Joyanna Adams

Nobody's Opinion

Knocking on the Atheist’s Door

Nobody’s Fool

“No John, ” I said to my friend as he was lying in the hospital bed. “You would be surprised to know that I’m not in disagreement with you…it’s just that, religion brings great comfort to so many people…you must know that?”

My 73-year-old very liberal friend, John, was getting so upset, that the beeper on the machine that was hooked up to his arms, started beeping. John shouted,  “That’s annoying!”and pushed the button hard with his fist to call the nurse. He had surgery the day before to replace a kneecap.

Add that knee surgery to his past triple bypass, gallbladder removal, prostate cancer, and diabetes, and you have a man who is not exactly in good shape.

But when he looks in the mirror, he sees a vibrant young stud. Always will. And I have NO idea how he pulls off that little trick. To me, he looks just this side of George Burns without the sense of humor.

You see, John had never gotten married, because, he …loved sex. Hooked on it in fact. When we first met(at a library computer class) he would brag about his past and all he would talk about was…sex…how many thousands of girls he had…bedded. He was 60 at the time. It was driving him crazy that it was getting harder and harder for him to pick up the usual two or three women he was accustomed to. To him, the good old days of four girls a night were heaven.

 To me, he was just a very lonely old soul. No wife, no children,…and he sold water faucets. Traveling salesman. Spending his life in cars. I would have crashed myself long ago into a ditch if I had been him, but he liked it. I can only imagine what he spent his money on, because all he had to show for his single life was a nice car and a condo.

I hadn’t seen him in ten years and within five minutes I was already getting lectured on the “weak” minded people who believe in god. Those people, like that damn Jerry Falwell, they have ruined the world..he said.

John is a very proud atheist. To him, anyone who believes in God is not as brilliant, or as strong as he is.

Strong was the word he used, and it was how he felt about himself.

“Well, Obama today is talking about God.”I said. “The Democrats are ALWAYS preaching in Churches.” Okay, I shouldn’t have said that. John is a liberal, and I was just about to find out…how he started down the path of how he became his wonderful enlightened liberal self.

It was in high school. He was only fifteen and he basically broke his virginity with a sixteen-year -old foreign exchange student from Sweden. It was there he learned how to look at the world. She taught him that what he was raised to believe in, was bull. This lead him to a life of hedonism that served the one purpose…himself, and his sexual needs.

Even though I have not seen John since I met him so long ago,he would write me emails telling me how lonely he was…searching for a woman. I had no illusions about it, his body was falling apart and there was no one to take care of him in his old age. John, was realizing that he needed someone to grow old with. 

He showed me a picture of his new Swedish girlfriend. She was a doctor, 62 years old. He had met her online, and she was in great shape and by all accounts a beautiful woman.

He even had a picture of her when she was sixteen. There was one picture that was not exactly the best, and it galled me when he said, “Oh..that’s a terrible picture.”

That’s a godless man for you. Ugly old man, making a remark about a sixty -year old beautiful face.

You see, John had never gotten married, because, he …loved sex. Hooked on it in fact. When we first met he would brag about his past and all he would talk about was…sex. He was 60 at the time.

And now, he finally found someone.

“She was just screwing around with me when she got my email.” he said. “I told her I knew her little village well, and she didn’t believe me. She thought I was lying.”

But for once in his lying life, John wasn’t lying. I can only imagine the hundreds of past trailing tears laying ribbons of despair after John was sexually through with them. When I reminded him that he must have lied in his life with so many girls, he said that was in the 70’s: Everybody lied.

Evidently this woman had been lied to, and was careful with her heart. John was truly surprised that she didn’t trust men.

“Oh..so people actually LIE in Sweden too” I said? “Is there an epidemic of lying that we don’t know about?” Insinuating that in his European utopia, people weren’t perfect.

John doesn’t get my sense of humor.

“Well John, I think there is some higher power.” I said, “Because there are things in this life, miracles if you wish to call them, that happen every single day and mathematically speaking, the odds are against it..without something else causing it.”

