The Adventure of the Clifftop Encounter

In which I meet a man on a cliff...

(Admittedly Bournemouth does not look like this)

It was a sunny June day and I was walking along Bournemouth's East Cliff. Suddenly a man appeared in front of me and asked if anyone had already stopped me. "No" I replied and inexplicably I still found myself stood there. I have a blanket policy of not stopping for people on the street. They usually want to sell you something or more often give money to charity and I am not going to part with my hard-earned money to some person who is interrupting my day. 

For some reason I didn't immediately dismiss the man. Perhaps it was because he seemed genuinely friendly, perhaps I was in an unusually tolerant mood due to the sun or perhaps I'd already walked five miles and my oxygen level was depleted. I had stopped and despite myself I now was now committed to the conversation. 

"Do you agree that the bible is the word of God?" asked the man. Ah. This man didn't want my money, not immediately at least, he wanted my soul. 

"No," I replied. "I'm an atheist." I noticed the man do his best not to change expression and was fascinated to see how he would respond to this. 

After a moment's pause, he clearly decided he was going to press on regardless. "OK, so what do you believe in then?"

"Science!" was my reply. My tone was perfectly polite and I had no wish to cause offence to the man. I perfectly respect people who believe in God but thirty years on the planet has indicated to me that no such deity exists. The church has attempted to reel me on numerous occasions- I went to what was essentially a Christian primary school, an ex-girlfriend dragged me to church on various occasions including to her baptism and I've attended various weddings and christenings in churches over the years. 

"Do you believe in life on other planets?" the man asked. I could see he was grasping for some sort of faith but I didn't have a simple answer for him. I explained that on the balance of probability I think there may well be life on other planets but we currently don't have evidence to prove it either way. 

Realising this wasn't helping him, the man moved on. He began to talk about it's nice to have answers about the universe and that the bible provides those answers, being the word of God. I realised our beliefs couldn't be much further apart. The bible being the word of God makes no sense to me because God is literally a character in the book. I could see a world where I could maybe accept some sort of deity but there would never be one where I believed every word of the bible. I've studied too much history and can only recognise the bible as a historical source, the provenance of which is extremely unclear and so it can't be said to be entirely reliable. 

The other problem I have is the idea of taking the bible literally. If I were to become convinced that God exists I would still interpret the bible as largely symbolic. Many parts of the Old Testament are especially supernatural but can be interpreted almost like a fable or a fairy tale for their message. The New Testament is a little more convincing but I would still have a less literal interpretation of many sections. I'm not convinced by Jesus' miracles- mostly the bible suggests he was a man who could tell excellent stories and even the miracle of the loaves of fishes could be interpreted not that he used magic powers to make the food last for ages but that he was such a great speaker that everyone forgot how hungry they were.

Somehow I had become invested in the conversation so I posited another thought. "I really struggle with how a God could exist that lets all the bad things happen in the world" I said and was intrigued to see what the man would say. He explained how it is explained in the bible which didn't feel like a very satisfying answer and briefly recalled the story of Satan in the Garden of Eden. 

Somehow I ended up saying I was interested in the subject of the bible because I was having an honest conversation but I meant 'interested' more in the sense that 'I'm interested in human nature, how people can believe in religion and history in general' rather than 'you have convinced me, I'm interested in converting'. 

Next thing I knew he was writing his phone number down on a card so that I could contact him with questions about the bible. Part of my was thought that this result was the most successful interaction with a stranger I've had in years and wished previous encounters had ended so successfully. Then again, the man was essentially trying to entice me to join a cult so I'd happily have let the conversation go sour. 

The man informed me he was called James Brown and internally I was amused that this skinny white Christian shared a name with the Godfather of Soul but I was awfully polite and kept it to myself. Perhaps my face showed some hint of mirth as he asked if the name meant anything and I said that he did. James told me that it doesn't mean anything to young people and I took slight offence that he was implying that I wasn't young. 

It was a fascinating moment in my life. Part of me felt quite proud of that fact that despite having utterly opposing views we'd had a really polite and friendly conversation. As much as I didn't share his religious views, I think we'd both agree that talking about it is much better than fighting about it, as sadly humanity has spent so much time doing. 

I later reflected on whether I could ever be converted to Christianity. There are some very attractive things about it from having a neat explanation to how the world works to the strong community that church groups often have. But short of God actually having a conversation with me, I just can't see how I could possibly be convinced that we were created by intelligent design. I sometimes think that if I am a product of an intelligent design than whoever was building me didn't read the instructions thoroughly. Still, I wish James Brown the best and hope that he continues to feel good*.  

*I'm more proud of that joke that I probably should be.