6 ms·

Anyone who knew Hitchens knows that "heaven" as depicted by cristianity is a "celestial North Korea, where the sole purpose is to praise the dear leader incessa

Anyone who knew Hitchens knows that "heaven" as depicted by cristianity is a "celestial North Korea, where the sole purpose is to praise the dear leader incessantly, compelled to love someone you fear (essence of sadomasochism). You'd think the Lord himself would get bored of this after a couple of billion years"... So, wishing him in heaven from another atheist as you say you are is really saying you don't know much of his work and life.

aaronmorey 15y ago
Hitchens never seemed to understand that "North Korea" isn't the Christian conception of heaven. To wish for him to be surrounded for all eternity by those he loves most, in the presence of the source of all love, truth and beauty... I think that's something we'd all like to experience along with him. Edit: Unclear phrasing
- RyanMcGreal 15y ago
  I think Stephen Fry put it best during a tour of Salt Lake City that was conducted by a Mormon evangelist: ---- She gave us a good tour and we saw this tabernacle here and this here and so on and then at one point she said, "I just want to tell you a little about the church of the Latter Day Saints." And we all politely stood and then she said how in the afterlife all families will be reunited. "You’ll be with your families forever!" So I put my hand up and said, "What happens if you’ve been good?" http://bigthink.com/ideas/17866 http://bigthink.com/ideas/17866
  - ArbitraryLimits 15y ago
    As a former Mormon missionary, I can assure you he was not the first person to think of that particular comeback.
    - JoeAltmaier 15y ago
      Comeback? As an honest question, maybe it deserves an answer. I mean, sure tongue in cheek, but any cookie-cutter idea of heaven is bound to leave some cold. So if you dislike your family, then Mormonism isn't for you?
      - ArbitraryLimits 15y ago
        > So if you dislike your family, then Mormonism isn't for you? Yeah, pretty much. Edit: OK, that was unnecessarily flippant. I personally never heard that statement as an honest question, only as a ha-ha-only-serious comeback. It turns out that all the people I met who didn't like their families felt bad about it, and realized it wasn't the way things should be.
        JoeAltmaier 15y ago
        WOw, that's a good answer. It even feels right. I'm not kidding, and thanks for your response on such a touchy issue.
- jmcqk6 15y ago
  I believe Hitchens point on this is taken directly from the bible. There is no biblical basis for your description of heaven. If you read Revelations, though, heaven is described exactly the way Hitchens described it. To put it another way, I think when Hitchens calls it "the christian conception" of heaven, it wasn't a description of what certain christians believe, but of the biblical description.
  - msg 15y ago
    If you read Revelation and take only one layer of meaning from it, you didn't really read Revelation. I find myself writing the ridiculous sentence that Hitchens perhaps took a religious prose poem/vision/prophecy/allegory/history too literally. I understand that he had an axe to grind. But he hasn't done justice to the thing he argued against.
    - olavk 15y ago
      I think Hitchens is arguing against what people actually believe. Christians believe in heaven based (among other things) on Revelation.
      - msg 15y ago
        But obviously Christians don't believe that heaven is like North Korea or the Movementarians. They see it quite differently from the inside. I take Hitchens as trying to find a common ground for argument by appealing directly to the text. So it is on point if his interpretation of the text does not do it justice, especially if the Christians interpret it differently in a way that is more internally consistent.
        jtheory 15y ago
        That's not obvious at all. The problem is that no one seems to have an idea of heaven that -- if it were actually REALIZED (vs staying as an abstract idea) -- would be tolerable for any length of time by human beings. We have to assume that people are transformed into something that deals well with eternity, for example... but we never even talked about it at that depth. I was raised Catholic by two still-seriously-believing parents, I should mention, so I have some idea of what some Christians think heaven is like. It's a vague mush of conflicting ideas. And that's just fine, because no one wants to think about it deeply; that's not the point. It's just for saying "well, your Nana is in Heaven now, and she's very, very happy there". It's whatever it needs to be for Nana to be very, very happy. If she's reunited with both husbands and her lover from the late 1950s as well, presumably none of them will have drinking problems or anger-management issues anymore, and they'll all get along, and be very, very happy, and also the baby that died will be there. Also very, very happy. But again, this is already miles further than anyone delves into it. It was just "well, God will be there, and it's just amazing to be in His presence; end of story."
