DangerousTalk

Back in my college days, there weren’t a lot of atheist t-shirts out there. I had a shirt that I got from Hot Topic that said, “i am god” in all lowercase letters. There is an interesting story with this shirt and what happened when I wore it to my Christian friend’s Creationism program.

My friend was a fundamentalist and was a member of a Christian group called, “Christians In Action” or CIA for short. He decided to put on this program where he would refute the science of evolution and advocate for Creationism. It was a pretty silly program and a few biology professors even showed up to witness the ridiculousness of it all. But the really fun part happened after the program.

Apparently, some Christians from out of town came to the program. They actually were the people who provided my friend with all his props and information. Most fundamentalist Christians on campus already knew me and knew enough at that point not to challenge me on religious matters. But these people were new in town and didn’t get the memo.

So they came up to me after the program because they saw my shirt. One young woman asked me in a confused voice if I really believed that. I was confused and asked what she was talking about. She pointed to my shirt and said, “Do you really believe you are God?” She seemed really sincere and was not asking that to start an argument, but genuinely wanted to know. I was pretty surprised by such a reaction, so I said the only thing any young smartass atheist could say, “Yes!”

What followed became a conversation of near legend. I really got into the role of being a deity. She was skeptical of my divine power and even down right atheistic. The more I played into the role the more fundamentalist Christians gathered around to ask me questions, which I was more than willing to answer. In fact, I answered many of their skeptical questions the same exact way they answer questions about their deity of choice.

At one point, I told them that I created their God and Satan too and then they started arguing over these soul things like children. I told them that I don’t even know what they do with them and added that I think they just put them on a shelf or something.

One person asked me, “If you created God, who created you?” To which I answered, “I always am and always will be.” He actually said to me that, “That doesn’t make sense.”

For me, it was fun to use all their arguments against them and to get them to use all the atheist arguments without realizing them. Sure, not one of them went home that night thinking I was serious and it is extremely doubtful that any of them were actually convinced that I really was, “god,” but I guarantee they will remember that conversation in which they met up with some crazy college kid who claimed to be God. They will remember the arguments that they used against my claims and when atheists in the future use those arguments against them, they may pause for a moment to consider.

I have no idea if any of them are still Christians or not, but I would like to think that the seeds of doubt were planted that night and that some of them have de-converted in part as a result of that conversation.

Related articles

• “An Atheist Has to Prove X…” (dangeroustalk.net)
• Formal debates are a win for atheists (examiner.com)
• I Did Not Choose to Be an Atheist (atheistrev.com)
• Never Ending Story (new.exchristian.net)

Filed under: Alternative Worldview, atheism, conversation, Creationism, de-conversion, god, Personal, Religion