From:    Frank Doss
To:      All                                    Jul-13-93 06:28AM
Subject: A Jehova's Witness encounter (long)

Organization: Educational Computing Network
From: csfed@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Frank Doss)
Message-ID: <21ugpk$2d5@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism


Well, the weather's warm and the JWs are out.  One brave young JW stopped
by Sunday to spread the Truth to my wife (devout Lutheran) and I
(atheist).  He left visibly shaken.

It started off innocently enough.  The rain was pouring down and I let him
in out of the rain.  When he started talking about the "Truth," I grinned
like I do when my wife puts a nice T-Bone steak in front of me.  She said,
"Be nice, Frank!"  OK, kid gloves it is.

I stood there nodding my head.  After all, he was telling me that the Holy
Trinity was not one being, but three separate entities.  I don't care one
way or the other.  Arguing over that issue would be like arguing over how
long Santa's beard is in the Summer. However, my wife took exception. When
she told her how she felt about the issue, he told her she was "Wrong."  I
took exception to that. Off went the gloves.

He had said the Truth is obvious in the Bible and that one only need read
it to know what the Truth is.  He said that there is nothing in the bible
that is left to interpretation.  It's all literal.  I pulled out one I
learned here in a.a and over in talk.origins: "Which was created first?
man or animals?"  "Why animals, of course!"  But he knew that I had set a
trap for him and he tried to back out. I asked him to consult his bible
and tell me which it was.  He tried to change the subject, I brought him
back to the point.  Finally, he read the first story and announced,
"Animals!"  I asked him to turn the page and skip several paragraphs and
read on.  There was the bit about man being lonely, therefore animals were
created and so on.  "Which was it?"  He was at a loss.

ME: "OK.  What happened to the dinosaurs?"
JW: "We know they died."
ME: "When?"
JW: "Uhhhhh...."

ME: "Is there any hard proof of the flood?"
JW: "Yes. The wooly mammoths that were frozen [some BS about temps]..."
ME: "Why weren't they on the arc?"

ME: "Have you ever had a tropical or salt water fish tank?"
JW: "Tropical."
ME: "I assure you that it is very easy to kill off your salt water
     specimins.  Do you know what would happen to your tropical fish or my
     salt water fish if you were to dump your 10 gallon fresh water tank
     into my 50 gallon salt water tank?"
JW: "They would probably die."
ME: "Yes. Salt and fresh water fish would all die. Only a few specimins
     may survive.  How did the fish survive the flood?"
JW: "We know there were no fish on the arc."
ME: "Exactly.  Think back to our fish tanks.  How did they survive?
JW: "You're just arguing."

That's what he gets for being rude to my wife.  He's lucky I didn't pitch
him out into the flood in my front yard!

Anyway, my wife and I had him in the "hot seat."  A technique I learned
from the evangelists on my dorm floor several years back.  He was standing
between my wife and I. If he attacked something she was saying (on the
"meaning" of the book), I would launch into him on technical issues.  If
he went after me, she would jump him.  It got to where he did not know
what to say to whom when.

BTW, to answer how there was enough room for the genetically diverse
population of the planet, he said that there was only one horse (for
example) and zebras came from them.

ME:   "So you are saying that species came about due to cumulative small
      changes over a long period of time."
JW:   "That's right."
ME:   "That's evolution."
JW:   "No it isn't. The bible says what evolution is and that is not
      evolution."
WIFE: "Show me the passage."
ME:   [With _The_Blind_Watchmaker_ and an old college biology book in hand]
      "The people who know about evolution say that my definition of
      evolution is pretty good."
WIFE: [Dictionary in hand] "Websters agrees with Frank.  What was that
      passage?"
JW:   "Uhhhhhh....."

There was quite a bit of other things we said--it was a long down-pour.
These parts were the most fun. :-)  I did notice that when we quizzed him
on the details of some of his programming, he went into a loop and
repeated the general phrase I asked for details on.

His weakness was that he was programmed.  As a programmer, I realize that
my code in inclined to be imperfect.  He was convinced that his
programming was flawless.  He did not know what to do when I tripped one
of the bugs in his basic code.

When he left, he said that he would like to get back to me with the answer
to my creation question.  I said, "My wife and I already have our own
opinions on this.  I asked you for your own edification.  Go back and try
to figure out why there are two versions.  Form your own opinion as my
wife and I have done.  However, what I am sure you will do is go back and
ask someone and he will give you your opinion."

I generally do not like doing this sort of thing to people, but he did
raise his voice to my wife and try to do the same thing to her in our
home.  I feel he deserved it.

Frank Doss