Hitchens has cancer

Hitchens has cancer

by A Person | Published on June 30th, 2010, 9:17 pm | Religion

Christopher Hitchens wrote:I have been advised by my physician that I must undergo a course of chemotherapy on my esophagus. This advice seems persuasive to me. I regret having had to cancel so many engagements at such short notice.

Prognosis won't be good. Damn.

Wow, thats bad. I never much agree with some of the man's politics, but he is brilliant. Here's to a speedy recovery.

I've seen one member of my family (well, my wife's family in fact) go through this type of cancer. I don't think there's much cause for optimism. But if so, good for Hitch.

I'm guessing he was a smoker. It tends to go hand in hand with writers.... well that and drinking... the price you pay for good writing?

Well, a lot of writers were recreational drug users, true. Not sure it's a requirement for great writing. I hope not. I would like to think I could be a great writer without going to that trouble.

Most wern't.

Writing is one of the few jobs where a drunk can operate.

Somebody said... write drunk, edit sober.

Compare Hitchens with Beck who can't resist milking a diagnosis of macular dystrophy for all the the mawkish sympathy he can.

Glenn quotes from Amazing Grace - oblivious that he seems to be doing it backwards. Maybe God is telling him something.

Doing a song backwards? The Beatles started that long ago in a galaxy far away.

The Topic of Cancer.

Hitchens talks about his cancer in his own inimitable style.

In one way, I suppose, I have been “in denial” for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light. But for precisely that reason, I can’t see myself smiting my brow with shock or hear myself whining about how it’s all so unfair: I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal that it bores even me. Rage would be beside the point for the same reason. Instead, I am badly oppressed by a gnawing sense of waste. I had real plans for my next decade and felt I’d worked hard enough to earn it. Will I really not live to see my children married? To watch the World Trade Center rise again? To read—if not indeed write—the obituaries of elderly villains like Henry Kissinger and Joseph Ratzinger? But I understand this sort of non-thinking for what it is: sentimentality and self-pity. Of course my book hit the best-seller list on the day that I received the grimmest of news bulletins, and for that matter the last flight I took as a healthy-feeling person (to a fine, big audience at the Chicago Book Fair) was the one that made me a million-miler on United Airlines, with a lifetime of free upgrades to look forward to. But irony is my business and I just can’t see any ironies here: would it be less poignant to get cancer on the day that my memoirs were remaindered as a box-office turkey, or that I was bounced from a coach-class flight and left on the tarmac? To the dumb question “Why me?” the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not
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Sounds like a very self-examining fellow. A modern disciple of Socrates, I suppose. I might disagree with him on some philosophical points, but as a fellow human, he has my great respect.

SOme people have unofficially pronounced today as "Everybody Pray For Hitchens Day”

Hitchens will not be participating

“I don’t mean to be churlish about any kind intentions, but when September 20 comes, please do not trouble deaf heaven with your bootless cries. Unless, of course, it makes you feel better.”

A better way to celebrate would be to watch a debate from Sept 7th with David Berlinski on the topic "Does atheism poison everything?” Losing his hair has not diminished his intellectual strength

My question would be "What, besides your average church service, has atheism poisoned AT ALL?" It has never occurred to me that not believing in any gods would poison anything.

I guess this would be on account of having lived in an atheist family all my life, I never encountered anything poisonous, so the concept seems alien to me. Presumably, those who grew up in a religious environment, knowing religion to be a normal part of life, knowing that there are non-believers WOULD seem rather unappetizing.

But POISONOUS?

:snooty:

A Person wrote:A better way to celebrate would be to watch a debate from Sept 7th with David Berlinski on the topic "Does atheism poison everything?” Losing his hair has not diminished his intellectual strength

I just got finished watching this video. I thought that one point at the end of Berlinski's time was of particular interest. He said (more or less) that atheism can't allow or answer the question of "what forces us to behave as we should?" I found it remarkable because he emphasized the word "forces." It made me wonder what he could have meant, because it should be obvious to even the most casual and sloppy observer that no one is forced to "behave as we should."

To make such a statement was ridiculous in the extreme. And to choose to make it at the point where it could not be responded to was, I expect, not a mistake on Berlinski's part. He may have a lot more time at his disposal to study history and philosophy than I do, but it seem to me that he has wasted it. His point HAS been answered, most thoroughly, by science. The fact that he puts it forward in spite of the facts indicates an intellectual dishonesty that I've long come to expect from members of the frickin' Discovery Institute.

What was ludicrous was his analogy that electrons obey physical laws for the same kind of reason that humans obey social laws.

Other than the name there is little similarity between physical laws - which describe the behaviour of natural phenomena and social laws obeyed by sentient animals by choice and threat of punishment. Or does he imagine electrons with free will wondering whether to go through a transistor or whether to disobey and go the other way and end up in a capacitor jail?

Berlinski is a nincompoop

This is one of the major drawbacks of discussing religious matters in a "debate" format. The opponents are limited in time and format to discuss their points, and Berlinski made full use of his time to pack so much absurdity into his turns that there was no way for Hitchens to respond to all of them. So he managed to respond very eloquently to several of them, which was good. But a huge load of tripe remained unaddressed, which would be frustrating to any reasonable person.

I guess that you take that as expected when you enter into a debate. And it's better than what you get on weekend political talk shows when you end up with people shouting over each other and talking points getting fired at a rate of 20-30 per minute.

Perhaps the blog format is better suited to such discussions. Assuming that you get parties that are dedicated to trying to be reasonable and civil (I know -- good luck), you can take the time to address all points that are made and have a clear, easily readable record of all that was said.

I noted the "transcript" that accompanied this debate was woefully incorrect nearly all the time. Made me wonder what the transcriptionist was on when preparing it.