Savior According to Christopher

I didn't know that Christopher Hitchens died or that he was even dying until I read it on a friend's blog. After years of following political figures and commentators, I was enjoying a respite from all things National Review, Fox News, CNN, and Hardball. Which is probably, where I was first introduced to Mr. Hitchen's particular brand of reasoning, and to his brilliant, razor-witted style of argument. I was so enlightened by his well-reasoned defense of the Iraq war that I was moved to check out some little book of his from the library. As I read, I remember feeling  tricked since I had thought his drift from labeling himself as being of the "left" (correct for the most part, but not in the main) meant he must be a new sort of Conservative. He was not.

That realization and the issue of his staunch atheism (or as he referred to it "anti-theism"), led me to further view him as just a head-turning, thought-stimulating curiosity of intellectualism that need not concern me. Though I respectfully sat at attention whenever I had the pleasure of seeing him on the tele. He verbally traveled places with his opinions that believers and unbelievers alike would not dare. Mother Theresa was not even safe, and you had to admire it. You just had to.

Clever as he was, I'm not sure that his accent didn't elevate his arguments, nay, his beliefs to a seemingly higher level in the minds of some (It's the English accent alone which makes every common word they speak appear unquestionably erudite). (Said with an English accent.)

I have read that he described the adherents of Christianity as masochists who subjugate themselves to a divine dictator. He thought this trait of humanity our worst, and it irritated him. But it was there, at spiritual subjects, that he always left me because the argument that we, as supplicants of our faith, submit ourselves to the whims of a cruel, imaginary dictator ignores the fact that no dictator (that I know) ever waited for someone to accept (or elect) them of free will, but rather enthroned himself whether anybody agreed to it or not. So, based on my interpretation of this logic, Mr. Hitchen's belief that the Christian Savior can only be manufactured in our weak and needy human minds precludes those same weak and needy human minds from manufacturing such a concept to begin (And that is logical even though I say it with the lesser American accent).

I am so sorry he is dead. So sorry - along with the many, many other believers of this world who found much in common with him in these curious times. It is impossible not to admire a mind of that caliber. He was a captivating, honorable fellow. A man so well-spoken that I am impressed, despite myself, with the creative (though erroneous) words he used to describe my very own faith:

"It's a plagiarism of a plagiarism of a hearsay of a hearsay, of an illusion of an illusion, extending all the way back to a fabrication of a few nonevents."

No one has ever been so wrong with such style. However, just as Mr. Hitchens believes that we need a savior because we are weak and needy, so do I.