1.   Skeptical Scientist:  I just can’t stand being around church people.  They’re all such hypocrites.

Bad Evangelist:  Why are you singling out church people?

SS:  What do you mean?

BE:  Because there are hypocrites everywhere in America.  The government is full of hypocrites, the education community is full of hypocrites, the business community is full of hypocrites, the entertainment industry is full of hypocrites, the scientific community is full of hypocrites, the...

SS (interrupting):  Wait a minute, wait a minute; what do you mean, the scientific community?

BE:  Just what I said.  Scientists are hypocrites as much as anyone else.

SS:  You can’t be serious!

BE:  Sure I am.  For example, you say you believe in evolution, but you won’t do it.

SS:  Now, hold on there a minute!

BE:  No, really; I see every weekend how you science types go out bar-hopping and getting plastered, you cheat on your wives like they were your taxes, and act just as irresponsible and uncivilized as any knuckle-dragging Neanderthal.  In your labs, you’re so straight-laced and proper, like you’re doing such good work...

SS:  No, no, a hypocrite is somebody who says he believes in something, but his life doesn’t bear out his philosophy or whatever.  So when a Christian tries to sound all holy and noble, it’s all just an act.  But scientists look for facts in nature...

BE (interrupting):  Yes, and then contradict them.  Anyone with even the most basic observational skills can see throughout recent history that as soon as On the Origin of Species came out, people started to try and act more and more like orangutans.

SS:  Now, now, you can’t prove that statement.

BE:  Well, maybe I’m not some kind of scientist, but I can see what’s happening around me, and it makes one thing completely clear.

SS:  Oh, yeah?  What’s that?

BE:  Darwin got it backwards.

2.   Northeastern Atheist:  There’s no way anybody in this day and age can think there’s a Gahhd.  What with all the scientific knowledge we have today, man just doesn’t need any kind of Gahhd to believe in.  (BE starts to giggle.)  Hey, what’s so funny?

BE:  I’m sorry--I’ve just been noticing your accent.  It’s, ummm... unique.  Where are you from?

NA:  I’m from Bahhston.

BE:  No, really, where are you from?

NA:  I said I’m from Bahhston.

BE:  Very funny.  All right, come on—where are you really from?

NA:  I said I’m from Bahhston.  Hey, what’s your prahhblem?

BE:  Look, stop trying to fool around here.  I know there’s no such place as Boston.

NA (incredulously):  What?

BE:  No, look, I’m not stupid.  I’ve heard all about your myths about this Boston place, and I know it’s not real.

NA:  Oh, come on...

BE:  No, you come on.  Quit trying to hand me this junk.  Hey, I’ve never been to any place called “Boston,” and I just know it’s not really there.  I’ve never seen it...

NA (interrupts):  No, no, just because you haven’t seen it...

BE (counters):  doesn’t prove that it is there either.

NA:  This is silly--I’m from there.  You can’t really think that there’s no such place...

BE:  Look, if you want to believe in this “Boston” place, that’s OK with me; it’s a free country.  But I’ve read the myths and legends, and the supposed histories of the place, and I just don’t buy it.

NA:  What’s wrong with you?  Haven’t you read the history about it or seen it on a map?

BE:  That doesn’t prove anything either.  Our so-called history is subject to being constantly rewritten and reconstructed, so over time, who wins?  And as for your maps—I know that it’s common practice for some map companies to put little falsehoods on them; adding or subtracting curves from roadways or borderlines, putting in non-existent towns or leaving out real ones, or maybe the intentional typo...

NA:  That doesn’t make any sense—why would any cartographer want to create an inaccurate map?

BE:  To check for copyright violations.  If I put something on my map that I know is wrong, and then it shows up on somebody else’s map, then I’ll know where they got it, and that they probably just copied my map to make theirs.

NA:  That’s ridiculous!  Besides, I have pictures...

BE:  Oh, sure; you can show me a picture of anything and say it’s Boston—but who knows what it really is.  You’ve got to stop trying to ram your belief in this fictitious Boston place down my throat.  You may talk with the accent, but...

NA:  Oh, come on!  Bahhston is real.  And I can’t believe you really don’t think it is.

BE:  Hey, listen, you can’t take me into a lab anywhere in town and do some experiment that proves Boston exists.

