The Faith Of Christopher Hitchens

2016 Winner of the Gospel Coalition Book Awards At the time of his death, Christopher Hitchens was the most notorious atheist in the world. And yet, all was not as it seemed. “Nobody is not a divided self, of course,” he once told an interviewer, “but I think it’s rather strong in my case.” Hitchens was a man of many contradictions: a Marxist in youth who longed for acceptance among the social elites; a peacenik who revered the military; a champion of the Left who was nonetheless pro-life, pro-war-on-terror, and after 9/11 something of a neocon; and while he railed against God on stage, he maintained meaningful—though largely hidden from public view—friendships with evangelical Christians like Francis Collins, Douglas Wilson, and the author Larry Alex Taunton. In The Faith of Christopher Hitchens, Taunton offers a very personal perspective of one of our most interesting and most misunderstood public figures. Writing with genuine compassion and without compromise, Taunton traces Hitchens’s spiritual and intellectual development from his decision as a teenager to reject belief in God to his rise to prominence as one of the so-called “Four Horsemen” of the New Atheism. While Hitchens was, in the minds of many Christians, Public Enemy Number One, away from the lights and the cameras a warm friendship flourished between Hitchens and the author; a friendship that culminated in not one, but two lengthy road trips where, after Hitchens’s diagnosis of esophageal cancer, they studied the Bible together. The Faith of Christopher Hitchens gives us a candid glimpse into the inner life of this intriguing, sometimes maddening, and unexpectedly vulnerable man. “If everyone in the United States had the same qualities of loyalty and care and concern for others that Larry Taunton had, we'd be living in a much better society than we do.” ~ Christopher Hitchens

In god is Not Great Hitchens turned his formidable eloquence and rhetorical energy to the most controversial issue in the world: God and religion. The result is a devastating critique of religious faith god Is Not Great is the ultimate case against religion. In a series of acute readings of the major religious texts, Christopher Hitchens demonstrates the ways in which religion is man-made, dangerously sexually repressive and distorts the very origins of the cosmos. Above all, Hitchens argues that the concept of an omniscient God has profoundly damaged humanity, and proposes that the world might be a great deal better off without 'him'.

What if notorious atheist Christopher Hitchens, bestselling author of God Is Not Great, had a Christian brother? He does. Meet Peter Hitchens--British journalist, author, and former atheist--as he tells his powerful story for the first time in The Rage Against God. In The Rage Against God, Hitchens details his personal story of how he left the faith and dramatically returned. Like many of the Old Testament saints whose personal lives were intertwined with the life of their nation, so Peter's story is also the story of modern England and its spiritual decline. The path to a secular utopia, pursued by numerous modern tyrants, is truly paved with more violence than has been witnessed in any era in history. Peter invites you to witness firsthand accounts of atheistic societies, specifically in Communist Russia, where he lived in Moscow during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Peter brings his work as an international journalist to bear as he shows that the twentieth century--the world's bloodiest--entailed nothing short of atheism's own version of the Crusades and the Inquisition. The Rage Against God asks and answers the three failed arguments of atheism: Are conflicts fought in the name of religion really just conflicts about religion? Is it possible to determine what is right and what is wrong without God? Are atheist states not actually atheist? Join Hitchens as he provides hope for all believers whose friends or family members have left Christianity or who are enchanted by the arguments of the anti-religious intellects of our age.

On November 26, 2010, intellectual juggernaut and staunch atheist Christopher Hitchens went head-to-head with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, one of the Western worlds most openly devout political leaders, on the highly charged topic of religion. Few world leaders have had a greater hand in shaping current events than Blair; few writers have been more outspoken and polarizing than Hitchens. Hitchens and Blair squared off on the contentious questions that continue to dog the topic of religion in our globalized world: How does faith influence our actions? What is the role of people of faith in the public sphere? Is religious doctrine rigid, or should we allow for flexibility in our interpretations? For the first time ever, this exclusive debate, which played out to a sold-out audience, is now available in print, along with candid interviews with Hitchens and Blair. Sharp, provocative, and thoroughly engrossing, Hitchens vs. Blair is an electrifying intellectual sparring match on the oldest question: Is religion a force for good in the world?

