Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Christopher Hitchens has a new piece at Vanity Fair about his fight against cancer and the craziness it is inspiring in others. He cites this blog post by one of the righteous:
Who else feels Christopher Hitchens getting terminal throat cancer [sic] was God's revenge for him using his voice to blaspheme him? Atheists like to ignore FACTS. They like to act like everything is a "coincidence". Really? It's just a "coincidence" [that] out of any part of his body, Christopher Hitchens got cancer in the one part of his body he used for blasphemy? Yea, keep believing that Atheists. He's going to writhe in agony and pain and wither away to nothing and then die a horrible agonizing death, and THEN comes the real fun, when he's sent to HELLFIRE forever to be tortured and set afire.
And responds:
There are numerous passages in holy scripture and religious tradition that for centuries made this kind of gloating into a mainstream belief. Long before it concerned me particularly I had understood the obvious objections. First, which mere primate is so damn sure that he can know the mind of god? Second, would this anonymous author want his views to be read by my unoffending children, who are also being given a hard time in their way, and by the same god? Third, why not a thunderbolt for yours truly, or something similarly awe-inspiring? The vengeful deity has a sadly depleted arsenal if all he can think of is exactly the cancer that my age and former "lifestyle" would suggest that I got. Fourth, why cancer at all? Almost all men get cancer of the prostate if they live long enough: it's an undignified thing but quite evenly distributed among saints and sinners, believers and unbelievers. If you maintain that god awards the appropriate cancers, you must also account for the numbers of infants who contract leukemia. Devout persons have died young and in pain. Bertrand Russell and Voltaire, by contrast, remained spry until the end, as many psychopathic criminals and tyrants have also done. These visitations, then, seem awfully random. While my so far uncancerous throat, let me rush to assure my Christian correspondent above, is not at all the only organ with which I have blasphemed ...And even if my voice goes before I do, I shall continue to write polemics against religious delusions, at least until it's hello darkness my old friend. In which case, why not cancer of the brain? As a terrified, half-aware imbecile, I might even scream for a priest at the close of business, though I hereby state while I am still lucid that the entity thus humiliating itself would not in fact be "me." (Bear this in mind, in case of any later rumors or fabrications.)
They pray for him, he thinks for them.
Politics
Comments
The minute a Christian starts talking about Hell, it's perfectly obvious he has nothing positive or relevant to say. they can't hold their own in the real world, so they wallow in their own deficient imaginations instead.
Posted by: Raging Bee | September 7, 2010 9:39 AM
It wasn't hard to google a story about a pastor with throat cancer. So how did he offend God? Was that bad a preacher, or did he belong to the wrong branch of the Lutheran Church? And for either of those answers you have to follow up with, "So what about all the others?"
Posted by: James Hanley | September 7, 2010 9:41 AM
I think the hell they wish for Hitchens is also waiting for the people that the righteous feel are having the most fun in this life. They have more sex, more beer, more adventures on any given Sunday and laugh at the well dressed fools praying. The righteous find themselves trapped in a cage of their own construction and envy anyone not similarly prevented from enjoying themselves fully. If the wishers of divine justice and any balls or brains, they'd get out and have some fun themselves. Instead they are the ones in a hell of their own construction. Hell on earth and then you die.
Posted by: MikeMa | September 7, 2010 9:51 AM
"...he thinks for them."
They're only in this ridiculous bloody anti-intellectual mess because they got into the habit of encouraging priests to do their thinking for them. Letting someone else do the cerebral slogging is entirely natural to them.
Posted by: Aegis | September 7, 2010 9:56 AM
The scariest aspect of what Victoria Jackson promotes is that it will resonate without irony among a significant set of Beck's fans and even amongst conservatives in general.
I am exceedingly skeptical she got straight A's in high school, especially math, and that her conversation with a liberal as Beck falsely describes them occurred as described here (falsely in the sense there is a significant or even influential group of people in the American liberal movement that are as Beck and now Jackson represents them). Show us your high school transcripts Ms. Jackson!
If she did get straight A's there's probably a case study and lesson in how not exercising your brain can lead to the same flawed thinking you'd find from people with little to no aptitude.
