Hitch-22

Along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens was the most prominent atheist of his generation. For me, he was an orator, bluffing his way through debates about Christianity by appeal to sentiment and zippy one-liners. 

Atheists pride themselves on their superior rationality, but human beings aren't logic boxes. Emotion and experience are powerful factors which predispose us to or against religion. Christopher had an emotionally distant relationship with his father. He was a Navy brat with a nomadic childhood. He spent more of his formative years away from home in boarding schools, where he indulged in adolescent homosexual trysts. His spirited but restless mother, whom he clearly adored, had abortions and affairs, culminating in suicide. 

From the ages of eight to eighteen I was to be away from home for most of the year and the crucial rites of passage, from the pains of sexual maturity to the acquisition of friends, enemies, and an education took place outside the bonds of family. 

And I, well, I was impatient to outgrow my family and fly the nest, and in the vacations from Oxford as well as after I graduated and moved impatiently and ambitiously to London, I didn't go home any more than I had to. 

It was also at about that time–throwing all caution, as they say, to the winds–that she told me she had had an abortion, both before my own birth, and after it.

And I still have a rather sharp pang whenever I come to that corner of Shaftesbury Avenue where I kissed her goodbye, because she had been absolutely everything to me in her way and because I was never ever going to see her again. 

…she telephoned me in London (and this is certainly the last time that I was to hear her voice)…and though I didn't know it, we bid farewell. I would give a very great deal to be able to start that conversation over again. 

…I was lying in bed one morning with a wonderful new girlfriend when the telephone rang to disclose, as I lifted the receive, the voice of an old girlfriend…Did I know where my mother was? Had I listed to that morning's BBC news? No. Well, there was a short report about a woman with my surname having been found murdered in Athens. I felt everything in me somehow flying out behind my toes. What? Perhaps no need to panic, said Melissa sweetly. Had I see that morning's London Times? No. Well, there was another brief print report about the same event. But listen, would there have been a man involved? Would this woman called Hitchens…have been traveling with anybody? Yes, I said, and gave the probable or presumable name. "Oh dear, then I'm very sorry but it probably is your mum." 

My mother had not been murdered. She had, with her lover, contracted a pact of suicide. She took an overdose of sleeping pills, perhaps washed down with a mouthful or two of alcohol…I shall never be sure what depth of misery had made this outcome seem to her the sole recourse: on the hotel's switchboard record were several attempted calls to my number in London which the operated had failed to connect. Who knows what might have changed if Yvonne could have heard my voice even in her extremity? I might have said something to cheer or even tease her: something to set against her despair and perhaps give her a momentary purchase against the death wish.

A second-to-last piece of wretchedness almost completes this episode. Whenever I hear the dull world "closure," I am made to realize that I, at least, will never achieve it. This is because the Athens police made me look at a photograph of Yvonne as she had been discovered. I will tell  you nothing about this except that the scene was decent and peaceful but that she was off the bed and on the floor, and that the bedside telephone had been dislodged from its cradle. It's impossible to "read" this bit of forensic with certainty, but I shall always have to wonder if she had briefly regained consciousness, or perhaps even belatedly regretted her choice, and tried at the very last to stay alive. 

At all events, this is how it ends. I am eventually escorted to the hotel suite where it all happened. The two bodies had had to be removed, and their coffins sealed, before I could get there. This was for the dismally sordid reason that the dead couple had taken a while to be discovered. The pain of this is so piercing and exquisite, and the scenery of the two rooms so nasty and so tawdry, and I hide my tears and my nausea by pretending to seek some air at the window. And there, for the first time, I receive a shattering, full-on view of the Acropolis…The room behind me is full of death and darkness and depression, but suddenly here again and fully present is the flash and dazzle and brilliance of the green, blue, and white of the life-giving Mediterranean air and light…I only wish I could have been clutching my mother's hand for this, too.

