![]() ![]() Lewis, but he was right when he postulated, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” Like Dorothy, we’re off to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz - only to draw back the curtain in disappointment time and time again. Just one more vacation, one more purchase, one more party, one more relationship, one more round of drinks - and on it goes. We are seeking creatures by nature and we often conceal the deeper realities of our pursuit with lots of temporal fillers. We’ve been told that our pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right. We’re driven toward it as if it is our birthright or a kind of necessary spiritual oxygen. Let’s be honest enough to admit that a longing for deeper meaning is universal to humanity. I am a riddle to myself, an exasperating enigma…the strange duality of dust and glory.”ĭid you ever think that perhaps we were meant for more? Maybe human purpose is meant to have deeper connections than the fleeting experiences of a temporal world? Many people make it their lifelong goal to find a lifelong goal only to find that despising their own meaninglessness is the most tangible meaning they can discover. Dust I may be, but troubled dust, dust that dreams, dust that has strong premonitions of transfiguration, of a glory in store, a destiny prepared, an inheritance that will one day be my own…so my life is spread out in a painful dialectic between ashes and glory, between weakness and transfiguration. I am dust and ashes, frail and wayward, a set of predetermined behavioral responses, … riddled with fear, beset with needs…the quintessence of dust and unto dust I shall return…. ![]() Scottish agnostic, Richard Holloway, offered a perceptive reflection when he groaned, Yet they are glaringly blind to the deep inconsistencies and irrational agendas of their own mission.Īnother well-known atheist, Bertrand Russell, once cast a more honest and depressing vision of human meaning (which I am equally certain he would now recant): “Man is the product of causes which hand no prevision of the end they were achieving and which predestine him to extinction in the vast death of the solar system.” This is a far more logical conclusion for atheism. These men want so desperately to be known as evangelists of all things rational and logical. I suspect that this also helps to explain the strange energy of protest behind the odd (and relatively recent) brand of militant atheism in men like Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris. We humans deeply and innately sense that there is more to life than this life. It seems a bit more honest to admit that in some compelling way we find ourselves intuitively prodded by a sense of transcendence. Historical anthropology, of course, overwhelmingly testifies that humans on every corner of the globe from every period of history pursue and desire the transcendent - quite vigorously. In sharing his thoughts about physical life on this planet, Hitchens once wrote: “There is nothing more but I want nothing more.” Really? On a philosophical level, perhaps one should ask why he even wanted this life? Where does such “ want” come from and what does it imply?įrankly, I don’t trust the honesty of his testimony, “I want nothing more.” I realize that the absence of such desire could be a form of self-induced suppression since Hitchens spent an unusual amount of time and energy renouncing something he didn’t believe in. Perhaps (now that he’s had a proper introduction to the God he didn’t believe in), he would like to recant the title to his recent book: “ God Is Not Great.” ![]() But I like surprises.”Īnd what a surprise it must have been to learn that his existence was not due to the blind chances of impersonal natural laws! Hitchens now knows with certainty that there is a personal, intelligent Creator. When asked about it, he replied, “”No evidence or argument has yet been presented which would change my mind. “Do I fear death? No, I am not afraid of being dead because there’s nothing to be afraid of, I won’t know it. I fear dying, of dying I feel a sense of waste about it and I fear a sordid death, where I am incapacitated or imbecilic at the end which isn’t something to be afraid of, it’s something to be terrified of.”Īfter being diagnosed with cancer, many wondered if Hitchens would back off atheism and begin to seek God. ![]() He once answered a question about fear of death, At the relatively young age of 62, on Thursday, December 15th, Hitchens died from complications related to esophageal cancer. Christopher Hitchens once said he liked surprises. ![]()
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