- olavk 15y ago
  If christians define what is good and true and beautiful, then obvious the christian god represent all this. This is true by circular logic. But if you don't unquestioningly share the christian or biblical values, and dont find til biblical god's special kind of love particularly appealing, then an eternity trapped in this might not seem so blissful.
- maxharris 15y ago
  The source of all love, truth and beauty is the human mind's interaction with the actual world around it. Conciousness arises from the particular way matter is arranged in the brain, and it ceases to exist when the brain does. I agree that love, truth and beauty are not simply reducible to matter alone. But that does not mean they have a mystical or otherworldly basis either: invoking supernatural explanations to explain software is obviously foolish, but trying to explain software in terms of atoms gets you nowhere. This is why I reject both supernatural/mystical/religious and materialist positions. The earlier is conceptually flawed because it rejects or denigrates the physical world (at least in part), and the latter is just as flawed because it rejects the conceptual framework necessary to fully understand phenomena outside of the special sciences. Both camps claim that love, morality, etc. do not have much (if anything) to do with reason and reality.
brudgers 15y ago
Vonnegut on wishing a person was in heaven: "I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that functionless capacity. We Humanists try to behave well without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. We serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any real familiarity, which is our community. We had a memorial services for Isaac a few years back, and at one point I said, ''Isaac is up in Heaven now.'' It was the funniest thing I could have said to a group of Humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, ''Kurt is up in Heaven now.'' That’s my favorite joke."
- bostonpete 15y ago
  In case anyone cares... I was curious about the source of this quote and did a quick search. Although I found this exact quote many places on the web, the only source I could find in an KV book was in God Bless You, Dr Kevorkian, which (according to Amazon's "search inside", looks something like this): I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great, spectacularly prolific writer and scientist Dr. Isaac Asimov in that essentially functionless capacity. At an AHA memorial service for my predecessor I said, "Isaac is up in Heaven now." That was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. It rolled them in the aisles. Mirth! Several minutes had to pass before something resembling solemnity could be restored. I made that joke, of course, before my first near-death experience--the accidental one. So when my own time comes to join the choir invisible or whatever, God forbid, I hope someone will say, "He's up in Heaven now." Who really knows? I could have dreamed all this. My epitaph in any case? "Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt." I will have gotten off so light, whatever the heck it is that was going on.
  - brudgers 15y ago
    Since it is a joke, Vonnegut used it on more than one occasion. There is a version in Timequake as well. That was where I originally read it [see: http://books.google.com/books?id=ggiR05avpw4C&pg=PT73&lpg=PT73&dq=asimov+vonnegut+timequake&source=bl&ots=tDzhqJICLr&sig=4p5QdWRlZBJ84FhkUEySwSdV-Q8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mlnrToGUE4uCtgektuibAw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=ggiR05avpw4C&pg=PT73&#3...]
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
grandalf 15y ago
This analogy is among the more brilliant of Hitchens' statements. Thanks for reminding me of it.
tspiteri 15y ago
Not really heaven, and certainly not Christian heaven, but in an interview with Jeremy Paxman, Hitchens did say that he if he would find himself alive in any way at all, that would be a pleasant surprise. (This is not to imply he believes in or hopes for an afterlife, claiming that would be absurd.) http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/11_november/26/hitchens.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/... Jeremy Paxman: "Do you fear death?" Christopher Hitchens: "No. I'm not afraid of being dead, that's to say there's nothing to be afraid of. I won't know I'm dead, would be my strong conviction. And if I find that I'm alive in any way at all, well that'll be a pleasant surprise. I quite like surprises. But I strongly take leave to doubt it.
dhughes 15y ago
Maybe something better would be 'may the quantum entanglement of the atoms in his body be retained when the molecules which make up his biological framework degrade'.