NA:  Look, I can take you to Bahhston itself.

BE:  You know there’s a lot more people in the world who’ve never been there than that believe that they have.  Besides, you’d probably wind up in Katmandu and try to tell me that that’s Boston.

NA (smirking):  Well, do you at least believe in Katmandu?

BE (smirking back):  Well, I’ve never been there either, but I’d guess it’s probably real.  So now, why was it you said you were an atheist?

NA:  Because I haven’t...  because you can’t...  I never...  it doesn’t...  look, you haven’t proven anything.

BE:  No, actually, I think we’ve proven two things quite definitely.

NA:  Oh, yeah?  Like what?

BE:  Well, one is the truth of an old maxim that goes: “to the believer, no proof is necessary; but to the skeptic, no proof is sufficient.”

NA:  OK, and what else?

BE:  Well, if there is a “Bahhston,” then there must be a God!

3.   Drugged-out Philosopher:  Hey, man, you know what Christianity is like, man?  I’ll tell you what it’s like:  it’s like getting on a plane, and then finding out that there’s a fifty-fifty chance that it might crash.  So if I give you that same fifty-fifty chance that God is real, it’s like being on that plane with a fifty-fifty chance it might or might not crash.  I’m not gonna risk that, man; I’m gonna get off that plane before it ever even takes off.  I don’t wanna be on that “God-plane” just to find out that He ain’t real and go crash and burn with it, man.

BE:  Yeesh!  What an idiot!

DP:  Aw, man, what’s your problem?

BE:  You’re trying to use an analogy that illustrates the exact opposite of what you’re trying to say with it!

DP:  What, man, you think I’m screwed up?

BE (resolutely):  Yes, I do.  You think that if you believe in God and He turns out not to be real that you crash and burn—but the truth is that the way you crash and burn is to not believe in God and it turns out that He is real.  Then you wind up crashing and burning in Hell.

DP:  Hey, man, I don’t want to waste time believing in God if He might not be there.

BE:  But what do you really stand to lose if He weren’t there?  But if He is there and you diss Him...

DP:  No, no, man—if that plane goes down, I lose everything!

BE:  Just can it with that plane stuff.  Put the plane back in the hangar and let’s lay this out bare.  Let’s consider the existence of God to be an objective truth that none of us can change.  And, for argument’s sake, we’ll keep the fifty-fifty chance of that, OK?

DP:  OK.

BE:  But you can decide whether or not you’ll believe—after all, you are the captain of your own ship, aren’t you?

DP:  Sure.

BE:  So if you decide not to believe, and God isn’t there, then you’ve lived the way you want, but in the end, you’ve really gained nothing.  But if God is there, you wind up in Hell afterward.  So you still lose.

DP:  Bummer, man.

BE:  Right.  But if you choose to believe, first off, you live a morally guided life, so if God isn’t there, you wind up not really losing in the long run—but if He is, you get Heaven.  So it’s obviously safer from the perspective of Heaven and Hell if you believe, because then you either lose nothing or gain Heaven.  But if you don’t believe, you either gain nothing, since you merely lived the way you wanted to, or you risk Hell.

DP:  But isn’t it better to live like you want to here, so at least you have that if God turns out not to really be real, man?

BE:  Only if you’re willing to bet on Hell not being there.

DP:  I still don’t get it.

BE:  I know, man, I know you don’t get it.  All that stuff up your nose won’t let you.

4.   Party Animal:  You know what?  You really ought to lighten up—you know, have a few beers, hang out some, let your hair down a little.  You’d sure be easier for everybody to get along with.  You’d have more friends...

BE (interrupting):  Now, hold it right there, bub!  You’re not going to catch me with that one!  I see your trick and I’m not gonna fall for it.  You want me to compromise my standards just to fit in—as if fitting in with the likes of you is important.  That way, if I ever try to talk about God to you, you can just laugh at me and call me a hypocrite, saying that Christians aren’t supposed to do stuff like that.  And you think that by calling me tight-faced and unsociable if I don’t, that you’re creating some kind of catch-22 situation that I can’t get out of.  Well, I live what I believe, and if you want to make up something to call me a hypocrite over, just remember that the truth will win out.

