An atheist was taking a walk through the woods, admiring all that evolution had created.
"What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!", he said to himself. As he was walking along the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. When he turned to see what the casue was, he saw a 7-foot grizzly charging right towards him. He ran as fast as he could. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bear was closing, He ran even faster, crying in fear. He looked over his shoulder again, and the bear was even closer. His heart was pounding and he tried to run even faster. He tripped and fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up, but saw the bear right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw and raising his right paw to strike him.
At that moment, the Atheist cried out "Oh my God!...." Time stopped. The bear froze. The forest was silent. Even the river stopped moving.
As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky, "You deny my existence for all of these years; teach others I don''t exist; and even credit creation to a cosmic accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?"
The atheist looked directly into the light "It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask You to treat me as Christian now, but perhaps could you make the bear a Christian?" "Very well," said the voice.
The light went out. The river ran again. And the sounds of the forest resumed.
And then the bear dropped his right paw ..... brought both paws together...bowed his head and spoke: "Lord, for this food which I am about to receive, I am truly thankful."
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"If you were looking for something clever or witty or funny here, you've come to the wrong place."
The part about that joke that I didn't like was the use of the word "Christian" rather than "theist". You don't have to be a Christian to believe in god.
i dont think that its an awful person who deserves to be eaten by a bear. But if you spend your life saying you dont believe in God then its awful to ask for His help if something like this were to happen..
I have never been at a crossroads like you say here but I have recently started going to church again and I am loving it....Though I am sposed to read the book of Matthew by tomorrow night and I havent started...ugh
I don't think it's necesary to subscribe to an organised religion in order to have a spiritual connection, or to believe in a god, or to be a really decent human being. Some people need that kind of affiliation and others don't.
Several years ago, when I was very politically active, I made friends with a young woman who had recently joined a fundamentalist Christian group. As it turns out, she had been released from prison shortly before I met her. She had been convicted of murdering a man and was incarcerated. She found Jesus while in the slammer.
Anyway, she was moving from one house to another and I offered her the use of my jeep. I drove her all over the place one day, took several loads of stuff to her new house, then dropped her off. She said, at the end of the day, that for a non-Christian (considering that I wasn't a member of her fundamentalist sect) I was a good person for helping her that way. Baffled, I thanked her and went on my way.
It always stuck with me that she considered kindness to be exclusively a Christian value, as if one had to belong to a particular group in order to be a decent person. She soon married another member of her sect, and I never saw her again. I think of her from time to time, wonder how she's doing and if she and that guy are still married. I rather doubt it, but that's my little story on my take on religion.
And Jojo, nobody deserves to be eaten by a bear.
Oh, and best religious festival I've ever attended was a Hindu Dawali. Absolutely lovely and welcoming. My son in Australia is taking a Buddhist meditation course and loves it. Thinks he's becoming enlightened.
My statement on this is pretty simple. Religion is great, it's the people that go and screw it up. No matter what religion, whether you believe in God, Allah, Buddha or Papa Smurf (and yes, there is a crazy internet site for that), there's always that person that proclaims their greatness because of their respective diety and then they completely don't follow any teachings at all or so hypocritical that it doesn't matter that they follow some, they miss the important ones. I hated that about people the most. People who think they're soooo much better because of whatever.
But it's okay, my God with the big G is the right one and I'll just pray for forgiveness to the right deity since I'm so pious and all. LOL!
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"If you were looking for something clever or witty or funny here, you've come to the wrong place."
Religion just scares me. I'm like Kae, in the belief that I don't think you have to be a member of one of the religions to believe in God. Some folks disagree,and that's fine. Alot of folks operate on faith, without having box themselves into one religion. Right now, all I have is the faith that thing will get better for me, but it doesn't mean I group myself into any one category, like Baptist, Hindu, Islam, etc. etc.
I totally agree that you dont have to belong to certain groups in order to believe in God. My church is non-denominational so we dont fall into any of those categories of Christians...we are just Christians.
And I couldnt be Amish either, i charish music too much to go without my tunes
I have no problem if someone says, Christian or Catholic or whatever. I don't really associate myself with a particular religion because I don't believe anyone practices what they preach.
I'm not so sure Scientologiest believe in a God, per se..I was browing their web site, and it appears to be more a spiritual thing. A,what they call , "study of truth," or something like that. To them, man is the immortal, spiritual being.