In this new book, Ian Markham analyzes the atheistic world view, opposing the arguments given by renowned authors of books on atheism, such as Richard Dawkins. Unlike other responses to the new atheism, Markham challenges these authors on their own ground by questioning their understanding of belief and of atheism itself. The result is a transforming introduction to Christianity that will appeal to anyone interested in this debate. A fascinating challenge to the recent spate of successful books written by high-profile atheist authors such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris Tackles these authors on their own ground, arguing that they do not understand the nature of atheism, let alone theology and ethics Draws on ideas from Nietzsche, cosmology, and art to construct a powerful response that allows for a faith that is grounded, yet one that recognizes the reality of uncertainty Succinct, engaging, but robustly argued, this new book by a leading academic and writer contains a wealth of profound insights that show religious belief in a new light

“If someone says I’m doing this out of faith, I say, Why don’t you do it out of conviction?” —CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS One of his generation’s greatest public intellectuals, and perhaps its fiercest, Christopher Hitchens was a brilliant interview subject. This collection—which spans from his early prominence as a hero of the Left to his controversial support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan toward the end of his life— showcases Hitch’s trademark wit on subjects as diverse as his mistrust of the media, his love of literature, his dislike of the Clintons, and his condemnation of all things religious. Beginning with an introduction and tribute from his longtime friend Stephen Fry, this collection culminates in Hitchens’s fearless final interview with Richard Dawkins, which shows a man as unafraid of death as he was of everything in life.

In 2007, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett filmed a landmark discussion about modern atheism. The video went viral. Now in print for the first time, the transcript of their conversation is illuminated by new essays from three of the original participants and an introduction by Stephen Fry. At the dawn of the new atheist movement, the thinkers who became known as “the four horsemen,” the heralds of religion's unraveling—Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett—sat down together over cocktails. What followed was a rigorous, pathbreaking, and enthralling exchange, which has been viewed millions of times since it was first posted on YouTube. This is intellectual inquiry at its best: exhilarating, funny, and unpredictable, sincere and probing, reminding us just how varied and colorful the threads of modern atheism are. Here is the transcript of that conversation, in print for the first time, augmented by material from the living participants: Dawkins, Harris, and Dennett. These new essays, introduced by Stephen Fry, mark the evolution of their thinking and highlight particularly resonant aspects of this epic exchange. Each man contends with the most fundamental questions of human existence while challenging the others to articulate their own stance on God and religion, cultural criticism, spirituality, debate with people of faith, and the components of a truly ethical life. Praise for The Four Horsemen “This bracing exchange of ideas crackles with energy. It’s fascinating to watch four first-class minds explore a rugged intellectual terrain. . . . The text affords a different, more reflective way of processing the truly vital exchange of ideas. . . . I commend the book to those seeking an honest reckoning with their religion—and those curious about how the world looks from a rigorously naturalistic and atheistic point of view.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “The full, electrifying transcript of the one and only conversation between the quartet of luminaries dubbed the ‘four horsemen’ of the New Atheism, which took place in Washington, D.C., in 2007. Among the vast range of ideas and questions they discuss: Is it ever possible to win a war of ideas? Is spirituality the preserve of the religious? And, are there any truths you would rather not know?”—The Bookseller (UK) (starred review)

In God and the New Atheism, a world expert on science and theology gives clear, concise, and compelling answers to the charges against religion laid out in recent best-selling books by Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), Sam Harris (The End of Faith), and Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great). For some, these "new atheists" appear to say extremely well what they believe to be wrong with religion. But, as John Haught shows, the treatment of religion in these books is riddled with logical inconsistencies, shallow misconceptions, and crude generalizations. Can God really be dismissed as a mere delusion? Is faith really the enemy of reason? And does religion really poison everything? God and the New Atheism offers a much-needed antidote to the extremist claims of scientific fundamentalism. This provocative and accessible little book will enable readers to see through the rhetorical fog of this recent phenomenon and come to a clearer understanding of the issues at stake in this crucial debate.