PA:  See there?  You’re just too hard to get along with!

BE:  Well, if lowering my standards makes me easy for you to get along with, I’ll pass.

PA:  Hey, look, you’re never going to have any friends that way.

BE:  I have plenty of friends that are much closer and truer friends than your drinking buddies must be to you.  It’s a thing called fellowship, and it’s not as boring as you might think.

PA (with a smirk):  You think those people make better friends, huh?

BE:  Well, you know, if I happen to fall down, they pick me up.  If you fall down, your friends are undoubtedly in as much of a drunken stupor as you would be, and so they’d just point and laugh.

5.   Post-modern Relativist:  But there are so many ways to interpret the Bible.  So what makes you think your way is the only right one?

BE:  Well, it’s got to be better than your way.

PR:  Oh, so you think you know my way, huh?

BE:  Sure.  Your way is the over-simplified, over-spiritualized, overly-subjective idea that any piece of literature means whatever it means to you.

PR:  Well, I maybe wouldn’t have put it like that...

BE:  See, that way of thinking has only been around in society for a brief part of the world’s history, and really should only apply to the literature that’s been written by those authors who also hold that philosophy.  But the Bible doesn’t come from the pens of post-moderns.

PR:  So, you do think your way is the only right way, huh?

BE:  Well, it’s not my way, but it is the way that scholars and serious students of all classic literature have applied throughout the ages to any significant work.  There are standard rules that can be followed, as with any writing.

PR:  And your idea of those rules would be the only way, would it?

BE:  Basically, yes.  There’s no reason to treat the Bible any differently than any other great work of literature; so therefore the same rules for understanding the classics apply to the Bible as well.  The point is to determine whatever means the author employed and to extrapolate from that the meaning that the author originally tried to communicate.  One good example is how every one of Aesop’s fables has a moral with the story.

PR:  So assuming that God is really behind the authorship of the Bible, how do you know that the meaning you’re getting is the one that God is trying to get across, or if there even is only one?

BE:  But that’s the joy of studying literature!  Discovering the techniques of the great masters...

PR (interrupting):  But the Bible is a spiritual book; so wouldn’t it mean something different to each person who reads it?

BE:  Even if different people glean different things from different parts of the Bible, or even if they’re all in the same part, their interpretations are only valid if they’re consistent with everything else that God is trying to communicate to all of us in the book as a whole.

PR:  But not everybody is consistent.

BE:  Sad, but true,  Too many Christians will either stick only to the parts of the Bible they like best, or else they’ll let someone else’s opinion color theirs until such a fog has been created in their mind that even God Himself has trouble cutting through and getting their attention.

PR:  So you admit that there’s confusion that can’t be avoided.

BE:  No, I say it can be avoided if people just stop trying to over-read it, or if they learn to see each segment as part of the whole.  Let God say what He wants to say, even if it’s not what you might have expected.  Putting away prejudices and preconceptions will clear things right up.

PR:  So you’re saying that you get to know God through the Bible, and you get to know the Bible through God...

BE (sighs):  I know it sounds like circular reasoning to say that the Bible is the means by which we know God, and that knowing God is the way we can understand the Bible; I prefer to think of it as more of an upward spiral.  Any artist or author can be understood by his or her works—the more you come to understand one work, the more you’ll see where the artist is coming from, and then you can understand other works.  So God can meet you at any starting place and build from there.

PR:  I still don’t get how inconsistency can lead to consistency.

BE:  All right, I’ll illustrate.  Suppose you were going from here to Kansas—generally which way would you go?

PR:  Well, from here, west mostly, and then a little north.

BE:  But what if you were starting in California?

PR:  OK, I get it.  You’re using the Bible like a road map to get you where you want to go.

BE:  Or, more accurately, where God wants to take me—and take all of us.  His ultimate destination for everyone is the same.  Kansas is always in the same place, but we don’t all go there the same way because we all start from different places.

PR:  So how do you know where that is?

BE:  The Bible clearly and consistently depicts the people who please Him as being people who seek Him, follow His commandments here on earth with a pure intent, and then eventually are rewarded in Heaven in the afterlife.  We all have our unique features, but in the end our single purpose is to be disciples of Jesus.

PR (grins):  But isn’t that just your interpretation?