The Atheist

Be careful what you ask for. Im sure some of you have read this before. I happen to be a non-believer myself and found this to be funny.


An atheist was taking a walk through the woods. 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.
He
turned to look. He saw a 7 foot grizzly charge towards him. He ran as fast
as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bear
was closing in on him. He looked over his shoulder again, and the bear was
even closer. 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 instant the
Atheist cried out: "Oh my God!..." Time stopped. The bear froze. The forest
was silent. 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 a Christian now, but perhaps could you make
the BEAR a Christian?" "Very well," said the voice. The light went out. The
sounds of the forest resumed. And then the bear dropped his right paw,
brought both paws together And bowed his head and spoke: "Lord, bless this
food, which I am about to receive from they bounty through Christ our Lord
Amen."

 

That sig line...something Dukey came up with

 

Anyone care to speculate on the driving evolutionary force behind humor?

 

I think Ric Flair is the one who pushed for it but it might have been Batista.

 

Team America.



And wtf are you people talking about?

 

My point is that humor is an evolutionarily useless. So why did it evolve?

 

Wow....thats deep.

I dont know where to begin on that one. Im sure it dates back to times of B.C. in a theatrical and entertainment environment.

From something as simple as acting out a scene where a guy falls off a horse and the other tribal members thinking it was funny.

Who knows...

 

How's this?


Brain and Perception Laboratory, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla 92093-0109, USA. [email protected]

Laughter (and humor) involves the gradual build-up of expectation (a model) followed by a sudden twist or anomaly that entails a change in the model--but only as long as the new model is non-threatening--so that there is a deflation of expectation. The loud explosive sound is produced, we suggest, to inform conspecifics that there has been a 'false alarm', to which they need not orient. The same logic may underlie tickling (menacing approach followed by a light non-threatening contact). Thus tickling may serve as 'play', a rehearsal for adult laughter. And lastly, when one primate encounters another, he may have always begun with a threat gesture--to bare his canines--but upon recognizing the individual as kin he may stop the grimace halfway and 'smile'. When the insular cortex is damaged, patients giggle in response to pain, presumably because they can still sense the pain ('danger') but the pain is no longer aversive ('false alarm'), thereby fulfilling the two key requirements for laughter.