Perhaps somebody ought to try upping the ante on Christopher Hitchens’ salvation. You may recall that Hitchens is a devout atheist. (Is there such a thing? Can you be devout if you don’t have an object of your devotion? Or is that like ending a sentence with a preposition? There’s nothing on the receiving end? If you figure that out, lemme know.)

At any rate, Hitchens does not believe in God. Period. Even though he’s got a bad case of cancer. A lot of people have been praying for Mr. Hitchens. I already wrote about that here and here. Mr. Hitchens is still about the business of writing. He had an excellent piece in Slate on Serbia and his newest Kindle book on the death of Osama Bin Laden has just been released: The Enemy.

So I’m not sure he needs the cash but perhaps if someone offered him $1 million, Hitchens might reconsider his position on God.

That’s how Sal Bentivegna, 28, came to become a God-fan.

According to Newsday, young Sal was previously a self-declared atheist. (Is there any other kind? I mean is there someplace you can go and register yourself as an atheist? Where they write your name down in a ledger like they did for Ellis Island immigrants? Excuse me, ma’am! I said excuse me, ma’am. You done stuck me with the Baptists and I told you I’m an atheist! Now would erase my name? I don’t believe in no God. See it says so right here on my Serbian Driver’s License?)

But Sal does believe in voodoo, apparently, because he told his mama, a good Catholic woman, that she ought to ask God for a $1 million. But Sal’s mama, who has one of the hardest names in the world to live up to — Gloria — refused. I suspect she wanted her son to know that the God she loves and adores is not some Hocus-Pocus-Genie.

God has skin in this game, already.

The question all the rest of us have to answer is — do we?

Sal didn’t.

Until his mama won the lottery.

Yep. That’s right.

We got us another lotto-winning convert.

What is it about winning the lottery that makes a believer out of people?

You may it see it differently, but if I wasn’t a believer beforehand, and I win the lottery, I’m not about to convert. Why would I want to take up a faith that might require me to share from my abundance? The more I have, the more I want. It’s the American way, right?