mindphuk
Well-Known Member
I just stumbled across this and found it thought provoking. I will c&p the first part but due to the length and the wish to avoid copyright infringement, I suggest to read it on the linked site.
I met god the other day.
I know what youre thinking. How the hell did you know it was god?
Well, Ill explain as we go along, but basically he convinced me by having all, and I do mean ALL, the answers. Every question I flung at him he batted back with a plausible and satisfactory answer. In the end, it was easier to accept that he was god than otherwise.
Which is odd, because Im still an atheist and we even agree on that!
It all started on the 8.20 back from Paddington. Got myself a nice window seat, no screaming brats or drunken hooligans within earshot. Not even a mobile phone in sight. Sat down, reading the paper and in he walks.
What did he look like?
Well not what you might have expected thats for sure. He was about 30, wearing a pair of jeans and a "hobgoblin" tee shirt. Definitely casual. Looked like he could have been a social worker or perhaps a programmer like myself.
Anyone sitting here? he said.
Help yourself I replied.
Sits down, relaxes, I ignore and back to the correspondence on genetically modified crops entering the food chain
Train pulls out and a few minutes later he speaks.
Can I ask you a question?
Fighting to restrain my left eyebrow I replied Yes in a tone which was intended to convey that I might not mind one question, and possibly a supplementary, but I really wasnt in the mood for a conversation. ..
Why dont you believe in god?
The Bastard!
I love this kind of conversation and can rabbit on for hours about the nonsense of theist beliefs. But I have to be in the mood! It's like when a Jehovas witness knocks on your door 20 minutes before youre due to have a wisdom tooth pulled. Much as you'd really love to stay You cant even begin the fun. And I knew, if I gave my standard reply wed still be arguing when we got to Cardiff. I just wasnt in the mood. I needed to fend him off.
But then I thought Odd! How is this perfect stranger so obviously confident and correct about my atheism? If Id been driving my car, it wouldnt have been such a mystery. Ive got the Darwin fish on the back of mine the antidote to that twee christian fish you see all over. So anyone spotting that and understanding it would have been in a position to guess my beliefs. But I was on a train and not even wearing my Darwin "Evolve" tshirt that day. And The Independent isnt a registered flag for card carrying atheists, so what, I wondered, had given the game away.
What makes you so certain that I dont?
Because, he said, I am god and you are not afraid of me
Youll have to take my word for it of course, but there are ways you can deliver a line like that most of which would render the speaker a candidate for an institution, or at least prozac. Some of which could be construed as mildly entertaining.
Conveying it as "indifferent fact" is a difficult task but thats exactly how it came across. Nothing in his tone or attitude struck me as even mildly out of place with that statement. He said it because he believed it and his rationality did not appear to be drug induced or the result of a mental breakdown.
And why should I believe that?
Well he said, why dont you ask me a few questions. Anything you like, and see if the answers satisfy your sceptical mind?
This is going to be a short conversation after all, I thought.
Who am I?
Stottle. Harry Stottle, born August 10 1947, Bristol, England. Father Paul, Mother Mary. Educated Duke of Yorks Royal Military School 1960 67, Sandhurst and Oxford, PhD in Exobiology, failed rock singer, full time trade union activist for 10 years, latterly self employed computer programmer, web author and aspiring philosopher. Married to Michelle, American citizen, two children by a previous marriage. Youre returning home after what seems to have been a successful meeting with an investor interested in your proposed product tracking anti-forgery software and protocol and you ate a full english breakfast at the hotel this morning except that, as usual, you asked them to hold the revolting english sausages and give you some extra bacon.
He paused
Youre not convinced. Hmmm what would it take to convince you? May I have your permission for a telepathic link?
'Do you need my permission?'
'Technically, no. Ethically, yes'
Might as well play along I thought. 'OK - you have my permission. So convince me'
'oh right! Your most secret password and its association'
A serious hacker might be able to obtain the password, but no one else and I mean
NO ONE
knows its association.
He did.
So how would you have played it?
I threw a few more questions about relatively insignificant but unpublicised details of my life (like what my mother claims was the first word I ever spoke apparently "armadillo"! (Don't ask )) but I was already pretty convinced. I knew there were only three possible explanations at this point.
Possibility One was that I was dreaming, hallucinating or hypnotised. Nobodys figured out a test for that so, at the time I think that was my dominant feeling. It did not feel real at the time. More like I was in a play. Acting my lines. Since the event, however, continuing detailed memories of it, together with my contemporaneous notes, remain available, so unless the hallucination has continued to this day, I am now inclined to reject the hallucination hypothesis. Which leaves two others.
He could have been a true telepath. No documented evidence exists of anyone ever having such profound abilities to date but it was a possibility. It would have explained how he could know my best-kept secrets. The problem with that is that it doesnt explain anything else! In particular it doesnt account for the answers he proceeded to give to my later questions.
As Sherlock Holmes says, when youve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Good empiricist, Sherlock.
I was forced to accept at least the possibility that this man was who he claimed to be.
So now what do you do?
Well, Ive always known that if I met god I would have a million questions for him, so I thought, why not? and proceeded with what follows. Youll have to allow a bit of licence in the detail of the conversation. This was, shall we say, a somewhat unusual occurrence, not to mention just a BIT weird! And yes I was a leetle bit nervous! So if I dont get it word perfect dont whinge! Youll get the gist I promise.
------------------------------
http://www.fullmoon.nu/articles/art.php?id=tal
I met god the other day.
I know what youre thinking. How the hell did you know it was god?
Well, Ill explain as we go along, but basically he convinced me by having all, and I do mean ALL, the answers. Every question I flung at him he batted back with a plausible and satisfactory answer. In the end, it was easier to accept that he was god than otherwise.
Which is odd, because Im still an atheist and we even agree on that!
It all started on the 8.20 back from Paddington. Got myself a nice window seat, no screaming brats or drunken hooligans within earshot. Not even a mobile phone in sight. Sat down, reading the paper and in he walks.
What did he look like?
Well not what you might have expected thats for sure. He was about 30, wearing a pair of jeans and a "hobgoblin" tee shirt. Definitely casual. Looked like he could have been a social worker or perhaps a programmer like myself.
Anyone sitting here? he said.
Help yourself I replied.
Sits down, relaxes, I ignore and back to the correspondence on genetically modified crops entering the food chain
Train pulls out and a few minutes later he speaks.
Can I ask you a question?
Fighting to restrain my left eyebrow I replied Yes in a tone which was intended to convey that I might not mind one question, and possibly a supplementary, but I really wasnt in the mood for a conversation. ..
Why dont you believe in god?
The Bastard!
I love this kind of conversation and can rabbit on for hours about the nonsense of theist beliefs. But I have to be in the mood! It's like when a Jehovas witness knocks on your door 20 minutes before youre due to have a wisdom tooth pulled. Much as you'd really love to stay You cant even begin the fun. And I knew, if I gave my standard reply wed still be arguing when we got to Cardiff. I just wasnt in the mood. I needed to fend him off.
But then I thought Odd! How is this perfect stranger so obviously confident and correct about my atheism? If Id been driving my car, it wouldnt have been such a mystery. Ive got the Darwin fish on the back of mine the antidote to that twee christian fish you see all over. So anyone spotting that and understanding it would have been in a position to guess my beliefs. But I was on a train and not even wearing my Darwin "Evolve" tshirt that day. And The Independent isnt a registered flag for card carrying atheists, so what, I wondered, had given the game away.
What makes you so certain that I dont?
Because, he said, I am god and you are not afraid of me
Youll have to take my word for it of course, but there are ways you can deliver a line like that most of which would render the speaker a candidate for an institution, or at least prozac. Some of which could be construed as mildly entertaining.
Conveying it as "indifferent fact" is a difficult task but thats exactly how it came across. Nothing in his tone or attitude struck me as even mildly out of place with that statement. He said it because he believed it and his rationality did not appear to be drug induced or the result of a mental breakdown.
And why should I believe that?
Well he said, why dont you ask me a few questions. Anything you like, and see if the answers satisfy your sceptical mind?
This is going to be a short conversation after all, I thought.
Who am I?
Stottle. Harry Stottle, born August 10 1947, Bristol, England. Father Paul, Mother Mary. Educated Duke of Yorks Royal Military School 1960 67, Sandhurst and Oxford, PhD in Exobiology, failed rock singer, full time trade union activist for 10 years, latterly self employed computer programmer, web author and aspiring philosopher. Married to Michelle, American citizen, two children by a previous marriage. Youre returning home after what seems to have been a successful meeting with an investor interested in your proposed product tracking anti-forgery software and protocol and you ate a full english breakfast at the hotel this morning except that, as usual, you asked them to hold the revolting english sausages and give you some extra bacon.
He paused
Youre not convinced. Hmmm what would it take to convince you? May I have your permission for a telepathic link?
'Do you need my permission?'
'Technically, no. Ethically, yes'
Might as well play along I thought. 'OK - you have my permission. So convince me'
'oh right! Your most secret password and its association'
A serious hacker might be able to obtain the password, but no one else and I mean
NO ONE
knows its association.
He did.
So how would you have played it?
I threw a few more questions about relatively insignificant but unpublicised details of my life (like what my mother claims was the first word I ever spoke apparently "armadillo"! (Don't ask )) but I was already pretty convinced. I knew there were only three possible explanations at this point.
Possibility One was that I was dreaming, hallucinating or hypnotised. Nobodys figured out a test for that so, at the time I think that was my dominant feeling. It did not feel real at the time. More like I was in a play. Acting my lines. Since the event, however, continuing detailed memories of it, together with my contemporaneous notes, remain available, so unless the hallucination has continued to this day, I am now inclined to reject the hallucination hypothesis. Which leaves two others.
He could have been a true telepath. No documented evidence exists of anyone ever having such profound abilities to date but it was a possibility. It would have explained how he could know my best-kept secrets. The problem with that is that it doesnt explain anything else! In particular it doesnt account for the answers he proceeded to give to my later questions.
As Sherlock Holmes says, when youve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Good empiricist, Sherlock.
I was forced to accept at least the possibility that this man was who he claimed to be.
So now what do you do?
Well, Ive always known that if I met god I would have a million questions for him, so I thought, why not? and proceeded with what follows. Youll have to allow a bit of licence in the detail of the conversation. This was, shall we say, a somewhat unusual occurrence, not to mention just a BIT weird! And yes I was a leetle bit nervous! So if I dont get it word perfect dont whinge! Youll get the gist I promise.
------------------------------
http://www.fullmoon.nu/articles/art.php?id=tal
Nah but really it was a neat story.
