Episode 48: Religious Pray for Atheists to Die? - Christopher Hitchens Fights Cancer - "Why Not Me?" [Discussion]

[jackierulesall]

What does it say about prayer if people are praying for outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens to die?

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[bweeg]

Penn, I wish I could be as optimistic about human nature as you are. But I cant.

[cybersuchus]

Yeah between that and the one a few episodes ago about "truly evil people," I gotta say that I'm rather surprised at how optimistic he feels about humanity. I think Penn's view of human beings is actually a bit delusional. Even if "truly evil" and hateful people were a tiny proportion of the population (say 1%, or less) that's still millions of people.

[thechaplain]

I think Phelps (the preacher, not the swimmer) is all the proof that you need that someone can believe in something hateful to a nearly unimaginable degree.

He doesn't simply believe that prayer works, rather that God is beating him to the punch and attacking humanity.

[vorticose]

Sadly... If someone can point a gun at another person and fire to kill then I think that some people would genuinely use prayer to wish death on someone else while believing that it will work.

I like to think they're well in the minority though.

[czarnoff]

Christians praying for the sickness and death of Christopher Hitchens need to pay more attention to the words of their God. Specifically, in Matthew 5:43-47 Christ says that we should pray for our enemies. Or in this case, those with differing opinions. I believe praying for sickness and death is a sin. Even if prayer was a useless wish, wishing harm on others is morally wrong. I pray that any Christians praying for harm would take their heads out of the behinds and quit giving me a bad name.