Yvonne, then, was the exotic and the sunlit when I could easily have had a boyhood of stern and dutiful English gray. She was the cream in the coffee, the gin in the Campari, the offer of wine or champagne instead of beer, the laugh in the face of bores and purse-mouths and skinflints… C. Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir (2010). 

Worshiping a Bronze Age sky fairy

1. I'd like to comment on two contradictory objections to Christianity. Before I do that, a preliminary observation: There's a certain dilemma in Christian apologetics. Do we respond to the sophisticated atheists or the village atheists? Normally, you want to take on the toughest opponents of your position. If you focus on the most naive objections to Christianity, that's too easy. It looks like you're ducking the more formidable objections. However, village atheists outnumber sophisticated atheists by a million to one, so there's a problem with ignoring all the dumb objections, if that's the level at which most atheists operate. If we're too elitist, we're ignoring most atheists. Mind you, when atheists start talking about sky fairies and invisible pink unicorns, intelligent dialogue is futile. 

2. Back to the main point: on the one hand, Christopher Hitchens used to recycle an argument as part of his stump speech when debating Christians. It went something like this: modern man is said to be about 100,000-200,000 years old. Yet according to the Bible, God only revealed himself to Abraham 4,000 years ago and Moses 3200 years ago, while the climax of redemption occurred 2000 ago. For 99% of human history, God said and did nothing. 

So his argument is that Biblical theism is too late. If God existed, we'd expect him to intervene far earlier in human history. He wouldn't let humans suffer in darkness for such a long time. 

3. However, it's more common for atheists to raise this objection: why should we believe the stories of Bronze Age goatherds? 

That argument, if you can call it an argument, is just the opposite. The objection is that Biblical theism is too early. Too primitive. Too archaic. If God existed, he'd wait until the era of modern science to reveal himself. 

Of course, both these arguments can't be true. It can't be the case that biblical theism lacks credibility both because it's too early and too late. 

4. In addition to the contradiction, we might assess the objections individually, on their own terms. Genesis is a very truncated history. It skips over many intervening events and periods. We need to be cautious about inferring what God didn't say or do from what he's recorded as having said and done. The fact that Genesis is silent on many fronts doesn't mean God was silent. The fact that most things go unreported doesn't mean God was in absentia. 

5. Is there any antecedent reason to presume God wouldn't reveal himself to Bronze Age goatherds? Does the message of salvation require a grasp of modern physics, set theory, and fractal geometry? Does redemption require a space-age setting?

How future is modern enough? Suppose the Incarnation took place in the 20C, and the Second Coming takes place in the 26C. Imagine a 25C atheist complaining about those primitive people back in 20C Europe and North America.  

Disillusioned atheism

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2019/01/25/the-train-wreck-that-was-the-new-atheism/

"The celestial dictatorship"

Why are we answerable to God? What's the basis for divine sovereignty? For instance, I've seen atheists say that even if God made us, that doesn't impose an absolute obligation. After all, the fact that parents create their children doesn't mean parents own their kids. It doesn't mean parents have authority over their grown children. Take Christopher Hitchens and his trope about the "celestial dictatorship"? 

i) The parental analogy definitely has limitations. But before we move away from that, it's worth exploring. There are traditional cultures in which parents do have lifelong authority over their kids. I believe you have that in traditional Asian culture. Filial piety. I also remember a scene from War and Peace (Bondarchuk) where Prince Andrei must seek his father's permission to marry a particular woman. 

Now, I'm not saying I agree with that. My cultural conditioning is different. But from a secular standpoint, what makes one culture morally superior to another? 

ii) Although I don't think grown children are answerable to their parents, nevertheless, if they had conscientious parents, they do have a lifelong obligation to their parents. It isn't isn't just because their parents created them, but because their parents raised them. In that regard, grown children may have greater duties to adoptive parents than biological parents. 

iii) Of course, there's a sense in which kids are supposed to outgrow their parents. Become independent. Able to provide for themselves. Indeed, able to provide for their elderly parents. 

