WORDS OF DYING ATHEISTS by Kent E. Heaton, Sr.

as originally published in the November 14, 1999 edition of The Trenton Bulletin

Caesar Borgia: "While I lived, I provided for everything but death; now I must die, and am unprepared to die."

Thomas Hobbs: "I say again, if I had the whole world at my disposal, I would give it to live one day. I am about to take a leap into the dark."

Thomas Payne: "Stay with me, for God's sake; I cannot bear to be left alone ... O Lord, help me! O God, what have I done to suffer so much? What will become of me hereafter?"

Sir Thomas Scott: "Until this moment I thought there was neither a God nor a hell. Now I know and feel that there are both, and I am doomed to perdition by the just judgment of the Almighty."

Voltaire: "I am abandoned by God and man; I will give you half of what I am worth if you will give me six months' life." (He said this to Dr. Fochin, who told him it could not be done.) "Then I shall die and go to hell!"

Robert Ingersoll: "O God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul!" (Some say it was this way: "Oh God, if there be a God, save my soul if I have a soul, from hell, if there be a hell!")

In the last century, a well-known atheist was riding with Alexander Campbell in a buckboard. As usual, they were discussing atheism. Campbell's visitor pointed to an ox grazing in the nearly field, and said: "I have no more fear of death than that ox." To which Campbell replied: "And no more hope, either."