Last time I talked about the drunk older guy, a self-proclaimed artist and poet who cornered me for some not-so-philosophical conversation at a house party.
And now the exciting conclusion! (No one should miss the terrifying butter scene!!!)
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Continued from part 1...
Moving through thickly detailed topics like The Universe, as if they were snotty tissues, he quickly landed on the topic of chaos.
Chaos. Could be pretty interesting right? Maybe? (I see you're not going with me on this one).
"Humans, man, they have no control, you know? We have no control. Everything just keeps moving and moving"
*He makes circles with his hands again*
Trying to throw him a bone I nodded. "I agree. I don't think anything within the universe has this "control" you speak of. Just actions and reactions".
I actually had no idea what he was talking about anymore. Perhaps I just could not grasp it, or maybe he was just embracing more artistic-sounding vague concepts and spouting them out at me so I would say, "yeah man. Totally. That's so true," then stare into the speakers of the stereo playing some Pink Floyd album on repeat.
He shook his head slightly and replied, "well, I don't think everything is out of control."
*Car tires screeching to a halt* Wait, what? Didn't he just say humans have no control? Did I just hear him wrong?
I had to confirm. "So you think some form of control exists then?" I asked him curiously. Curiously confused.
"Yeah, I do. I think it does."
"Oh? And how does one find this elusive control?" I questioned.
By this time I was far beyond the fact that we had not in any way established what this "control" was in any sort of specifics, but I was still amused by his drunk pontificating, and wanted to egg him on through his pseudo-philosophical rambling.
"Well, my belief is that mankind can get control through Christianity."
And you lost me. If I had not shut down my normal reactions, ideas, and replies enough as it was, now any bullshit philosophical trip I felt like taking with this drunk, non-conformi-poet would be right out, since they would not match the confines of his good ol' Christy Hannity.
And don't forget this guy has muscles, if I say something that blatantly criticizes religion, he may beat the shit out of me. Who knows how religious he is.
"Hmmm." I pondered patronizingly, as if his idea was very intriguing to me. "How so?"
"Well, through belief and faith I can get control." He stated.
I had a feeling something like this would be coming during my humoring of him. Many artists seem to think that being into a bunch of airy-fairy spirituality makes them really fascinating and intriguing.
Guess how I know that? C'mon guess. Yep. Used to be into it too. Well, not christianity, but the airy-fairy new age bullshit. Boy I sure was interesting being all vaguely spiritual. I feel depressed just thinking about that.
Digression. Back from commercial.
I continued my restating of his contradiction. "So you feel that, though mankind has no control, there actually is control, as you say, through the means of Christianity, via the "tools" of belief and faith? Is that correct?"
"Yeah." He said almost confidently.
I decided to test that theory with a simple question.
"So do you feel that you have more control in your life because of your faith and belief?"
"Well, me? No. I don't have more control."
Whu whu WHA? *spit take*
"Wait, I thought you said that faith and belief through Christianity gives you control?"
"No, that's not what I said..."
Sorry, I took your words out of context, didn't I? Nope, I did not.
With a pleasant smile that was concealing a pent-up laugh, I 'humbly' backed down.
"All right, sorry. Tell me then."
He proceeded to slowly amble through some spontaneous back peddling.
"Well I think that people can get more control of their own lives, not everything else..."
I jumped on his sentence. "Sure, sure. That's what I figured you meant."
He nodded and tried to finish his thought. "...yeah, well, that's what I believe, that through faith..."
I jumped on his line again. "That you have more personal control over you own life right?"
"Well no, not for me though..."
ARRGGG!! What the hell do you mean man! Either faith and belief gives you control over your life, or they work but you personally have no faith or belief, or they do not work at all. What is it guy?!
Yes I was a bit irritated by this, but not so much that I couldn't also find it wonderfully amusing.
Overhearing the word 'Christianity' a young man, dressed in loose-fitting, slightly hip hop attire, and slam-hammered-drunk, came stumbling over to join the rousing chorus.
"Are you guys talking about Christianity?"
The older guy looked annoyed at having someone else break his 'deep' artist to artist connection, as we really had something special going.
"Well, not exactly..." He started.
