Dub has since gone on to his eternal reward, but I think about him often. My favorite memories of Dub center on occasions when we grappled with spiritual matters. He often surprised me with his well thought out answers to my many questions. He made sense out of deep and profound concepts. Dub answered questions without making a person feel dumb and embarrassed for not knowing answer.

I discovered this one fall morning on first of many fishing expeditions with Dub. We loaded up his old truck with fly rods, waders and tackle. By 5 AM we were rumbling toward The Poudre canyon and great fishing spot he had told me about.

The first light of dawn sliced through canyon to meet us as we donned our gear and began making our way down to treasured "s" curves of river below. Dub stopped and pointed silently at river. Looking down at dark water I saw a small triangular shaped patch of light playing on surface of river. The outlines of four fish were illuminated by sudden splash of sunlight. Dub turned to me. His voice just above a whisper, "Isn't that perfect picture of how God works?"

"I guess I'm not sure what you mean."

"Those fish were there all along, but we didn't know it. A higher source, in this case sun, had to do something to help us see." He looked at me to gauge my reaction. My face no doubt belied my lack of understanding. Dub persisted. "Don't you see? The truth about God is all around us, but we don't have a clue. We can't see it until God opens our eyes and then suddenly he reveals himself and we see truth."

It was my initiation in to what I call Dub's Bible Basics for Dummies Like Me. That Saturday as we fished together standing waist deep in frigid water of Cache Le Poudre River, Dub began to teach me about God and His creation. Woven into memory of that day is joy of catching a lot of fish and having a great deal of discussion about nature of God.

At one point I asked, "Dub, are you saying that God actually reveals himself in nature?"

"Sure, its what theologians call general revelation."

"You'll have to explain that one, Dub."

"Its simply idea that a man can figure some things out about God just by looking at things God created. The Bible puts it like this." To my surprise Dub reached into his pocket and pulled out a little book which I supposed was a Bible. He began reading. "because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since creation of world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse."

The Musings of Great Grandma As it was in that familiar old song, says our great grandma, there are three coins in fountain. The question is: which one will be fountain bless? The three coins I am referring to are theism, atheism, and agnosticism. Theism is an affirmative theory. Atheism is a disaffirming theory. Agnosticism, it seems to me, is a kind of ‘I don’t know’ or ‘don’t ask me’ non-theory of sorts. Which one would you choose? Our great grandma is asking her great grandchild.

Consider, says great grandma, theism offers a much bigger and more interesting package than all rest. It has many goodies in it, consisting not only of God, but also winged angels, devils with tooth and claw, if not also lesser spiritual beings such as fairies and ghosts (this last is actually not too nice a label for departed soul, I must say). Now, for his child-like impression that more is always better than less, our great grandchild is of course naturally more impressed by big theistic package. But he is also a bit worried about what those other not-so-nice characters might do. Don’t worry about that, says great grandma. Just be a good boy, and everything will be fine.

In contrast, continues our great grandma, atheism does not really have anything to offer. It just says that there is no God. And this niche has also been quite comfortable. Since there is neither proof nor evidence for non-existence of anything, this disaffirming ploy is good enough to ward off those who might ask him to justify his position. Thus, only way for theist to out-smart atheist is to try and invite gods or God to confront him. But so far, theist has not really been able to do anything of sort. All he has done is to point to some inconclusive evidence and subjective indications that he deemed to be pointing toward possibility of such supernatural existents. But possibility as such, as we all know, is a far cry to real thing. The atheist is thus not only unimpressed, but tells theist straight in face to peddle his possible goods elsewhere.