Posted by: Michael Heath | September 7, 2010 10:00 AM
Re Michael Heath @ #5
Wrong thread.
Posted by: SLC | September 7, 2010 10:03 AM
He's going to writhe in agony and pain and wither away to nothing and then die a horrible agonizing death, and THEN comes the real fun, when he's sent to HELLFIRE forever to be tortured and set afire.
All for the crime of speaking his thoughts. And you would worship the being responsible for this?
Posted by: Taz | September 7, 2010 10:07 AM
Aegis @ 4:
That only describes a portion of Christianity and is certainly not representative of the general population. You seemed to have missed this little movement called the Reformation. Certainly some Protestants seek spoon-feeding regarding what to believe, but that are also an enormous number of congregants that are self-taught through their Sunday School classes and informal Bible study classes that are not run by formal leaders of their denomination, especially the latter.
This actual reality reveals a defect in thinking far worse than just voluntary submission to authority which is also not mutually exclusive to such submission. In fact denominations with priests have arguably equal or superior independent thinkers than those who don't, e.g., movements within the Roman Catholic Church.
Posted by: Michael Heath | September 7, 2010 10:07 AM
Esophagus=throat? For eating, maybe, but not speaking. Looks like evolution isn't the only place the fundie schools are lacking in biology.
Posted by: Walt | September 7, 2010 10:08 AM
So Roger Ebert got throat cancer from giving bad reviews to holy movies? And Michael Douglas got throat cancer from being in unholy movies? Could we imput that Peter Jennings got lung cancer from reporting unholy news? So who gets colon cancer, brain cancer, anal cancer? Is God really that specific about who suffers what disease? Gosh, and here I thought it was all risk factors, lifestyle, DNA and environmental pollution.
Posted by: Ann Klein | September 7, 2010 10:09 AM
@2 James: No, no, no you just don't get it. When the good guys, god fearing christians, get cancer or something it is a test of their faith like Job. When us bad guys get the exact same condition it is god's punishment for our evil ways.
Posted by: Mr Ed | September 7, 2010 10:10 AM
I don't know who the genius is who wrote that, but mystery genius's god doesn't seem very forgiving when it comes to uhhhhhh forgiving. If it didn't grant wishes it would look like a really ridiculous god. But it does grant wishes, so I think approximately about four or five billion people don't think it's a stupidly ridiculous god, if I'm not mistaken.
Posted by: 386sx | September 7, 2010 10:14 AM
Ahhh yes, that loving God they keep talking about...
I've said before, if there is a supreme being (which I contend that there isn't), and if that supreme being bears any resemblance to the Judeo-Christian "God," I'm willing to take my chances in not believing in "Him" because frankly, *IF* He exists, "He" is a prick.
Posted by: dogmeat | September 7, 2010 10:16 AM
If he is such a christian, wouldn't he also go to hell for taking such delight in another person's pain and suffering? A person whom his god instructed him to love as much as he loves himself?
So sick of christian hypocrisy, I can't tell you.
Posted by: Dugglebogey | September 7, 2010 10:17 AM
Really? It's just a "coincidence" [that] out of any part of his body, Christopher Hitchens got cancer in the one part of his body he used for blasphemy?
AHAH! So if Hitchins got throat cancer for speaking blasphemy, prostate cancer is God's punishment for masturbation, sex with altar boys, and other sexual sins?
Posted by: Tsu Dho Nimh | September 7, 2010 10:21 AM
So, when can I look forward to Rush, Glenn, Hannity and O'Reilly, Coulter and Malkin being diagnosed with cancer of the orifices they pull their "facts" from?
Posted by: Fifth Dentist | September 7, 2010 10:31 AM
/me mumbles something Jesus said about hating one's brother...
Posted by: Modusoperandi | September 7, 2010 10:41 AM
@15 I thought masturbation was the one thing that significantly *reduced* a guy's likelihood of getting prostate cancer. God works in very mysterious ways, sometimes.
