Horton and the Who Evangelical

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.”- Dr. Seuss

In a place known as Whoville the folks got distraught
When Horton the elephant said what he thought.
“The oddest of oddities isn’t as odd As people believing that there is a god.”

The Who Jews and Muslims and
Hindus and Buddhists
The Who Vegetarians, Wiccans, and Nudists,
The Who
Presbyterians, Baptists, New Agers:
All spread the sad news on their cell
phones and pagers.

A Who Evangelical fell to his knees
And he said,
“Oh no, Horton! I beg of you, please!
We always have liked you. We all think
you’re swell,
And we can’t stand the thought that you’re headed to hell!”

But Horton just laughed and he wiggled his trunk.
The bible to him
was a big bunch of bunk.
He meant what he said and he said what he meant,
“Religion is silly a hundred percent.”

The Who Evangelical let out a
snort in
A very snide way most insulting to Horton.
“You say you’re an
atheist? Here’s what we’ll do —
We all know that atheists are anti-Who —

We’ll drive you from Whoville; we’ll send you away.
Or else we will
force you to worship and pray.
A person’s a person, no matter how small
But an atheist isn’t a person at all!”

But Horton just laughed once
again even louder
And told all the Whos he would not take a powder,
Nor
worship some stupid nonsensical being
That no one was hearing and no one was
seeing.

“I will not be threatened,” he said. “It’s not funny.
I
won’t trust your god with my flag or my money!
I will not allow him to
influence science.
An elephant thrives on his own self-reliance!”

The Who Evangelical said, “My dear chap, sure
You think you’re so
smart, but just wait till the rapture.”
The anti-Christ’s coming and then
you will find,
That your friends are in heaven but you’re left behind.

“We cannot allow that to happen to you,
Because, after all, Jesus
loves ev’ry Who.
You must accept God for the good of us all.
A person’s
a person no matter how small.

“And though you’re no Who (you are just a
big elephant),
God loves you, too. What you are is irrelevant.
He can
destroy us if someone’s defiant.
A sinner’s a sinner no matter how giant!”

The Whos approached Horton, began to surround him.
If some of the
Whos had their way, they’d have drowned him.
Some others thought maybe they
might build a fire.
And stoning was mentioned among the Who choir.

But Horton was huge and avoided the crunch of them,
Picked up his
foot, and he stepped on a bunch of them,
Hoped the survivors would give up
their mission,
So here’s what he told them about superstition:

“The
oddest of oddities isn’t as odd
As people believing that there is a god.
There isn’t a heaven, or hell you should dread.
A person’s a person —
unless he is dead.”

From: The Radical Atheist