by: Andre Suprapto
“To die, to sleep; To sleep! Perchance to
dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come…
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that dread of something after death,-
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveler
returns-puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly
to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.”
-William
Shakespeare, Hamlet; Act III Scene I
“…the conduct of God is hidden under nature,
as in all His other works.”
-Blaise
Pascal, Pensees, Section XIV
Death is the ultimate question that we mortals prefer
to avoid for the longest time. Given the fact that this existence is all that
we know of, there is nothing enchanting about meeting the ‘sickle-carrying faceless
man in a black cape’ any time soon.
As we are already aware, death and the question of the
existence of God are two sides of a coin. If that single syllable that gives
chill to most of us -namely ‘God’- does exist, it would be strange (not to
mention cowardly) for Him not to show Himself and open the Q & A session at
the time we conclude our odyssey in the world. However, if he does not exist,
we don’t even have the slightest ability to form the words ‘Ah, we are mere
evolving mammals after all’. Because at that moment, we are not; we have
returned to that dark, thoughtless nothingness. That nothingness that we now can
recall as the moment before we were born, of which no thoughts were framed in
our minds. But even this acknowledgement of pre-birth nothingness itself we owe
to existence.
The intriguing thing in the mystery of death and the
existence of God is this, because the dead is stubbornly silent whenever we ask
them is there another show in the back of the curtain or have they now met the
reclusive Old Man (God)? we must place our bets on His existence now, while we
know we still exist. Before the dice is thrown to our death, we must place our
wager with the information that we manage to gather in life, quickly. The stake
is breathtaking, literally.
Like most of us, I have been putting
the thought on death under the rug until I learned quite recently about the very
public dying and the eventual death of the celebrated British-American
journalist, author, thinker and public debater Christopher Hitchens, who is
also one of the leading juggernauts of the “New Atheism” movement. Hitchens’
death sparked a new inner mental discussion because (1) he was an atheist; and
(2) he seemingly wasn’t afraid of death. My contemplation related to Hitchens’
atheistic ideas and his death eventually led to an interesting finding which I
will divulge at the end of this article if the reader would indulge me.
Before
I saw the news scrolling text in CNN about the passing of Mr. Hitchens on 15
December last year, I only knew Hitchens as one of Richard Dawkins’ fellow
atheists as mentioned in his provocative book “The God Delusion”. I was not aware before that day that the
bohemian, romantic journalist has been living with esophageal cancer since June
2010. Or the fact that from the onset of his cancer diagnose, the philosophical
part of the Western world has been observing his ordeal intently with curiosity
and anticipation.
At the end, his atheist peers rejoiced for the absence
of any deathbed conversion, while at the same time some active voice from the
faithful camp perhaps mourn the passing of a worthy and jocular foe.
Like I mentioned before, since death will finally give
you the answer of whether there is a God or not; it is definitely worth it to
take notes on the attitude of a man who has so relentlessly spread the news that,
based on his ‘infallible’ scientific research, there is certainly no God i.e.
there will only be ‘hello darkness, old friend’ once you’re dead.
Unlike another great man of our generation who died in
2011, Steve Jobs, who faced death privately and in all humility; Hitchens insisted
on taking an active stand against death.
In order to prevent should any display of weakness to
his atheistic non-creed might undo his lifetime work in spreading the atheistic
consciousness to the masses, especially the young ones; Hitchens was defiant to
the end. He seemed to fear the possibility that people would believe in a story
of his deathbed conversion more than death itself. That is why he struggled so
hard to make public appearances, fought in debates and continued to write despite
his ailing condition. In his speeches or interviews, he maintained (though
without his typical supercilious gesture as he always thrown in his prime
performances) his sarcastic remarks as in God is a “divine North Korean
dictatorship” or his classic jeer at the time-insensitivity of God to intervene
only 2,000 years ago when human has suffered and toiled meaninglessly on earth
for 98,000 years.
In his letter to the American Atheist Convention in
April 2011, eight months before his death and when he already lost his speaking
voice, he closed with “And don’t keep the faith”.
He eventually
left the scene without keeping any article of faith except on faithlessness,
godlessness, science and his post-death nothingness.
