…Once upon a time, in a little village far away, there lived a little boy named Johnny. He heard beautiful sounds coming from just down the street, and followed them until he came upon a scruffy looking chap holding a strange looking contraption, and the beautiful sounds seemed to make him want to fondle the contraption. Soon he noticed that he was starting to feel the urge to wiggle for some strange reason. Then he did wiggle, just a little at first, but felt foolish and stopped the wiggle just short of someone seeing him and thinking him a fool. But the urge grew stronger; and nobody was around but the old man, so wiggle he did… and he also noticed a couple of other things. The wiggle seemed to excite the old man, and made him fondle the contraption faster and faster. He also noticed speed of the fondle matched the speed of the wiggle, and fearing this might spin out of control, shouted out, “I wish this sound would stop!” And it did. The old man stopped fondling the contraption too, and seemed disappointed…like something wasn’t finished. “I’m glad that’s over.” said Johnny.
“What was that?” Asked Johnny. “It’s a new song I’ve been working on.” said the old man.”I was talking about the sound we heard.” said Johnny. “And what’s that thing?” “You mean this?” Just then he stroked the and it made a noise a little bit like the sound he heard. “That sounded like the sounds we heard.” said Johnny. This made the old guy laugh until Johnny thought he would hurt himself. “This is a guitar, and the sounds you heard are made with it. It’s called music.” The old man said. “Right, who you trying to fool?” Johnny asked, thinking the old guy had maybe listened to the sounds too much, and had gone bonkers.
Soon, Johnny found that a bunch of people were fondling contraptions, and upon further inspection, noticed the sounds did seem to come from the contraption…so he went to look for the old man.
He found the old man in the same spot, fondling away. The old man stopped fondling, and the “music” stopped at the same time. Now he was convinced the old man was telling the truth. “Can I see that thing?” Asked Johnny. “This? It’s a guitar, and sure you can” said the old man. Johnny stroked the contraption, and it began to vibrate the sounds he heard…almost. They were sounds, but not beautiful, just sounds. So he asked, “why don’t the sounds sound the same?” The old man laughed and laughed, then he said, “you have to learn how to play music, and it takes time, patience, and a bit of work, and a lot of sacrifice and discipline.” Noticing the boy was disappointed, he added, “it’s not that hard, Let me show you something.” He showed the boy a simple chord, and soon the boy was thrilled. “Tell you what” said the old man, “I have another guitar you can borrow, and if you go home and practice your chord, and learn it, I’ll show you another.” The old man left, then returned shortly, and handed Johnny the guitar. Johnny left in a hurry to practice his chord.
After what seemed like forever, he could play a few chords, but still not beautiful music. While walking home one day, he spotted another boy sitting on a curb, reading a book and playing the guitar at the same time. He walked over, and the boy stopped playing (and reading) and looked at him. “I’m learning to play too.” Johnny said. “Oh, do you have this book?” the boy asked. “It’s called ‘learn to play guitar in ten seconds’, and it’s only a dollar two ninety eight.”
Soon Johnny was buying all kinds of play guitar now books, special guitars, even things for your ears to make it sound like you can play. Still, he couldn’t. He came to the realization that he was broke, spent a lot of years of his life trying to play guitar, and it dawned on him that all this was a scam to get his money, and he fell for it hook line and sinker. He rushed back to find the old man; to give him a piece of his mind, but was held up by a line of cars in a funeral…the old man’s. “That’s just great!”, said Johnny. “What a fool I have been”.
Johnny spent the rest of his days trying to set people strait, and warning them that guitars were an elaborate hoax, invented to get your money, and control your life.
The moral of the story…Atheism is learned by not learning, but thinking you tried to.