An atheist in the woods

An atheist was taking a walk through the woods, admiring all that “the accident of evolution” had created.

“What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!”

… the man said to himself.

As he was walking alongside the river he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him.

As he turned to look, he saw a 7-foot grizzly charge towards him. He ran as fast as he could up the path. He hooked over his shoulder and saw that the bear was closing in on him. He tried to run even faster, so scared that tears were coming to his eyes. He looked over his shoulder again, and the bear was even closer. His heart was pumping frantically as he tried to run even faster, but he tripped and fell to the ground.

He rolled over to pick himself up and saw the bear right on top of him raising his paw to kill him.

At that instant he cried out,

“Oh my God!”

Just then. time stopped. The bear froze, the forest was silent, the river even stopped moving.

A bright light shone upon the man, and a voice came out of the sky saying,

“You deny my existence all of these years, teach others I don’t exist and even credit my creation to a cosmic accident and now do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?”

The atheist, ever so proud, looked into the light and said,

“It would be rather hypocritical to ask to be a Christian after all these years…but could you make the bear a Christian?”

“Very well,”

… said  the voice. As the light went out, the river ran, and the sounds of the forest continued,

the bear put his paw down.

The bear then brought both paws together, bowed his head and said,

“Lord, I thank you for this food that I am about to receive.”

(Sent to me by a religious Twitter follower.  Hope you don’t mind the posting.)



Father Bob and Aronra

This week I meet with Aronra in Melbourne for the Global Atheist Convention, and thought it would be a good idea to chat up with Australia’s most popular secular humanist Catholic Father Bob for a chat.  Strap yourself in for this one.


Further Reading

Excellent Marriage

On Thursday the 17th May the churches of Tasmania will be hosting an event at the Stanley Burbury Theatre entitled “Excellent Marriage”.  According to their web site the event “aims to celebrate the importance and value of marriage for the Australian community”.  They say  “people from religious and non-religious backgrounds, young and old, are all invited to…
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More Ultimate Answers

This is a continuation of my reply to Andrew Finden’s “one last philosophical hurrah” post, and addresses the question “why believe there is a god?” It is encouraging to read the opening statement of this section where Andrew admits “that one can cannot prove that God exists”, however he quickly (and rightly) dismisses philosophical materialism…
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Ultimate Answers

Those who have been following this blog for a while will, no doubt, recall the various discussions/debates/arguments I have had with Andrew Finden in the past. As frustrating as I find them at times, I think he often tackles interesting and difficult topics with a calm intelligence not very often found in the religious debate. This…
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Dear Mr. Swan,

Wayne Swan is currently having meeting to finalise the Australian federal budget.  In these tough economic times it is more important than ever to ensure your hard earned tax dollar is being spent in the most effective and efficient manner.  In view of this I can think of one poorly thought out federal program which,…
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We have it all

Last weekend I attend the second Global Atheist Convention run by the Atheist Foundation of Australia in Melbourne. The convention attracted over 4,000 attendees to listen to extraordinary line up of world class speakers from a variety of disciplines on a wide range of topics. The convention began with a comedy line up including the brilliantly hilarious…
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Poor Pell

Last Monday on Australia’s ABC television network the jet-lagged evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins squared off against Catholic Cardinal George Pell on the “Q and A” program with unimpressive results. A transcript of the entire show can be found in the ABC’s web site. The level of intellectual debate on this episode of Q and A…
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