I always thought there was more to his vociferous defense of atheism than met the eye. We'll never know.
I disagreed with him on many things, but I highly respected his intellect, and latter day conservative leanings.
I disagreed with him too, esp his atheism.A true intellect who always had my respect.We can only hope he had a last minute denunciation of the atheism and called out our Lords name with his last breath.