Christopher Hitchens was an atheist who died of esophageal cancer in 2011.   It was a slow, horrible death.

      Near the end of his life, he gave an interview.

      Interviewer:   "You have faced serious illness, and I'm wondering if that has shaped your [atheist] view."

      Hitchens:   "It's considered perfectly normal in our society to approach dying people whom you don't know but who are unbelievers, and say, 'Now are you going to change your mind?'   In fact, it's considered almost a polite question.

      "As you know, there's a long history of fraud about this.   People claim that Darwin had a deathbed recantation.   They made up lies but Thomas Paine.

      "It goes on all the time.   They've even tried it on me when I've been very ill in a hospital bed.

      "I don't mind.   I can take it.

      "I mean, if Sam [Harris] and I were to form a corps of people to go around Bridges Hospital   —   here's what happens in reverse   —   and say to [religious] people who are lying in pain, 'So just recognize that it was all bullshit, and the priests were cheating you, and I guarantee you'll feel better,' I don't think that would be very ethical, but if it's in the name of God, it has a social license.   I will say, if it's my last breath, 'Fuck that.'   Thank you."