Put two contrarians together and shake well. -Christianity Today The gloves come off in this electric exchange, originally hosted by Christianity Today, as leading atheist Christopher Hitchens (author of God Is Not Great) and Christian apologist Douglas Wilson (author of Letter from a Christian Citizen) go head-to-head on this divisive question. The result is entertaining and provocative-a glimpse into the ongoing debate.

Brings together the most memorable of the arguments he made over the last two decades, including: the case against God, faith and religious observance; the case for intervention in Iraq; jabs at towering political figures like Bill Clinton and Henry Kissinger; as well as celebrations of the pleasures of drinking, and more.

Asks freethinkers to declare their atheism in defiance of the stigmatization of disbelief. With the rise of religious fundamentalism worldwide and a new 'spiritualism' in North America, expressed disbelief in God or gods has become a taboo once again in the Anglo-American world. In the last few years, however, atheism has witnessed a resurgence exemplified by the best-selling works of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Faith in Faithlessness is intended to contribute to the reassertion of the legitimacy of godlessness as a philosophical and moral stance. It is a unique anthology that presents a comprehensive selection of writings, by some of the world's most celebrated thinkers, past and present, who eloquently address the most significant questions concerning religious belief. Included are essays by Benedict de Spinoza, Diderot, Paul-Henry Thiry D'Holbach, David Hume, Thomas Paine, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Stuart Mill, George Elliot, W.E.H. Lecky, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Charles Bradlaugh, Anatole France, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Robert G. Ingersoll, Ludwig Feuerbach, Michael Bakunin, Karl Marx, Emma Goldman, H.L. Mencken, Clarence Darrow, Carl Van Doren, Bertrand Russell, Sigmund Freud, Albert Camus, Albert Einstein, Francis Crick, Gore Vidal, Kai Nielsen, Christine Overall, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Michel Onfray, Elizabeth Second Anderson, Tariq Ali, Salman Rushdie, Kurt Vonnegut. Also included are other celebrity atheists and a major resource guide. TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION FROM THE EARLY CLASSICS 1. Theologico-Political Treatise - Benedict de Spinoza 2. Thoughts on Religion - Denis Diderot 3. The System of Nature - Paul-Henry Thiry, Baron d'Holbach 4. The Natural History of Religion - David Hume 5. The Age of Reason - Thomas Paine 6. A Refutation of Deism - Percy Bysshe Shelley 7. Immortality - John Stuart Mill 8. Evangelical Teaching - George Eliot 9. The Spirit of Rationalism in Europe - W.E.H. Lecky 10. The Christian Church and Women - Elizabeth Cady Stanton 11. Humanity's Gain from Unbelief - Charles Bradlaugh 12. Miracle - Anatole France 13. Autobiography - Charles Darwin 14. The Antichrist - Friedrich Nietzsche 15. God and the Constitution - Robert G. Ingersoll 16. The Essence of Religion in General - Ludwig Feuerbach 17. God and the State - Michael Bakunin 18. Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right - Karl Marx FROM THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY CLASSICS 19. The Philosophy of Atheism - Emma Goldman 20. On the Scopes Trial - H.L. Mencken 21. The Lord's Day Alliance - Clarence Darrow 22. Why I Am an Unbeliever - Clarence Darrow 23. Is There a God? - Bertrand Russell 24. The Claims of Theology - A.J. Ayer 25. The UNbelievers and the Christians - Albert Camus 26. Science and Religion - Albert Einstein FROM THE LATER 20th CENTURY and 21st CENTURY 27. Monotheism and Its Discontents - Gore Vidal 28. How Is Atheism to Be Characterized? - Kai Nielsen 29. Atheism - Christine Overall 30. The Atheist Manifesto - Sam Harris 31. Why There Almost Certainly Is No God - Richard Dawkins 32. Religion as an Original Sin - Christopher Hitchens 33. In the Service of the Death Fixation - Michel Onfray 34. Thank Goodness! - Daniel C. Dennett 35. For the Love of Reason - Louise M. Anthony 36. If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted? - Elizabeth Second Anderson 37. An Atheist Childhood - Tariq Ali A Rapper's Song - Greydon Square 38. Humanism and the Territory of Novelists - Salman Rushdie 39. Why My Dog Is Not a Humanist - Kurt Vonnegut EPILOGUE: A New Enlightenment: The Second Wave - Dimitrios Roussopoulos NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS RESOURCE GUIDE from the Website of Richard Dawkins CREDITS AND PERMISSIONS Celebrity quotes throughout, including from George Bernard Shaw, Voltaire, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Aldous HUxley, Tennessee Williams, Charles Bukowski, Jean-Paul Sartre, Noam Chomsky, Sigmund Freud, Ingmar Bergman, Katharine Hepburn, John Malkovich, Robert Altman, Jodie Foster, Bill Gates, Angelina Jolie, Jack Nicholson, Howard Stern, Isaac Asimov, Woody Allen, Richard Leakey, James Watson, Jean Roddenberry, Gloria Steinem. DIMITRIOS ROUSSOPOULOS is author and/or editor of some eighteen books.

