So a week or so ago I was cruising YouTube, which I always enjoy, and came across a video by a user named Oallos1 (“o allos” is Greek for “the other,” so we’ll call him “The Other One” or “TOO”) called Famous Atheists Last Words Before Dying. There’s an apostrophe missing, and the poster could probably have left out the words “Before Dying,” since that’s the commonly understood meaning of the phrase “last words,” but I watched it anyway. You can, too, if you like (or read one of the many identical blog post; I don’t know who is swiping from whom), and then meet me back here.
If you don’t want to I’ll give you an outline. It’s a bunch of quotations supposedly from the deathbeds of Voltaire, Hobbes, and others, shown over mournful music, followed by very serene last words from Christians (and King David, who of course was not a Christian, but they dig him). The idea is that all these atheists were, at the end, terrified of going to Hell (there’s a sub-plot of general despair as well). I wondered, “Why are all these people so scared of going to a Hell they don’t believe in? Perhaps I should look into this more closely.” And it’s Saturday and I have nothing to do, except that I’m gonna make an omelet and fried potatoes in a bit, so I thought I’d do a little research. What did I find? Well, read on.
He starts with Voltaire, a personal favorite, in despair: “I am abandoned by God and man…I shall go to hell.” Later in the video he gives another Voltaire deathbed quote: “I have swallowed nothing but smoke…I have intoxicated myself with the incense that turned my head.” I’m not sure which of those words is supposed to be the last.
Voltaire, of course, was not an atheist but a Deist. He rejected Christianity, not God. I suppose a committed Christian might not appreciate the difference, but Voltaire did. Three months before his death (when he was already very ill) he wrote “I die loving God, adoring my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.” His actual last words were to a priest, come to solicit a last-minute confession to save his soul, and they were “For God’s sake, let me die in peace.” There is also his apocryphal deathbed utterance to a priest upon being asked to renounce Satan: “This is no time to be making enemies.” I hope that’s true. It’s so like him.
These are the facts (not counting the Satan bit) of Voltaire’s death. They don’t jibe that well with the quotations TOO uses, do they? So what’s the source here? Well, these words were part of a longer conversation reported years later by Voltaire’s doctor, a long deathbed screed that I’ve included here if you’d like to read it. There is no other source for them but the doctor. That doesn’t prove the doctor was lying, of course, but his account faces certain problems: these quotations are unlike Voltaire’s known statements, even those he was making at the same time; the doctor claims Voltaire had gone mad, an opinion no one else shared; the doctor reported this conversation in a private letter affirming his own faith, demonstrating a probable expectation that the words would never face public scrutiny; and most convincing, that Voltaire had a priest right there who could have “saved” him if he was worried, and he didn’t take advantage of it. I think the most likely conclusion is that the doctor was...well, we’ll say he was in error.
TOO includes other apocryphal or plainly untrue last words. Thomas Carlyle, for example, whose last word was “goodbye,” he has saying, “I am as good as without hope, a sad old man gazing into the final chasm.” I can find no documentation for this except that every fundamentalist site out there reports it faithfully. Thomas Paine’s deathbed recantation (in which he wishes that his Age of Reason, one of the most important documents in human history, had never been published) is a fabrication that didn’t appear until ten years after his death and was vigorously repudiated by those who had been present. TOO, though, happily recounts it.
The best of the bunch is this one from “Aldamont the Skeptic”: “My principles have poisoned my friend…my extravagance has beggared my boy…My unkindness has murdered my wife…and is there yet another hell ahead?” Whew, that’s pretty compelling. What’s that? You never heard of Aldamont? Don’t worry, the problem isn’t your ignorance, it’s TOO’s. You see, Aldamont never existed. He was a character in an 18th century novel by Edward Young, and is quoted here as if he were a real person. That’s why he’s my favorite.