Parents and children share a common nature, so children become the equal of their parents, or may even surpass them in some ways. Some parents are wise while others are foolish or evil. But even wise parents are fallible. 

iv) Hence, the comparison with God breaks down in several respects. We never outgrow God. He's infinitely our intellectual superior. We always depend on him for everything. For being and well-being. 

v) A somewhat better analogy is the relationship between an android and a cyberneticist. The cyberneticist didn't merely create the android. He designed the android. He knows everything about the android. He knows more about the android that it knows about itself. He knows better than the android what is best for the android. 

Of course, in scifi lore, the android has the capacity to overtake the cyberneticist. Become his superior, having superhuman knowledge, intelligence, speed, power, and longevity. 

So once again, the analogy breaks down, but in a way that reinforces divine prerogatives. It isn't sheer authority, but authority based on a being who is in every respect our superior. 

v) In Christian theology, not only is there a debt to creation and providence, but a greater debt to redemption. That, too, has human analogies. Take a man who endangers himself to save the life of another. Or a guy who gives another guy a second chance, even though the other guy doesn't deserve it. Actions like that create asymmetrical obligations. 

The invention of writing

Christopher Hitchens had a stock objection to Christianity. He recycled this objection in multiple debates. He'd rehearse the antiquity of man on conventional dating schemes, then point out that for most of human history, God did nothing to prevent human suffering, and then, 2000 years ago, he intervenes in a Third World backwater.

As I've pointed out before, that objection reflects his theological ignorance. The purpose of the atonement was never to eliminate suffering, but to make it possible for God to justly forgive sinners.

But there's another issue. According to current archeological information, writing was only invented about 5000 years ago, in the ancient Near East. Suppose the atonement took place 70,000 years ago. There'd be no written record to copy and disseminate knowledge about that event. Writing is a medium of mass communication. Until the advent of writing, it would be impossible to accurately preserve and widely disseminate a public record of the atonement. And not coincidentally, the site of the atonement is also the site where written languages first evolved. Moreover, pictograms are ambiguous. It took longer to develop alphabetic writing systems. 

A tale of two Hitchens

https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/article/a-tale-of-two-hitchens/383/

A tale of two cancer patients

Nabeel Qureshi and Christopher Hitchens both died of cancer. Both had powerful inducements to recant their views: Hitchens to recant his atheism, and Nabeel to recant his Christian conversion. Both died as they lived. Hitchens died for nothing while Nabeel died for everything. 

Magic button

In his debate with Christopher Hitchens, David Berlinski proposed the following thought-experiment:

I have in front of me a rather remarkable button. If you should press it, yours would be untold riches and whatever else you desire. The only consequence to pressing it beyond your happiness is the death of an anonymous Chinese peasant. Who among us would you trust with this button?

That's a provocative way to frame the choice between Christian ethics and secular ethics. Let's tease it out:

i) The debate was somewhat paradoxical inasmuch as Hitchens is an atheist while Berlinski is a secular Jew. So you might reasonably predict that they'd be in essential agreement. Why, then, is Berlinski defending the Judeo-Christian faith and attacking atheism?

To begin with, I believe Berlinski is an agnostic rather than an atheist. Perhaps he feels atheism is dangerous in a way that agnosticism is not. In practice, if not in theory, atheism is a social movement. 

Just before offering his thought-experiment about the button, he quotes Heinrich Himmler's statement: "After all, what compels us to keep our promises?" And he said earlier that the genocidal secular regimes of the 20C did not believe in any power higher than their own. 

So he may feel that atheism is threatening in a way that agnosticism is not, in part because atheists suffer from a dangerous conviction that man's not answerable to anyone higher than himself, which in turn emboldens them to act with ruthless impunity. They have no external moral restraint.

Moreover, atheism is a cause in a way that agnosticism is not. Atheists are moral crusaders, bent on setting things right. They suffer from indubitable belief in the utter rightness of their perspective. Having deposed God, they now occupy the position God used to occupy. They combine a totalitarian impulse with a utopian agenda. Since their utopian goals require everyone to get on board, they brook no dissent. Everyone must cooperate–or else! 