“For instance, what are the odds, that you would meet the perfect woman for you? One who doesn’t want to get married (he hates the institution)—who lives in the most beautiful town in the world, that you loved as a soldier, in a country which has high taxes (he thinks we need to be taxed more) who has perfect breasts (so important to him) and body. She’s your idea of the perfect blond, and on top of all that, she’s a doctor! You are in such bad shape, you’d be lucky to get a nurse for a girlfriend, but a doctor?”

“What are the odds that just by chance you would met this doctor on the internet?”

Well, I may not know calculus, but It doesn’t take much of a brain to see that the odds are like 1 million to 1, and if you saw John, you’d say, I was short a few billion.

To me, this selfish, moronic, and pathetic lonely soul lying in this bed was sent a miracle today by God. A real woman to finally love him in his old age. God is giving John one last chance of happiness. He should hurry as fast as a plane can carry him and go get this woman, and live his days out as a happy liberal in Sweden.

BUT…she has a son.

“Personally, I think he should not be living with her, after all, he’s 21.”

John, doesn’t really want the 21 year old around.

There you go.

God knocks on many doors…and some just don’t care to hear it.  Will John open door number One? Or door number two?

 I’ll let you know.

November 3, 2011 - Posted by | American Culture, Uncategorized | , , , , ,

6 Comments »

  1. Oh, my Goodness, Joyanna. What an insightful and humane answer. It falls to us sometimes to say, “Yes, I am 6’4″, and yes that is taller than 5’8″. It is the way it is”.

    You do yourself ad John and Ntrygg much credit.

    Like

    Amfortas's avatar Comment by Amfortas | November 5, 2011 | Reply

  2. Random…I did not mention morally in this: BUT I do feel smarter than John…it’s like he started out life with a deficit…and he thinks the very same of me.

    My “stupidity” upsets him more than his does me…LOL!

    John, despite his blind side, shares the love of animals and America with me. He sends me lots of emails of wonderful news…and if you have a friend, you accept them for what you don’t like, and what you do.

    That in itself, according to many, would make me the morally superior. And I thank Moses for that. So yeah, thanks for pointing that out! I never looked at myself at being morally superior..but, I guess I am!

    Good to know. You made my day!

    Like

    Joyanna Adams's avatar Comment by joyannaadams | November 5, 2011 | Reply

    • Wow, okay, well, I hadn’t intended the question as complimentary – it’s just what was coming through your post and I wanted to see if you were aware how you were coming across.

      But, this jockeying seems to be part of your relationship with this guy….

      Like

      Nina's avatar Comment by Random Ntrygg | November 7, 2011 | Reply

  3. so, you’re just friends with him so you can feel morally superior?

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    Nina's avatar Comment by Random Ntrygg | November 4, 2011 | Reply

  4. John is one of those people who wouldn’t be happy with anything. If the son weren’t living with the Dr. he would find some other reason it wasn’t perfect. He just chooses to be miserable and looks to sex to make him feel better. He is a very sad soul to be sure.

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    dancermommd's avatar Comment by dancermommd | November 4, 2011 | Reply

  5. Many are called but few choose themselves in.

    One can think of people who believe in God as ‘weak’: indeed, most atheists do. But the ‘strong’ label that atheists like to wear is really ‘hard’ – as in brittle. What is really hard for the Ego is to consider someone better and ‘higher’ than one’s self. God is as good as it can get and we mere humans are well down on the ‘bigger and better’ list, especially considering that we share a page with elephants and whales and Eagles..Atheists will find their own lack of knowledge and understanding to be akin to a sub-prime loan. They will write books about it and gain the earthly rewards from mug punters.

    Poor old John is a slave to his libido. I guess it is his main reason and drive in life ….. and each to his own. He does at least have a heap of good bonks to remember. He can take them to his grave and who knows… God might well appreciate all John’s good efforts. he is all knowing, you know.

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    Amfortas's avatar Comment by Amfortas | November 3, 2011 | Reply


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