aaronmorey 15y ago

Hitchens never seemed to understand that "North Korea" isn't the Christian conception of heaven. To wish for him to be surrounded for all eternity by those he loves most, in the presence of the source of all love, truth and beauty... I think that's something we'd all like to experience along with him. Edit: Unclear phrasing

RyanMcGreal 15y ago
I think Stephen Fry put it best during a tour of Salt Lake City that was conducted by a Mormon evangelist: ---- She gave us a good tour and we saw this tabernacle here and this here and so on and then at one point she said, "I just want to tell you a little about the church of the Latter Day Saints." And we all politely stood and then she said how in the afterlife all families will be reunited. "You’ll be with your families forever!" So I put my hand up and said, "What happens if you’ve been good?" http://bigthink.com/ideas/17866 http://bigthink.com/ideas/17866
- ArbitraryLimits 15y ago
  As a former Mormon missionary, I can assure you he was not the first person to think of that particular comeback.
  - JoeAltmaier 15y ago
    Comeback? As an honest question, maybe it deserves an answer. I mean, sure tongue in cheek, but any cookie-cutter idea of heaven is bound to leave some cold. So if you dislike your family, then Mormonism isn't for you?
    - ArbitraryLimits 15y ago
      > So if you dislike your family, then Mormonism isn't for you? Yeah, pretty much. Edit: OK, that was unnecessarily flippant. I personally never heard that statement as an honest question, only as a ha-ha-only-serious comeback. It turns out that all the people I met who didn't like their families felt bad about it, and realized it wasn't the way things should be.
      - JoeAltmaier 15y ago
        WOw, that's a good answer. It even feels right. I'm not kidding, and thanks for your response on such a touchy issue.
jmcqk6 15y ago
I believe Hitchens point on this is taken directly from the bible. There is no biblical basis for your description of heaven. If you read Revelations, though, heaven is described exactly the way Hitchens described it. To put it another way, I think when Hitchens calls it "the christian conception" of heaven, it wasn't a description of what certain christians believe, but of the biblical description.
- msg 15y ago
  If you read Revelation and take only one layer of meaning from it, you didn't really read Revelation. I find myself writing the ridiculous sentence that Hitchens perhaps took a religious prose poem/vision/prophecy/allegory/history too literally. I understand that he had an axe to grind. But he hasn't done justice to the thing he argued against.
  - olavk 15y ago
    I think Hitchens is arguing against what people actually believe. Christians believe in heaven based (among other things) on Revelation.
    - msg 15y ago
      But obviously Christians don't believe that heaven is like North Korea or the Movementarians. They see it quite differently from the inside. I take Hitchens as trying to find a common ground for argument by appealing directly to the text. So it is on point if his interpretation of the text does not do it justice, especially if the Christians interpret it differently in a way that is more internally consistent.
      - jtheory 15y ago
        That's not obvious at all. The problem is that no one seems to have an idea of heaven that -- if it were actually REALIZED (vs staying as an abstract idea) -- would be tolerable for any length of time by human beings. We have to assume that people are transformed into something that deals well with eternity, for example... but we never even talked about it at that depth. I was raised Catholic by two still-seriously-believing parents, I should mention, so I have some idea of what some Christians think heaven is like. It's a vague mush of conflicting ideas. And that's just fine, because no one wants to think about it deeply; that's not the point. It's just for saying "well, your Nana is in Heaven now, and she's very, very happy there". It's whatever it needs to be for Nana to be very, very happy. If she's reunited with both husbands and her lover from the late 1950s as well, presumably none of them will have drinking problems or anger-management issues anymore, and they'll all get along, and be very, very happy, and also the baby that died will be there. Also very, very happy. But again, this is already miles further than anyone delves into it. It was just "well, God will be there, and it's just amazing to be in His presence; end of story."
olavk 15y ago
If christians define what is good and true and beautiful, then obvious the christian god represent all this. This is true by circular logic. But if you don't unquestioningly share the christian or biblical values, and dont find til biblical god's special kind of love particularly appealing, then an eternity trapped in this might not seem so blissful.
maxharris 15y ago
The source of all love, truth and beauty is the human mind's interaction with the actual world around it. Conciousness arises from the particular way matter is arranged in the brain, and it ceases to exist when the brain does. I agree that love, truth and beauty are not simply reducible to matter alone. But that does not mean they have a mystical or otherworldly basis either: invoking supernatural explanations to explain software is obviously foolish, but trying to explain software in terms of atoms gets you nowhere. This is why I reject both supernatural/mystical/religious and materialist positions. The earlier is conceptually flawed because it rejects or denigrates the physical world (at least in part), and the latter is just as flawed because it rejects the conceptual framework necessary to fully understand phenomena outside of the special sciences. Both camps claim that love, morality, etc. do not have much (if anything) to do with reason and reality.

