Upstream | November 06, 2009 | 28 comments

Atheist Christopher Hitchens Apologizes for Mother Teresa Insult

source: http://do.ht

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vincius
Catholic League president Bill Donohue says that he and Christopher Hitchens have settled their recent dispute:

On November 2, I criticized Christopher Hitchens for saying that Mother Teresa was “a fanatic and a fundamentalist and a fraud, and millions of people are much worse off because of her life, and it’s a shame there is no hell for your bitch to go to.”

At the end of the news release, we published his e-mail address, and he was roundly condemned, sometimes maliciously, by angry Catholics (he forwarded some of the e-mails to me). I subsequently e-mailed him, saying, “Seems like you’ve heard from the faithful.” I also took the opportunity to invite him for drinks the next time he is in New York. Why? Although we’ve had it out several times in the past—in person and on TV—and although I strongly disagree with him, the man is no phony, and that means a great deal to me. Unlike most of those whom I do battle with, Hitchens is intellectually honest.

Christopher wrote back to me today, saying, “The first thing to say is that I felt remorse for employing the word ‘bitch’ as soon as it was out of my mouth.” Forgiven. As I have always said, when someone apologizes, Christians have no choice but to accept it. Besides, anyone who fights for a cause, myself included, occasionally lets his emotions get the best of him. The difference is, Christopher admits it.

A few years back, Christopher wrote a piece in Vanity Fair on abortion that was so fair that it moved me to write a letter in praise of it; it was published. In other words, this is not the first time we have broken bread. But who needs the bread? Christopher and I have some serious drinking to do.http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/news-atheist-christopher-hitchens-apologiz...
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28 comments // Atheist Christopher Hitchens Apologizes for Mother Teresa Insult

  • hpseaton
  • rwahrens
    • 0
      rwahrens  
    • Image

    • Try this google search:

      http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mother+teresa%27s+doubts&aq=0&o...

      It reveals many stories in the mainstream media that detail Mother Teresa's doubts in faith.

      There have been other revelations of how her organization hoarded donations meant for her operations to take care of the sick, and how those donations were not used as intended by the donors, but were sent straight to the Vatican.

      Little of that money was used to ease their suffering, none of it was used to ease the working conditions of the nuns that worked under her order, and so the conditions that both the nuns and their charges lived in were horrific.

      That's fraud.

      None of her public pronouncements led anybody to understand that she had doubts in faith.

      That's fraud too.

      While I agree that Hitchens may have use the word "bitch" hastily, I would assert that anyone that could do the things she did while letting the world think she was such a saint - isn't a saint, and deserves condemnation.

      Her sainthood is a travesty.

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  
    • Image

    • neocongo,

      Indeed, but I'd rather read his arguments than any other from the right for at least he has a brain & arguments ;)

      Sample this debate for size: Although I absolutely agree with Hedges take on the fascist/religious aspect; I disagree with both on theological grounds but to watch them go at it is definitely not of the level usually reserved for Big Media showing...
      http://zombietime.com/hitchens-hedges_debate/

      I will always show reconnaissance to Hitchen for having nailed it when Falwell pased away ...

      'If one gave an enema to Falwell, he could be buried in a matchbox !"

      Puerile but funny when balanced live on FOX ;)

      As for Hedges politics, I mostly agree with everything he defends as he is one of my journalist musketeers along with Greg Palast, Jeremy Schahill, & Naomi Klein !

      Washington has become Versailles. We are ruled, entertained and informed by courtiers. The popular media are courtiers. The Democrats, like the Republicans, are courtiers. Our pundits and experts are courtiers. We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power. It is smoke and mirrors, tricks and con games. We are being had. - Chris Hedges

    • 2 years ago
  • vincius
    • 0
      vincius  

    • I've noticed...Fox is under alot of people's skin... What the hell (not the place for the atheists) does this have to do with Fox News? Obsession with fox news is a Faux excuse! to divert attention from facts

    • 2 years ago
  • neocongo
    • 0
      neocongo  

    • Hitchen's is a right wing hack and athiest or no, joins the ranks of Fox, Limbaugh, Colter and all the rest of the right wing screech machine.

    • 2 years ago
  • trut
    • 0
      trut  
    • neocongo:

      I take it you didn`t watch the video Hell`s Angel, neo. Why not check it out. Hitchen`s only apologized for calling her a bitch not the fact that Teresa didn`t give the money she collected to the poor a better life. She didn`t live in Calcuttta most of the time and hung around with some pretty shady types, let alone her failure to condone contraception.

    • 2 years ago
  • lordsbassman
  • vincius
  • neocongo
    • 0
      neocongo  

    • Hitchen's is nothing more than an angry drunk who doesn't have a clue in what he believes. He clearly needs a shower and a new line of work.

    • 2 years ago
  • vincius
    • 0
      vincius  

    • Mother Teresa expressed grave doubts about God's existence and pain over her lack of faith:

      Where is my faith? Even deep down ... there is nothing but emptiness and darkness ... If there be God—please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul ... How painful is this unknown pain—I have no Faith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal, ... What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.[

    • 2 years ago
  • trut
    • 0
      trut  

    • Apparently she took money to be given to the poor and sent it to the Vatican. Isn`t that the whole storyÉ

    • 2 years ago
  • vincius
  • hanna878
    • 0
      hanna878  

    • I've personally had the opportunity to travel to India and went to a Sisters of Charity orphanage in Chennai, India. I doubt Christopher Hitchens would spend a day doing the work that these women do.