Furthermore, humanitarian ends justify inhumane means. That's the price of perfectionism.  

That interpretation would be consistent with Berlinski's historical examples, viz. Stalinism, Maoism, Nazism, the Khmer Rouge. Perhaps he thinks agnosticism is innocuous because it lacks the messiah complex of atheism. 

It's possible that Berlinski supports civil religion for pragmatic reasons. Maybe he thinks isolated individuals can be decent without religious morality, but that's exceptional. 

Or perhaps he thinks agnosticism is safe so long as agnostics are in the minority. Perhaps he's a reluctant agnostic. Maybe he regrets the fact that he lacks religious faith. And he appreciates the benefits of Judeo-Christian social ethics. That framework makes it possible for agnostics like him to survive and thrive. If so, his position is reminiscent of Bertrand Russell's illustration:

Let us take theft, for example. A community in which everybody steals is inconvenient for everybody, and it is obvious that most people can get more of the sort of life they desire if they live in a community where theft is rare. But in the absence of laws and morals and religion a difficulty arises: for each individual, the ideal community would be one in which everybody else is honest and he alone is a thief. It follows that a social institution is necessary if the interest of the individual is to be reconciled with that of the community. This is effected more or less successfully by the criminal law and the police. But criminals are not always caught, and. the police may be unduly lenient to the powerful. If people can be persuaded that there is a God who will punish theft, even when the police fail, it would seem likely that this belief would promote honesty. Given a population that already believes in God, it will readily believe that God has prohibited theft. The usefulness of religion in this respect is illustrated by the story of Nahoth's vineyard where the thief is the king, who is above earthly justice.

iii) An atheist might object on the grounds that a Christian is not immune to temptation. That's true, but when Christians do wrong, there's a standard by which to judge their wrongdoing, whereas atheists have no standard higher than themselves, which is no standard at all. Any rule you make you can break. 

Moreover, it's far less tempting for a Christian, because he doesn't think this life is a zero-sum game. He can afford to lose in the short-term. There's a long-term payoff that awaits him in the afterlife.  

iv) Honestly, if you thought this life was all there is, if you could have untold riches and whatever else you desire by killing a stranger, and get away with it, would it not be irrational for an atheist to resist the temptation? Everything to gain and nothing to lose. Why should he consider the life of a stranger more valuable than untold riches and whatever else he desires? Let your imagination run free. For that matter, what if the cost is not a stranger but a friend? 

v) An atheist might object that this means a Christian would do the same thing were it not for fear of divine punishment. Even if that's true, deterrents like that make the world a safer place.

vi) There is, however, more to it than that. It's not just about reward and punishment, It's not just about a heavenly incentive or a hellish disincentive. If he's consistent, when a heavenbound Christian sees a hellbound sinner, he thinks to himself, "That could just as well be me! I'm no more deserving than he is."

So he doesn't view a stranger as a rival who vies with him for happiness. Rather, redemption gives him a sense of empathy. Since he was once where they were, he hopes they will be where he is. To take a few related examples, teenage boys have been known to do foolhardy things. Suppose two or three classmates and I trespass on someone's property. There's a fence. It says "Private Property: No Trespassing!" And it has a warning sign: "Beware of quicksand!"

But we climb over the fence, split up, and explore the property. We can't see each other because trees obscure the view. Then I step into quicksand. I call for help. The owner happens to be nearly and pulls me out. He didn't have to. What I did was reckless. And I'm a trespasser. I have no excuse. 

Then I hear one of my classmates calling for help. I follow the voice and pull him out of the quicksand. Just as the owner saved me from drowning in quicksand, I spare my classmate that fate.

Or suppose my classmates and I go boating despite a threatening weather forecast. Our rowboat capsizes. We swim, but we're getting cold and tired. Just in the nick of time someone with a more seaworthy vessel comes by and fishes me out of the water. I then fish my classmates out of the water. 