Posted by: stripey_cat | September 7, 2010 11:04 AM
And Hitchens's alcohol and tobacco habits were pure co-incidence....
Posted by: abb3w | September 7, 2010 11:04 AM
Since Hitchens does much of his communication through writing, shouldn't he (also) have gotten cancer in his hands or fingers? Or some kind of supercharged carpal tunnel syndrome?
Hitchens' reply is great, but I think his opponent is immune to logic.
Posted by: Emily | September 7, 2010 11:09 AM
Tsu Dho Nimh,
Funny thing there, some clinical studies have shown that massaging the prostate and/or frequent ejaculation (at least 5 times a week) reduces the risk of developing prostate cancer. If cancer is God’s punishment for not doing what he wants then it is pretty clear God wants men to get off on being sodomized a whole lot more often.
Posted by: Abby Normal | September 7, 2010 11:21 AM
@ Abby
"Funny thing there, some clinical studies have shown that massaging the prostate and/or frequent ejaculation (at least 5 times a week) reduces the risk of developing prostate cancer."
Maybe gay men should mention that when they're out recruiting. *
*(Obvious snark is obvious).
Posted by: Fifth Dentist | September 7, 2010 11:33 AM
@Fifth Dentist,
Actually, I almost put in a quip about wives and strap-ons just to head off such comments. But then I decided it might hurt my chances of pulling a straight guy. Oh, well.
Posted by: Abby Normal | September 7, 2010 11:59 AM
A few weeks ago I attended a funeral service for a 21 year-old girl who died of cancer. She was a practicing Jehovah's Witness, a tuly nice and kind person, and the church service was at her church. Curiously, the pastor did not attribute the pain and suffering that she and her family experienced to the "Vengence of God" although he did spend a half hour quoting well-chosen biblical passages explaining why she will be saved and re-united with her family soon.
Posted by: Rhinanthus | September 7, 2010 12:07 PM
@22
Whew...I should be okay then...
Posted by: Ron | September 7, 2010 12:14 PM
dogmeat @ 13 (while noting he doesn't believe in such a a god):
That argument is not in your own self-interest. If eternal punishment was the price to pay in not properly submitting oneself to this god on his supposed terms for avoiding eternal punishment, than it would be highly irrational to reject him merely because such a god would is the ultimate prick given the price you would bear.
I'd argue the better argument is that we can logically falsify the claims made about the nature of this god given his infinite evil towards most humans can not be reconciled with positive claims also made about it. In fact we can logically falsify the existence of such a god if only one human was destined for eternal punishment, even the most evil human.
Posted by: Michael Heath | September 7, 2010 12:14 PM
sorry, my post reference should have been to 21 - not 22, lol...
Posted by: Ron | September 7, 2010 12:16 PM
Someone who moons the lord? Or maybe the Rev. Moon?
Posted by: Just Sayin' | September 7, 2010 12:34 PM
Missing linky.
Mark your calendars: "... September 20 has already been designated 'Everybody Pray for Hitchens Day.'" Quoth CH:
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | September 7, 2010 1:07 PM
Michael Heath@26:
The problem with that variant of Pascal's Wager is that there are lots of different religions and sects that claim only their method of worshipping God will get you a reward. So if G did exist, you'd have to be really lucky to choose the right church - and if you get it wrong, you've wasted all that time and you still go to hell.
Mind you, I've always liked the Blackadder view of Heaven and Hell: Heaven is for people who like doing the sort of thing that happens in Heaven, like watering pot-plants, while Hell caters for the interests of those sent there with a continual supply of orgies, feasts, etc.
Posted by: Chrisj | September 7, 2010 1:11 PM
Chrisj - I'm perfectly cognizant of how Pascal's wager is fatally defective. I in no way addressed that argument but instead addressed dogmeat's assumption that if such a god as this existed and this was the prescription he'd still revolt. My rebuttal was that was not logical assuming such a god existed.
Pascal's wager is defeated by a different perspective, i.e., that given the total lack of evidence for any religion's claim regarding eternal punishment, you can't know which dogma to choose to avoid the eternal punishment prescribed by all the other dogmas which demand submission to their's alone.
