Do You believe,” the disciple asked the rabbi, “that God created everything for a purpose?
“I do,” replied the rabbi.
“Well,” asked the disciple, “why did God create atheists?”
The rabbi paused before giving an answer, and when he spoke his voice was soft and intense. “Sometimes we who believe, believe too much. We see the cruelty, the suffering, the injustice in the world and we say: ‘This is the will of God.’ We accept what we should not accept. That is when God sends us atheists to remind us that what passes for religion is not always religion. Sometimes what we accept in the name of God is what we should be fighting against in the name of God.“
Chief Rabbi Emeritus [of the United Synagogues of the British Commonwealth] Jonathan Sacks
when marilyn monroe said “i’ve never fooled anyone. i’ve let people fool themselves. they didn’t bother to find out who and what i was. instead they would invent a character for me. i wouldn’t argue with them. they were obviously loving somebody i wasn’t.”
TIL: Concerned about the censorship of human genitalia on extraterrestrial messages, one MIT researcher recorded & transmitted the sound of a ballerina’s vagina contracting. The transmission was intercepted & cut off by the US Air Force but parts of it managed to reach two stars in 1996 & 1998.