For
his fellow atheists, the relieving meaning of his death is that ‘there are
indeed atheists in foxholes’. His
enduring strength to resist putting a wager on the slightest possibility of
God’s existence will inspire subscribing and wannabe atheists just like the
inspiration Christians draw from the image of Christ enduring the temptation to
walk away from the chalice in the garden of Gethsemane.
Following
the knowledge of his death, I have been conducting some research on the man by
purchasing his “God is Not Great: How
Religion Poisons Everything”, studying his biography and watching his
entertaining debates and interviews as much as I could get from the internet. Resulting
from that laborious study is a deep respect to Mr. Hitchens grounded on my
enthusiastic admiration of how seriously he took his job as a journalist and an
independent thinker. And the fact that he did most of his work with the devoted
assistance of daily doses of alcohol that was enough “to kill or stun the
average mule” just make this chubby fellow more adorable.
The man is a rock star as we see how exhilaratingly
witty, funny, entertaining and most importantly, British he is in his debates. His
ability to twist phrases and arguments is near invincible. Indeed, I can now
say that the mere mention of his name or the view of his name in print will make
my heart beats faster; just like the mention of the names of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy,
Voltaire or any other knights with words whom I have deeply admired.
Even though I must discredit him for his atheistic
bigotry, prejudice and sometimes lack of clear and objective method of
thinking; but it is needless to say that he has an impeccable credential for
engaging the most irritating, yet-to-be-answered questions on Christianity and
religion in general. His ingenious and mostly comic arguments against the bleak
side-effect of Christianity (and the truth of Christianity) has left me, as a
Christian, with no choice but to read and think more, and to take my
Christianity seriously.
To be honest, my personal initiative to make a due inquiry
on Christianity actually has started almost a decade ago in my university
years. The trigger was just a simple sentence in Samuel Butler’s lovely novel “The Way of All Flesh” that presents the
blunt question of: what differentiate a gypsy who sells magic potions with the
priest who ‘sell’ certain bread and wine to be the actual body and blood of a
man who died two thousand years ago in Palestine? This fierce challenge rocked
the foundation of my faith to the core. How can I reasonably tell the
difference between the faithful from the utterly mad?
In relation to the above, there were times in my own
life in which I felt the same perennial disgust and distrust that Hitchens must have felt toward the
religious whom I viewed as judgmental and irrational simpletons who dare to be
philosophically prideful without being backed by any philosophical arguments
whatsoever. And the fact that the majority of those who claim to be in the Christian-block
are incredibly gullible and easy prey to the deceitful rants of the greedy,
self-proclaimed maniac ‘preachers’ who would say the most outrageous
mantra-like prayers from the pulpit to attract the innocent flock to their
churches, just aggravated me beyond what words can possibly describe. What can
you say to the likes of Benny Hinn or his Indonesian wannabe, Dr. Yesaya Pariadji?
Those immoral beasts that can get away with public lie because they do it under
the name of religion. To put it mildly, conjurers that use God as their
instrument, not the other way around, to preach the spell of cupidity to the
masses and to extract profit from it. In short, I couldn’t see Christianity by
looking at the majority of the ‘Christians’ or those who claim themselves as
Christian leaders. I could only see depravity.
However, what differentiate me with present day
Hitchens’ young readers in my investigation on the truthfulness of Christianity
is that I was free and independent; not merely looking for confirmation on the
flaws of Christianity and the non existence of God with a preconceived conviction
like most of New Atheism’s youths in the internet world do. That is to say, I
was open: if Christianity turned out to be the truth I would return to it with
a satisfied heart. But if it is nothing but non-sense, I would excitedly return
the ticket of salvation after I have ripped it in two.
But in today’s youth, I more often see how young minds
credulously take Hitchens’, or other atheism preachers’ ideas in an ‘as-is’
basis. I concede that there are some atheist thinkers in the internet with
sound judgment and discernment to whom one can probably have a discussion with.
But mostly, you find emotional, angry and prejudicial antagonists who swallow
Hitchens’ sharp words wholly undigested and have such a candidly truculent
approach to religion. Not seldom you can find atheist commentators give their Youtube account name with intentionally offensive tantrum toward Godliness or
religion such as ‘religion is bulls***’ and else.