Or suppose I escape from a concentration camp. But I'm expected, if at all possible, to return with reinforcements to liberate the camp and rescue my fellow inmates.

Or suppose I grow up in the Hood. I'm a juvenile delinquent. One day a street evangelist shows up from out of town. He comes everyday for several weeks. Befriends me. Eventually I convert. As a result I turn my life around and get out of the Hood, since that's a bad place to start a family. But I come back to do street evangelism. I come back for those left behind. 

Does a good God exist?

https://billdembski.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Does-a-Good-God-Exist-debate-with-Christopher-Hitchens.pdf

Outgrowing God

One atheist trope is that Christian faith is childish. We have a duty to wean ourselves from immature belief a celestial father-figure. 

To that many things could be said, but for now I'd point out that the very atheists who say this often adopt a paternalistic tone of disapproval. They themselves assume the role of father-figures. If you refuse to heed their fatherly advice, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett, Dawkins, Coyne, Stenger et al. will be disappointed in you. Don't you wish to make them proud of you?

Essentially, then, they become substitute father gods. They play on the very psychology they impute to Christian believers. 

Debating Hitchens

I recently viewed or read (where transcripts are available) severals debates between Christopher Hitchens and sundry opponents (e.g. Craig, McGrath, Turek, Wilson, Wolpe). Two of the best debate with were with William Dembski and Jay Richards.

In some respects, Hitchens is an excellent debater. He has a strong, warm, resonant baritone voice. He's articulate and eloquent. He can pivot. He projects tremendous moral and intellectual self-assurance. 

However, at least where religious debates are concerned, part of what makes him so smooth is that he repeats himself from one debate to the next. He has a stump speech which he rehashes with stylistic variations. He uses the same illustrations, the same one-liners. Ironically, you can sound more spontaneous when you've memorized a script. You're never at a loss for words. You have ready-made arguments and phrases at your fingertips. This gives him an advantage over opponents who've only done it once or twice. 

However, this also means that for all his intellectual posturing, Hitchens never revises his formulaic objections in response to counterarguments. When he's corrected in one debate, he recycles the same errors in the next debate. Or he recycles the same errors in the very same debate. He lacks the intellectual honesty to accept correction. He refuses to learn. 

For instance, he constantly appeals to a moral knowledge. When it's pointed out to him, time and again, that he can't justify moral norms, that bounces right off him. Is he really so obtuse that he can never absorb the distinction between moral epistemology and moral ontology? Or does he appreciate he difference, but he ignores it because he doesn't have a good answer? 

In terms of delivery, Dembski is not a natural debater. He has a thin voice. He was reading off his computer screen rather than making eye contact with the audience. He's technical and clinical. 

But in terms of substance, he beat Hitchens hands down. Hitchens is completely out of his element when debating evolution with Dembski. And he's no match for Dembski on metaethics. Dembski is brilliant and erudite. Has a lot in reserve. Has lots of facts at his fingertips. Hitchens is a much better orator, but Dembski is a much the better thinker. Very analytical and precise. Although atheists pride themselves on rationality, Hitchens relies on rhetorical ability while Dembski appeals to reason and evidence. 

Jay Richards has a better delivery than Dembski. Strong speaking voice. Although he's dry compared to Hitchens, Richards is very focussed. Great presence of mind. Never loses his train of thought. Can turn on a dime. 

It's also interesting to compare Hitchens in the two debates. In his debate with Dembski, he was suffering from the effects of cancer and cancer therapy, so his performance was more low-key. In addition, he was speaking in church, so he toned things down to avoid antagonizing his audience.

In his debate with Richards, by contrast, he was robust. But although he started out charming, it degenerated as he became cocky and boorish. A rhetorical bully and braggart. When addressing a sympathetic audience, he showed his true colors.

