1.   Skeptical Scientist (Part 2):  Listen, I didn’t come here to be insulted.

BE (feigning sympathy):  I know, I know...  (Suddenly) but you really came here to insult me, and I’ll have none of that!

SS:  You like doing this to people, don’t you?  You’re just a regular Don Rickles.

BE:  Well, the difference between me and Don Rickles is that where I’d call you an over-educated, uncivilized knuckle-dragging australopithecus man, he’d be content to just say you’re a hockey puck.

SS (grinning):  Australopithecus, huh?  I thought you Christians didn’t believe in cavemen.

BE:  What I actually said was that Darwin got it backwards.  The more I watch the deterioration of society all around me, the more I figure that guys like you are gonna be ready to star in your own Galapagos Island tour book sooner than you think.
 

2.   Gay Rights Activist:  I don’t see how you think you can judge me for expressing my true self.  After all, I was born with the gay gene, so I can’t deny who I am.

BE (pulls up the front of his shirt just enough to reveal numerous extra pounds):  See this?

GRA (obviously repulsed by the sight):  Ewww!  What about it?

BE:  I can’t deny who I am either.

GRA:  Huh?

BE:  If you look back over my family’s history, you’ll see a lot of overweight people on both sides.  You’ll also see hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and...

GRA:  But what’s that got to do with anything?

BE:  Well, simply that I was born to be fat.  That’s who I am, and that’s probably who I’ll always be.

GRA:  Look, that’s totally different.  You can do a little exercising, and learn to eat right, and you can lose that extra weight, if you try hard enough... and if you want to.

BE:  No, really I can’t.  It’s in my genetics.  I’ve already told you it’s in my family.

GRA:  But you can overcome that.  It just takes some discipline.

BE:  So you’re saying that I can overcome my genetic predisposition to being fat.

GRA:  Well, it’s up to you.

BE:  But you’re tendency toward a same-sex preference, which you say is who you are and is due to your genetic make-up, is...

GRA:  Wait a minute, wait a minute.  I see what you’re getting at; and this is totally different.

BE:  How, exactly?

GRA:  Because there’s just nothing wrong with being gay.

BE:  And there’s nothing wrong with being overweight, either.

GRA:  But don’t you believe that your body is a temple?

BE:  Yes, the Bible calls the body the temple of the Holy Spirit; or I guess in my case, it’s more like a whole cathedral.

GRA (not looking very amused):  Yeah, funny.  So shouldn’t you keep it fit to do your thing for God or whatever?

BE:  If you mean by keeping it fit that I should avoid sexual relationships with people whom God has said not to, then maybe...

GRA:  No, no, losing weight is a matter of being healthy.  Don’t you want to be healthy?

BE:  Of course—but I can’t because of my family history… it’s just who I am.

GRA:  No, no, that’s just different.

BE:  OK, I’ll make you a deal.  I’ll admit that I don’t want to apply discipline to my appetite for food, and you admit that you don’t want to apply discipline to your sexual appetite, and we’ll call it even.
 

3.   Northeastern Atheist (Part 2):  I just can’t see how you can hold on to some archaic belief in some archaic gahhd when there’s so much scientific evidence to the cahhntrary.  How can you believe in anything beyond nature?

BE:  Science doesn’t necessarily contradict the existence of God.  If God is understood as a super-natural being, then He, by definition, transcends anything that lies in the realm of nature.  Science is bound by the laws and limits of nature and logic, but God operates on a different plane altogether.

NA:  But wouldn’t it make sense that any being which we might perceive as a gahhd would be no more than some advanced alien life form which had evolved beyond our understanding of what the natural boundaries are and...

BE:  Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before—Ezekiel’s prophecy was just a visit from E. T.

NA:  But can you sincerely deny the possibility.

BE:  I can admit that it (with the finger motions) “makes sense,” but it isn’t necessarily the correct, or the only explanation.

NA:  So you admit it’s plausible?

BE:  Not when you know who and what God really is.  Any god of your description is only a being at a higher level of natural-ness, but he would still fall short of being super-natural in the true sense of the definition of the word.  Maybe you should be paying attention to one of your more credible scientific voices.

NA (smirking):  Who?  You mean there’s someone we can both agree on as credible?

BE:  Sure.  Dr. Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia and author of The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos...

NA (surprised):  Don’t tell me you read stuff like that!

BE:  No, I saw him on David Letterman one night.  (NA chuckles as BE continues.)  Right before the end of the segment, Letterman asked if all this scientific knowledge we have today just kicks the idea of God right out the window.  Greene’s answer was to explain that science deals with the “nuts and bolts” of how things work, but that any questions about “why” or “what does it all mean” are better left to philosophers and religion scholars.  Judging from that statement he seemed to understand that there are some questions that science just isn’t supposed to deal with.

NA:  Sahhnds to me like he just didn’t want to offend religious people that might have been watching.

BE:  Or more likely he genuinely didn’t want to leave out the possibility that there are some things that are outside the limits of scientific understanding.

NA:  But with the cahhnstant discoveries science is continually making, how can there be a limit to it?

BE:  Not a limit in terms of how much can be learned, but more in terms of boundaries around what types of knowledge can be learned through science and the means that it uses.  I just think that it should be obvious that science doesn’t cover everything.

NA:  What’s ahhbvious is that given all that we now know, we shouldn’t need to believe in some archaic gahhd.

BE:  So, when this God shows up from somewhere totally off your scientific radar screen, it’ll come as a complete surprise to you that your naturalism is what’s archaic.

