患癌無神論者，會否修正信念？

我經常在睡前看官台ABC的晚間時事分析節目Lateline。昨晚一集，幾乎整個半小時全用來播放Christopher Hitchens的訪談。

Christopher Hitchens是知名無神論者，年初發現患癌，且屬晚期。死亡，他如何面對，對神之存在與否有沒有新的想法？

- Atheist Hitchens stares death in the eye （Windows Media視頻及文字整理）

I'm wondering have you softened at all and are you prepared to concede anything at all to the faithful that there may be some value in it. I mean, the comfort that religious belief for example gives to people who are in the same position as you?

Tony, as with a lot of this argument, looking death more closely in the eye, as I have been doing, doesn't teach you much that you didn't already know, surprisingly enough. It focuses it, brings it into quite a sharp relief, but it isn't as if I didn't already know that some people, whether they're sick or whether they're well, derive great comfort from the thought that they have a saviour, that they're a member of a flock, for example.

I mean, I personally am incapable of describing myself as a member of a flock for reasons that I hope are self-evident. I'm not a sheep. Some people like to be called sheep and think that they'd like to have a shepherd. And if that makes them feel happy, I must say I think it's a rather contemptible form of happiness, but doesn't bother me as long as they keep it to themselves. As long as they don't try and make me believe it, as long as they don't try and have it taught in schools, as long as they don't want the government to subsidise it, as long as they don't want to block scientific research in its name or because of it, then that's fine.

As Thomas Jefferson said, "I don't mind if my neighbour believes in one god or 15 gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." As long as he or she leaves me alone. I don't want to even have to know what they think. But will they requite this bargain? Of course not. Of course not. They - it doesn't really make them happy. They can't be happy ‘till everyone else believes it too, and that's sinister, in my opinion, and creepy.

（訪談共分兩部分，今晚播出下半，主要談他的政治理念）