I'm going to comment on some of his statements in the debate with Dembski, then comment on some of his statements in the debate with Richards. I won't comment on most of what he said, in part because I've discussed those issues on multiple occasions. Also, Dembski and Richards did a good job of fielding his objections.   

What's the point of the atonement?

In his debate with John Lennox, Christopher Hitchens said that for the first 98,000 years of human suffering, God watches this with perfect insouciance. Finally, God says we have to intervene now. We have to do something about this. What would be the best way to intervene to redeem this rather bleak picture? What about having someone tortured to death in an obscure part of the Middle East? That ought to cure it. 

Likewise, in his debate with John Lennox, Richard Dawkins said it's "petty and small-minded" to think the creator of the cosmos (if he existed) would come to this speck of dust to rid the world of sin. That fails to do justice to the grandeur of the universe. 

Several problems:

i) I wonder what Christian theologians, if any, Hitchens and Dawkins ever read. What's their source of information regarding the purpose of the atonement? Or is this just an applause line? 

ii) The purpose of the atonement is not to rid the world of sin or suffering. If you're going to cast the issue in terms of ridding the world of something, the purpose of the atonement is to rid the world of guilt, not sin or suffering. The point is not to eradicate sin or suffering. That's the purpose of Judgment Day. Rather, the point of the atonement is to satisfy divine justice so that God can justly forgive sinners. So, yes, you have sin and suffering both before and after the atonement. That's not a failure of the atonement. The atonement accomplished precisely what it was aiming at. In particular, to make atonement for the sins of the elect. 

God will indeed eradicate the world of sin and suffering. More precisely, God will glorify believers and separate them from the wicked. But that's a different action than the atonement. 

iii) I'd add that 1C Jerusalem was hardly an "obscure part of the Middle East". Again, maybe that's just another applause line, but it's rhetorical rather than factual. 

iv) Finally, Dawkins stresses how supposed incongruous it would be for God to come to our little planet to rid the universe of sin. But that's like saying it's "petty and small-minded" for physicians to go where there's an outbreak. Of all the awesome and scenic parts of the world to choose from, why would they go to some Third World hellhole? The answer, as Jesus said, is that physicians tend to the sick, not the heathy. You go where there's a need. 

Suppose we're the only intelligent creatures in the universe. Or suppose we're the only fallen creatures in the universe. Naturally, God would zero in on our planet. If sinners are earthlings, wouldn't we expect God to intervene on planet earth? 

For that matter, even if there were other fallen creatures in the universe whom God redeemed, why assume we'd know about it? Indeed, that would be distracting information. 

The Faith of Christopher Hitchens

http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/webexclusives/2016/april/faith-of-christopher-hitchens.html?paging=off

Do miracles really violate the laws of science?

http://www.slate.com/bigideas/are-miracles-possible/essays-and-opinions/timothy-mcgrew-opinion

Apologetic issues in the OT

http://biologos.org/blog/apologetic-issues-in-the-old-testament-part-1

http://biologos.org/blog/apologetic-issues-in-the-old-testament-part-2

http://biologos.org/blog/apologetic-issues-in-the-old-testament-part-3

The Most Misunderstood Book: Christopher Hitchens on the Bible

Make allowance for the fact that this is by a Mormon reviewer:

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=21&num=2&id=773

The rage of unbelief

"The Rage of Unbelief" by Robin Schumacher.

Hitchens' irreligion

These consumer reviews at Amazon raise the question of whether Hitchens’ irreligion had an emotional source of origin in boyhood trauma and adolescent rebellion. 

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating life March 24, 2010

By CGScammell TOP 500 REVIEWER

It's really quite fascinating that Christopher Hitchens had as normal a life as he had considering all the events he experienced early in life. He starts his memoir with the suicide-homicide of his mother and her lover in the first chapter, then continues on with his commander dad. His parents alone were quite a contrasting couple that only stayed together because divorce carried such a stigma. Then he experienced boarding schools where bullying was quite common and where boys experimented with their sexuality.

