Apparently the first person to publicly deny any inclination toward religious beliefs might just be a robber.
It so happens that, a long long time ago in a village far far away, there were a village full of very religious people. Every holy day they would convene in the only religious building, which so happens to accommodate their numbers perfectly. The whole day, they would renew, reaffirm, and express their faith.
Every one of them — from the smallest of children to the oldest of the living — would leave whatever it was they were doing and go to this gathering. The children dropped their toys in the middle of the road and ran home to get into their best clothes. Travellers stopped. The shopkeepers closed their shops, the looms stood unattended, the farmers sent up an extra prayer so that their cattle did not stray too far from the farm as the masters went to such gatherings.
So. Every one of them. Except one. Of course he did not lie and would never, for the life of him, say, “Oh I am sick” or “Oh I’m allergic” because whatever flaws the villagers had, they were not liars. In fact, they were very honest people.
So, this one person, every holy day, would leave a note on his house door, explaining why he could not be at the religious gathering. “Gone out,” the note said. “At heist.”