      No matter what your believe or don't, I don't understand the angry and hateful response from so many people. If you do believe in God, aren't you taught to respond to anger and hatred with love? and if you don't, then shouldn't you just act indifferently because religious people are irrational and delusional?

      Regardless of your beliefs, however, I don't understand how anyone can deny Mother Theresa's legacy. She took compassion and self-sacrafice to a whole new level. Of course she wasn't perfect, she was, after all, human. No matter her mistakes, or misguided acts, the things she did for people was greater than all of it.

    • 2 years ago
  • hpseaton
    • 0
      hpseaton  

    • Geez, atheists are routinely denounced in all circles and no one seems to give a damn, but one atheist has the unmitigated gall to point out Mother Teresa's hypocrisy and people flip. Hitchens isn't breaking new ground here, people! He's merely taking out the evidence and saying 'look'.

      Personally I don't think Hitchens has anything to apologize for to 'angry Catholics'.

    • 2 years ago
  • Debrinconcita
  • hpseaton
    • 0
      hpseaton  
    • hpseaton:

      Ummm....by that line of reasoning we should therefore discard anything anyone says that doesn't meet your criteria of 'important person'. Do you honestly think that will work? I personally think the Pope is a mouthpiece for organized religion, but that doesn't mean I disregard everything he says. Sometimes I learn more from people I don't like then from people I regard. Sometimes.

      You think Mother Theresa is great. I understand. But Mr. Hitchens has done a large amount of research, and written a small book, all about the good Mother. Perhaps you could learn something from his work if you let go of your anger for a few minutes. I don't agree with everything he writes, but he does make some very interesting points.

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • Is God a concept by which we measure our pain or the greatest intellectual fraud in history ?

      Since I have the humility to be agnostic but do consider the 3 monotheist religions to be the cause of much pain & agony...

      "The three monotheisms, animated by the same genealogical death instinct, share a series of identical contempt: hatred of reason and intelligence; hatred of freedom; hatred of all books in the name the one & only; hatred of life; hatred of sexuality, of women and pleasure; hatred of feminity; hatred of the body, of desires & impulses. Instead of all that, Judaism, Christianity and Islam defend: faith and belief, obedience and submission, a taste for death and a passion for the beyond, asexual angel and chastity, virginity and monogamic fidelity, the wife and the mother, the soul and spirit. In other words, life crucified and celebrated nothingness" – Michel Onfray

      ... I will then refrain from further digression but...

      "Remember there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over." -Frank Zappa

      So can we settle for this ABC of getting all along ?

      HUMANITY FIRST >DO UNTO OTHERS...
      Ethic of Reciprocity / Golden Rule
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethic_of_reciprocity
      GLOBAL ETHIC FOUNDATION
      http://www.weltethos.org/dat-english/03-declaration.htm
      New Global Economic Ethic Manifesto Launched
      http://www.weltethos.org/pdf_dat/grundwerte-wirtschaft/Global_Economic_Ethic.pdf

    • 2 years ago
  • Debrinconcita
    • 0
      Debrinconcita  

    • What a sick sad person he must be, to use his hate out on a person such a Mother Teresa. He must be paving his road all the way home! That why his religious beliefs are nil, he has no compassion for any one but himself, hate is a trait of the devil himself.He's only doing as one of his own kind, it is to be exspected? Nothing wrong here!

    • 2 years ago
  • hpseaton
    • 0
      hpseaton  
    • Debrinconcita:

      'That why his religious beliefs are nil, he has no compassion for any one but himself, hate is a trait of the devil himself.'

      Ok...he's an atheist so YES his religious beliefs are nil. Compassion is a totally different thing then religious beliefs, and I sincerely hope you know that. Hate is a trait of the devil himself, eh? So I suppose that old Inquisition had nothing to do with hate, or the devil, for that matter, right? And the Catholic Church's historic intolerance of homosexuality doesn't show shades of hate?

    • 2 years ago
  • vincius
    • 0
      vincius  

    • Not sure why Atheist feel it necessary to attack a woman who spent her life preparing the dying for death. the boys club that the Church is; has rules that she followed,,, she was in no position to promote condoms.... It was not her department... she chose her path and obviously did not worry about your godless opinion...

    • 2 years ago
  • hpseaton
  • mecormany
    • 0
      mecormany  

    • It's very true Mother Theresa was a fanatic, a fundamentalist and a fraud. Bitch probably was inappropriate but evil would fit. Telling women with ten kids, living in cardboard boxes that using birth control was so bad they'd go to hell for it -- well, maybe evil bitch isn't that out of line after all.

    • 2 years ago
  • Debrinconcita
  • hpseaton
    • 0
      hpseaton  
    • mecormany:

      lol...oh that god, so quick to forgive but not to forget! Hmmm....sounds alot like every other all-knowing Christian. Surprise, surprise. Of course, if you don't buy into the whole 'god', 'hell', etc. then your outburst really doesn't hold any water.

    • 2 years ago
  • LadybugLady
  • hpseaton
    • 0
      hpseaton  
    • LadybugLady:

      Why? Just wondering. What is so wrong with disagreeing, emphatically, with religion? Religions have had run of the earth for a long time and I just don't understand why it's so bad to have some non-believers saying whatever the hell they think of religion.

    • 2 years ago
  • lordsbassman
  • vincius
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