From the Mouths of Babes, with Feedback for the Mind!
This topic contains 3 replies, has 2 voices, and was last updated by 
TheEncogitationer 1 month, 2 weeks ago.
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Fellow Unbelievers,
I’m back.
The other day at the store where I work, a Father and his Son came into Customer Service. The Son was probably about age 6 and was a littler, mini version of Opie from The Andy Griffith Show, complete with freckles and a red soupbowl haircut.
While the Father was transacting some business, the Son went off on a yelling Evangelical salvation show for everyone at the checkout area!
“I’M HERE TO PREACH THE GOOD NEWS THAT JESUS LOVES YOU AND WANTS YOU TO BE WITH HIM IN HEAVEN!”
He then went around chatting up all the Cashiers and customers and was quoting Bible verses along the way.
Something like this would piss me off coming from an adult doing this in our business and I’d want the person booted out. But I knew, of course. that this Kid was morally and epistemically blameless, so I just beheld the spectacle with smiling bemusement.
By the time he made his way to me, he was quoting John 3:16:
“FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD, THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM SHALL NOT PERISH, BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE!”
I then said: “That is some very great memorizing from you, Fellow!”, emphasizing the “memorizing.”
“THANK YOU, SIR! DO YOU KNOW ANY BIBLE VERSES?”
“Sure, Kid! I know quite a few. I read a little bit here and there.”
“DO YOU KNOW THE 23RD PSALM?”
“Sure,” then I recited as much as I could and informed the Kid I had a bit of a brain-freeze from working.
“THAT’S GOOD! DO YOU KNOW THE TEN COMMANDMENTS?”
I then cited eight of them, paused, and said: “Here’s a fun fact about The Ten Commandments, Kid: You’ll find a lot of them in The Code of Hammurabi!”
“WOW! THAT’S NEAT TO KNOW! DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE BIBLE VERSE?”
“Why sure. ‘Come, let us reason together…’. That was from The Apostle Paul.”
“GREAT! WELL, I WON’T KEEP YOU AWAY FROM YOUR WORK! YOU HAVE A BLESSED DAY!”
“I’ll ‘Make It So,’ Kid! You have a great day too!”
With that, we bumped fists as the kids nowadays do and he went on his way with Dad.
Other Cashiers were having a fun time with the Kid too. “Hey, Kid! Go talk to Ann! She’s The Devil!” 😈😁
He came in the next day with his Father and preached a little, but he never made it back to me. Perhaps later, I can give him my favorite Thomas Paine quote for workplace interactions with Holy-Rollers: “My own mind is my own church.”
All in all. I think I planted a few seeds of curiousity and independent thinking in the young man without being confrontational, hostile, or reverse-proselytizing. With any effort, maybe he’ll read The Holy Bible and other literature further and deeper and find what we all know. I hope at least he won’t become as obnoxious as Duffy Strode and Family were back in the Eighties:
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This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: Addendums
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