There's been some research in cognitive science, I'm told, that discloses that there have always been perhaps 10 to 15 percent of people who are, as Pascal puts it, so made that they cannot believe. To us, when people talk about faith, it's white noise.

In November 2010 Hitchens cancelled a scheduled appearance in New York where he was to debate writers David Hazony and Stephen Prothero on the subject of the Ten Commandments. He also criticised Bush's support of intelligent design and capital punishment. He will tell it really well.

His anti-religion polemic God Is Not Great sold over 500000 copies. Hitchens died on 15 December 2011 from complications arising from oesophageal cancer a disease that he acknowledged was likely due to his lifelong predilection for heavy smoking and drinking.