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I hope that was a recent vid. Hitchens is looking pretty spry.
The Darwin deathbed story is especially rancid. It came from a tiresome British evangelist, Lady Hope, and persists to this very day on Xian websites. Despite statements from Darwin's children, who were actually with him when he died. Unlike Lady Dope.
Another horrible yarn is the one about Voltaire - badgered by a local priest until he finally said, "Please go away and let me die in peace." The priest earned an easy 15 mins. of fame by claiming that Voltaire converted anyway. Though I've always loved the apocryphal version - when the priest demanded that Voltaire renounce Satan and all his works, Voltaire replied: "This is no time to be making enemies."
All American fundies know that George Washington was virtually an 18th-century Pat Robertson, always falling to his knees on battlefields and generally going around spouting off about the wonderfulness of Jesus.
So he's safe on the conversion angle. For him, they made up a story that he called for the Bible on his deathbed.
Unfortunately for God's Little Liars, famous people usually die well-attended. In GW's case, by 3 doctors and his personal secretary, along with family members. His last words were carefully recorded, and none involved a Bible.
A lifelong farmer/soldier, GW was as practical as a claw-hammer. His real last words expressed his great fear of being buried alive, and a demand to make sure he was thoroughly dead before the coffin got nailed shut.
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