On one side of the argument is a collection of godless academics with doctorates from the finest universities in England, France, and the United States. On the other is Irrational Atheist author Vox Day, armed with nothing more than historical and statistical facts. Presenting a compelling argument (but not for the side one might expect), Day strips away the pseudo-scientific pretentions of New Atheism with his intelligent application of logic, history, military science, political economy, and well-documented research. The arguments of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Michel Onfray are all methodically exposed and discredited as Day provides extensive evidence proving, among other things, that: More than 93 percent of all the wars in human history had no relation to religion The Spanish Inquisition had no jurisdiction over professing Jews, Muslims, or atheists, and executed fewer people on an annual basis than the state of Texas Atheists are 3.84 times more likely to be imprisoned than Christians "Red" state crime is primarily in "blue" counties Sexually abused girls are 55 times more likely to commit suicide than girls raised Catholic In the twentieth century, atheistic regimes killed three times more people in peacetime than those killed in all the wars and individual crimes combined. The Irrational Atheist provides the rational thinker with empirical proof that atheism's claims against religion are unfounded in logic, fact, and science.

In God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (2007), journalist Christopher Hitchens argues that religious faith is not necessary for humanity’s progress. In fact, faith in supernatural beings has slowed scientific advancement, led to human rights violations, and facilitated the creation of totalitarian regimes… Purchase this in-depth summary to learn more.

Christopher Hitchens's personally curated New York Times bestselling anthology of the most influential and important writings on atheism, including original pieces by Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of God Is Not Great, a provocative and entertaining guided tour of atheist and agnostic thought through the ages--with never-before-published pieces by Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.Christopher Hitchens continues to make the case for a splendidly godless universe in this first-ever gathering of the influential voices--past and present--that have shaped his side of the current (and raging) God/no-god debate. With Hitchens as your erudite and witty guide, you'll be led through a wealth of philosophy, literature, and scientific inquiry, including generous portions of the words of Lucretius, Benedict de Spinoza, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, H. L. Mencken, Albert Einstein, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and many others well-known and lesser known. And they're all set in context and commented upon as only Christopher Hitchens--"political and literary journalist extraordinaire" (Los Angeles Times)--can. Atheist? Believer? Uncertain? No matter: The Portable Atheist will speak to you and engage you every step of the way.

This compact, forcefully argued work calls Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, and the rest of the so-called 'New Atheists' to account for failing to take seriously the historical record to which they so freely appeal when attacking religion. The popularity of such books as Harris's The End of Faith, Dawkins's The God Delusion, and Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great set off a spate of reviews, articles, and books for and against, yet in all the controversy little attention has focused on the historical evidence and arguments they present to buttress their case. This book is the first to challenge in depth the distortions of this New Atheist history. It presents the evidence that the three authors and their allies ignore. It points out the lack of historical credibility in their work when judged by the conventional criteria used by mainstream historians. It does not deal with the debate over theism and atheism nor does it aim to defend the historical record of Christianity or religion more generally. It does aim to defend the integrity of history as a discipline in the face of its distortion by those who violate it.