Another along the same lines is this one from “Sir Thomas Scott, Chancellor of England” that reads, “Until this moment I thought there was neither God nor hell. Now I know and feel that there are both, and I am doomed to perdition by the just judgment of the Almighty.” That’s pretty straightforward, except for three things. First the correct title is “Chancellor of Britain,” although I suppose that if you go far enough back that might be the older equivalent. Second, the office is partly ecclesiastical in nature. Third, I have checked a list of all the Chancellors and there has never been one named Thomas Scott.
This is kind of serious, isnt it? The closest I could get with that name is a Sir Thomas Scott who served in Parliament and held a ton of other government positions (but not Chancellor!) in the 16th century. I don’t know for sure that this is who The Other One meant, but I could find no nearer match; all the others I found were ministers. This Scott was a Protestant and was enthusiastic about the persecution of Catholics. If this is the right guy, my guess is that the quote was made up (maybe by angry Catholics
). Also, there was Sir John Scott, Lord Eldon, who served two separate terms as Chancellor at the beginning of the 19th century. The guy who served in between was named Thomas (Erskine), so between them you have a Thomas and a Scott, and maybe TOO was just a bit sloppy. Regardless, none of these men were atheists, so again, this quotation was probably made up.
This video is full of people who weren’t atheists, actually. You have the Voltaire quotes above, of course, and TOO also mentions Edward Gibbon’s apocryphal last words (“All is dark and doubtful”), even though Gibbon was a Deist, alongside those of the Emporer Severus (“I have been everything, and everything is nothing”), who was a polytheist. He includes this bit from Gandhi: “My days are numbered. I’m not likely to live much longer, perhaps a year or more…For the first time in fifty years I find myself in the Slough of Despond…all about me is darkness…I am praying for light.” Gandhi, of course, was Hindu. To TOO there is apparently no difference between being an atheist and being non-Christian.
Of course, that doesn’t explain this quotation: “Oh, my poor soul! What will become of thee? Whither wilt thou go?” These are the alleged last words of Cardinal Mazarin, and as you may know, “Cardinal” was not his name but his title. He was one of the most powerful and influential clergymen of his day and, presumably, a Christian.
So this video is misnamed. It should be “Last Words of Famous Non-Christians (plus one or two Christians who didn’t believe hard enough).” TOO did not succeed in creating what he wanted to create. I left a very polite comment to that effect on his video, to which he responded by reporting me as a spammer. It turns out that he has reported every single comment to this video as spam. That’s why I wrote this, ‘cause I couldn’t write there. If he was trying to inspire people, well, he certainly succeeded in inspiring me.
Oh, well. The truth that TOO is trying to obscure is that human beings, no matter their religion, generally approach death with trepidation, for the same reason we pass a door into a dark room with care. We don’t know what’s on the other side. That room might hold a pretty girl, or a psycho-killer, or just some furniture we’ll stub our toes on. We might be afraid and we might not, but we tread carefully.
Mazarin (if this report, unlike the others, is true) is a Christian dying in fear, uncertain of what’s to come. Thomas Hobbes, whose last words “I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark” TOO misquotes, is also uncertain. To me Hobbes sounds less fearful than Mazarin, probably because he didn’t believe in Hell and Mazarin did. It is not clear to me that a belief in Hell is a comfort at the end of life, and I bet I could find some other despairing quotes from dying Christians if I wanted to, but really, what sort of person wants to read of people dying in despair?
Also, even if all these quotes were accurate, TOO would have a weak argument here. Does being near death give us insight into the great mysteries of the universe? Not obviously. Consider all the people who slip into dementia at the end of their lives. But even allowing that it does, what then of non-Christians who faced death unafraid and unrepentant? What of Heinrich Heine, who refused a last confession with the memorable “God will forgive me. That’s his job”? What of Byron’s peaceful “Now I shall go to sleep. Goodnight,” or Darwin’s simple and elegant “I am not the least afraid to die.” Given all the bizarre deathbed stories about Darwin, I always find that refreshing. Considering how much last words vary on the subject, isn’t the best bet simply that the speakers knew no more at the end than they had in the middle of life? Isn’t it likely that none of this proves anything at all?
