Once upon a time (note the mythical cast) there was a man who thought he was dead. His concerned wife and friends sent him to the friendly neighborhood psychiatirst. The psychiatrist determined to cure him by convincing him of one fact that contradicted his belief that he was dead. The fact the psychiatrist settled on was the simple truth that dead men do not bleed, and he put the patient to work reading medical texts, observing autopsies, etc. After weeks of effort, the patient finally said, "All right, all right! You've convinced me. Dead men do not bleed." Whereupon the psychiatrist stuck him in the arm with a needle, and the blood flowed. The man looked with a contorted, ashen face and cried, "Good Lord! Dead men bleed after all!"
[John Warwick Montgomery, "Wagering on the Death of God,"
The Suicide of Christian Theology, Trinity Press
(Newburgh IN: 1996) p. 122.
