Hitchens is a writer I admire, for sure. He's not a personal favorite of mine but I do enjoy his counterculture edge, dislike of authority and in his later years his iconoclasm. He wasn't pro-life life, but he was somewhat anti-abortion. He wasn't pro-guns really, but he was anti gun control. We all know he was everyones favorite fundamentalist Christian.
I'm not an atheist. That shouldn't be a surprise. Of course I've had my doubts to the existence of God, and every believer should admit they have as well. Reinhold Niebuhr was an American theologian who said "A frantic orthodoxy is rooted not in doubt, but in faith. It's when you are not sure that you doubly sure." I totally agree with him on that issue, one hundred percent. I do believe that those who radical and frantic in their beliefs are acting out of doubt and and not certainty.
Hitchens was a radical atheist, and while no atheist would ever admit it I believe the Niebuhr quote applies to them as well. It is to the believers credit that they doubt their faith but atheists don't do that. That doesn't mean that an atheist can't be moral and a believer can't be a scumbag.
While we are talking about Hitchens it's important to remember that Hitchens did not have a deathbed conversion. No, not at all. Sadly Sadly some people die as atheists, it's a sad fact.
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