Far for me from being unfair not to address the
similar rude and bossy attitude that some fundamental Christians displayed
toward the atheists. Those Christians fanatics who never learned that as
always, shallow-mindedness and incapability to accept different opinions and to
answer difficult counter-arguments civilly will only impede the advancement of
the message of the Gospel; not supporting it.
I see it important for me to highlight this issue of
atheism because we Indonesians cannot avoid the discussion on such issue since the
‘specter’ of New Atheism has finally come to Mr. Yudhoyono’s realm as I write.
It is our duty to provide a response by equipping ourselves, not with ignorance
or violence, but with arguments.
I can understand our Minang brothers’ shock when
certain 30 years old man named Alexander made a Facebook page “Ateis Minang”. The majority of Indonesians
perhaps naively think that we already got rid of atheism, more recognizable in
its household name ‘communism’, to its very root with the ’65-‘66 bloodletting.
What we are not aware of is that atheism, which for most part of the 20th
century in the West was more of an unnamed way of life; has now been given a refulgent
identity, have its own avant-garde pundits who mass produce (because of great
demand) anti-religion books and articles for the hungry minds. Such phenomena
coupled with today’s borderless cyber world left us, the faithful, with no
other choice than to come to our atheist comrade’s invitation to rationally
discuss the greatest question of all: ‘Does God exist?’ I predict that New
Atheism will be the ‘counterculture’ movement of the second decade of the
twenty-first century, even in our shores.
To return to the topic of Mr. Hitchens’ death and its
relevance, let me draw your attention to one of the most celebrated touché that
Hitchens always thrust toward his religious counter-debaters in order to prove
that one does not need God or religion to be good or moral. Here I will recite
the purported Hitchens’ unanswered argument word by word (he has utilized this
argument in his high-profile debates, among others, with his theist brother
Peter, the formidable Rabi Schmulley Boteach and the articulate Christian
philosopher Dr. William Lane Craig but without, in my humble opinion, having
received any satisfying answer):
“I used to ask a question. I’ve now asked it
in public, on the radio, in print, in TV debates with quite a lot of leading
religious figures and thinkers. It’s simply this: You ought to be able to tell me of a moral action performed or an
ethical statement made by a believer that I couldn’t make because I’m a
nonbeliever. You ought to be able. Given what you think, it must be very
easy for you to say, ‘here’s something you couldn’t say or do that would be
morally right or morally true’. No takers; I haven’t found a single example.
I’ve tried everyone now…”
The
above is one of the hallmarks of his sly arguments concerning morality and its
relation with atheism and religiosity. Whenever he is discussing good morality,
he simplifies things by posing the above question. While at the same time,
whenever the debate focuses on the issue of ‘evil’, he always unfairly argued
that almost all the ills in the world are the product of religion not atheism. What
about Hitler and Stalin? Have not millions perished under these atheists’
hands? – No, atheism cannot be blamed because they didn’t kill in the name of
atheism. He took the similar position as that of his astute comrade Mr. Dawkins
who wrote: “Individual atheists may do evil things but they don’t do evil
things in the name of atheism,… why would anyone go to war for the sake of an
absence of belief?” (A critical mind would rather twist the question as follows:
“because of the absence of belief, why would not anyone go to war, murder, rape, torture, steal, loot,
etc.?”).
To
him, religion poisons everything. It’s the author of violent and bloody
divisions from the Protestant-Catholic conflict in Belfast to the genocide of
the Bosnian Muslims by the Christian Serbs in Srebrenica. Christianity resonates
with nothing but the bloodbath of the crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the bizarre
‘infallibility of the Pope’ concept, the Russian pogroms, the unbelievably evil
Lord’s Resistance Army led by the heartless ‘Christian’ Joseph Kony in Uganda
etc., everything that a decent, sane and unbiased observer will see as a gross abuse
of Christ’s name and diabolical perversion of Christianity.
In
contrast, in answering the question about the ills that atheists have inflicted
in history, he dodged this fundamental issue in the most entertainingly long
but cunning rhetoric that only Hitchens can pull.
