But obviously Christians don't believe that heaven is like North Korea or the Movementarians. They see it quite differently from the inside.
I take Hitchens as trying to find a common ground for argument by appealing directly to the text. So it is on point if his interpretation of the text does not do it justice, especially if the Christians interpret it differently in a way that is more internally consistent.
The problem is that no one seems to have an idea of heaven that -- if it were actually REALIZED (vs staying as an abstract idea) -- would be tolerable for any length of time by human beings. We have to assume that people are transformed into something that deals well with eternity, for example... but we never even talked about it at that depth.
I was raised Catholic by two still-seriously-believing parents, I should mention, so I have some idea of what some Christians think heaven is like. It's a vague mush of conflicting ideas.
And that's just fine, because no one wants to think about it deeply; that's not the point. It's just for saying "well, your Nana is in Heaven now, and she's very, very happy there". It's whatever it needs to be for Nana to be very, very happy.
If she's reunited with both husbands and her lover from the late 1950s as well, presumably none of them will have drinking problems or anger-management issues anymore, and they'll all get along, and be very, very happy, and also the baby that died will be there. Also very, very happy.
But again, this is already miles further than anyone delves into it. It was just "well, God will be there, and it's just amazing to be in His presence; end of story."
I take Hitchens as trying to find a common ground for argument by appealing directly to the text. So it is on point if his interpretation of the text does not do it justice, especially if the Christians interpret it differently in a way that is more internally consistent.