Friday, February 5, 2010

While We're on the Subject of Emunah - The Final Judgement

My last few posts have dealt with some of the intricaties of Emunah. The jury's been out for a while but now let's hear from the judge.

Somebody sent me the following story in an email last week. I have no idea if it's true but it should be. Behold:


FLORIDA COURT SETS ATHEIST HOLY DAY

In Florida , an atheist created a case against the upcoming Easter and Passover Holy days. He hired an attorney to bring a discrimination case against Christians and Jews and observances of their holy days. The argument was that it was unfair that atheists had no such recognized days.

The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the passionate presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring, "Case dismissed!"

The lawyer immediately stood objecting to the saying, "Your honor, How can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and others. The Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah, yet my client and all other atheists have no such holidays."

The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, "But you do.. Your client, counsel, is
woefully ignorant."

The lawyer said, "Your Honor, we are unaware of any special observance or holiday for atheists."

The judge said, "The calendar says April 1st is April Fools Day. Psalm 14:1 in The Bible states, "The fool says in his heart, there is no God." Thus, it is the opinion of this court, that, if your client says there is no God, then he is a fool. Therefore, he already has a day. April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned."

You gotta love a Judge that knows his scripture!

They don't make judges like this any more!

2 comments:

Bruce Krulwich said...

Great story, but it appears not to be a true story:

Snopes.com.

TruthOrFiction.com.

Yechezkel Hirshman said...

Figures.

I had my doubts about the story for a few reasons:

1. They are usually not true.

2. Lack of details (i.e., name of judge and it was very fuzzy about what the fellow was demanding in his suit...money? an injunction on Passover and Easter?)

3. What few people may have noticed (but I did and didn't make an issue of it): The pasuk in Tehillim does not say אמר כסיל בלבו... which would mean "A fool says in his heart..." but rather it says ...אמר נבל בלבו which means "A lout says in his heart..." and we don't really have April Lout's Day!

But, like I said, the message is nice and that is what Snopes says why the story is so popular.

Printfriendly

Print Friendly and PDF

Translate