A while back, I had an interesting conversation with two theist friends at work. I found it most enjoyable, because it finally gave me an opportunity to "stretch" my muscles, so to speak, in a new medium - a real-time, face-to-face conversation. Another interesting aspect of this conversation was the participants. It pitted me, the lone atheist in the room, against a Christian and a Hindu. In spite of the fact that Xianity and Hinduism are far from compatible in their views of just about everything, these two fellows joined forces to try to show me the error of my ways. The sight of these two reluctant allies trying to work out their strategy as I shot their statements full of holes was MOST satisfying!
The conversation started with me criticizing the money-grubbing nature of most churches. I mentioned my personal experience in my Southern Baptist Church, when we were politely asked to name the church in our wills and it was suggested that we could take out insurance policies, naming the church as beneficiary. The subject of my current atheism came up, and we were off to the races! I can't recall all the details of the conversation, but here are the main points we covered:
1. I mentioned the evil I have found in reading the Bible. I was asked for specifics, and mentioned the common concept of punishing innocent people for the sins of others. My Hindu friend said I couldn't be sure that those punished were entirely blameless. I mentioned the passage in 2 Samuel, where God exacted revenge for David's sin with Bathsheba by killing the baby just after it was born. I got a thoughtful look in response. We also addressed the idea of karma, and I said that it made little sense, since it would be impossible to relate good events with the good actions being rewarded, or the bad events with bad actions; the response was that some "spiritually sensitive people" were able to find these relationships. I stated my skepticism on this, and thought it very unlikely that any two "sensitives" would come up with associations that were even close on any sort of regular basis.
2. My Hindu friend mentioned the evidence that supports the idea of reincarnation (this was a MOST satisfying development, as you'll see in a little while). He recounted a story that he had seen, with a small child claiming to be the reincarnation of a man, visiting the home of the man's widow, and displaying knowledge, verified by the widow, that only the man could have known. The holes in this story were obvious to me, but I let them pass, in favor of other issues. The more interesting point here is that my Xian friend took a more general approach, saying that there is too much evidence for "some kind of supernatural world" to ignore. I mentioned the problem with such anecdotes, that they're always culture-based. I pointed out that Hindu "evidence" is never found in people in the Xian religion, and that we never see Hindu people who are contacted by Jesus.
3. My Xian friend stated that Xianity is a good religion, because it recognizes that no one can ever be perfect, and that nothing you can do will ever be good enough to earn your way into heaven. I asked him if that also meant that there could be no action bad enough to earn a person a trip to hell. That idea puzzled him, but he agreed after a little thought. Obviously, this concept rather startled him, and he hadn't taken the time to look at the logic of his statements. However, we went on, examining the concept of faith as a determining factor in the trip to heaven. I stated my opinion of faith: that it is detrimental to followers, in that it leaves them open to accepting all sorts of stupid beliefs, and to being taken in by any unscrupulous con artist who comes down the pike. I then was regaled by the interesting concept that even I have some faith - as when I crank my car in the mornings. I mentioned that my faith in my car is a function of my experience with its good services. When the battery starts to go dead, I'm far less sanguine about its reliability than just after I purchase a new battery, for instance.
4. We got back into the concept of morality, and my Xian friend then stated that we need God to show us what's right or wrong - otherwise, we could do anything we wanted, thinking that there would be no consequence for committing sins. I seized the opportunity to cause some serious theistic mayhem. I asked what consequences could he possibly mean? Since faith is the only thing that matters to God in the determination over whether a person gets into heaven, one's actions can have no bearing on the matter. Consequently, the only thing that has consequences from God is the possession (or not) of the key beliefs of Xianity. After that, there are no consequences, and no moral constraints. That appeared to have floored my Xian opponent.
5. At the very last point of my exchange, my Xian friend said that he thought it would be a very sad life if there were no real point to it, that death was the complete end of one's existence. I decided to leave the conversation at that point without giving the obvious response. I had given both my co-workers plenty to think about. I decided they both needed some remains of a sense of acceptance from me, so I refrained from saying that I thought it most refreshing to hear that this person believed in his myth only because he wanted it to be true.
In retrospect, I find this exchange to have been most enlightening. There are points I could have made, but didn't think of in "the heat of battle," but I got in some pretty good items. I was a little surprised that I didn't hear Pascal's Wager - but that sort of thing would have been a huge blunder on their part, considering I could have pointed out the difficulty in choosing the "right" religion, leading to a split in my friends' uneasy alliance. I don't think I bothered my Hindu friend's faith very much - however, I did make a few points that he may take time to consider at his leisure. My Xian friend, however, is a different story. I gave him much to think over, not least about his lack of familiarity with his own bible. I've given him a hint of the horrors to be found there, and he was impressed with my scholarship. Whether this actually translates into further action on his religious front is questionable - his religious thinking has been quite limited, and he only took part in the conversation because I attacked something he assumed everybody believed.
For me, this experience was the first face-to-face confrontation I have had with theists in an impromptu setting. I found it refreshing, and it really appears that the time I have spent studying the philosophical and religious issues surrounding the concept of atheism has been worthwhile. Instead of these theists going back to their lives thinking that I'm just a contrarian who has no real reason to not believe in God, they were given a few meaningful points that show that there are serious problems for their religions.
(c) 2000 J. Eric Harrington
