Christopher Hitchens; God

Tears for Hutchins:

Only recently I learned that Christopher Hitchens was dying of cancer. His photographs confirmed this. Last week when he died, he was only 62. This is no old age in this day and age.

I have not read everything Hitchens has written but I did read "God is not Great" cover to cover. His is a powerful mind. He can construct or deconstruct anything. Many think that he says there is no God (not that anyone has proven that there is a God) but the message I take from him is there is no need to get bogged down by this debate. Regardless of if there is a God or not, all creatures (of course, Hitchens spoke mainly about humans) are still supposed to carry on with his/her duty. After all, isn’t this what ultimately gives us a sense of satisfaction even as we wonder about life’s meaning?

Like many humans, I too do not understand God even if I am aware of a power much bigger than I. In fact, even with my inclination toward believing in the theory of karma and reincarnation, I still cannot fathom life’s random tragedies. Sure, the seers call what the rest of us label reality and life as mere illusion. Even fiction explores this dream within a dream concept though a bit messily mostly. But things that are in our past do feel like a dream that "REMMED" by in the blink of an eye. Since one person's dreams are different from another person’s, the concept of God too may be real (i.e. in the dream that they are dreaming) for some people and not for others.

Hitchens rubbed many folks the wrong way to the point that believers in a God felt that Hitchens’s cancer was god’s punishment meted out on Hitchens for being a non-believer. The corollary to this should be no believer would be afflicted with any kind of pain because God, pleased with their belief in Him, protects them at all times. It’s nice to have this kind of faith but such faith is not immune to doubt. I do know people whose faith in God is unsinkable and indeed, they seem totally accepting of everything as God’s will. Including the questioning minds like Hitchens’s.

I look at God as genius went wild and this universe is still a work in progress. God the artist chooses as He goes along to prune his creation the universe any which way He pleases. While making a film the director, that is the artist in this case, chooses to keep certain footage while leaving the rest on the cutting floor. Surely one must feel sorry for the abandoned footage but according to the director, on this particular day, this footage did not serve his grand vision of the film he wants to make on that particular day. The abandoned footage must itself accept that in its own discarded way, it served its purpose. Death too, probably, is the same as the footage on the editing floor. Its purpose to hold the other scenes together is over because the other scenes on the rest of the footage can stand on their own now. Does this however, mean a permanent end? Maybe not, if one follows the path of the abandoned footage the rest of its journey.

In the plant kingdom, renewal is obvious. It happens right before our eyes. Dead vegetation turns into nourishment for the new growth. In this context of constant death and constant renewal how does it matter if there is a God or not? I guess Hitchens too was making the same point. Through his writing Hitchens will live forever though not in the same form (even an artist’s creation leaves a different form/impression in different people’s minds) just like every one of us will live forever in this never-ending cycle of renewal.

Ciao!