Abel said to Cain, “I believe in God; don’t you?” Cain replied, “I don’t BELIEVE in anything.”

“What?” shouted Abel, “You don’t believe in ANYTHING?!”

Cain said, “Let me make myself clear. I do not BELIEVE in things; that is, I do not accept that certain statements are true or that certain proffered things exist without there being some evidence for the statement or thing. Further, I reject the very wording of your assertion. It is that phrase—believe in—which gets us off on the wrong foot by sliding slyly away from the truth of your state of mind.

“Now, if you had said, ‘I wishfully think that there is a god’ I would have replied that “I do not wishfully think so” and our discussion would be at an end, all nice and tidy. Or, you might have gone on, ‘But how can you reject wishful thinking? Isn’t it the source of all knowledge and morality?’ To which I would have said, ‘Prove it.’ If then you responded, ‘Proof doesn’t count; it’s what I feel that counts,’ I would have answered, ‘Not to me.’ If you then picked up a rock to throw at me, to enforce the so-called truth of your feelings, I would have had to kill you. And that would be that.”