Moderated Book about Hitchens claims he almost converted

[jimbob]

It is odd that people seem insistent on repeating Chris's incompetent slurs. I mean do you really expect people to believe that because Blessed Theresa ran hospice for the poorest of the poor that she was a muderer? Please.

Chris was the last of the 19th century type of Brit, arrogant, drunken colonialist, virulently anti-Catholic bigot. He had more in common with Trevelyan than modern people.

It would be to his benefit if his name was associated with a Saint, instead his last decade means that his name is associated with neo-conservative warmongers like Cheney.

Maybe his history caused him to consider conversion as the author of the book suggests.

Unlikely, according to his son, who did watch him draw his final breaths.

Another from the Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...nversion-christopher-hitchens-defiant-to-last

Like the cleverest spin doctors, Taunton gets the Times and others to suggest that the man he debated and travelled with experienced a deathbed conversion without quite saying that he did. Christopher stared “into the depths of eternity”, allegedly. He teetered on the edge of faith but did not, even in Taunton’s account, fall for it. The naive reader is left suspecting that, if only he had lived longer, Hitchens would have turned into a holy roller.

I put the book aside last week. There seemed no need to write about Taunton, as Matthew d’Ancona and Padraig Reidy had already taken him to pieces with admirable vigour. But then Alexander Hitchens wrote back about that “bloody book”.

On the deathbed conversion – I spent my father’s final weeks and days at his bedside and watched him draw his final breath and die, and can assure you that there was no hint of any sort of conversion (as I’m sure you have already guessed). In fact, we barely spoke about religion at all except for joint expressions of frustration at the god botherers who made the rounds in the ICU and other units where dying people could be preyed upon by vulturous Christians.



I want to print what he said because lies on the web can last for ever and need to be countered. Indeed, they have always needed to be countered. In the 19th century, American believers claimed Tom Paine had died “howling and terrified”, recanting his assaults on organised religion and the reliability of the Bible.

It is also in line with what he himself said. To paraphrase, there was a chance that in the process of dying, as his faculties shut down he would no longer be the person he was, and with vastly diminished intellect, the shell of a person that he had become might develop a faith. That would not have been him. There is also no reason, other than this book to believe that he even considered it. Given how the author describes Hitchens' friends, he doesn't sound like someone to confide in.

 

[ddt]

Is this a joke? I intentionally left out Hitchens decade long cheerleading with brutal offensive war against Muslims and Iraq:



He was a racist bigoted drunken chickenhawk.

This is not a joke. I vehemently disagree with Hitchens' stance on the Iraq war. He was also dismissive of the claim that waterboarding is torture, but he had the balls to take up the challenge to be waterboarded himself, and after that, admitted he had been wrong.



I'm still waiting for Shrub, Darth Cheney or Rummy to waterboarded themselves and afterwards claim it was a walk in the park.

 

[catsmate]

It is odd that people seem insistent on repeating Chris's incompetent slurs.

What "incompetent slurs" are those? Feel free to post any factual errors Hitchens made, if you can.

 

[The Big Dog]

What "incompetent slurs" are those? Feel free to post any factual errors Hitchens made, if you can.

well, where to start? he claimed that Orthodox Jews have sex through a hole in a sheet, he thinks all Jews that keep Kosher are fundamentalists, he claimed that Pope Pius IX was friends with Mussolini despite the fact that Pius died several years before Mussolini was born... In fact there is a poster on this very website who wrote to Hitchens correcting many of his errors, and I hope that poster will shortly step forward.

Perhaps most importantly is that Hitchens does not face up to his sheer ignorance of Calcutta, Religious people in general and his own extraordinary bigotry. The drunken clown was an anti-Catholic fanatic that would put know-nothings like the KKK to shame.

 

[Darat]

well, where to start? he claimed that Orthodox Jews have sex through a hole in a sheet, he thinks all Jews that keep Kosher are fundamentalists, he claimed that Pope Pius IX was friends with Mussolini despite the fact that Pius died several years before Mussolini was born... In fact there is a poster on this very website who wrote to Hitchens correcting many of his errors, and I hope that poster will shortly step forward.

Perhaps most importantly is that Hitchens does not face up to his sheer ignorance of Calcutta, Religious people in general and his own extraordinary bigotry. The drunken clown was an anti-Catholic fanatic that would put know-nothings like the KKK to shame.

What about the criticism (many of which are the same as those Hitchens popularised) by say someone who actually worked at one of her hospices or lived in Calcutta when she was finding fame?

 

[catsmate]

well, where to start? <snip>

Perhaps with something to do with his claims about Anjezë Bojaxhiu?

 

[catsmate]

What about the criticism (many of which are the same as those Hitchens popularised) by say someone who actually worked at one of her hospices or lived in Calcutta when she was finding fame?

Do you mean Aroup Chatterjee? He worked at one of her "hospices" and is immensely critical of her exaggeration of the work she did among the poor, her failures to use (or account for) the very large sums of money donated to her to actually help the poor and suffering, the atrocious medical care given to people in the homes run by the Missionaries of Charity and more. Robin Fox also damned her order's lack of medical care, saying patents died regularly because of the lack of actual care. Her "houses" spread more disease than they cured.

Besides that there's her support for Indira Gandhi's suspension of civil liberties, her endorsement of the murderous scum Duvalier, her praise for the fraudster Charles Keating.....

 

[Joey McGee]

He apologized for including that joke about the whole in the sheet, and corrected it in further versions. Eating what a book tells you to eat is pretty much fundamentalist, not sure what that's all about. Pope Pius XI, not IX, if he really did make that typo, who the **** cares? Hitchens was Jewish btw.

That's all of the substance you have? That's pretty sad.

