there are in fact atheists in foxholes. my late best friend was accosted in his office one afternoon by a pair of bad'uns who tied him up and left him that way for hours. at one point he could hear them discussing whether or not to kill him. in the end, they didn't. my friend told me his main worry was that his secretary would come back from wherever she was and be tied up and maybe harmed, and that if he was killed his dogs would have no one to take care of them. he told me too that during all those hours, the thought of a god, or of praying, or anything related to religion, never crossed his mind. i myself have had moments of great danger, though not as extended as that, and experiences that put me in great fear, and i have never once even considered calling upon a deity, since there are no deities. i might as well call upon donald duck or mickey mouse. now, i am not saying that there is some reason to criticize someone who, in extreme distress, does fall back on religion (for some it would be farther back than for others). i have never been religious, and i certainly have never been christian. that may have made a difference. but the old saying about no believers in foxholes is, at any rate, provably false.

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My take on this is that we are conditioned by the society that we live in, and by the images and ideas imprinted on us from the time we are born. My dad swore like a sailor, and he was a non believer. I grew up hearing Jesus Christ, god damn it, and other religious terms used as a pejorative terms. I think under periods of extreme stress our minds go back to those early memories and reactions. When my dad hit his thumb with a hammer he let loose with something akin to J.... F.... C....!!! He wasn't praying. When I was in a near miss accident recently I did cut loose with similar sentiments. Trust me, I wasn't praying for the soul of either one of us.

Not the same thing, but still a valid point. Believers doubt in the end.

In Vietnam a Chaplain told me "Don't worry (I wasn't) god is on our side". I was an Atheist even back then. He picked the wrong guy.

When facing a horrible death, a good Christian should just 'sit back and enjoy it'. I feel dirty quoting Bobby Knight and his feelings towards women being assaulted.