In the chapter entitled ‘The “Case” Against Secularism’ in his New York Times Bestseller ‘God is not Great’; instead of cutting to
the chase and give a succinct answer whether atheism can be blamed for
Hitler’s, Stalin’s or Kim Jong Il’s atrocities: he threw a low-blow argument by
tirelessly spent thousands of words in order to distract and misguide you from
the question at hand by writing down important but irrelevant details of
Hitler’s friendly relationship with the Vatican, and the details of Stalin’s
history of having been trained to be a priest in a seminary in Georgia, as well
as the similarity between the Soviet Union’s totalitarianism with that of religious
absolutism. In his own words:
“For most of
human history, the idea of the total or absolute state was intimately bound up
with religion… the virus was kept alive for centuries by religion.”
Instead of gentlemanly admit that atheism, like
Christianity, can be perverted by evil minds for violence and unimaginable ends
(I would admit it in a heartbeat in the case of Christianity by the way); he
obstinately stood firm to his ‘fanatic opinion’ that instead of blaming an
absence of believe, we should blame it all again to religion. (I wonder if he
went to the extreme as to blame religion for a pimple on his forehead before a debate
day).
Further, to make an end to this discussion, he would take
cover by presenting a supposedly ‘bulletproof’ argument in his debates. He would
dare the already irritated counter-debaters to name him any atheist who is the
follower of Thomas Jefferson or Baruch de Spinoza that ever carries out the
monstrous evil such as what Hitler or Stalin did. ‘Follower’ here must mean he
who has not only read but importantly, implemented Jefferson’s or Spinoza’s works
in his deed which further must be filtered with the humanist standards that
Jefferson and Spinoza’s have wisely taught. If this is what Hitchens really
meant, then I will concede that neither Hitler nor Stalin can be called a
Jeffersonian or Spinoza-esque atheists.
However, if Hitchens must give a high litmus test for
someone to be called a genuine atheist like the Jeffersonian or Spinoza-esque test
above, (and that if one fails such test one can only be categorized as a lay
atheist whose deeds cannot be attributable to atheism); please allow me to also
use my own test in regards to those who can be deemed as genuine Christians. I
call this the ‘John Locke Christian’ test.
It is absurd for me to assume that the reason why
Hitchens or Dawkins never for once mentioned John Locke, the father of the so
called ‘British empiricism’ in their ground breaking books (God is Not Great, and The God Delusion) is because simply they
may have never heard the good philosopher’s name. If it is so, they have given
away their rights to be called serious thinkers.
Locke’s attack on innate principles and his stress on
the importance of free and autonomous inquiry in his ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’ helped laid down the
critical- thinking culture of the eighteenth century Enlightenment Age. This
Puritan who has deeply influenced Hitchens’ hero, Jefferson, was the proponent
philosopher who wrote that certain rights of human beings are ‘unalienable’. Indeed,
some ideas from Locke’s writings were paraphrased and ‘plagiarized’ in that revolutionary
document that Hitchens must be very fond of: the Declaration of Independence of
‘these United Colonies… to be Free and
Independent States…’
If only John Locke was an atheist (or at least a deist,
whatever that is, like Jefferson), Hitchens and Dawkins would definitely name
him as one of the undisputed champions of rational thinking. But unfortunately,
Locke was a ‘Theist’, that’s why they have to ‘excommunicate’ him.
In response to the rampant, ubiquitous and decadent
persecution perpetrated by the Christian Church in his time, Locke penned down
these words in his ‘A Letter Concerning
Toleration’:
“… I must needs
answer you freely that I esteem that toleration to be the chief characteristic
mark of the true Church…yet if (someone)
be destitute of charity, meekness, and good-will in general towards all
mankind, even to those that are not Christians, he is certainly yet short of
being a true Christian himself. ‘The kings of the Gentiles exercise
leadership over them,’ said our Saviour to his disciples, ‘but ye shall not be
so.’ (Luke 22:25). The business of true religion is quite another thing. It is
not instituted in order to the erecting of an external pomp, nor the obtaining
of ecclesiastical dominion, nor to the exercising of compulsive force, but to
the regulating of men’s lives, according to the rules of virtue and piety.
Whosoever will list himself under the banner of Christ, must, in the first
place and above all things, make war upon his own lusts and vices. It is in vain for any man to usurp the name
of Christian, without holiness of life, purity of manners, benignity and
meekness of spirit. ‘Let anyone that nameth the name of Christ, depart from
iniquity.’ (II Timothy 2:19).”
