Comments for Hitchens, Chesterton, and “The Fall into Mysticism” at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 18 out of 18 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:56:02 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10096 The fact that he attacked Chesterton probably means that Chesterton got to him in some way. Same for Mother Teresa, I'd say. He has to attack them and insult them in some way to convince himself that their obvious virtues or obviously sound reasoning don't mean that he, too, should become Catholic. Which of course they do...People like Mother Teresa in particular are one of the best arguments for Catholicism that there is. I hope God forgave him for his slander of that blessed woman. Anyway, one of our saints said that If you don't know Christ, you know nothing, and if you know Christ you know everything. We shouldn't spend too much time on a lot of so-called discussion or knowledge or opinion... - Mouse Sat, 25 Feb 2012 11:40:01 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10059 What amazed me was not how ignorant Hitchens was about religion. (He did little more than build religious straw-men to his own specifications then huffed and puffed until he blew them over.) What amazed me was how popular he became precisely because of his ignorance. How an otherwise intelligent man and otherwise intelligent people could be so dumb is beyond me. - Bro Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:43:45 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10053 I discovered Chesterton relatively late -- I was in my thirties when I read The Everlasting Man. It took my breath away. Since then I've read everything of his I can find. For a few years, my mentor at Providence College, who has since passed away, introduced The Everlasting Man into our Honors program. We've also used The Dumb Ox ... The great things that separated Chesterton from Hitchens, on a simply human level, was that Chesterton was so filled with a boyish brusque generosity of spirit, he was able to make friends with Shaw, and even keep a kind of friendship going with the remarkably dour Wells. Chesterton's love allowed him to see things: most particularly the obvious things. I imagine he'd have had a hearty belly laugh at the sight of a Hitchens calling Mother Teresa "hell's angel," just as he did when Julian Huxley blamed the Church's asceticism, of all things, for opposing the forced sterilization of mentally retarded people. Hitch didn't love, and so he didn't see. May God have mercy on his soul -- he seems to me to have been the most human of the ragtag crew of ill-educated naysayers. - Tony Esolen Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:55:07 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10046 One summer while many grandchildren were visiting, I memorized Lepanto by GK.. I recited it over and over again to them all summer.. They still remember when I did this. I had to explain to them the meanings of some terms and a few points of history and persons in this history... That was a great summer... I have not totally forgotten how to recite LEPANTO.. It takes 8 minutes to recite from heart. - Flamingo Art Tue, 21 Feb 2012 07:39:25 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10039 Thanks for pointing out this lack of clarity. Maybe "proposed against" would be clearer than "opposed to," (I did not say simply opposed). In any case meaning they fought against collectivism in the name of agrarian distributism. - Robert Royal Tue, 21 Feb 2012 05:05:14 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10037 do you not mean that Chesterton and Belloc proposed agrarian distributism? the article says "opposed". - toni Tue, 21 Feb 2012 04:59:48 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10025 I wasn't able to make it through the entire article. Hitchens was not "brilliant." He was a fool. To even mention him in the same breath as Chesterton would be an affront if it weren't so amusing. - Jason Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:20:42 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10023 Pray for poor Hitch, who devoted his life to ephemera. But then, I suppose, most of us do. Perhaps I should consider that for Lent. - Mack Hall Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:29:36 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10019 As acerbic and malicious as he could be, Hitchens nonetheless had a charming and witty side that will be missed by most of us who value a fine intelligence. Perhaps his final words were, as one non-believer uttered on his deathbed, according to Bishop Sheen: "Jesus, have mercy on me." - Grump Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:11:23 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10018 Hitchens is a hack! - Steve Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:58:04 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10015 "as Hitchens did not – precisely because he attached himself to no lasting truth." Not only did he not attach himself to last truths, he was yoked to ideas and ideologies discredited in his own time. That people continued to take him seriously is a testament to his charm not his mind. As I said at the time of his passing, good riddance to bad rubbish. - Leo Ladenson Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:04:08 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10014 Hitchens was unique among liberal political writers in that he seemed to be an honest thinker, so much that he would oppose certain popular liberal views when logic and facts got in the way of ideology. That a usually rational person was uniquely irrational regarding religion led one to hope that one day he would realize that an irrational defense, not intellectual honesty, was the force behind his hostility towards religion. At that point conversion would have been a real posibility. He was the only militant atheist of this era who had a good chance of conversion. The other militant atheists of today seem to be nothing but naked ideologes, i.e., facts and logic are not true or false, they are either useful or not useful to the cause. Chesterton said of conversion that first one started being fair with the Catholic Church, then one discovered the truth behind it and then one began to fear that it might be what it says it is, and finally one came to terms that and entered into it. As a convert myself, that is true. Maybe Hitchens realized that if he was fair with it, for even a moment, that it would only be a matter of time. Or maybe he was fair for a moment and his fear that it might be true turned into terror and terror turned to white-hot temper-tantrum hatred. His anger with Chesterton may be that Chesterton had the guts to be honest when he did not. - Jacob Morgan Mon, 20 Feb 2012 08:34:48 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10012 Good article, but quick correction- I think you meant 'Hawking' not 'Hawkings'. Common error. - Che Mon, 20 Feb 2012 06:51:07 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10011 The most brilliant of all (even his name attests to it) was Lucifer. Look where brilliance without God will get you. - Mary Mon, 20 Feb 2012 06:31:41 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10010 Don't worry: no one will ever read Chris Hitchens again. He was clever with words but nothing he ever wrote is worth reading twice (once actually once you caught on to what he was trying to do) even when alive. I'm not sure that modern people in general are all that interested in rationality though in the way you mean it (which I take to be reasoning by logic in pursuit of objective truth). The modern mind (if not modern philosophy) is obsessed by power relationships without regard to objective truth. Obviously this leads to the irrational situation where objectively false things are regarded as true because the dominant power faction supposes them as true. - Ben Horvath Mon, 20 Feb 2012 06:30:37 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10009 And thus the capstone on Hitchen's inevitable path to obscurity. - Stu Mon, 20 Feb 2012 05:39:04 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10007 Very shortly people will realize that Hitchens contributed nothing but professional bitterness. He did not have a single original idea or greatly refine an old one. He was loved because he was one of the very few secularists in the world who learned enough about religious beliefs to rationally criticize them (and whenever he did he apparently thought he had delivered the coup de grace because it's such a powerful thing nowadays when a secularist actually uses reason to argue against religion). The only way he will be remembered is in order to have a laugh at him for actually believing that he was worthy enough to seriously attack people like St. Teresa of Calcutta and G.K. Chesterton. - Jacob R Mon, 20 Feb 2012 03:14:49 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/hitchens-chesterton-and-the-fall-into-mysticism.html#comment-10004 I am a big fan of Chesterton and have been since I was introduced to him while I was an undergrad in the St. Ignatius Institute at the University of San Francisco. I have read Everlasting Man, Orthodoxy, and St. Thomas Aquinas (3x), plus I have dabbled in some of his other writings. I was also introduced to Milosz and wrote my entire Senior Thesis around his poem, A Confession. It's been nearly 15 years since I finished my undergrad, but these great thinkers and writers are still with me. - Tom Perna Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:04:20 +0100