The other day we were at a family do and I sat next to a bunch of Christians. I knew they were church goers from hearing them talk but they didn’t know that I wasn’t a Christian. I introduced myself and because they thought that I was their age (20s, haha) we started talking about uni, what we studied and what I’m working as.

A few courses of lunch later, the one next to me suddenly asked, “Do you go to church?” I said, “No, I’m a Buddhist.”

“Oh, so you go to a temple then?” she said. I said, “No, I don’t pray per se but I subscribe to most of the Buddha’s teachings. It’s logical to me.”

Normally, this is where I would expect the conversation to stop. Yeah I’ll go to hell for being a non-believer but just let me be! :P

She persisted anyway. “Do you know much about Christianity? Have you read the Bible?” I said, “I have and there are a lot of good stuff in the Bible which is true for all the major religions. But I don’t believe in some of the other stuff and that is why I can’t be a Christian.”

“Oh, like what?”, all of them asked almost instinctively.

“For example, the original sin. I don’t believe that babies can be born with sin, and I don’t believe that it is right for unbaptised babies to go to hell or limbo, if those places exist. I don’t believe a benevolent God would let good people suffer. I don’t believe in the one God or any God, I don’t believe in Adam and Eve, and where are the dinosaurs?”

I added that last bit to try to lighten up the conversation a little because I saw their faces scrunched up. Heh. Anyway, two of the Christians then took turns to tell me babies have sin because of what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden, that God’s will may not seem logical to us but that’s because we are mere humans and we are not meant to understand all of it. Oh, and that there are dinosaurs in the Bible but they are called different things.

Exasperated, and also because I just want to continue eating my lunch in peace, I said, “I admire your faith in a God that behaves illogically, a faith which I don’t have. And if we were indeed created by Him, then I’m exercising the free will that he’s given us in not believing in Him. I mean, what’s the point of free will if we are not allowed to exercise it, right?”

I smiled, stuffed my mouth with a piece of sweet and sour pork and then chewed very slowly. :mrgreen: