Just a rant/reflection.

First off, I am an atheist. I've regularly attended various churches since I was born and so am quite familiar with the Bible and its teachings/interpretations.

On to my story. I was invited to dinner by a friend to this person's house. This person is someone who has a good reputation within the church, but is not a pastor or of an equivalent status. Either way, he gave the impression that he was very familiar with the Bible and was capable of defending his belief well. Well, after dinner, he began asking questions about my religious beliefs. I told him I no longer believed in the Christian God, and, when it came to my turn to ask him a question, I asked, what I thought, was one of the most challenging questions. "Do you believe that a baby, who died very young, several months old, who had no chance to learn about Jesus/God, deserves to suffer for eternity in hell?"

He answered with a confident YES. When I asked him to justify his answer, he replied by stating that it was the parents' fault for the infant's fate. Since the parents were not religious and did not properly 'influence' the baby's spiritual side properly, it could not be saved. I pointed out that the baby had no ability to think cognitively about concepts such as "Who am I" and "Who created all this", regardless of the parents' beliefs. He told me that the baby's 'spirit' can understand, even if the physical mind can't. Well..... that's what he thinks.

Well, thinking that this guy was digging his own grave, I asked the next question. "If the parents weren't in a situation where they could learn about the Christian God, say they lived in a remote African tribe or in North Korea, how could it be their fault?" He replied with, "Then it is the Christian's fault for not reaching them with the gospel". He then told me that I would eventually be responsible for the eternal suffering of others because I did not share the gospel. Me, being a patient person, calmly told him that I understood his opinion but did not agree with it.

I then turned to my friend and asked, "Can you accept an innocent baby being burned by fire and brimstone for all eternity while you live comfortably in heaven?" She, and the guy, both nodded their heads and seemed to have no sort of internal conflict. Apparently, as long as it was God's will, it was fine with them. I tried again, "If you were the infant, and would be sent to hell, would you accept it?" The guy answered yes again. "It is God's will." At that point, I wanted to just shout, "YOU DISGUST ME! HOW CAN YOU LIE TO YOURSELF LIKE THAT?!". But, I hoped to at least make some impact on my brainwashed friend by trying to finish this rationally.

I asked another difficult question. "If God knew exactly who would be saved and who wouldn't, eons before he ever created the Earth, why would he create the ones destined to go to hell at all?" The guy replied with, "God didn't want to create robots without free will." -__- I said that if I was a god and only wanted a bunch of people praising and loving me, I would just create them and save everybody else the trouble.

Since it was his turn, he asked me with a smirk on his face, "So, you think we came from monkeys?" I said, we're not FROM monkeys, but are like cousins within the evolutionary tree and that we share a common ancestor. He then said "Cousins? Why don't you invite them to your house and share holiday dinners with them then?" .... Really? facepalm

He touched on a specific tenant of their religion, which is a belief that everybody harbors demons within them. I asked, "Can you call out my demon(s) right now?" He said he could, on which I immediately pounced, "Do it right now. And, while you're at it, please videotape me." He backed away and said it would be too dangerous. Since I do not believe, I cannot tell the difference between my regular acts (which apparently are all sinful) and the acts manifested by the demon's influence. Reactions, according to him, can be anything from an evil thought in your head to saying a lie. So,the way I see it, you can only tell if a demon is influencing you by believing it will. I couldn't even be bothered to explain how human psychology could explain these so called 'demonic manifestations'.

After making a bunch of nonsensical analogies and changing the subject several times, this guy seemed to be impossible to get through. My friend was nodding at everything he was saying and not reacting to my statements, which annoyed me even more. I decided to let it go for tonight and concluded by saying that the Christian god was, essentially, unfair. Unfair, as well as inconsistent with the all-loving, all-caring, all-merciful, and all-forgiving God modern Christian philosophy puts such an emphasis on. And, that if the world were to start anew tomorrow with just one couple, the bible would not exist in its exact form again and other religions would take its place. Well, he of course dismissed these statements and kindly showed me out.

On the way back home, I tried to get through to my friend one last time. "You know, the laws in the Old Testament state that a woman cannot speak in church and that a woman raped will be killed as well as the offender?" She said she knew but that when Jesus came, he replaced the laws of Moses with the 'New Law'. I pressed, "Don't you think an all-knowing god would just implement the right kind of laws first instead of changing them a bit later?" Well, she said, "If we didn't have the bad laws before, then we wouldn't know that the 'New Law' was good." I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and this was coming from a college graduate.

By then, we reached my house and I left to go inside, which brings me here. The way I see it, my friend and the church member both took for granted that they were 'lucky' enough to have a chance to learn about the Christian god. They acknowledged that there were those who couldn't be saved. Of course, they also expressed that they would do their best to save as many people as possible. But honestly, I would bet that they were only doing that in order to evade hell's punishment.

But, WOW. This was a lot longer than I thought. It feels good to get this out of my system. Thanks to anyone and everyone who actually took the time to read this and, if possible, please leave a comment or advice on how I could have handled this better.

Lastly, in case you didn't realize, I should also note that my friend attends the same church as this guy, which made me feel as though this invitation was more for a conversion attempt rather than a casual dinner. I doubt I'll be seeing her again anytime soon though.