The other night the doorbell rang at 8:30pm on a Friday evening. We had just put the kids to bed and were settling down for an undisturbed dinner (which is so rare with young ones), and now someone was wanting our attention. I was seated on the couch which is right beside our entrance way but I can’t see who is at the door. I let Robin answer it, and I’m glad I did. I was tired and not really in the mood to be chatty.
From where I was sitting I could hear the entire exchange. It was 2 young males wanting to talk about God and our conversations with him. Robin’s first cheeky response, “God has talked to you???” The answer was an emphatic “Yes!” The conversation (and my patience for it) quickly went downhill.
Everyone has their right to believe in whatever God they want to. However I have a few issues with that Friday evening. First of all, these 2 young men were banging on our door at 8:30pm on a Friday night, after a long week of work. I certainly do NOT bang on anyone’s door EVER to talk about my personal beliefs. They’re just that, personal. I keep them to myself.
Secondly the one lad was so adamant that God had spoken directly to him. Instantly I recalled stand-up material from Bill Maher. Isn’t it a bit egotistical to think that of all the people in the world, God is going to speak to YOU?
Thirdly Robin made the comment that he accepts and believes in all religions in order to hedge his bets that his soul will be saved when he dies. He also pointed out that he doesn’t believe in hell. The young man told him plain and simple: you’re wrong. Really? So, how does this 20-something youngling KNOW for a fact what happens after we die, and which religion in this world is the absolute, without question, the only right one? Faith is one thing. Ego is another.
While I sat on the couch eating my dinner and listening to this exchange, I was reminded of a Philosophy course that I took in university. It was called Knowledge and Reality and the course text book was a collection of sci-fi short stories. It was very cool, one of my more memorable and enjoyable classes.
Anyway, I remember the professor was this very calm, unassuming, British man. When we got to the unit in the course titled “The Existence of God?”, it became quite the controversial class. Our professor announced (I think mainly for the purpose of this particular unit) that he was agnostic and we had to prove to him that God existed. Every time someone tried to offer proof, he would gently point out that to him it wasn’t solid proof. I watched many people in the lecture hall getting visibly agitated and upset because they thought our prof was insulting their respective religions. He politely and neutrally tried to explain to them that he was not looking to question people’s faith, but instead just wanted solid evidence.
I believe many people ended up dropping out of that class (and possibly raising complaints out the professor) because they just couldn’t bear the thought of being taught by this individual who would question their religious choices. But I don’t think he was trying to insult anybody. He was just trying to find the answer to his question does God exist, and to show clear evidence.
Anyway, back to present day, as I listened to these 2 young men try to bully Robin into admitting that God DOES exist, and their religion was the right one, and we should be worried about ourselves after we die, I wanted to intervene and say so many things: how dare you have the nerve to disturb me at this hour and ask about my personal beliefs? How dare you have the ego to think that you’re 100% right about faith and the after-life when you’re not dead yet? How dare you think you can change my opinion about things in just 5 minutes when I’ve had my whole life (which is probably about double their lives and thereby double their life experiences) to think about and consider and carefully evaluate religion?
Just as I was about to stand up and say something, Robin shut it down and said he wasn’t interested and for them to have a good night. Their parting words were a question: is there a large Latino population in this neighbourhood? Robin pointed vaguely north-west and said “Yeah, that way.” And off they went in that direction.
What a weird and exhausting way to end their lecture. But I was glad it was over and could eat my dinner in peace.