“Do you believe in the Bible?”

And before I could do anything to stop them, the logical part of my brain got together with my mouth and said, “Yeah, I mean, I believe the Bible exists, sure.”  Just at that point the complex reasoning part of my brain said to me, “No, you moron.  This jerk is asking if you believe in the CONTENT of the Bible, not the book itself.  He’s dumb for phrasing his question that way, but you’re dumber for not figuring it out, and now you have to talk to him.  Congratulations.”

And, as my brain had surmised, this was in fact the opportunity the guy used to press on.

“Do you believe in God, the Heavenly Father?”

“No.  See, I think you misunderstood me.  I believe that the Bible exists as a book, but I don’t think it contains any factual information.”

“So you don’t believe in the Bible?”

“No, yeah.  I mean, no.  Yes, the Bible is a book.  But, no, I don’t believe in God.”

“But you believe in the Bible?”

Obviously I had confused the guy, since it seemed like he would probably go around in circles until I said I did believe in God, at which point, the REAL conversation would start when he would convince me that my interpretation of God was wrong and that his was right and that he would somehow be able to change my mind.  Does this ever really happen?  Do people just convert on their way to buy a turkey sandwich?  If so, do they get bacon on the sandwich if their new religion allows it?  I don’t have the answer to these questions, but I did get bacon on my turkey sandwich, incidentally, because it is delicious, and because I have a burning hatred for pigs.

Anyway, the real reason that I was compelled to write anything about it here at all is because normally I would have just mumbled something and said “Excuse me” and “I’m sorry” a million times and walked away.  But, at some point I apparently grew a social spine, and adopted the mantra “Life’s too short” so I just straight up told the guy.

“Hey, listen, I’m an atheist, and I don’t believe in God, and I don’t want to talk about it, so have a good day.”

It was shockingly easy to say, and after hovering for a few more moments, his mouth opening and closing as he continued to try to process what I had just said, I went back to walking to get my lunch and got unreasonably pissed off at a society that doesn’t laugh in the face of Christians who can claim they’re being persecuted and at the same time have the entitlement to think they can just walk up to any asshole on the street and get them to change their religion.  What a bunch of douches.

Anyway, what’s up?  How have you been doing?