This a story narrated to us by our maths teacher, (Monsieur Elahee) some 5 years ago. I tried recalling it the best as I could.
~The Story ~
There were 2 men, one an atheist and the other a believer in God (a theist if you want) who were obviously in disaccord with each other on a number of things and more importantly whether a creator exists or not.
So one day, they decided to debate this in front of an audience and both of them agreed on the location and time of the debate. The particular day arrived; the audience was set, the atheist was here and sat waiting for the opposing party to arrive. Time went by but there was no sign of the religious man. Restlessness was starting to show on the faces in the audience who were obviously not too satisfied with the way things were going. More time went by and still the seat at the other end of the table was empty...
At one point, the atheist stood up and spoke in a sarcastic tone “ see; they call themselves man of God preaching high moral values while they cannot even respect a mere commitment, what a shame!” The audience knew where he was going with this statement.
More hours passed by and then suddenly emerged the religious man.
The atheist spoke first, “Is that how you honor commitments? By arriving late and keeping all these good people here waiting”
“Sir I am so sorry for having kept you and the whole audience waiting for so long, but let me recount to you what actually happened to me” said the religious man.
He continued: “I have this usual river that I have to cross to come down here and there is this boat we usually take to do just that. Well today, the boatman was nowhere to be seen. There were no other ways to cross this river and as you probably know I cannot swim. So I just had to wait and pray that God sends me some boat.”
“Suddenly to my astonishment, trees started to bend all by itself to let me walk through the beginning of the waters. In the middle of the river, rocks emerged from underground. Near the other bank of the river, some trees fell by themselves and formed these types of flat surfaces that float on water. Well then people, I just had to walk my way on the various “objects” to pass through the river and here I am…”
After saying this, no one spoke and it felt like time stood still…
“Haha Haha Haha, what the hell is wrong with you?” exploded the atheist. “You want us to believe this? You had all this time to think of an excuse and this is what you had finally come up with? You know what mister, go back home, take a good rest and let’s get back to the debate when you get your brains back. All this waiting in the sun must have hit hard on you. Hahaha”
The religious man: “Hmmm well yes, but then, if you cannot believe my story, then do you really think that this whole world, wait, no forget the world, this whole universe which has been proved to be in continuous expansion by itself and possessing billions of billions of galaxies to have suddenly come out all by itself? Who is the maddest man here?
An accident? come-on thats just too beautiful..
Thanks to you Mr Elahee
~End~
The following is a quote found in the book In his Image by Madeleine Guillemin
The conflict between persons who accept God, and those who deny him, those who affirm that he can be found only in such a place, and those who affirm that he cannot be found anywhere, is never ending; it has continued right through the ages. When considering how this can be, one must remember that, while it is unnecessary to awaken a person who is already awake, and easy to awaken one who is asleep, we cannot awaken, however hard we try, a person who is pretending to be asleep. Similarly, those who ‘know’ can be taught by simple illustration the things they do not know, but those afflicted with half knowledge, and proud of that acquisition, are far any further education.
-SSSB
-SSSB
