Peter Foges is a film and television producer who was apparently a friend of Christopher Hitchens. Angered by a Times piece in which vulture Larry Alex Taunton touted his new book arguing that Hitchens was, at the end of his life, flirting with becoming a Christian, Foges wrote this response to Taunton in the Times:
It would be odd indeed if Taunton was the sole person to whom Hitchens confessed a leaning towards faith, while all of Hitchen’s other friends, colleagues, and loved ones saw nothing of the purported pre-conversion. Taunton, aware of how “deathbed conversion” stories of atheists appeal to Christians, simply wanted to capitalize on a friendship with a man who could no longer answer the calumny. I am not as charitable as Foges: I think Taunton was cashing in on something he knew was false.
h/t: Don B.
And another thing…atheists do not live on thin or phony conviction. They die the same as they live.
Me, too. I can’t see this sort of thing charitably.
I struggle to as well. Taunton might have convinced himself that there was some nugget to cling to in his self-justification, but the overwhelming evidence (including the videos etc. Jerry previously posted) is that the goldmine that was Hitchens’ mind remained atheist.
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I don’t care for the choice of expression “never buckled”. It’s as if he were resisting a truth with pure willpower.
I’d prefer something along the lines of “knew there was no solace in an absurd superstition”.
Well, he never buckled under the painful disintegration of his body by grasping at fictional straws.
That’s the way I read it, anyway.
Yes, I can interpret it properly, but there is still an odor about the phraseology that suggests passivity, which wasn’t Hitchens. While it may seem to be quibbling, I think the words we use both reveal and affect the way we think about things.
Agreed.
As a kid preachers would from time to time tell of atheist deathbed conversions, and the related lack of atheists in foxholes. Apparently this was red meat for the congregation, but even as a believing kid it left me flat. First, what consolation is it that our religion was embraced by desperate terrified people? It was almost as if fear were the only thing our religion had to recommend itself. Second, it was shockingly uncharitable coming from people who shout so much about love.
“it was shockingly uncharitable coming from people who shout so much about love”
There’s a lot of that about!
More christian wishful thinking, insanity, gish-galloping, and out right lies. Christopher Hitchen’s would never start believing in sky-fairies or any other such ridiculous nonsense no matter what his circumstance, he was a man of Reason and people who have reason don’t suddenly give it up for insanity.
Well, imo we don’t know what Mr. Hitchens would or would not believe while on his deathbed, but I agree that he probably wouldn’t abandon his atheism. But even if he did, it would be akin to “coercion”. Let’s focus on his ideas and reasoning that didn’t occur on his deathbed.
Quite. It’s exactly like the clearly falsified stories of an embrace of faith by Darwin on his deathbed. Even had it happened his life’s work is still valid and is independent of the whims of a time of great stress.
sub
How I wish Hitch’s last words would have been “Religion, Downfall.”
I love the desperation implied in the idea that “He read the Bible! He’s a Christian!” It makes Christianity sound like a playground game. “Hey, Chris, read this. Haha! You read part of the Bible, now you’re a Christian! Sucker!!!”
How many Christians have read the Bible from cover to cover? Those that do tend to become atheists. I’ve read the bloody thing, I was an atheist when I started it and I was still an atheist when I finished it.
Taunton’s allegation is childish, insecure, and conceitful. It’s as if a Nobel Laureate died who discovered asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction. Then another scientist who only peripherally knew him spouts, years after his death, that he really did not believe in what he discovered.
The motivation for such actions comes from blind faith that justifies dishonesty at all costs. Taunton’s claim is a irrational and immoral one.
I can’t imagine Christopher Hitchens backing down as he neared death, just as I can’t imagine responding that way myself. I may succumb to the blind, instinctive, fear of death that we share with most other animals but I’m determined not to deal with it by telling myself something that doesn’t make a bit of sense.
I find comfort in my confidence that there’s no afterlife and no such thing as a soul, that you are your brain and your brain is a sort of self-aware meat computer. As Epicurus guessed without the benefit of science, and Sam Harris scientifically deduced, there’s no need to fear death because it’s simple nonexistence, just like before you were born.
If you haven’t already seen it, please watch the first video that comes up on YouTube with a search for “Sam Harris afterlife”, and jump to 13:50. I don’t want to post the link here because of the way this site handles YouTube links.
I think you mean this one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PxcUGH0vv0
(You paste the URL into the edit box and **remove the http:// from the front of it**
WP then automagically reinserts the http://
This brought to you as a public service by cr)
cr
Those who would use the specious argument that simply because an atheist might be genuinely interested in religion, might read and read from the Bible or have any book of a religious nature in one’s library consititutes a sign that that person is flirting with religious belief or is a crypto-Christian, or whatever, are guilty of absurd and pathetic simple-minded wishful thinking. I used to have the Bible, the Koran and Kraaft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis in my library — is that an indication that, in my heart of hearts, I’m really a sexually depraved fundamentalist Christian Muslim or want to be one? No, just a curious atheist.
And, of course, the corollary of this is one you see even more often: that atheists shouldn’t care about religion at all. Why should we get so worked up about something we don’t think exists? Well, we’re not worked up about god per se; we’re worked up about the effects of religion on the society in which we have to live. Damn straight I’m interested in religion and the havoc it wreaks in the world.
I’m genuinely interested in all kinds of mythology.
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I’m currently working my way through Terry Pratchett’s ‘Discworld’ series, again.
This presumably means, according to Mr Taunton, that I’m seriously contemplating whether the earth is flat and powered by magic.
cr
Legend has it that WC Fields was reading the Bible as he neared death. Was he considering conversion? Nope. “Looking for loopholes” was his response.
