I remember an old story (probably apocryphal) I once heard about one of the founding fathers (Tom Payne? Paul Revere? I don't remember which) who was determined to die without religion.

Like many, if not most, of his fellow revolutionaries, he did not particularly deny the existence of God, he just felt that existence was irrelevant. God may have created the Universe, but there wasn't the slightest evidence he cared for any of the people in it, or was even aware of their existence.

The story goes that his friends kept bringing religious functionaries to his deathbed, ministers of many Protestant denominations, a priest, eventually in desperation, a rabbi, in the hope he would go with a prayer on his lips. He didn't.

We all will eventually go like Hitchens, many of us, thanks to modern medicine, in dreadful pain and perfectly aware of what is happening to us. It is one of
God's cruelest jokes, that whether he exists or not, and whether we believe in him or not, neither will make even the slightest difference.

It's one of the reasons I bought a gun. What you can't buy is the courage to use it.

Good bye, Hitchens. You will be missed.