A REPENTANT robber fell to his knees and prayed with the clerk at an Indianapolis store during a hold-up – but 23-year-old Gregory Smith nevertheless nicked 20 dollars from the cash register.
According to this report, Smith initially entered the cheque-cashing establishment seeking a loan but left, purportedly to get an ID card that was requested.
He returned instead armed with a gun, which he pointed at the employee, telling her that he had a son to feed and “no choice” but to revert to robbery since “times are hard”.
But when the clerk started to talk to Smith about God, the gunman appeared to have a change of heart, confiding in the clerk about his hardships and asking her to pray with him.
Said store clerk Angela Montez:
I started crying and praying and telling him, ‘Don’t do this.’ He was too young to throw away his life. He took the bullet out of the gun and said, ‘Here, I’m not going to hurt you, I’m not going to hurt you’.
Smith then asked Montez for a hug and asked her not to report the crime. He then told her to go into the store’s restroom and not come out for 20 minutes.
Officials said Smith took Montez’s cell phone from her purse and 20 dollars from the cash drawer, leaving the rest of the money behind.
He was arrested on robbery and firearm charges when he turned himself in to authorities a few hours later.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Amazing how God can change people’s hearts and at least stopped him committing violence in a fairly highly strung situation. This is a fairly heart rending story. And such a young guy too, no doubt suffering during the recession and probably quite naive and uneducated. Things could have ended so much worse without God. Hey. We’re all on a a spiritual journey though right?
Thanks so much for sharing this with us. I’ll be sharing it with all my atheist friends.
October 24th, 2009 at 12:21 am
So Mother Goose with a phallus transplant was able to persuade a thief not to use violence, but was unable to persuade him not to steal? That is omnipotence?
Can the Manchurian Candidates for Jesus, who credit their imaginary Sky Fuhrer with every good thing that happens in the world, but refuse to blame it for the tsunami that killed a quarter-million randomly chosen victims who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, not get it through their brainwashed skulls how dangerously, criminally, certifiably insane they are?
October 24th, 2009 at 12:26 am
Troll, feed thyself.
October 24th, 2009 at 1:12 am
Do you really believe the stuff you’re spouting, Michael Parks? I mean, really? No, don’t answer. Just ask yourself that question sometime when nobody’s around. Find yourself a mirror and look yourself in the eye while you’re doing it.
October 24th, 2009 at 2:54 am
Oh, St. Michael has invaded this space also. He can’t get enough of us, can he.
October 24th, 2009 at 3:49 am
To mikey boy,
What do you hope to achieve by your trollish comments – are you going to save all of us poor sinners? Maybe you want to prove something about atheists to yourself? Be realistic mate, this is a website dedicated to attacking christianity & all forms or religious lunacy.
Personaly I quite like the entertainment that the odd nutter like you provides, but really you are on a hiding to nothing – maybe you think it will buy you brownie points for heaven or something, but you are wrong, you are preaching to the anti-choir
October 24th, 2009 at 4:00 am
Re the article, the guy was obviously amenable to religiosity, but it didn’t stop him from stealing, did it?
October 24th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Rog, I agree, religion and hypocrisy are usually found together.
As for feeding the troll: It does become a bit boring after a while when our opponent continually does the equivalent of sticking fingers in ears and shouting laa laa.
October 24th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Further to Mikespeir’s comment, talking animals, magic food, dead people coming back to life, an omnicient god that doesn’t know that the Earth is a sphere. Think about it.
October 24th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Talking of anti-choir, I’m having a Halloween Anti-christening for my little baby!
We promise to educate him and raise him to the best of our abilities without the unpleasant lies and threats that bringing him up with religionism would cause.
October 24th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Mikey,
The double standards you religious twats use is breathtaking. Remember ‘the miracle on the Hudson’ air crash, when the religious saw it as divine intervention that saved the lives. Fast forward a couple of months and a small plane collided with a helicopter over the Hudson, killing all onboard. Then suddenly silence from those who would have no doubt seen another ‘miracle’ had there been any survivors. Surely your God was responsible for both, so why was the second incident not a miracle? Take away your invisible friend and suddenly it all makes sense.
October 25th, 2009 at 12:55 am
It’s all “part of God’s plan”, tony e. We won’t understand why some lived and others had to die until we get to Heaven. Then, He will make it all plain to us. (Wasn’t it the late, great “Pete and Dud” who once joked that if it was foreordained that one of them would be run over by a bus, then it would just come into the studio and mow him down, or find him wherever he was, when his number was up? There was no point trying to evade it, if that was what God had planned!)
michael parks says that this young guy was “no doubt suffering during the recession and probably quite naive and uneducated”. He meant “stupid”.
October 25th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Give faith a chance.
October 25th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Delighted with the results of my comments above. Kept you lot occupied for ages! I don’t even know where you dig up these preposterous stories! Love you guys. You always bring a smile to my face! Yeah – I’m trying to earn browny points with the big man in the sky!
I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to start a website and publish a whole load of petty stories about atheists. Kind of things you guys like to write about Christians.
- Atheist man hurts small squirrel and shows his true colours!
- Woman with no faith shouts at her children and scars them for life.
- Richard Dawkins has a debate with Vicar X and loses because he’s so dumb.
- Atheists the world over are a bunch of crazies. Read the proof here!
- Man who loses his faith is electocuted. That’ll teach him for being so faithless!
Read the list of previous articles you guys have read (or written)! It’s not far off this nonsense. And you then all get together and self congratulate like a bunch of piggies round a trough. It’s not really great sport,but when I’m feeling a bit lazy you guys are so easy to provoke. And I enjoy doing it because you are such bigots. You spend your time complaining about Christians and how they do this, that or the other but have never taken the time to investigate the facts. Not really Freethinking. I mean you come across as very narrow minded. Ho hum. Have a nice evening.
October 25th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
“…you guys are so easy to provoke.”
Unlike yourself, apparently.
October 26th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Michael, my love, what is electocuted?
Surely you meant electrocuted. This is to remind you of your pettiness recently. Kamp – Kampf
October 26th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
The crackpot assumes that because we are now atheists we have never had any experience of religion! If he had REALLY bothered to look at the site he would see that some of us were practically immersed in it. Just demonstrates his naivety!!
Spot on mikespeir – who exactly is it that it is “so easy to provoke”?
October 27th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Provoke? Well you provoked me to have a bit of fun if that’s what you meant.
Electocuted? No that’s what I meant actually. It’s a bit like electrocution but much cuter.
D.