Well, that was fun!
March 9, 2016 at 11:49 am
(This post was last modified: March 9, 2016 at 11:59 am by Cyberman.)
Okay, so I'm here at my parents' house (where the internet lives), minding my own business with Facebook, YouTube etc. I wasn't really thinking of logging in here until later, if at all. Then my Dad comes in and tells me he'd like my help with a Jehovah Witness at the door, seeing as I'm more experienced at these things than he is. Bear in mind that door visits like this are so rare for me as to be non-existent. However, when he told me the guy was talking about "the circle of the Earth", I sort of had a minor prophecy of what to expect.
And I wasn't disappointed. I was given a strange mixture of softball topics, like the above circle of the Earth and "hangeth the Earth on nothing", and general limp "how do you explain this, this and this". For a start, he seemed genuinely confused when I asked him what happened to the pillars that the Earth used to stand on (1 Samuel 2:8; Job 9:6 - interestingly a few chapters before the "hangeth upon nothing" reference).
Throughout the exchange, I was able to keep him relatively on track, largely thanks to my experience here, and shut down his red herring deflections. More than that, I took charge of the conversation and steered it the way I wanted it to go, rather than let him lead me by the nose. He mentioned prophecy; I brought up Tyre. He spoke of evidence in the bible; I told him that's the claim, not the evidence, and asked him if he believes me that I have a solid gold 'phone. He said he might if I had evidence, to which I asked why he doesn't merely believe my claim. He said he isn't a literal creationist, as the word for "day" in Genesis is apparently similar in idiom to our saying "back in my day"; so I asked how long plants had to survive on a sunless Earth - an age, or a 24-hour period.
He did speak of the popular "water canopy", which I instantly identified as the Hovind "Theory" and said as much. He apparently didn't know who Hovind is.
All in all, it was a very amicable chat and I really enjoyed myself. It was literally my first real face-to-face encounter (I don't go looking for this stuff). My Dad was really proud of me.
And I wasn't disappointed. I was given a strange mixture of softball topics, like the above circle of the Earth and "hangeth the Earth on nothing", and general limp "how do you explain this, this and this". For a start, he seemed genuinely confused when I asked him what happened to the pillars that the Earth used to stand on (1 Samuel 2:8; Job 9:6 - interestingly a few chapters before the "hangeth upon nothing" reference).
Throughout the exchange, I was able to keep him relatively on track, largely thanks to my experience here, and shut down his red herring deflections. More than that, I took charge of the conversation and steered it the way I wanted it to go, rather than let him lead me by the nose. He mentioned prophecy; I brought up Tyre. He spoke of evidence in the bible; I told him that's the claim, not the evidence, and asked him if he believes me that I have a solid gold 'phone. He said he might if I had evidence, to which I asked why he doesn't merely believe my claim. He said he isn't a literal creationist, as the word for "day" in Genesis is apparently similar in idiom to our saying "back in my day"; so I asked how long plants had to survive on a sunless Earth - an age, or a 24-hour period.
He did speak of the popular "water canopy", which I instantly identified as the Hovind "Theory" and said as much. He apparently didn't know who Hovind is.
All in all, it was a very amicable chat and I really enjoyed myself. It was literally my first real face-to-face encounter (I don't go looking for this stuff). My Dad was really proud of me.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