brudgers 15y ago

Vonnegut on wishing a person was in heaven: "I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that functionless capacity. We Humanists try to behave well without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. We serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any real familiarity, which is our community. We had a memorial services for Isaac a few years back, and at one point I said, ''Isaac is up in Heaven now.'' It was the funniest thing I could have said to a group of Humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, ''Kurt is up in Heaven now.'' That’s my favorite joke."

bostonpete 15y ago
In case anyone cares... I was curious about the source of this quote and did a quick search. Although I found this exact quote many places on the web, the only source I could find in an KV book was in God Bless You, Dr Kevorkian, which (according to Amazon's "search inside", looks something like this): I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great, spectacularly prolific writer and scientist Dr. Isaac Asimov in that essentially functionless capacity. At an AHA memorial service for my predecessor I said, "Isaac is up in Heaven now." That was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. It rolled them in the aisles. Mirth! Several minutes had to pass before something resembling solemnity could be restored. I made that joke, of course, before my first near-death experience--the accidental one. So when my own time comes to join the choir invisible or whatever, God forbid, I hope someone will say, "He's up in Heaven now." Who really knows? I could have dreamed all this. My epitaph in any case? "Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt." I will have gotten off so light, whatever the heck it is that was going on.
- brudgers 15y ago
  Since it is a joke, Vonnegut used it on more than one occasion. There is a version in Timequake as well. That was where I originally read it [see: http://books.google.com/books?id=ggiR05avpw4C&pg=PT73&lpg=PT73&dq=asimov+vonnegut+timequake&source=bl&ots=tDzhqJICLr&sig=4p5QdWRlZBJ84FhkUEySwSdV-Q8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mlnrToGUE4uCtgektuibAw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=ggiR05avpw4C&pg=PT73&#3...]

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

grandalf 15y ago

This analogy is among the more brilliant of Hitchens' statements. Thanks for reminding me of it.

tspiteri 15y ago

Not really heaven, and certainly not Christian heaven, but in an interview with Jeremy Paxman, Hitchens did say that he if he would find himself alive in any way at all, that would be a pleasant surprise. (This is not to imply he believes in or hopes for an afterlife, claiming that would be absurd.) http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/11_november/26/hitchens.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/... Jeremy Paxman: "Do you fear death?" Christopher Hitchens: "No. I'm not afraid of being dead, that's to say there's nothing to be afraid of. I won't know I'm dead, would be my strong conviction. And if I find that I'm alive in any way at all, well that'll be a pleasant surprise. I quite like surprises. But I strongly take leave to doubt it.

dhughes 15y ago

Maybe something better would be 'may the quantum entanglement of the atoms in his body be retained when the molecules which make up his biological framework degrade'.