4.   Guru Wannabe:  I just believe that all rivers lead to the ocean of God’s great love.

BE:  Ouch!!  Sounds like you never took a class in geography!

GW:  What do you mean?  It’s just an illustration.

BE:  But it’s one that actually demonstrates how flawed your point is.

GW:  No, it doesn’t--my point isn’t flawed.

BE:  Have you ever heard of the Continental Divide?

GW:  I’ve heard of it, yes.  But what...

BE:  Do you know what it is?

GW:  Doesn’t it have something to do with the time zones?

BE:  No, no.  It’s a geographic feature which determines which way the rainfall runs off of a land mass, and separates a continent according to how its river systems flow.

GW:  Huh?

BE:  On this continent, all the rain that falls east of the continental divide eventually runs off in the eastern rivers into the Atlantic Ocean.  All the rain on the west side flows through other rivers into the Pacific.  So here in America, rivers flow to opposite oceans, depending on where they are relative to the Continental Divide.

GW:  So what’s that got to do with God?

BE:  Not much, really.  But it has everything to do with your analogy and how flawed your reasoning is.

GW:  Well, analogies don’t prove anything.

BE:  No, they don’t, and that’s good for you; because if they did, your analogy would prove the exact opposite of what you’re trying to say!

GW:  Well, I don’t know about all that—I just know that all rivers lead to the ocean of God’s great love.

BE (rolling his eyes):  OK, but I just hope you make it to the right side of the divide when the time comes for you to wash away into one ocean or the other.
 

5.   Post-modern Relativist (Part 2):  How can you make the statement that there are absolute good and absolute evil?  There are two sides to every story, you know; so what things might be evil for you might be good for someone else—in another culture, perhaps.

BE:  Are you absolutely sure that there are no absolutes?  Absolutely none?

PR:  Very funny.  What I mean is that what is right for you in your life might not work for everybody else.  In other words, everything moral is relative.

BE:  I’m just glad I didn’t get you to put electricity in my house.

PR:  What’s that got to do with it?

BE:  Because some switches are analog, and some are digital—in other words, there are places where you want a circuit to be simply on or off, which is digital; and a few where you’d want a fader switch, which would be analog.  A wise electrician knows that some of each type are called for—and that’s just like in life.  Some things are either on or off, while some are relative; you just have to know which is appropriate.

PR:  Still, what’s that got to do with anything?

BE:  I think you believe in some moral absolutes and just aren’t willing to admit it.

PR:  No, I think that under the right circumstances any moral view could shift from unacceptable to acceptable, depending on the situation.  The same rules just don’t apply to everybody.

BE:  Now I’m just a little confused—this could apply to any issue of morality?

PR:  Yeah, sure…

BE:  Even rape?

PR:  Well, I…

BE (interrupting):  So, how would that work?  Is it that there are some people that it’s OK to rape and not others?  Or maybe that some people shouldn’t be blamed because they can’t help being a rapist?  Or in some other cultures…

PR (interrupting back):  Come on, that’s not what I mean.

BE:  Uhhh, yes it is.

PR:  Now, don’t get off the subject.

BE:  Oh, so rape has nothing to do with morality?

PR (quietly frustrated):  That’s not my point.  Morality is a broader and more complicated issue than any of that.

BE:  You don’t really have a point then, because rape is absolutely wrong and immoral in every single circumstance.  And that’s just one example out of many where morality has certain absolutes that just aren’t up for discussion, end of story.
 

6.   Drugged-out Philosopher (Part 2):  Aw, man, you’re just trying to put me on some kind of a guilt trip, man.

BE:  Well, you know I have a good reason for that.

DP:  What’s that?

BE:  It’s because you really are guilty.  Everybody’s guilty of something, and it’s high time you face up to yours.

DP:  Hey, man, you’ve got no right to tell somebody that!  Nobody does!

BE:  Then why do people go to see psychiatrists?

DP:  Hey, psychiatrists don’t do that stuff to people.

BE:  And that’s too bad.  Because that’s what people really need, and that’s what they go for in the first place.

DP:  No, they don’t—they go for help.

BE:  But sadly, they don’t get any help, because psychiatrists won’t make them face up to their guilt like they ought to.

DP:  But that’s not good for them, man.

BE (feigning empathy):  Poor Freud.  Poor, poor Freud.

DP:  What?

BE:  Freud wants you to blame everybody but yourself.  He wants you to blame your mama, your neighbors, the system, your environment...

DP:  Well, sometimes those can make you do crazy things.

BE (continuing after the interruption):  just blame everyone but yourself.  No way he’s going to let you take responsibility for your own actions.

DP:  Hey, but you can’t always help what you do sometimes.

BE:  Well, maybe not you with all that stuff up your nose.  But for the rest of us who are sober and alert, we can make our own choices about what to do or not do.

DP:  But sometimes, like, if you fall in love, you know.  You can’t always help that.

BE:  Well, maybe you can’t help feeling an emotion, but you can help what you do about it.  You just have to let your head be in charge and not follow every strange palpitation of your heart.

DP:  But hey, sometimes you still have to listen to your gut.

BE:  Yeah, listen to it, but don’t be stupid.  Use your head, and don’t let your gut push you into doing something that’s just not smart.

DP (becoming a little angry):  And don’t let you push me into feeling guilty!

BE:  Hey, I didn’t do the crime, and I’m not going to have to do the time.

DP:  Well, I didn’t do no crime neither!

BE:  Is that why you’re getting so upset?  Or are you really guilty of things you just won’t face up to?

DP:  I don’t have to answer to you for nothing!