It's 'Everybody Pray For Hitchens' Day

toggle caption Associated Press

But atheist Christopher Hitchens, who has esophogeal cancer, won't join you. The author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything warns fans and detractors not to expect a change in his beliefs, much less a deathbed conversion. He's described his diagnosis for Vanity Fair and in his latest essay, Hitchens reprints a detractor's view the cancer is divine retribution for irreligious beliefs. Hitch tartly responds:

... why cancer at all? Almost all men get cancer of the prostate if they live long enough: it’s an undignified thing but quite evenly distributed among saints and sinners, believers and unbelievers. If you maintain that god awards the appropriate cancers, you must also account for the numbers of infants who contract leukemia.

The larger question continues over whether to pray for an atheist's recovery. There are Facebook and youtube pages, and Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg suggests believers go ahead, if they don't mind feeling a little silly. Deacon Greg Kandra says absolutely, asking 'What part of love your enemies, pray for your persecutors isn't clear?' This led Hitch to wonder:

A different secular problem also occurs to me: what if I pulled through and the pious faction contentedly claimed that their prayers had been answered? That would somehow be irritating.

Have a great day, Hitch.