Last Thursday my wife and I were in the midst of an argument. Nothing major of course, she was stressed out and when she is stressed she screams at me for a while until she feels better and then usually everything is all good. During our argument we saw a little head bobbing around through the window on our door…there was the pastor that performed our wedding ceremony standing there.
I’m not sure who sent him or if he had even been sent at all, this was the first time I had seen him in the three years since we were wed so the visit was quite peculiar. When my wife and I were in the process of getting married we both still believed though we had our doubts about Christianity, nonetheless the pastor found himself easily impressed by us and our resolve to remain virgins until our wedding night, so as far as he knew all was well with our faith at that time. I can only assume that he had gotten some wind of my fall from grace, this is a small town and I am very much an Out atheist, but regardless this is how our conversation went:
Satan
(Wife yelling from the bedroom, me standing in the kitchen trying to get her out the door so we can go eat, we notice his head bobbing through the window)
(I open door, then I recognize him… I invite him in, we sit on the couch…wife runs to the bedroom to avoid this conversation all together)
Pastor: So…are you two going to church anywhere?
(I’d rather just let the cat out of the bag here, get it out on the table)
Me: Well…you see…I don’t believe in god anymore
Pastor, not looking surprised in the least: Let me ask you something…Have you been getting into any sort of Satanic stuff?
(Seriously)
A little background here: A couple years ago a rumor got around that I was getting into the occult…all stemming from a blog post I did about my studies in the occult. So I immediately think that he is referencing the occult. As you will see, this is not the case.
Me, angry at this question: Why in the world would you ask that? What do you even mean?
Pastor: I mean have you been watching TV and reading stuff and listening to evil music?
(I realize that by satanic stuff he simply means anything that is NOT Christian, which really threw me off at first but my mindset what much like that at one time)
Zion
We talked about that for a few minutes and somehow we got to talking about Bible Prophecy:
Pastor: If you read the Bible you can clearly see all of the prophecies coming true!
Me: You know I have read the Bible, and honestly from what I can see there may be a group of individuals trying to MAKE the Bible come true, but most of it is bunk. It’s a book of lies.
Pastor: You watch and see, very soon America will turn it’s back on the nation of Israel and Russia and Iran will converge on her, but Israel will prevail!
Me, very frustrated at even the slightest hint of Zionism: America should not be supporting Israel in any way for any reason, they have a genocidal government run by Zionists that don’t blink when they shoot rockets at Palestinian orphanages and hospitals.
Pastor: That’s right, they do that because it is their land and the Palestinians have no right to it.
Me: So…let me get this straight. It’s OK for Israel to kill innocent women and children because they are trying to live peacefully on land that Israel was promised 4000 years ago by “god”?
Pastor: Of course
(I rage inside)
Me: So, if someone builds an orphanage on an acre of your land and you don’t like it, it’s ok to shoot a rocket to take that orphanage down with everyone inside?
Pastor: No no, I didn’t say that. But it is Israel’s land.
(I try to explain the history of Isreal from the 1850’s forward and he chooses not to listen) (Here is a post I did during the most recent Israel/Palestine conflict explaining some of that)
(Pastor starts talking about President Obama…somehow)
Obama
Pastor: Obama is a Muslim, he was raised a Muslim
Me, enraged: Obama is a Muslim? He is a professing Christian, I don’t even like the guy but if you are going to criticize him at least have something TRUE to criticize him with, not this fear mongering crap you are talking about now. Just because an email says it doesn’t make it true. On that note I’m done with this conversation because I won’t tolerate being lied to.
(Somehow we still talked for 15 more minutes, after I calmed down)
Conclusion
As we progressed I was told about hell, and how I would go there if I was not saved. He also mentioned that if I ever was saved that I couldn’t be un-saved so god would call me back eventually (with a certain twinge of doom in his voice) in some way, be it good things or bad things occurring in my life.
This, my beloved readers, is why living as an atheist in the South-eastern United States (more specifically the Deep South of Georgia) is about as enjoyable an experience as living in a tank full of crocodiles. They will believe anything so long as it doesn’t compete with their already predetermined worldview, and if you try to dispel that belief they simply ignore you.
As a side note I now have a Facebook Fan Page, on it I will be discussing the progress of this website and my upcoming book (oh , you didn’t know? That is why you should fan me right now!) so, if you are on Facebook, please FAN ME!