By the above test, the impostors and false prophets of
the old Vatican popes, the war-profiting crusaders, onward to the evil
incarnate Joseph Konys cannot, must not and it will be utterly unjust and nasty
for one to call them Christians. As St. Augustine once said, ‘never judge a
philosophy by its abuse’. (I fancy, if only Hitchens or Dawkins quote the above
in one of the chapters of their books, their exposures of the evil deeds
conducted in the name of Christ in history would definitely lose their spice
and they themselves would definitely lose millions of dollars worth of book
royalty.)
The beauty of the John Locke Christian test above is
this, while for the Jeffersonian or Spinoza-esque atheist test as told by
Hitchens will oblige an atheist to first read, understand and implement their
teachings before his/her deeds can be deemed as the deeds of a ‘genuine
atheist’; the John Locke Christian test only requires a ‘Christian’ to think
for a while whether his/her conducts represent the conducts of one who takes
the image of a crucified Christ who prayed for His tormentors seriously or not.
One does not even need to know who John Locke is or having read even a sentence
of his writings.
Back to the issue of Hitchens’ purported unanswerable
question mentioned before, I would like the reader to take note that three
months after Hitchens’ cancer diagnose, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
Christians set some time apart on Monday, 20 September 2010, to hold an
astounding “Everybody Pray for
(Christopher) Hitchens Day”. Further, during his more than one year battle
against cancer, the good doctor that handled his cancer treatment is none other
than the renowned scientist, who is also an evangelical Christian, by the name
of Francis Collins, who was appointed by President Obama to be the Director of
the National Institutes of Health. Despite Hitchens’ mostly disconcerting and
condescending remarks on Mr. Collins’ private religion (Christianity); Mr.
Collins diligently treated him more like a friend or a family member rather
than a noisy patient. Hitchens must have truly felt Mr. Collins’ pure sincerity
that he publicly described Mr. Collins as “one of the greatest living Americans”,
a “great humanitarian” and “the best of the faithful”.
First I must underline here that the Christians
supposedly may have the right to at least be callous with respect to the dying
of a man who has made a fortune out of throwing dirt on Christianity. I mean,
by reading his book or watching his arguments against Christianity, Hitchens explicitly
wanted all Christians to share the guilt of all the evils that innumerable men
has done in the name of Christianity in history.
If one may take the liberty to make a cheap, boorish
comparison between the true Christian attitude, as displayed by those mature
Christians who sincerely prayed for Hitchens’ well being as he terribly suffers
from cancer, with Hitchens’ attitude toward his Christian nemesis, one will see
a very striking contrast.
Responding to the death of the infamous televangelist
Jerry Falwell in 2007, who should never have been taken seriously actually; Hitchens
said these words in an interview with Anderson Cooper:
“I’m glad that
he (Falwell) skipped the rapture and it’s a pity that there is no hell for this
man to go to.”
Even though I share the same animosity toward Jerry
Falwell who I also see as a big faith-profiteer
who also has failed the ‘John Locke Christian’ test; but the level of his barbaric,
insensitive and indecent comments on non-Christians (or Christians who do not
agree with him) is almost similar to those thrown upon by Hitchens to
Christianity.
Yet, my American brothers in Christ gave a different,
inexplicable response to the agitator’s dying process on Monday, 20 September
2010. A response which was apparently inspired by none other than that meek
carpenter who died on the cross in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago; who everybody
knows goes by the name of JESUS CHRIST.
In the end, I think the “Everybody Pray for
(Christopher) Hitchens Day” event has in a way answered Hitchens’ lethal question
we have discussed before. This dumbfounding event showed that, there is indeed a moral action that only a believer can do that an unbeliever (at
least Hitchens) can’t do. A moral action based on the concept of forgiveness
and redemption which is purely a Christian product.
There is also a profound mystery involved in
the fact that it was Mr. Collins, who also wrote a heartfelt prayer for
Hitchens in the Washington Post, not an atheist doctor (perhaps the majority in the
American medical world), who Hitchens had to turn to for cure for his terrible cancer.
One is free to interpret this as God works through the natural or only as an
accidental event...and rob all the fun of this article.
“…without death
there would hardly have been any philosophizing.”
-Arthur
Schopenhauer, On Death
Jakarta,
28 January 2012
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