Morality seems to be the issue. Hitchens talked about it constantly. Yet he was one of the most gluttonous people to have ever existed, and ultimately killed himself at an early age from a smoking habit he knew all along might kill him. Where is the personal morality in all this?
And now you want his opponents to not ridicule him, when he sought at every opportunity to “ridicule an opponent” (his words).
So, in the spirit of Hitchens, and to him personally (since he is more alive now than he has ever been), let me tell you (and him) that he was mostly self-serving, and only highly intelligent in one sense—being able to think and respond quickly.
His big problem was that he was incapable of thinking deeply, that is, he was devoid of metaphysical imagination, something he derided at every chance.
And right now, at this very moment, in every sense of its meaning, Hitchens wishes he would have separated God from religion in his attacks on religious intellectual errors, no matter how justified these attacks were, for some of them I agree with completely. But they were intellectual errors and not spiritual errors, for the spirit of God is always good.
Hitchens knows this now.
But he knows more than this now, too.
He knows that he should have chosen moderation and responsibility over excess and ruination.
He knows that it was blackness he poured over his soul, year after year, thought after thought, vulgarity after vulgarity, hatred after hatred, and on and on.
He knows that there is nothing more important than facing out death fit to stand before goodness itself.
In other words, the “big brother” God Hitchens ridiculed his whole life, was actually his hope, joy, and love.
And now he knows it.
And now every time you tip of your atheist hats to him, he hangs his head in shame again and again and again and ag…
