Unkindness of Scepticism
Psalm 53:1-3
The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that does good.…


The Philadelphia Inquirer tells this story of the late Washington McLean: One terribly snowy, sleety day in Washington, he was sitting in the Riggs House reading-room, looking out upon the dreary scene on Pennsylvania Avenue. Presently, in came Colonel Bob Ingersoll, the great agnostic. As he entered the apartment he held out his hand, saying, "Hello, Wash., how do you do?" Mr. McLean took his hand, and, as he did so, said, "Bob, I wish you could have been here a little while ago. I saw a scene out there that made me wish I was twenty years younger. A poor, old, crippled soldier was limping across the Avenue, when a young, lusty fellow ran by him, and, as he did so, kicked the crutch from him, and tumbled him down into the slush." "The villain," said Ingersoll, "he should have been sent to the penitentiary." "Do you really think so?" said McLean. "Why, certainly!" replied the colonel. "What else could I think? And yet, Bob," said McLean, "that is what you are doing every week in the year. Here are poor, old, infirm Christians, with nothing to aid or support them but their belief in religion, nothing to keep them out of the mire of despair but faith, and yet you go about kicking the crutch from under them worse than even this fictitious fellow did to this fictitious soldier." Very true, with the one exception that our faith is a living thing, and can never be knocked away.

(Sword and Trowel.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: {To the chief Musician upon Mahalath, Maschil, A Psalm of David.} The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.

WEB: The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, and have done abominable iniquity. There is no one who does good.




Theoretical Atheism
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