Personally I have always been fond of Bertrand Russell’s words on the subject, and though they weren’t his last they were at least definitely his, and we’ll let them be the last here:
If you don’t want to I’ll give you an outline. It’s a bunch of quotations supposedly from the deathbeds of Voltaire, Hobbes, and others, shown over mournful music, followed by very serene last words from Christians (and King David, who of course was not a Christian, but they dig him). The idea is that all these atheists were, at the end, terrified of going to Hell (there’s a sub-plot of general despair as well). I wondered, “Why are all these people so scared of going to a Hell they don’t believe in? Perhaps I should look into this more closely.” And it’s Saturday and I have nothing to do, except that I’m gonna make an omelet and fried potatoes in a bit, so I thought I’d do a little research. What did I find? Well, read on.
He starts with Voltaire, a personal favorite, in despair: “I am abandoned by God and man…I shall go to hell.” Later in the video he gives another Voltaire deathbed quote: “I have swallowed nothing but smoke…I have intoxicated myself with the incense that turned my head.” I’m not sure which of those words is supposed to be the last.
Voltaire, of course, was not an atheist but a Deist. He rejected Christianity, not God. I suppose a committed Christian might not appreciate the difference, but Voltaire did. Three months before his death (when he was already very ill) he wrote “I die loving God, adoring my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.” His actual last words were to a priest, come to solicit a last-minute confession to save his soul, and they were “For God’s sake, let me die in peace.” There is also his apocryphal deathbed utterance to a priest upon being asked to renounce Satan: “This is no time to be making enemies.” I hope that’s true. It’s so like him.
These are the facts (not counting the Satan bit) of Voltaire’s death. They don’t jibe that well with the quotations TOO uses, do they? So what’s the source here? Well, these words were part of a longer conversation reported years later by Voltaire’s doctor, a long deathbed screed that I’ve included here if you’d like to read it. There is no other source for them but the doctor. That doesn’t prove the doctor was lying, of course, but his account faces certain problems: these quotations are unlike Voltaire’s known statements, even those he was making at the same time; the doctor claims Voltaire had gone mad, an opinion no one else shared; the doctor reported this conversation in a private letter affirming his own faith, demonstrating a probable expectation that the words would never face public scrutiny; and most convincing, that Voltaire had a priest right there who could have “saved” him if he was worried, and he didn’t take advantage of it. I think the most likely conclusion is that the doctor was...well, we’ll say he was in error.
TOO includes other apocryphal or plainly untrue last words. Thomas Carlyle, for example, whose last word was “goodbye,” he has saying, “I am as good as without hope, a sad old man gazing into the final chasm.” I can find no documentation for this except that every fundamentalist site out there reports it faithfully. Thomas Paine’s deathbed recantation (in which he wishes that his Age of Reason, one of the most important documents in human history, had never been published) is a fabrication that didn’t appear until ten years after his death and was vigorously repudiated by those who had been present. TOO, though, happily recounts it.
The best of the bunch is this one from “Aldamont the Skeptic”: “My principles have poisoned my friend…my extravagance has beggared my boy…My unkindness has murdered my wife…and is there yet another hell ahead?” Whew, that’s pretty compelling. What’s that? You never heard of Aldamont? Don’t worry, the problem isn’t your ignorance, it’s TOO’s. You see, Aldamont never existed. He was a character in an 18th century novel by Edward Young, and is quoted here as if he were a real person. That’s why he’s my favorite.
Another along the same lines is this one from “Sir Thomas Scott, Chancellor of England” that reads, “Until this moment I thought there was neither God nor hell. Now I know and feel that there are both, and I am doomed to perdition by the just judgment of the Almighty.” That’s pretty straightforward, except for three things. First the correct title is “Chancellor of Britain,” although I suppose that if you go far enough back that might be the older equivalent. Second, the office is partly ecclesiastical in nature. Third, I have checked a list of all the Chancellors and there has never been one named Thomas Scott.
