So I'm sitting on a plane making small-talk with the passenger across the aisle when the inevitable question is raised..."What do you do for a living?" I considered telling her that I herd cats (which to me is an accurate description of pastoral ministry), but instead, I answer honestly. There is a long pause, followed by "Don't take this personally, but I'm an atheist."
Now my first thought is "Why would I take that personally? After all, she didn't say she believed that I didn't exist. Only God." My first words, however, were these. "I'm always impressed when I meet an athiest. I only wish I had that much faith."
"Faith?" she replied, making eye contact with me for the first time. "I told you I DON"T believe in God."
I explained to her that by not believing in God, she was putting all her faith in the absence of anything greater than herself. And since almost every sociologist and psychologist I've ever read have stated that humanity has an inherent need to believe in some form of deity, Christians like me have it easy. We are just following human nature. Atheist, on the other hand, reject all human science, and that requires a level of faith I could only long for.
We never really made eye contact after that, although I did catch several sideways glances throughout the flight. Maybe I should have stuck to my usual response of "I'm sorry, but I don't believe in atheist."
As the wit and genius of your post's punchline is a near perfect copy of the title thought in:
ReplyDelete"I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist" by
Christian apologist Norman L. Geisler, copyright 2004.
Perhaps the two of you could get together so that sincere believers, misplacing their trust, need not sort out which of the two of you is the insecure, desperate, self-exalting plagiarizing liar.
I heard a keynote speaker use the "enough faith to be an atheist" line as a passing comment in a conference address a few years ago. It came to mind again in a conversation on an Allegiant Air flight to LA. I've never heard of Norman Geisler, but I will certainly track down his book. Us insecure, desperate, self-exalting plagiarizing liars need to stick together.
ReplyDeleteLeave it up to christians to reject all other beleifs except there own... Just because its not written in the bible doesnt make it so, nor does it make it fact simpy because its written!
ReplyDelete