The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Monday, September 14, 2026
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” – Douglas Adams, author (1952-2001)
Well, yes and no, Doug.
Douglas Adams, who was educated at St. John’s College in Cambridge, started out as a comedy writer, earning credits for episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1974) and Dr. Who (1978). He continued to struggle as a writer until he penned The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in 1978.
Originally designed to be a radio comedy on the BBC, The Hitchhiker’s Guide developed into a five-book trilogy that eventually sold more than 14 million copies during Adams’s lifetime. Instant fame and fortune were his but unfortunately, longevity wasn’t.
On May 11, 2001, Adams was resting from a workout at Platinum Fitness, a private gym in Santa Barbara, when he suffered a fatal heart attack. He was just 49 years old.
On Adams’s Wikipedia page, it lists him as being known for his environmental advocacy, his procrastination, his love for rock music, and his self-described “radical atheism”. Although Adams’s parents were Christians and he admitted to being "extremely religious” as a child, by 1984 Adams identified as “very firmly agnostic”. He remained fascinated by religion because of its effect on human affairs, stating "I love to keep poking and prodding at it. I've thought about it so much over the years that that fascination is bound to spill over into my writing.”
In his later years, Adams became friends with evolutionary biologist and prominent atheist Richard Dawkins, who proved to be a bad influence. In his 2006 book The God Delusion, Dawkins jokingly called Adams his "possibly only convert" to atheism.
And so, whereas Douglas Adams’s writing career may have ended up “where he needed to be”, today his eternal soul is not where it needed to be. Because he failed to place his faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is safe to say that Douglas Adams split hell wide open the day he suffered his fatal heart attack… and he remains there to this very day.
How very tragic and how easily avoidable, but now it’s too late for Douglas Adams. One can only hope that the 85-year-old Dawkins, who has been married four times, will come to Christ before it’s too late.
“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” Psalm 14:1 (BSB)
- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President