 

[Desert Fox]

Do you mean Aroup Chatterjee? He worked at one of her "hospices" and is immensely critical of her exaggeration of the work she did among the poor, her failures to use (or account for) the very large sums of money donated to her to actually help the poor and suffering, the atrocious medical care given to people in the homes run by the Missionaries of Charity and more. Robin Fox also damned her order's lack of medical care, saying patents died regularly because of the lack of actual care. Her "houses" spread more disease than they cured.

Besides that there's her support for Indira Gandhi's suspension of civil liberties, her endorsement of the murderous scum Duvalier, her praise for the fraudster Charles Keating.....

There is also Susan Shields
http://www.arcticbeacon.com/articles/6-Jun-2007.html

or Hemley Gonzalez
http://bigthink.com/daylight-atheism/hemley-gonzalez-the-truth-about-mother-teresa

 

[The Big Dog]

Do you mean Aroup Chatterjee? He worked at one of her "hospices" and is immensely critical of her exaggeration of the work she did among the poor, her failures to use (or account for) the very large sums of money donated to her to actually help the poor and suffering, the atrocious medical care given to people in the homes run by the Missionaries of Charity and more. Robin Fox also damned her order's lack of medical care, saying patents died regularly because of the lack of actual care. Her "houses" spread more disease than they cured.

Besides that there's her support for Indira Gandhi's suspension of civil liberties, her endorsement of the murderous scum Duvalier, her praise for the fraudster Charles Keating.....

Cripes no one questions that the Hospices were poorly run by WESTERN STANDARDS, heck I already pointed that out. Theresa was not running a WESTERN hospice, she was trying to run one catering to the untouchables in the slums of Calcutta.

And Theresa did meet with and accept donations from people who might even have been considered criminal, and Jesus our lord did say:

Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Now to put an end to this, Theresa wrote to Saddam and Bush the Elder begging them to avoid warfare, and went to Baghad to care for the injured.

Hitchens wrote "A war to be proud of."

One thinks that settles that.

 

[Joey McGee]

One could be forgive for running a hospice that was poor by Western Standards before contact with millions of dollars and a chorus of doctors criticizing the care, after that, one should be expected to take the newfound knowledge and apply it, but that's not what happened, yours is a defense that is not a defense. Like as if we criticized mothers for not having their children vaccinated, and you saying well, they are in the third world... they are refusing because they believe vaccines are a conspiracy to make their girls infertile, just like Agnes believed that suffering was good and beautiful and God wanted them to die and that they would be rewarded for their patient suffering with extra grapes at the alter of Jehovah.

 

[Joey McGee]

People get hurt and die in war, less people get enslaved and tortured and murdered by Saddam now, that's a good thing.

 

[ComfySlippers]

...

One thinks that settles that.

One thinks wishfully.
Teresa was an evil old goat who didn't believe in your god.

Another example of how even your own heroes don't believe in your god crap.

 

[Desert Fox]

Now to put an end to this, Theresa wrote to Saddam and Bush the Elder begging them to avoid warfare, and went to Baghad to care for the injured.

All I get when I google "Mother Teresa baghdad" is about a different woman who was inspired by the image of what she thought Mother Teresa was.

 

[catsmate]

Cripes no one questions that the Hospices were poorly run by WESTERN STANDARDS, heck I already pointed that out.

Again you're trying to obfuscate matters; they were poorly run by local standards. They spread disease and allowed people to die unnecessarily.

<snip>

I see you;'re avoiding engaging with the lack of accountability of the millions donated. What did happen to all that money, give under false pretenses, to help the people of India?

One thinks that settles that.

Indeed it does. Just not in the way you're trying to portray.

 

[The Big Dog]

Teresa was an evil old goat who didn't believe in your god.

Another example of how even your own heroes don't believe in your god crap.

Curious, I guess that claiming Blessed Theresa of Calcutta's doubts means she "didn't believe in your god" is a score for the anti-theist side or something? I am certain that I am not the only one that noted the irony, given the OUTRAGE that followed the mere suggestion that Chris might have considered conversion?

As for his fetish over the war, let us compare:

Please choose the way of peace. ... In the short term there may be winners and losers in this war that we all dread. But that never can, nor never will justify the suffering, pain and loss of life your weapons will cause. Mother Teresa, -- Letter to U.S. President George Bush and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, January 1991. Indian (Albanian-born) humanitarian & missionary (1910 - 1997)

"Prison conditions at Abu Ghraib have improved markedly and dramatically since the arrival of Coalition troops in Baghdad." St. Chris of the Still

Unfortunately cancer caught Chris too early, and did not give Chris time to write his magnus opus which I think he would have titled: "Dick Cheney -- Hero of Baghdad" or something, and unlike his polemics against Mother Theresa, this one would have had a footnote!

 

[Joey McGee]

People went to jail over Abu Gharib and he supported that effort of prosecution. Plus, his claim is actually correct, being forced to watch your family tortured to death is another level. This is what he meant. But, 99% of people reading this already know that, and the other .5% don't care. I leave the other .5% for the philosophers.

 

[Desert Fox]

Again you're trying to obfuscate matters; they were poorly run by local standards. They spread disease and allowed people to die unnecessarily.

I see you;'re avoiding engaging with the lack of accountability of the millions donated. What did happen to all that money, give under false pretenses, to help the people of India?

If she actually was operating on a shoestring budget, I might be more forgiving myself. Imagine if her organization was like the Himalayan Trust?

 

[catsmate]

If she actually was operating on a shoestring budget, I might be more forgiving myself. Imagine if her organization was like the Himalayan Trust?

Only a tiny fraction of the money donated went to her dying houses; what exactly happened to the rest isn't known.

 

[jimbob]

Only a tiny fraction of the money donated went to her dying houses; what exactly happened to the rest isn't known.

Miraculous vanishing?