Big Bad Wolf: “Little Pig, Little Pig, let me in!” Pig: “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!”

Big Bad Wolf: Your chinny chin chin?

Pig: That’s right.

Big Bad Wolf: That’s barely even a beard.

Pig: It’s the principle of the thing.

Big Bad Wolf: But why swear by your beard? Why not swear by God?

Pig: Because I’m an atheist.

Big Bad Wolf: You’re an atheist?

Pig: Certainly.

Big Bad Wolf: A talking pig who built a house out of bricks in a world where wolves speak English and your sticking point is God?

Pig: Just because strange things exist doesn’t mean every claim is true.

Big Bad Wolf: Fair enough. But if there is no God, what makes anything right or wrong?

Pig: Empathy. Reason. Consequences. Cooperation. The fact that we all have to live together.

Big Bad Wolf: So if morality comes from people, couldn’t people just change it whenever they want?

Pig: They do, all the time. That’s why morality evolves.

Big Bad Wolf: That sounds dangerous.

Pig: Why?

Big Bad Wolf: Because if morality changes, then today’s virtue could become tomorrow’s vice.

Pig: And if morality never changes, then we’d still be doing plenty of things we now consider terrible.

Big Bad Wolf: Hm.

Pig: Besides, religious people disagree about morality too.

Big Bad Wolf: They disagree about details.

Pig: Some of them disagree about very important details.

Big Bad Wolf: Fair point. But religion provides certainty.

Pig: Does it?

Big Bad Wolf: More certainty than atheism.

Pig: I’m not sure certainty is a virtue.

Big Bad Wolf: You’re not certain of that?

Pig: Exactly.

Big Bad Wolf: Clever.

Pig: Thank you.

Big Bad Wolf: But don’t you ever wonder why there is something instead of nothing?

Pig: Of course.

Big Bad Wolf: And doesn’t that suggest a creator?

Pig: Not necessarily. It suggests a mystery.

Big Bad Wolf: A mystery with a very obvious answer.

Pig: If it’s obvious, why have philosophers argued about it for thousands of years?

Big Bad Wolf: Philosophers argue about everything.

Pig: That’s true.

Big Bad Wolf: Even so, a creator explains the universe.

Pig: Does it?

Big Bad Wolf: Certainly.

Pig: Then what explains the creator?

Big Bad Wolf: The creator doesn’t need an explanation.

Pig: Why not?

Big Bad Wolf: Because the creator is eternal.

Pig: Couldn’t the universe be eternal?

Big Bad Wolf: That’s different.

Pig: How?

Big Bad Wolf: Because… because…

Pig: Because you’ve defined one thing as needing no explanation and another as needing one.

Big Bad Wolf: That’s not entirely fair.

Pig: Maybe not.

Big Bad Wolf: Let me ask another question. If there’s no afterlife, doesn’t that make life meaningless?

Pig: Why would it?

Big Bad Wolf: Because everything eventually ends.

Pig: Most good things end.

Big Bad Wolf: Such as?

Pig: Meals.

Big Bad Wolf: You’re a pig. Bad example.

Pig: Vacations, then.

Big Bad Wolf: Better.

Pig: Their value doesn’t come from lasting forever.

Big Bad Wolf: So life’s meaning comes from the life itself?

Pig: That’s my view.

Big Bad Wolf: Hm.

Pig: What?

Big Bad Wolf: You’re surprisingly thoughtful for livestock.

Pig: And you’re surprisingly philosophical for a predator.

Big Bad Wolf: Thank you.

Pig: You’re welcome.

Big Bad Wolf: You know, this conversation isn’t going how I expected.

Pig: How did you expect it to go?

Big Bad Wolf: Usually I threaten to huff and puff.

Pig: And?

Big Bad Wolf: And then somebody gets eaten.

Pig: Yet here we are discussing metaphysics.

Big Bad Wolf: Fairy tales have changed.

Pig: Apparently.

Big Bad Wolf: One final question.

Pig: Go ahead.

Big Bad Wolf: If you’re wrong and God exists, what then?

Pig: Then I suppose I’ll discover I was mistaken.

Big Bad Wolf: And if you’re right?

Pig: Then I was mistaken about fewer things.

Big Bad Wolf: That’s not very dramatic.

Pig: Neither is evidence.

Big Bad Wolf: You really are an atheist.

Pig: And you really are avoiding the subject.

Big Bad Wolf: What subject?

Pig: Why you’re standing outside my door.

Big Bad Wolf: Ah.

Pig: Well?

Big Bad Wolf: I was planning to eat you.

Pig: Were?

Big Bad Wolf: Yes.

Pig: What changed?

Big Bad Wolf: I spent so long arguing philosophy that I’m now late for lunch.

Pig: That’s fortunate.

Big Bad Wolf: For you.

Pig: Indeed.

Big Bad Wolf: Tell you what.

Pig: What?

Big Bad Wolf: I’ll come back tomorrow and we can discuss free will.

Pig: Why?

Big Bad Wolf: Because if free will doesn’t exist, then eating you wouldn’t really be my fault.

Pig: Get off my property.

Big Bad Wolf: Fair enough.

Pig: Goodbye, Wolf.

Big Bad Wolf: Goodbye, Pig.