Posted by: Michael Heath | September 7, 2010 1:29 PM
Wouldn't it be amusing if Hitches recovered and lived to old age? Statistically he probably won't, but I bet he'll go out with more style than any christian martyr could even imagine.
Posted by: Gringo | September 7, 2010 3:16 PM
Michael Heath, #31: Pascal's wager is defeated by a different perspective....
Another huge problem is that people don't just choose their beliefs because of some theoretical gain or loss due to that belief, especially when that gain or loss isn't believed in to begin with. I realize that there are many cases where material benefits stemming of holding onto a belief may make it hard to change the belief, but I doubt that it is as simple as a conscious choice.
By the way, Pascal himself was aware of this shortcoming.
Posted by: Chiroptera | September 7, 2010 3:27 PM
I hereby nominate this for Badass Quote of the Week
Posted by: Militant Agnostic | September 7, 2010 3:30 PM
Tertullian was quite explicit in De Spectaculis that Christians will enjoy the torment of souls in heaven, which would be a show far greater than any on Earth.
Augustine, Aquinas, and Jonathan Edwards were also quite big on taking pleasure in the torment of the damned. All of these are major fathers of the Church.
Today, this kind of hatred largely spills out only from independent fools, but their hatred isn't exactly a new phenomenon.
Posted by: Objective Scrutator | September 7, 2010 4:43 PM
This is exactly the kind of thing people were posting on the recent news story about Stephen Hawking on Yahoo. I actually sat for an hour or so and read dozens, maybe hundreds, of the comments on it, despite the fact that it was literally making me ill. Most of them were some variation of this. And at the time there were more than 28,000 comments on it. It was like a black hole of malevolence. I'm not generally a misanthrope, but there have been very few moments in my life when I hated humanity more.
The nastiest thing was that all this vicious slander was cloaked in a ridiculous lie about morality and compassion. I don't think I can find the words to express the depth of my disgust with these people. And with whatever hate-filled, arrogant troll wrote the quote in the OP.
The only thing I think to post was "Christians: Keeping it Classy Since 30 AD."
Posted by: Leni | September 7, 2010 5:51 PM
I am no fan of Hitchens but he is correct here when he deconstructs the rantings of this so-called "Christian."
I have known Christians in my life. I even used to be one. Thank goodness they're not all like this rabid conservative POS.
Posted by: Kenneth Mark Hoover | September 7, 2010 6:29 PM
If Tertullian actually said "I believe it because it is absurd", I don't think I'll take his advice on anything.
Posted by: dex | September 7, 2010 8:04 PM
@ Militant Agnostic #34
I whole-heartedly second that statement!
Posted by: Thom | September 7, 2010 9:33 PM
Ed concludes, "They pray for him, he thinks for them."
That's an excellent line.
Posted by: Jack Krebs | September 7, 2010 11:10 PM
Hmm.. there is so much to work with here on both sides. As a Christian (please don't stop reading, keep an open mind) I can not agree with the statement that God sends pain and suffering to harm anyone. I also agree that taking delight in another person's suffering is wrong. The Bible is fairly clear on that point (I'll spare you the references, but trust me, loving your neighbor and enemies is a major theme of the new testament). That being said, why the broad brush of hate for conservatives and Christians? As a conservative I believe in protecting individual liberty, including your right to believe what you want about God. I don't want a state that tells me (or you) what to believe, I want a state that protects everyone's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not sure how that runs counter to your best interest?
Posted by: Matt | September 7, 2010 11:34 PM
Thank you, Hitch
Atheist author Christopher Hitchens energetic in debate at Birmingham [Alabama] Sheraton
In Slate Free Exercise of Religion? No, Thanks.
The taming and domestication of religious faith is one of the unceasing chores of civilization
Posted by: Anonymous | September 8, 2010 2:01 AM
@38
To be fair, Tertullian's point was that the theory of Christ's resurrection was so absurd that no one would have believed it unless they had witnessed it, thus making it true. That's still a very shoddy line of apologetics, though. It kind of reminds me of the hilarious theories paleoconservatives have of the United Nations.