Enjoyable and Enlightening Memoir by a Complex Man April 15, 2010

By A Central Illinoisian in Chicago VINE™ VOICE

What I found most enlightening about his memoir is his memories of boarding school. Many reviews and articles about Hitch 22 will focus on the Hitchens' statements about the high degree of homosexual activity that he says existed in the boarding schools he attended. His claims (which I have no logical reason to doubt) seem pretty stunning to me, a small town boy from the Midwest, but what I find most interesting how his perspective on religion seems to have been shaped by his schools.

Most Americans "get religion" through their families, and in my experience, see God and Church as something personal, rather than public. Hitchens on the other hand experienced religion as something that forbade the sexual experiences that he says were common in his schools (an oppressor of feeling and emotion), the presence of the State (Church of England) and "one more obligation" in his curriculum (compulsory attendance). The "hitch" however, was that while Hitchens HAD to go to Church services, his teachers could not force the students to worship or kneel. It seems intriguing that Hitchens chose to "resist" religion by not kneeling, in emulation of an older boy that he admired.

Now, I could be completely off base about this, but it seems as though Hitchens' antipathy to religion, was first established not on a mature consideration of faith and reason, but as the only available tactic for resisting the ever-present authority of the school and teachers that many of his readers will never face. Resisting religion ~may~ have been either the wellspring of what became a history of resisting authority and defying convention wisdom, or the first indication of that character he already had in him.

A tale of two writers

Ray Bradbury and Christopher Hitchens died within a few months of each other. Both men were gifted wordsmiths. Both men wrote about the human condition. But there the comparison ends.

Despite his linguistic virtuosity, most of Hitchens’ prolific output will be quickly forgotten. One reason is that so much of his writing is about politics. That’s inherently ephemeral. And, frankly, it’s not that interesting to begin with.

Unlike Bradbury, Hitchens was admired as an earnest and eloquent writer, but his writings will never be loved. Hitchens’ subject-matter is confining, because he writes about the real world. What is or was, not what might have been. The tyranny of the actual.

In addition, the world he writes about is a fallen world, without hope of redemption. The never-ending cycle of depravity. So his material is ultimately depressing. Imprisoning. Like Solzhenitsyn writing about life in a penal colony. Or describing the wallpaper in a mental ward.

Bradbury put his verbal dexterity to a very different use. He articulates an inarticulate yearning in the hearts of many readers. A yearning for lost youth. As well as a longing for unrealized possibilities.

His aliens worlds are scientifically absurd, but that’s not the point. They’re just a vivid literary device to explore alternate timelines. What might have been–in another life, in another world.

In that respect, his otherworldly material is far more appealing than Hitchens’ worldly material. Of course, some of Bradbury’s writings are political allegories. To that extent they’re concerned with the real world. But that’s not where his core appeal lies.

Still, there’s something ultimately unsatisfying about Bradbury’s vision. If Hitchens’ work is unsatisfying because it’s too realistic, Bradbury’s work is unsatisfying because it’s too unrealistic. Within his secular outlook, Bradbury’s possibilities are impossible possibilities. They tantalize the mind, taunting us with iridescent dreams of something forever out of reach.

An unenviable choice between Hitchens’ dyspeptic reality and Bradbury’s imaginary Eden. After escaping for a few hours into Bradbury’s fairy-tale world, we must return to Hitchens’ shard-glass reality. 

Only the Christian outlook does justice to both. On the one hand, reality is ultimately edifying inasmuch as reality is ultimately redeemed. What was lost is found.

On the other hand, our reality is one of God’s infinite possibilities, while our sheer possibilities are God’s infinite realities. All timelines play out in the immutable reality of God’s omniscient mind.

Bradbury’s writing also illustrates the symbiosis between life and art. Bradbury’s particular vision is inconceivable apart from the time and place of his birth and upbringing. His specific background makes all the difference.

Christopher Hitchens's Jewish Problem

http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/module/2010/12/13/main-feature/1/christopher-hitchenss-jewish-problem