“Christopher was in a difficult place,” Taunton said. “He’s a dying man. He asked me why I thought he didn’t convert. I said, ‘You’ve created a global reputation as an atheist, your fortune, your reputation is based on it. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to admit you were wrong. You created a prison for yourself.'”
Hey, O Taunting One, I had a dream where you told me:
“I am in a difficult place. I am dying from the efforts required to come across as a wise, sincere True Believer. But I have created a reputation as one, my fortune, reputation is based on my lies. It’s too hard to admit that I am full of opportunist greed disguised as Christian mercy. I created a prison for myself. But one bar on the prison window can be pried apart if I write a book projecting all the disgusting parts of myself on someone else, preferably famous but dead. Ok, I am a vulture, but one with manners — no screeching and swooping down for me when a discreet, polite bullshit shovelling will suffice. Oh, look, some dollars just came through the window, oh, I mean the sunlight of my Christian belief.”
Quoted passage from: http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2016/04/christian_authors_book_on_famo.html
The only thing Taunton has revealed is that he was never a true friend of Hitchens’.
Let me try to understand what’s happening here. This Taunton guy is explicitly saying that:
A. Hitchens believed in God and was considering converting. He knows this because Hitchens PRIVATELY told him so AND NOBODY ELSE (Extraordinary claims Mr. Sagan?…).
B. Hitchens was a LIAR and an HYPOCRITE, because, in one of the most important spheres of his life, he was telling the world exactly the opposite of what he thought was true (just like Mother Theresa; with the somehow important difference that in her case we have her own written words as proof).
C. Hitchens was a COWARD, because he decided not to tell the world about his belief in God because he was afraid of the backlash he would get from fellow atheists friends (something christians obviously know nothing of!).
D. He (Taunton) was a VERY CLOSE and GOOD FRIEND of Hitch. Because, obviously, this kind of book and this kind of accusations (B ,C) is what goods friends do for you when you die (and particularly in the case of Hitch!).
Yes, there is a powerful stench of mendacity, hypocrisy and cowardice here, but I’m afraid it’s not coming form Hitchens. That any human brain would listen to this Taunton clown or give any credence to any of his claims is further proof of what Hitchens used to say: “Religion poisons everything”.
Look, this issue/question is easily answered by the one person who would definitely know: Carol Blue, Hitch’s wife. She told Charlie Rose of CBS on 9/7/2012:
Of his final hours, Blue maintains that he knew he was very sick but expected to leave the hospital after “a couple of days.” During his last days, he held court at the hospital, receiving visitors and leading spirited debates about “various subjects,” but Blue firmly told Rose that “God never came up, if anyone is interested … it was a non-subject.”
Taunton is lying.
1. Unlike Voltaire, he never buckled.”
In my reading about Voltaire, there was no buckling. Following is just one example from the internet:
“10 Things to Know about Voltaire”
“Voltaire died in Paris in 1778, just a few months after returning to the city for the first time in 28 years to oversee the production of one of his plays. Over the last few days of his life, Catholic Church officials repeatedly visited Voltaire—a lifelong deist who was often critical of organized religion—in the hope of persuading him to retract his opinions and make a deathbed confession. The great writer was unmoved, and supposedly brushed off the priests by saying, “let me die in peace.” His refusal meant that he was officially denied a Christian burial, but his friends and family managed to arrange a secret internment in the Champagne region of France before the order became official.”
2. “Those who would use the specious argument that simply because an atheist might be genuinely interested in religion, might read and read from the Bible or have any book of a religious nature in one’s library consititutes a sign that that person is flirting with religious belief or is a crypto-Christian, or whatever, are guilty of absurd and pathetic simple-minded wishful thinking.”
I also have a library that includes Bibles, the Koran, world religions, comparative religions, Mormonism, Scientology, Christian Science, Mythology, and secularist works (Including most of Hitchens.). I also have psychology, philosophy, history, poetry, plays, etc. One can be interested in learning about very many things without making them a critical part of your belief system. Man is a curious animal and should be free to read anything/everything he wants and not have that taken in the way Taunton took his brief experience with Hitchens.
Isaac Asimov was an atheist; he was also fascinated by the Bible and wrote several books about it. That doesn’t mean that he was ready to covert.
I loved the post ‘Hutchins’ death bed conversion! Hitch called for a priest, converted him to Atheism! ‘ I think Hitch would have loved it. What a loss to us all. He is sorely missed. Brilliant, charming and a gentleman to his fingertips!
I believe the term is lying. In Christian terms, it’s the sin of bearing false witness. Obviously Taunton’s evangelical zeal is secondary to his money – grubbing zeal.
To me, the worst thing about Taunton’s book is not the speculation on Hitchens thoughts near death; it’s the systematic dismissal of his entire life. Taunton’s opening chapters are nothing but a sustained ad hominem dressed up as an homage to a dead friend. I really hope I never have a friend like that.
I recommend a rather devastating interview with Taunton by James O’Brien on tonight’s BBC Newsnight program, with Lawrence Krauss delivering the coup de grace:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07c2sjh/newsnight-19052016
(@31:30)
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
And then he became an atheist. 😉
😆
Well played.
Perhaps Hitchens was a bit of trickster?
Maybe he did “confess” to Taunton but only as a prank — knowing he would spread this story and that a) no one he {Hitchens] cared about would believe it and b) those that would believe it, believe stuff without evidence anyway. In the end, given the nature of it, it just makes Taunton look bad.
I think it would be a hilarious prank on Taunton but I didn’t know Hitchens and don’t know if he’d do that kind of thing.
The gullible leading the blind. Lying for Jesus! Disgusting…
Of course it’s true, evolution makes us realize about the existence and power of loving and forgiving