JJ Dyken takes commonly-asserted religious claims and applies each of them to modern-day examples to demonstrate the often fallacious nature of religious belief. He uses a mixture of common sense and scrupulous logic to mount an attack on not only religion itself but also upon the religious pseudoscientists who try to justify their assertions with faulty science.

While his post-9/11 turn to the right has defined Christopher Hitchens for the last two decades, we may now be in a position to rehabilitate his long pre-9/11 career as a left-wing polemicist. Burgis reminds readers about what was best in Hitchens's writings and helps us gain a better understanding of how someone whose whole political life was animated by the values of the socialist left could have ended up holding grotesque positions on Iraq and the War on Terror. Burgis' book makes a case for the enduring importance of engaging with Hitchens' complicated legacy.

Peter Hitchens lost faith as a teenager. But eventually finding atheism barren, he came by a logical process to his current affiliation to an unmodernised belief in Christianity. Hitchens describes his return from the far political left. Familiar with British left-wing politics, it was travelling in the Communist bloc that first undermined and replaced his leftism, a process virtually completed when he became a newspaper's resident Moscow correspondent in 1990, just before the collapse of the Communist Party. He became convinced of certain propositions. That modern western social democratic politics is a form of false religion in which people try to substitute a social conscience for an individual one. That utopianism is actively dangerous. That liberty and law are attainable human objectives which are also the good by-products of Christian faith. Faith is the best antidote to utopianism, dismissing the dangerous idea of earthly perfection, discouraging people from acting as if they were God, encouraging people to act in the belief that there is a God and an ordered, purposeful universe, governed by an unalterable law.

The recent rise of the New Atheism has aroused great general interest, thrown up questions of fundamental importance, and started a fascinating conversation. Why God Won't Go Away invites us to join in. The volume opens with a survey of the main ideas of the New Atheism, as expressed in the works of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. We then examine the core views of the movement closely, making due reference to its 'virtual community' of websites and blogs. Subjects explored include: whether religion is delusional and evil, the belief that human beings are fundamentally good, whether we should have faith only in what can be proved through reason and science, the idea that the best hope for humanity is a 'New Enlightenment' The result is a lively and highly thought-provoking volume that poses a number of interesting questions. Why is religion experiencing a resurgence in the twenty-first century, when we are meant to have grown out of such a primitive fixation? Has the New Atheism's fascination with rationality led to a fatal underestimation of the longing of the human heart to adore? And if, as Christopher Hitchens writes in exasperation, religion is 'ineradicable', doesn't this tiresome fact suggest that dismissing belief in God as irrational and unscientific might just be a waste of time?

On June 8, 2010, while on a book tour for his bestselling memoir, Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens was stricken in his New York hotel room with excruciating pain in his chest and thorax. As he would later write in the first of a series of award-winning columns for Vanity Fair, he suddenly found himself being deported "from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady." Over the next eighteen months, until his death in Houston on December 15, 2011, he wrote constantly and brilliantly on politics and culture, astonishing readers with his capacity for superior work even in extremis. Throughout the course of his ordeal battling esophageal cancer, Hitchens adamantly and bravely refused the solace of religion, preferring to confront death with both eyes open. In this riveting account of his affliction, Hitchens poignantly describes the torments of illness, discusses its taboos, and explores how disease transforms experience and changes our relationship to the world around us. By turns personal and philosophical, Hitchens embraces the full panoply of human emotions as cancer invades his body and compels him to grapple with the enigma of death. Mortality is the exemplary story of one man's refusal to cower in the face of the unknown, as well as a searching look at the human predicament. Crisp and vivid, veined throughout with penetrating intelligence, Hitchens's testament is a courageous and lucid work of literature, an affirmation of the dignity and worth of man.