h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This evening we dropped by a neighboring house for a brief visit and were presented with a gift of a rather elaborate box of chocolates (worth some $75 dollars Canadian, not an insubstantial sum in the circles I sometimes travel). Although presented as a gift from children to child, I suspect it was actually intended as partial payment for a little creative work (a rather large foam rubber peace-dove as the centre-piece of a local Franco-phone elementary school's Christmas concert).

Why the chocolates? I think. Why not a cheque cut by the school?



And then, I realize. What would a cheque buy? Ordinary things, soon forgotten, for two ordinary people.

What will the three pounds of chocolate bring? Moments.

No right thinking person could claim these three pounds of chocolates and cashews for oneself. This Purdy's box is an impetus to share. Moments of sharing.


I've been paid for my creative work with moments of sharing.

I'll bring that load of chocolate to tomorrow's family gathering and it, and the moments, will be shared with all present.


Far better than a cheque for daily bread.

.. Or

You could eat them all and become violently ill

That's the theist way.

'Oh, God, give me no sign, if you want me to eat all of this chocolate.....'













'I humbly accept the task you have chosen for me, O Lord....'

Actually, I was a little embarrassed.

The chocolate will be shared with relatives tomorrow.

In the true atheist manner, I expected nothing in return for my help in making the theist festival a success. And so, my unexpected reward will by cast upon the waters. . .




Seriously, where do those twits get off with that crap about 'atheism means "do what you want, any thing goes, hump all the goats in the paddock outside."'


No. Atheism means 'be kind to everybody and everything'. If you're not being kind, you're something other than Atheist.