Last night I stopped at Metro (local hotel bar and restaurant) for dinner and some crazy-ass Canadian beers, and before long the bar filled up. A guy sat next to me, ordered some kind of mixed drink, and after a while made some comments about the Middle East (CNN was on the big screen showing video of the latest suicide bomb attack or something like that). I, feeling sociable, decided to engage him in conversation.
MISTAKE #1: NEVER TALK TO PEOPLE ABOUT POLITICS OR RELIGION WHEN THEY ARE DRINKING.
He started off saying that the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is “a very smart man”. Now, apart from some of Ahmadinejad’s more idiotic statements (the Holocaust is a myth, Germany and Austria ought to donate land to ‘relocate’ Israel, etc.) and the high liklihood of Iran’s support of terrorism, I agreed that he seemed articulate and brought up the “open letter to America” that he posted a little while ago. I said that while I could agree with some of the statements (of COURSE we all want peace, of COURSE we all want justice) that he completely loses credibility when he declares that “It is possible to lead the world towards the aspired perfection by adhering to unity, monotheism, morality and spirituality and drawing upon the teachings of the Divine Prophets.
Then, the American people, who are God-fearing and followers of Divine religions, will overcome every difficulty.” At this, the guy (let’s call him Nutsack) says, “well, it’s true, we’re all following the same God, blah blah blah…”
“No”, I told him, “because not everyone believes in the Abrahamic god. Hell, not everyone believes in a god at all, and in fact I used to be a born-again Christian but now I’m an atheist. A secular government is the best way to ensure freedom of religious belief.”
MISTAKE #2: NEVER REVEAL THAT YOU ARE AN ATHEIST TO A DRUNK PERSON WHO BELIEVES IN GOD.
Now, Nutsack is actually part-owner and main sales rep for a company that deals in some kind of genetics research, so keep that in mind as you read…
Nutsack was taken aback by my admission of Atheism.
“Now”, he began, “what is impossible is what you say, that everything is random. It’s just not possible. It must be miraculous.”
Me: “I never said everything was random. In fact, there’s evidence that the universe is, to a certain extent, self-ordering. You have forces like gravity and electromagne-“
Nutsack (interrupting): “That doesn’t prove that everything isn’t random.”
Me:…
Me: “OK, the point I was trying to make is that evolution is-“
Nutsack (interrupting again): “STUPID. It’s STUPID. There’s no way that everything is from the same mass of matter.”
Me: “Stupid? No way, it’s BRILLIANT. It’s one of the most attacked and reviled theories in scientific history and has only gotten stronger as time goes on…”
Nutsack: “There’s NO WAY that everything is from the same mass of matter.”
Me: “I’m not sure what that means, but if you’re talking about ultimate origins of the universe -“
Nutsack (interrupting): “BINGO. You’re saying that evolution accounts for everything but it CAN’T because there’s NO WAY that everything is from the same mass of matter. Humans are DIFFERENT. We’re not animals.”
Me: “Well, theories about the origin of the universe or even the ultimate beginnings of life are not exactly the same as evolution, but you’re wrong about humans not being animals anyway.”
Nutsack: “There is NO WAY that humans are animals. Humans have SOULS. No animal can experience compassion and depression and only humans can because it’s NOT RANDOM.”
Me: “No animal can experience compassion? You ever watch nature shows? When a mother chimp loses a baby, she mourns and may even starve herself and waste away. Dogs and cats certainly care for their young-“
Nutsack (interrupting): “That’s just their INSTINCT.”
Me: “So when a human does the same thing, it’s compassion because humans have souls, but when animals do it it’s because they have no free will and are just following instinct…?”
Nutsack: “BINGO. Humans are the only animals that commit suicide.”
Me: “Well, whales beach themselves, and although I’m not totally sure I think there have been documented cases of primates killing themselves and there are-“
Nutsack (interrupting): “That’s their INSTINCT.”
Me:…
Nutsack: “I don’t believe in evolution. It’s ADAPTATION.”
Me: “If by adaptation you mean mutation and then selective forces acting on them, then yes, that’s evolution.”
Nutsack: “NO IT’S ADAPTATION. THERE’S NO WAY THAT WE’RE ALL FROM THE SAME MASS OF MATTER.”
Me: “Evolution IS adaptation.”
Nutsack: “NO, IT’S ADAPTATION.”
Me: “Let me try something; we humans have artificially selected for several different breeds of dogs, right? So we have a tremendous variety of shapes and sizes and colors and all that, right?”
Nutsack: “HELL YEAH!”
Me: “Now, would you agree that it’s reasonable to say that dogs are descended from wolves?”
Nutsack: “ABSOLUTELY!”
Me: “OK, so roughly 10,000 years ago, according to the evidence we’ve found-“
Nutsack (interrupting): “NO. NOT 10,000 YEARS. NO WAY ARE WE FROM THE SAME MASS OF MATTER.”
Me: “Whatever. At some point wolves and man started to develop a mutually beneficial relationship and some wolves became domesticated and-“
Nutsack (interrupting and almost standing up in excitement): “NO! NOBODY CAN DOMESTICATE A WOLF!”
Me: “You just said a moment ago that dogs are absolutely descended from wolves…”
Nutsack: “NOBODY CAN DOMESTICATE A WOLF! IT’S NOT POSSIBLE!”
Me: “Are dogs domesticated? Isn’t that what makes them dogs and not wolves?”
Nutsack: “ABSOLUTELY!”
Me: “If dogs are descended from wolves, and dogs are domesticated, and the domestication is what makes them dogs, then at some point a group of wolves must have been domesticated.”
Nutsack:…
Nutsack: “AHHH! YOU! YOU MADE A POINT BUT IT STILL DOESN’T PROVE THAT EVERYTHING ISN’T RANDOM. IT’S ADAPTATION.”
Me: “I gotta go.”
There was more, but this will give you the idea…fun!