@41
No one even mentioned conservatism until my post. Many of the comments here seem to be noting that these bile spewers don't represent most Christians, just as bin Laden doesn't represent most Muslims (which opponents to the Cordoba Project don't seem to understand). These people are mostly just assholes who get caught up in their own ideology and fail to take into account that who they're denigrating in the name of said ideology just so happen to be human beings.
Posted by: Objective Scrutator | September 8, 2010 2:59 AM
Though I doubt Christianity to be true, I do not doubt that it presents a portrait of Man orders of magnitude less misanthropic than that of its parent religion: Judaism. For Jews, all the rest of humanity is but a undistinguished mass of subhumans they refer to as "goyim", which means cattle. Cattle, to be herded about as their masters will; exploited as need be; fattened up as prelude to being slaughtered. Humanity, you see, is the privilege of the Chosen. The treatment meted out to the Palestinians by Jews, and the unprecedented slaughter perpetrated by the vastly disproportionate Bolshevik elite should be all too telling. And of course "communism" was merely one permutation, a secular incarnation, of the Jewish millenarian promise made to them by their tribal deity by which they will allegedly one day gain the mastery and wealth of all the peoples of the world - created by the Jew Marx. You see, for Jews, the most ethnocentric people on earth, the ethnicity and ethnocentrism of other peoples is always viewed as a existential threat to their own peoplehood. Which is why Jews work so assiduously towards dissolving said all the while clinging to their own. Certainly a vile hypocrisy, but that seems no obstacle for them.
How many of the commentariat here are actually well acquainted with Jews? As an experiment, I challenge you to engage them on the gaping rent between their alleged liberal bona fides and their reflexive support for the racial nationalist, apartheid state of Israel. Do not be surprised to see their eyes bulge out, a torrent of verbal venom usher forth, after which they never speak to you again. Lovely, fair, and unerringly intellectually consistent people are they.
Posted by: Amalek | September 8, 2010 3:35 AM
Amalek "Do not be surprised to see their eyes bulge out, a torrent of verbal venom usher forth, after which they never speak to you again."
First, check. Second, check. What do we have to do to get you to do the third?
Posted by: Modusoperandi | September 8, 2010 3:52 AM
Modus, I must enquire of you, since you seem to be one of the few here showing any intellectual pulse or signs of willingness to consider ideas contrary to those you have imbibed: Does it matter to you at all that there are salient and demonstrable facts in this here physical world which stand as outright refutation of your Weltanschauung? Do not feel rushed in answering, you may need time to "think".
What I do is...press upon the fracture lines. That is all. It shouldn't surprise you that it would bend. But if it breaks, then it weren't worth shit anyway.
P.S. Has a Jew ever complimented you on your verbal facility in remarking that you have a "Jewish brain"? White men, some of us at least, got skillz too.
Posted by: Amalek | September 8, 2010 4:03 AM
Look, Amalek, the world is messy. "The Jews" (as though any group is really so monolithic) are no less so than the rest of us. Even the Great North American Redneck, a group from which my bloodline flows, has deep division lines*1. "Israel", too, is no monolith. Its lines seem to divide along secular/dove and ultra-Orthodox/hawk lines. Most of them just want to live in peace. The rest want "it all", no matter how high the price is (the Palestinians, too, but their lines are blurred by grinding poverty). The same can be said for, oh I don't know, the USA, with the main difference being that Israel's enemies are mostly self-generated (or, at least, self-reinforced) while the USA's enemies are, for the most part, imaginary.
...
And flattering me will get you nowhere. I already know that I'm awesome. After all, there's a good reason why there's a bronze statue of me in the town square*2.
*1. Around the best colour for Truck Nuts or whether Bud or PBR make the best brew, mostly. Also, the Mullet Wars (involving The IROCs and The El Caminos). But I digress.
*2. I put it there.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | September 8, 2010 4:55 AM
Matt @ 41:
Actually the Bible is not clear on your point. Yes it has some verses supportive of your point, but it also has many more verses that contradict your point and actually promote hatred and violence towards others. Enough that Christians have been able to justify their hatred towards others now for millenia and that has not stopped. So while you may believe that, poll results of conservative Christians find their ardent support for using government power to commit violence against their perceived enemies or at a minimum - suppress their rights.
