God found I wasn't there

Religious fundamentalists are often guilty of lifting text out of its context--such as quoting the ban on homosexuality in Leviticus without noting that it's surrounded by many obsolete, and mostly unobserved, laws.

Atheist fundamentalists are often guilty of the same wrong. Two recently published collections of "atheist" quotations--and quite a few Web sites--reproduce the first four lines of Robert Frost's eight-line poem "Not All There":

I turned to speak to God
About the world's despair;
But to make bad matters worse
I found God wasn't there.

What's left out is the remaining four-line stanza:

God turned to speak to me
(Don't anybody laugh)
God found I wasn't there--
At least not over half.

The poem as a whole makes a complex statement, reflecting the complexity, nuance, and ambiguity of Frost's religious thought. Quoting only the first stanza is intellectually dishonest, doing great disservice to Frost--and, more importantly, to the reader.