This is kind of serious, isnt it? The closest I could get with that name is a Sir Thomas Scott who served in Parliament and held a ton of other government positions (but not Chancellor!) in the 16th century. I don’t know for sure that this is who The Other One meant, but I could find no nearer match; all the others I found were ministers. This Scott was a Protestant and was enthusiastic about the persecution of Catholics. If this is the right guy, my guess is that the quote was made up (maybe by angry Catholics
). Also, there was Sir John Scott, Lord Eldon, who served two separate terms as Chancellor at the beginning of the 19th century. The guy who served in between was named Thomas (Erskine), so between them you have a Thomas and a Scott, and maybe TOO was just a bit sloppy. Regardless, none of these men were atheists, so again, this quotation was probably made up.This video is full of people who weren’t atheists, actually. You have the Voltaire quotes above, of course, and TOO also mentions Edward Gibbon’s apocryphal last words (“All is dark and doubtful”), even though Gibbon was a Deist, alongside those of the Emporer Severus (“I have been everything, and everything is nothing”), who was a polytheist. He includes this bit from Gandhi: “My days are numbered. I’m not likely to live much longer, perhaps a year or more…For the first time in fifty years I find myself in the Slough of Despond…all about me is darkness…I am praying for light.” Gandhi, of course, was Hindu. To TOO there is apparently no difference between being an atheist and being non-Christian.
Of course, that doesn’t explain this quotation: “Oh, my poor soul! What will become of thee? Whither wilt thou go?” These are the alleged last words of Cardinal Mazarin, and as you may know, “Cardinal” was not his name but his title. He was one of the most powerful and influential clergymen of his day and, presumably, a Christian.
So this video is misnamed. It should be “Last Words of Famous Non-Christians (plus one or two Christians who didn’t believe hard enough).” TOO did not succeed in creating what he wanted to create. I left a very polite comment to that effect on his video, to which he responded by reporting me as a spammer. It turns out that he has reported every single comment to this video as spam. That’s why I wrote this, ‘cause I couldn’t write there. If he was trying to inspire people, well, he certainly succeeded in inspiring me.
Oh, well. The truth that TOO is trying to obscure is that human beings, no matter their religion, generally approach death with trepidation, for the same reason we pass a door into a dark room with care. We don’t know what’s on the other side. That room might hold a pretty girl, or a psycho-killer, or just some furniture we’ll stub our toes on. We might be afraid and we might not, but we tread carefully.
Mazarin (if this report, unlike the others, is true) is a Christian dying in fear, uncertain of what’s to come. Thomas Hobbes, whose last words “I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark” TOO misquotes, is also uncertain. To me Hobbes sounds less fearful than Mazarin, probably because he didn’t believe in Hell and Mazarin did. It is not clear to me that a belief in Hell is a comfort at the end of life, and I bet I could find some other despairing quotes from dying Christians if I wanted to, but really, what sort of person wants to read of people dying in despair?
Also, even if all these quotes were accurate, TOO would have a weak argument here. Does being near death give us insight into the great mysteries of the universe? Not obviously. Consider all the people who slip into dementia at the end of their lives. But even allowing that it does, what then of non-Christians who faced death unafraid and unrepentant? What of Heinrich Heine, who refused a last confession with the memorable “God will forgive me. That’s his job”? What of Byron’s peaceful “Now I shall go to sleep. Goodnight,” or Darwin’s simple and elegant “I am not the least afraid to die.” Given all the bizarre deathbed stories about Darwin, I always find that refreshing. Considering how much last words vary on the subject, isn’t the best bet simply that the speakers knew no more at the end than they had in the middle of life? Isn’t it likely that none of this proves anything at all?
Personally I have always been fond of Bertrand Russell’s words on the subject, and though they weren’t his last they were at least definitely his, and we’ll let them be the last here:
I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life, but I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man’s place in the world. Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own.
