Attack of the Preachers

Today I was woken by loud knocking on the door. Thinking perhaps there was someone trying to deliver something or that had some proper business to be here, I rushed to get dressed enough to run downstairs and answer the door.

I was two men with Bibles. I did not even have my glasses, so I could only see blurry faces and certainly could not read anything, but I did try to be polite, as is my habit. I said, "before you say anything, I have to tell you that I am absolutely not religious and there is nothing that anyone, including Jesus himself, could do or say that will change that."

This, of course, did nothing to dissuade them. They hear that almost everywhere. The main guy (who was larger) began by saying, "we are not here to sell anything or to get you to join anything. We just want to discuss the Bible."

I sighed, of course, but allowed the conversation to progress. When asked what I thought about the events of the world, I merely answered, "I am a scientist. I observe and take notice of novel events, trends of nature, that sort of thing. I do not take comfort in anything the Bible says, unfortunately."

"So, then," one went on, "you believe in the Big Bang?"

"Not exactly. Perhaps many Big Bangs, in an infinite or at least indefinite time frame there may have been innumerable such events," I replied.

"But isn't that like a singularity, such as the 'In the Beginning, Let there be light!' verse in Genesis?"

"Not exactly...  a singularity would have to be a single, unexplainable event. In an eternal Universe, with multiple Big Bangs (or Little Bangs, what have you...) there would still be singularities, but the prime singularity would be: 'How does ANYTHING AT ALL exist, including Gods or self-igniting universes, virtual particles in a vacuum, etc.'"

I will not go on, mainly because the entire conversation seemed to go into circles, which made me doubt whether my politeness was a virtue. I listened to a few more arguments, eg. the Bible somehow refers to the expansion of space, etc. until I just said, "Well, then go ahead and believe as you wish. It will not change anything. The world will become a dystopia, our grandchildren will live in squalor, if at all, and God, the almighty creator of this mess, will do nothing about it."

I was not speaking angrily, you must know, only in a matter-of-fact manner. Eventually they realized that, although I might be the rare person that engages them in conversation, nothing was going to improve their positions. So they left. 

Thereupon I shuffled back into the house, got some coffee, sat down to my computer, meandered the Internet, read news articles (which involves so much soul crushing bad stuff it is pathetic) and then decided to write an entry about my insipid experience in this blog.  The only thing that might be valuable in this story is that some people can stimulate your thinking to such a degree that it destroys any hope that they could ever convert you.