I decided to jump in again and try to derail any conversations dealing with religion before they started. After all, it was the word 'christianity' which brought this gentleman over in the first place, and my evangelical radar was lighting up like a flaming pagan solstice icon (I mean Christmas tree).
"We're talking about all kinds of things. Art, life, existence..." I said, playing nice, as if I was really enjoying the dialog. (Well, I actually kinda was, but for different reasons).
He looked at me a bit confused, trying desperately to find his place to jump into the discussion and begin preaching. "And you said you did not believe in god, or.... what?. . "
I really did not feel like spending this kind of energy on this topic, so I avoided saying anything about myself and what I really think, by directing the attention back to the tan, white-haired gentleman (he's hard to miss).
"He was simply telling me what he believed and I was simply asking him why." That seemed soft enough, didn't it?
The youngin' looked to be gathering his wits about him. Uh oh. He wanted to do battle, didn't he? Crap. I did not feel like dealing with this right now. The easy-going conversation on non-conformity and arty things was just fine (and quite amusing to me), but now I'm about to get sold a subscription to something. I just know it.
"Well, like. . .do you , I mean, do you think that you've. . .sinned, like in your life?"
Ah HA! I knew it! So you're going to do this tactic are you? Well, friends, have you heard this one before? He's going to ask if I have ever stolen anything, lied, cheated and such to make me feel that I am a guilty "sinner" in need of redemption. Yes, heard it before.
So how to handle this?
At this point I could just go into full-on argument mode where I whip out all the goods from errors in scripture, to the weird illogical loophole of God sacrificing himself to himself to appease himself, to philosophical arguments and logic with Occam's razor. After all, I read and research this stuff all the time, and this would be my first real discussion now that I have some knowledge on my side. Could be a great opportunity right?
But no. Were I to take the attack path, I would likely spend the rest of the party vilified as the 'evil' atheist (since I doubt they would know what atheism really means), and it would make the rest of the night uncomfortable and unpleasant for me.
In other words, to attack him would make for a poor situation in the long run for me selfishly.
Plus it would not even be worth it, as the guy was really, and I mean REALLY drunk, and would never remember any of my points, nor would he likely be able to continue a good topic if we got one started.
Damn you alcohol!!
So I decided to avoid the skeptic, atheist, anti-theist route and just try and disarm his pre-planned thought train.
I thought for a second about something I could say without coming off as too 'atheist'.
"I don't believe in the concept of sin." I said calmly.
Which seemed to work wonderfully, as he was not prepared for that answer.
You see, the technique he was going to use on me relies heavily on pre-planned steps, and anticipated responses from their "victims". If you can get them off of the track they try to stick you on, you can sometimes make it through the gauntlet unscathed.
He stood, unsure of what to say. "Well, I mean. .. oh. . . but. . . uh. . . I mean. . . ok, ok. . . like you've done wrong, something bad, right?"
"Of course." I said with a smugness that only Calvin could replicate.
"So. . .ok. . .so you don't think that like. . . that would be like a sin?"
"I suppose if I gave the concept of sin any validity whatsoever, you could call it that. But I don't. It's all so subjective."
He quickly tried (though his reactions were slowed) to get me back to where he could make me feel guilty for being a human, therefore instilling the need to ask for forgiveness from... I forgot his name. Some guy. Was it W.C. Fields? I like him.
"Well, but. . .you have done wrong, so does that not make you a bad person?"
"Nope." I think I was supposed to say yes here. This is fun.
"uh. . .wha? . ..um how, how come?" He obviously did not see that coming, which just made me smile.
I did my best to explain my position, still trying to appear as spiritually ambiguous as possible.
"Because I usually know when I've done wrong, through my own interpretations of my feelings and the situation at hand, and I choose, more often then not, to make the situation better, and resolve it with those I've done wrong to, on a direct and individual basis."
He paused to think about that. My aim was to use a lot of words and phrases that purposefully made my statement lean to a strong secular-humanistic approach regarding morality, as opposed to a spiritual one, just in case he had some stronger arguments about that, or wanted to use some of my own word choices against me.
"But just 'cause you ...resolve stuff with someone, does it now make that right?"
