The Darkside vs.The Lightside.

Atheist Christopher Hitchens and Christian Larry Taunton: An unlikely friendship? Did Hitchens convert? After all, Darth Vader managed it!

The June edition of Premier Christianity magazine carries a question and answer session with evangelical Christian Larry Taunton. Taunton had a friendship with evangelical atheist Christopher Hitchens and he has since written a book on this friendship entitled "The Faith of Christopher Hitchens".  I have no intention of reading this book and so will have to make do with the article in Christianity. In this article Taunton says this about Hitchens' book "God Is Not Great": 

He (Hitchens) wasn't the man I expected from reading "God is Not Great". That book was a rant and I expected him to match the book. But away from audiences and the cameras, Christopher was a very different individual. 

Further in regard to Hitchens' stage persona Taunton states:

Christopher  would give the impression on stage that he hated religious people. But after our debate in Montana he crossed the stage. shook my hand  and said "You were quite good tonight, Are we having dinner?"

It is well known that Hitchens said that any concession to faith he might make near his death would likely be because his cancer had gone to his brain. On this subject Taunton says:

I was talking to him [Hitchens] on the phone and I said 'What's up with: "If I convert the cancer has gone to my brain"?' He seemed a little embarrassed by it.

Taunton is apparently making no claim that Hitchens had a deathbed conversion, but on Hitchen's "faith", if such it can be called, Taunton claims:

Christopher recognized that atheism in itself is nothing. He was searching for that thing that might ultimately sustain and give meaning to his life. ..... Toward the end of his life, Christopher began exploring the Christian faith. After the publication of "God Is Not Great", he began engaging evangelicals. He would make a show of asking these questions [supposedly] for investigative reasons, but I think he was personally investigating  questions he had about the validity of the Bible and what it is that makes evangelicals tick. 

Christopher and I took lengthy road trips after his cancer diagnosis, and during those trips we studied the Gospel of John for three or four hours. ......he sought me out and sought out these kinds of engagement.

It is quite possible that Hitchens' uncompromising stand against religion was part of his professional act, an act which demanded a formidable stage presence; in effect it was a polemical technique which didn't necessarily mean he would then bring the same attitudes to bear in interpersonal relations. I remember once seeing Mohammed Ali the boxer being interviewed by a talk show host; gone was the blustering braggart to be replaced by a much more unassuming man. It was all just an act and Ali was both a skilled showman and consummate boxer! However, be that as it may, what are we to make of Taunton's claims about Hitchens apparently seeking something, perhaps even seeking God himself? It's difficult to be sure: I have to be frank and say that in my experience of evangelicals I have observed that they often show the very human twin weaknesses of confirmation bias and being prone to seeing what they would like to see; that is, reading the wrong things between the lines. In this connection notice that Taunton's conclusions about Hitchens are all constructions of varying plausibility which he has placed upon Hitchens behavior. In actual fact it is difficult to know what Hitchens was up to, although I suppose it is just possible that impending finality and the sense of vulnerability that mortality brings lead him to take out a small stake in the hereafter!

OK let's now turn to evangelical atheist PZ Myers who has also commented on this Taunton-Hitchens friendship and on Taunton's book. It's not too surprising that Myers is absolutely livid and opens with:

Another Christian has written a book to lie about Christopher Hitchens. This one is claiming that he and Hitchens were great good buddies, that Hitchens was sympathetic to Christianity, and that he may have converted on his deathbed (he doesn’t know for sure — he wasn’t there — but he’s going to sell a book with that claim).

Here Myers is even casting doubt on Taunton's claim to being a good friend of Hitchens as well as making out that the even merest hint of the possibility of a death bed conversion is the height of presumption; Myers wants to hang Taunton for something! Myers thinks Taunton, whom he calls a "ghoul", is taking advantage of a dead man by publishing lies about him for monetary gain - a very serious charge!  Myers finishes with this:

Larry Alex Taunton is a contemptible liar. But isn’t it amazing how contemptible liars can just put on their loving Christian mask and fool the gullible?

No! I doubt Taunton is a barefaced liar! But the problem I have with evangelicals of all varieties, whether they are calling other people liars or not, is that sometimes they are gullible enough to be fooled by their own spin.

On the subject of a deathbed conversion Myers quotes Taunton as follows:

I discovered Christopher is not defined by his atheism. Atheism is a negative and you can’t build a philosophy around a negative. Christopher was searching for a unifying system of thought. They’re accusing me of saying he converted. I make no such claim. It’s not my claim that Christopher converted, it’s that Christopher was contemplating conversion. I think I substantiate it in the book.

Myers says that that is an untestable claim. But is it untestable? Yes and no. What went on between Taunton and Hitches prior to Hitchens death is difficult to test, but testing, which in its weaker form really entails gathering evidence, is not impossible. Part of gathering that evidence would require getting to know Taunton to see if he is the barefaced lying type that Myers claims him to be (Which I personally doubt). I suppose we really need to get scientific about it and endeavor to put personal likes and dislikes on one side, if such is possible (Which it probably isn't!). Let's also remember that Hitchens brother, Peter converted from the extreme left to a fairly conservative right of centre version of Christianity; moreover, Hitchens himself also moved rightwards during the course of his carreer. Perhaps Taunton could sense a kindred spirit in the Hitchens family and that Hitchens and Taunton, both of whom presumably have evangelical personalities, are different sides to a similar coin.

Note:
On the subject of evidence: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/evidence-guide-lines-but-not-tram-lines.html