geras
"Toxis@ze_yvil_place" <tox@work.ble> wrote in message 
news:h3i0j0$r1i$1@trimpas.omnitel.net...
> In a small midwestern conservative town, there wasn't a place to get a 
> drink for miles around, so a local entrepreneur saw an opportunity: He 
> started to build a tavern.
>
> Liking a "dry" town, the local church started a campaign to block the bar 
> from opening with petitions and prayers. The businessman was polite when 
> congregants came to protest, but work continued on the tavern.
>
> But the night before the grand opening, a lightning strike hit the bar and 
> it burned to the ground.
>
> The church folks were rather smug in their piousness after that -- until 
> the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church was 
> ultimately responsible for the destruction of his building, either through 
> direct or indirect actions or means.
>
> The church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the 
> building's demise in its reply to the court.
>
> At the first hearing, the judge held up the paperwork and took in the 
> lawyers and both sides of the lawsuit.
>
> "I don't know how I'm going to decide this," the judge said, "but as it 
> appears from the paperwork, we have a bar owner that believes in the power 
> of prayer, and an entire church congregation that doesn't."
>
>
> -- 
> ___________
> ©Toxis