Christopher Hitchens

...is dying from esophageal cancer that has metastasized. He is chronicling this in Esquire Magazine and NPR is also interviewing him weekly. What else does a writer do than take his own experience and turn it into words, hopefully mining the experience for others but also for himself? That’s what we do.

Hitchens, you may recall, has written and spoken extensively about God, religion, and belief and his non-belief in each of those. Now cancer. Soon death and I must say that I do admire him for the integrity of his beliefs about belief.

Yesterday he spoke about the many people who are praying for him and he makes a distinction between those whose prayers are good wishes for his health or comfort versus those whose prayers are more along the lines of, “God, maybe now that this bastard is dying he’ll finally believe in you.”