theodore michael kummy, age ten, was a hardcore material atheist. he had just become one ten minutes before when sister mary rumpus gave a homework assignment despite it being halloween. she had said the holiday was satanic, demon based, and shouldn't be celebrated by people of god. well, maybe. theodore couldn't help noticing she skipped over the free candy part and rare opportunity to engage in harmless egging of houses and cars, smashing windows and pumpkins, and vandalizing public buildings. surely if god kept a room upstairs as they claimed, god would see the point in celebrating the holiday and give a divine wink at the devilish aspects. however sister mary rumpus seemed to take a different view, a view which put this god thing into a new perspective. if god existed and was all loving, and all merciful, why didn't he give sister sourpuss a slight but disabling heart attack the moment she tried to assign homework? theodore could not think of any theological argument against such a divine intervention. he wasnt asking for the raising of lazarus, for gods sake. the fact that sister rumpus did this could mean only one thing: god was a spurious myth and the only reality was the material world, a material world filled with candy corn, twix bars, peanut butter cups and other delicious assortments of atoms that tasted almost divine in themselves. yeah. god would need step up his game to get theodore believing again. a burning bush wouldnt cut it. until then, he would consider the sky as empty as his stomach, and the spiritual dimensions mere bally tales spun by overly inventive bally-ho minds. and the homework assignment? well, that could wait the nonexistent hell froze over.
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