"Yep."
Again, he was not expecting that answer. This was actually really enjoyable, even though he was drunk. It was like a much more dull version of a Dan Brown novel, "Breaking The Christian Guilt Code".
Keep 'em comin' buddy!
He continued to press me in hopes that he would regain his rehearsed foothold. "...but...I mean...how?"
"Because I've taken responsibility for my own actions, then directly worked to make that situation right with the very person, or people that were involved in the subjective wrong doing in the first place. I've learned from a mistake, and corrected a negative action with a positive one."
This ended his guilt-trip and moral-break-down approach, and he then moved into a stranger, miracle-based approach, still in the conversational, pre-supposed-question-form that he had begun earlier.
See if these win you over.
"If you saw someone actually walk on water," (which he acted out), "wouldn't you be pretty amazed?"
Sure, but I'd first be skeptical and see if there were any natural explanations for the events in question. All I ever want to ask him was "how do you know that actually happened?" And, "even if he did walk on water, how does that prove he is God?" I didn't of course. I just smiled and nodded.
How about the ever popular, jesus went through a lot of pain, therefore the entire story must be true argument?
"Just imagine that all his friends helped to get him there, you know, crucified, and he was betrayed, can you imagine that?"
Yep. Can. Pretty Neat. Totally convinced. Good one.
For being drunk he was pretty tenacious, I'll give him that. Were he sober, he might give me a bit of a challenge. But this was fine for now.
At this point the girl I knew at the party came outside just in time to hear the word 'Jesus', and, being someone who is not a fan of religion herself, yet not well-versed in any serious arguments or information yet, looked at me with a knowing smile and tried to interrupt my drunk preaching friend.
My eyes darted over to her with a look of anger and caution. I knew exactly what was going on in her mind. She knew I was a strong atheist, and was reading a lot about this subject matter, and wanted me to basically "rip him a new one" for her.
So I quickly leaned in towards her and whispered, "don't say a thing. Let him talk."
She looked confused, but ended up saying nothing. (That was close).
Later I informed her that you need to pick your battles, and a drunk older guy who is a self-proclaimed non-conformist artist and poet with hybrid newage-christian leanings, and a ridiculously-smashed young kid barely making sense about Jesus is not the battle to fight. Not even worth it. I would rather have people not hate me the rest of the night, thank you very much.
Soon after I shushed my friend who seemed hell bent on getting everyone upset with me, another young girl, who was friends with my christian beer buddy, came out and began to lecture the young gentlemen after she heard him trying to preach to me.
"How can you tell this guy [me] about how to act if you can't even do it yourself!?" She prodded.
He tried to defend himself against her. "Well, nobody's perfect. I try to do my best to act right, and yeah, I don't always do it. But if I tried to I would be a hypocrite, you know?"
"You haven't changed at all! You're still doing all the things you used to do!!" She accused.
I had no idea what he used to be like, or what he is like now, but I had a lot of trouble suppressing my laughter at this newly developing drama.
"Yeah, but that's who I am. I can still talk about how to be right with Jesus, without doing everything right all the time! It's what's in my heart that counts!"
Say, isn't that actually an argument in my favor?
With that I walked back into the house, seeing my opportunity to dodge the rest of his preaching.
All I could think of afterwards was how interesting it was to me that I had two very memorable encounters with random people, back to back, in the same night. I guess I just get lucky sometimes (in an ironic sort of way).
Though I know I would have likely not have gotten the conversation I wanted out of either of these two strange and funny characters, I can still take away from it a constant fascination, surprise and humor of how ridiculous and deluded we all can be. How some of us never grow out of our teen years, and some of us never take the chance to critically examine ourselves and our own beliefs.
We don't always get what we want, but sometimes what we get is way more worthwhile. You just have to know how to appreciate it. (Which I don't).
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Tags: art artist philosophy psychology party sarcasm humor funny atheist atheism christianity religion spirituality drunk
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What a wonderful tale of wit, the lack therof, and the merits of drinking snake oil.
ReplyDelete-Edy
Well thank you good sir. I found the evening strange and hilarious in the moment.
ReplyDeleteHow have you been?