The story is told of an atheistic barber who was talking to a pastor. The barber asked the pastor, “If there is a loving God, how can He allow poverty, war, and suffering?”
Just at that moment a disheveled man crossed the street. The pastor said, “You are a barber and claim to be a good one. How can you allow that man to go unkept and unshaven?”
“He never gave me a chance!” the barber replied.
To which the pastor said, “Exactly, men are what they are because they reject God!”
A bad moment for an atheist is when he feels grateful, and has no one to thank.
The American Atheists organization paid $20,000 for a billboard near the Lincoln Tunnel in North Bergen, New Jersey. The sign had a silhouette of Three Wise Men approaching a nativity. The words, “You KNOW it’s a Myth. This Season, Celebrate REASON!” were printed in bold. The billboard was meant to encourage atheists to quit celebrating Christmas, and to attack the “myth” that Christianity owns the solstice season.
“A young man whose father is a carpenter grows up working in his father’s shop. He has no formal education. He owns no property of any kind. One day he puts down his tools and walks out of his father’s shop. He starts preaching on street corners and in the nearby countryside. Walking from place to place preaching all the while even though he is in no way an ordained minister he never gets farther than an area perhaps 100 miles wide at the most.
Not in unbelief, Voltaire was an infidel of the most pronounced type. He wrote: “I wish I had never been born.”
Not in pleasure, Lord Byron lived a life of pleasure if anyone did. He wrote: “The worm, the canker, and grief are mine alone.”
Not in money, Jay Gould, the American millionaire, had plenty of that. When dying, he said: “I suppose I am the most miserable man on earth.”
Not in position and fame, Lord Beaconsfield enjoyed more than his share of both. He wrote: “Youth is a mistake; manhood a struggle; old age a regret.”
An astronomer was lecturing a group in France, and declared, “I have swept the universe with my telescope, and I find no God.”
A musician appropriately rebuked the astronomer: “Your statement, sir, is as unreasonable as it is for me to say that I have taken my violin apart, have carefully examined each part with a microscope, and have found no music.”
An atheist was walking through the woods, admiring all the “accidents” that evolution had created. “What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!” he said to himself. As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. Turning to look, he saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charging towards him. He ran away as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder and saw the grizzly was closing. Somehow he ran even faster, so scared that tears came to his eyes. He looked again, and the bear was even closer.
Charles Bradlaugh was an outstanding atheist in England. Down in one of the slums of London was a minister by the name of Hugh Price Hughes. All London was aware of miracles of grace accomplished at his mission.
Charles Bradlaugh challenged Mr. Hughes to debate with him the validity of the claims of Christianity. London was greatly interested. What would Mr. Hughes do? He immediately accepted the challenge and in doing so added one of his own.
Just before the death of actor W. C. Fields, a friend visited Fields’ hospital room and was surprised to find him thumbing through a Bible. When he asked what he was doing with a Bible, Fields replied, "I’m looking for loopholes."
There are no loopholes in the Bible; either you accept Christ or spend an eternity in Hell.
Sir Isaac Newton had a friend who was an atheist. The friend did not believe in God, but preferred to take the position that the universe just happened. One day the friend was visiting his learned colleague and Newton showed him a model of the solar system. The sun, the planets, and the moons were all in place. The sizes of the spheres were in proportion and the planets and the satellites revolved around the sun at their relative speeds. The friends admired the model. “It's intriguing,” he said, “who made it?”
“Nobody,” said Newton, “It just happened.”
George Bernard Shaw is perhaps most renowned as a free thinker and liberal philosopher. In his last writings we read, “The science to which I pinned my faith is bankrupt. Its counsels, which should have established the millennium, led, instead, directly to the suicide of Europe. I believed them once. In their name I helped to destroy the faith of millions of worshipers in the temples of a thousand creeds. And now they look at me and witness the great tragedy of an atheist who has lost his faith.” Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist that there is no God.
A man went to a barber shop to have his hair and his beard cut as always. He started to have a good conversation with the barber who attended him. They talked about many things and various subjects. Suddenly, they began to talk about God.
The barber said: “Look man, I don't believe that God exists as you say.”
“Why do you say that?” asked the client.