You Picked the Wrong Day to Discuss Suffering

It's been a while since anyone from the local Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses has come a-knockin' on my front door. For a couple of years, it was the same lady, with different "assistants" who would show up on a Monday morning, go through their spiel for the topic of the month in the Watchtower, read Bible verses to me, and leave the literature.  At the time, I was homeschooling my children, so I think that fact alone served as some sort of sign that I was amenable to their apocalyptic evangelizing. (I guess she wasn't aware that a sizable number of homeschoolers are irreligious.) Anyway, I never bothered to correct my visitors, as I don't like to be rude, but I never really engaged in discussion with them much either.

Today, everything changed....

This morning, my daily ritual of perusing Facebook friends' statuses was interrupted by the tell-tale ringing of the doorbell. Instead of the familiar face of the previous disrupter-of-my-morning-routine, a different woman with 2 young girls was standing there. As I've done every other time in the past, I listened to the woman's pitch, nodded my head where expected, and remained rather passive in the hope that she would finish quickly and just go away. Not so, this time.

We were having a pleasant, albeit decidedly one-way monologue passing for conversation, when I started to feel a definite burning indignation. The woman was rambling on with her explanation of human suffering based on the Genesis story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. She started explaining that if Eve had just been submissive to God's authority rather than making her own decisions, the world would not be experiencing the level of suffering we see today. Then she continued on to explain how the Bible assures us that the occurrence of catastrophes such as the massive oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico is part of God's plan, and ultimately will have a positive effect on humanity at large, much as personal suffering has a positive and transformative effect on individuals.

Well, as luck would have it, I finished reading a book on this very subject, written by a well-known Biblical scholar, just last night, so the subject matter was still quite fresh in my mind. Perhaps that's why I finally broke my silence and engaged a believing stranger in debate. I usually reserve such arguments for my intellectual friends, who know me well enough not to take personally any argument I might express against their religious beliefs.

I won't bore anyone with the trivial details of our discussion. Mostly I simply tried to gently but firmly direct my guest to references found in the Bible itself that counteracted whatever point this nice woman was raising about the Bible confirming the necessity and benefits of having a 'loving' God who permits such abundant suffering in the world due to the concept of 'original sin' (Thank you, Dr. Ehrman!). This lasted about 10 minutes, with the poor woman bobbing and weaving gallantly, but never really addressing the 'evidence' disproving her claims that I provided from within her own holy book. Near the end of our discussion (which she abruptly cut off with something of an 'agree to disagree' remark), her elder daughter, who appeared to be about 11 or 12 years old, started asking me questions, which I have to admit to feeling a great deal of personal satisfaction in answering. (I suspect this is truly what prompted the end of our discourse.) She made a statement about how I obviously have spent a good deal of time exploring the subject. We parted on congenial terms and I wished them all a pleasant day.

Now, I realize the regaling of this encounter might come off as a bit pompous--like a smug tale of how I 'took down' the religious lady with her own weapon. That is not the intent. I look at it more as an opportunity to evangelize the merits of scholarship and skepticism to the evangelist, and perhaps sow a small seed of doubt in the mind of this woman's obviously inquisitive child. As for the mother, I figure this experience will simply strengthen her resolve, given the expectations and belief system of those sent forth to spread the Word. At a minimum, it might just save me from future Saturday morning interruptions.

Quotes of the Day:

"It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to infidelity."

--Abraham Lincoln

"The Bible is a mine rich in the ore of cognitive dissonance."

--Delos B. McKown