As a rule, I don’t like to laugh at the misfortune of others. The exception to that rule is if it’s really, really funny.
Did you see the Reuters story about the man that jumped into a lion’s habitat at the Kiev zoo and yelled “God will save me, if he exists”? One of the lions – apparently an atheist – mauled him to death.
You might assume that the lion wanted to eat him. But I think the lion just wanted to shut him up. And when you are a lion, you don’t have many tools. Here is the complete list of lion functions:
– Napping
– Killing
– Eating
– Pooping
– Fornicating
There’s only one thing on the list that was guaranteed to make the guy shut up, although that last one might have gotten him to change the subject to something more along the lines of “Nooo! Please! I was saving myself for the monkey habitat!”
This story presents more questions than answers. For example, was the guy a true believer trying to prove his faith, or was he an atheist that was tired of no one understanding his arguments? If he was a believer, was his faith too weak? Or was he unlucky and caught God on a break? Maybe God just turned to one of his cherubs and muttered something like “I don’t roll like that,” because it seemed funny. If he did, the cherub would not laugh, because cherubs are basically babies with wings. So God would either have to resort to a poop joke or a miracle to make that baby laugh.
All we can hope is that people learn something from this tragedy. For example, the next time that a believer jumps into the lion habitat, he should yell “If God exists, he will order this lion to kill me!” That way, everyone wins.