Matt @ 41:
Pretty disingenuous given that conservatives are almost monolithically opposed to individual liberty when it comes to some 'others' individual rights, e.g., gays, people who don't want the government involved in religion or used to promote Christianity, Muslims.
In fact the primary obstacle to gays securing the free exercise of their rights and having them equally defended is Christians.
You may support what are American values emanating out of enlightenment values that you are able to somehow reconcile to some passages of the Bible; but to insinuate the source of your support of these rights comes from Christianity while failing to account for the fact the primary and nearly only internal enemy of those values is conservative Christians does not go unnoticed.
Posted by: Michael Heath | September 8, 2010 7:30 AM
Michael Heath:
* The Bible is clear. You're just reading it wrongly.
* "Rights" are only those rights that God gave to Man, and that Men of Suitable Authority (eg: Fundamentalist Pastors and Proper Republicans) pass on to those down the chain from them. At each link in the chain, a bunch of rights get skimmed off (the margin, if you will), leaving less rights for those below. As you get to the bottom (in no particular order: Union members, Public Sector employees [military and, to a lesser extent, police exempt], Muslims, atheists, homos, Americans not of Proper Ancestory, and many, many more) get virtually no rights at all. A Free Market of Rights, as God intended. They're "universal rights" in the sense that few people get them.
* Jesus was not a pussy. Liberals say that Jesus was against violence, but Jesus says different. And even if He didn't, Jesus still kicks serious ass in the future documentary of Revelations. And He killed a hobo that one time just to see if He could get away with it (Spoiler Alert: He did).
* "Liberty" means "being allowed to do the correct thing". It has more to do with obedience and loyalty than the liberal version (so-called "liberty"), which is some crap about being able to do stuff as long as it doesn't hurt others, forgeting that making the Right clutch their pearls is "hurting others" (Note: the converse is not true. See "rights" section above). Proper Libertarian Liberty is the right to use your property as you see fit, even if it means that negroes can't travel because your racist ass won't let them stay in your so-called "public house".
* "American values" are the Popular Majority's values; God, Guns and Keepin' the Government off our backs. This, conveniently, gives the State more time to be on the backs of Unpopular Minorities. If the Unpopular Minorites don't like that, they should've been born more WASPy.
* And, although it wasn't mentioned, "Justice" is "revenge". It doesn't matter if the guy who gets punished for the crime is the guy who did crime, as long as blood is let. It's State sanctioned scapegoating. Besides, that he was accused in the first place proves that he's guilty of something.
Sheesh, it's like you never learned to speak English rightly.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | September 8, 2010 8:10 AM
Amalek, "goyim" does not in fact mean "cattle", it means "nations" and the word is in fact applied in the Old Testament to, e.g., the descendants of Abraham.
I happen not to be Jewish by either descent or belief, but I know plenty of people who are and they include some of the most intelligent and some of the nicest people I've met.
You, on the other hand, are ... neither.
Posted by: g | September 8, 2010 7:26 PM
I've been a member of the media my entire adult life, and I've never actually met an obviously* Jewish person. Contrariwise, I've met roughly seventeen zillion members of the collision repair, auto repair and construction industries who were very definitely Italian, but nobody seems to give a shit about that.
* i.e., someone who wears a yarmulke and has a name like Fivish Finklestein. I'm sure some of my co-workers in radio, newspapers or magazines were religiously or culturally Jewish, but it simply didn't come up.
Posted by: Captain Mike | September 8, 2010 7:53 PM
Captain Mike, you can only see "obviously Jewish" people once you put on the sunglasses from They Live. It helps to be Roddy Piper, as well.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | September 9, 2010 10:02 AM
Hitchens has children. Why must his current state be religicized and politicized by people full of hatred for their fellow man. He is a writer, debater, commentator in a Free Country. Good grief!
Posted by: Mary | September 9, 2010 1:43 PM