Hitch On Mother Theresa

Free Inquiry magazine did a nice interview with Christopher Hitchens about his book on Mother Theresa when it was published. Check it out. (Yeah, I know the interview is old but it's new to me.) I love the line: "I'm an atheist. I'm not neutral about religion, I'm hostile to it. I think it is a positively bad idea, not just a false one. And I mean not just organized religion, but religious belief itself." And I found this exchange very disturbing:

Hitchens: I hesitated to cover this in my book, but I decided I had to publish that she has said that the suffering of the poor is something very beautiful and the world is being very much helped by the nobility of this example of misery and suffering.

FI: A horrible thing to say.

Hitchens: Yes, evil in fact. To say it was unChristian unfortunately would not be true, although many people don't realize that is what Christians believe. It is a positively immoral remark in my opinion, and it should be more widely known than it is.