should have, and gave him one last chance at illumination. A lot of people have that very same “blind spot”. It doesn’t make them bad people. It doesn’t vitiate all the good they’ve done in life, all the talent that they’ve used, and used well. I always enjoyed listening to him. I hope that, in the end, he will have found beatitude, some way, somehow.

 

[IanAG]

His favourite trick, that old one of taking Bible verses out of context and without the benefit of understanding was just down right deceit.

If he were as good a journalist as he claimed to be, he would have understood the importance of genre and context. Yet he misrepresented the Bible by ignoring these.

And as for his attack on Mother Theresa, I have to ask what gives him the right to judge her? And which of the acts of mercy did he perform in his lifetime, other than gulping down a bottle of scotch each day?

 

[ATraveller]

Those supporters are in fact so sad, that they even attack his brother and taunt him online, about how he isn’t as interesting or smart as his late brother was.

Like telling him the wrong brother died. Fanboys are the worst.

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Trivia: Christopher’s nephew is the editor of the Catholic Herald !

 

[IanAG]

He was a contrarian. He was very intelligent. He was a good journalist and writer. He was scathing at his opposition. These tend to be traits that, if you agree with him (many didn’t), then you admired him for it.

There’s a huge gulf between intelligence and wisdom. As we know, the Bible teaches that ‘The fool has said in his heart “There is no God.”’

He just strikes me as a smart aleck who didn’t care about humanity but placed a huge premium on being right rather than being loving. An intellectual bully boy.

 

[Freddy]

Pattylt:

He was a contrarian. He was very intelligent. He was a good journalist and writer. He was scathing at his opposition. These tend to be traits that, if you agree with him (many didn’t), then you admired him for it.

There’s a huge gulf between intelligence and wisdom. As we know, the Bible teaches that ‘The fool has said in his heart “There is no God.”’

He just strikes me as a smart aleck who didn’t care about humanity but placed a huge premium on being right rather than being loving. An intellectual bully boy.

It sounds like you’ve not read much of what he wrote. And I don’t mean just the anti fundamentalist stuff (some of which you might actually agree with).

We all have a set of skills and sometimes an opportunity to use them to make the world better place. His was a skill as a writer. And he used his skill in attacking those he thought made the world a worse place in which to live. Including those within religion but also politicians like Clinton and Kissinger (whom he evicerated).

If you can only give kudos when they are due to writers with whom you agree then you’ll tend only to read those writers.

 

[Freddy]

His favourite trick, that old one of taking Bible verses out of context and without the benefit of understanding was just down right deceit.

If he were as good a journalist as he claimed to be, he would have understood the importance of genre and context. Yet he misrepresented the Bible by ignoring these.

And as for his attack on Mother Theresa, I have to ask what gives him the right to judge her? And which of the acts of mercy did he perform in his lifetime, other than gulping down a bottle of scotch each day?

He attacked people’s interpretation of the bible. Of which there are very many. And what acts of mercy he performed is something neither.of us knows. Maybe more than both of us combined. His private life was just that.

And I don’t expect people to need to ‘earn’ a right to criticise anyone’s actions. If you see something that you consider.to be morally wrong, do you speak your mind or do you leave it to others you think have more right?

 

[BornInMarch]

And I don’t expect people to need to ‘earn’ a right to criticise anyone’s actions. If you see something that you consider.to be morally wrong, do you speak your mind or do you leave it to others you think have more right?

That’s right. The problem with telling a critic “get your own house in order!” is that there are no perfect humans on Earth. If flawed people weren’t allowed to criticize what they see as wrong then no flaw in society would ever be addressed, let alone solved.

 

[FiveLinden]

His favourite trick, that old one of taking Bible verses out of context and without the benefit of understanding was just down right deceit

You have an example?

And as for his attack on Mother Theresa, I have to ask what gives him the right to judge her?

Democracy? Freedom of opinion and speech?

 

[Maximian]

He went to the same college at Oxford as Bill Clinton. What more can I say?

 

[IanAG]

You have an example?

He misquoted Luke for a start, claiming that Jesus says that he came that the father would take up sword against son, mother against daughter. Nowhere in that verse does it use the word sword…

“Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.”
‭‭Luke‬ ‭12:51-53‬ ‭KJV‬‬

 

[IanAG]

Democracy? Freedom of opinion and speech?

Freedom comes with responsibility.

 

[IanAG]

And I don’t expect people to need to ‘earn’ a right to criticise anyone’s actions. If you see something that you consider.to be morally wrong, do you speak your mind or do you leave it to others you think have more right?

On what basis did he think that Mother Theresa was morally wrong? Why does he have the right to judge others and defame them publicly? Isn’t that morally wrong in itself? Oh, I suppose not if you’re a moral relativist.

It still doesn’t answer my key point that he felt he had the intelligence and insight to demolish four thousand years of the history of civilisation, developed by some of the greatest minds and most compassionate people, in order to replace it with what? Trotskyist communism? Oh, that’s going to end well lol .

Hitchens was, not for the first time, drawing on the conceptual repertoire of his quondam Trotskyism to justify his stance. In the critical idiom of Marxism in which he was educated, a “revolution from above” could mean many things. But one connotation, as he knew, was the establishment by force of “people’s democracies” in Eastern Europe after the second world war – in other words, Stalinist imperialism.

 

[FiveLinden]

Freedom comes with responsibility.

You were asking from where his right to criticise Mother Theresa came.

 

[FiveLinden]

He misquoted Luke for a start,

Where did he do this?

 

[IanAG]

Where did he do this?

In his “Is God Great” debate with Prof. John Lennox.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

And I don’t expect people to need to ‘earn’ a right to criticise anyone’s actions. If you see something that you consider to be morally wrong, do you speak your mind or do you leave it to others you think have more right?

On what basis did he think that Mother Theresa was morally wrong?

I’m not sure it’s a good idea to criticise Hitch’s right to criticise someone without knowing what his arguments were. You don’t have to agree with them but I’d expect you to know what they were.