an atheist conversation

[Hmmm – a month without blogging – been on holidays and living life.]

Had a fascinating conversation today. After church this morning, I met man. He told me his name, and the first sentence that followed was, ‘Of course, I am an atheist.’

I said, ‘Of course?’

‘Oh, I don’t mean ‘of course I am an atheist’ – just, ‘I am an atheist”

He then told me that he had been brought up as a Christian, but recently, events had lead him to a particularly fateful day. He had driven out to a field, where he stood in the middle, and yelled to the four points of hte compass, as well as straight up and straight down: ‘I DON’T BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL, I DON’T BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL.’

He said he had uttered these words in great trepidation. But as he stood there, you know what happened? Absolutely nothing. And from that moment on, he said, he felt tremendous relief, and had ‘converted’ to atheism.

I said to him that I had found relief not in the denial of the spiritual underworld, but through the trusting in the promises that Christ had give nin his word, that his death and resurrection were the acts that landed that fatal blows on the devil, and so uniting my life to his meant there was ultimately nothing to fear.

He listened courteously, and then refused my offer of a free copy of ‘Living With the Underworld’ by Peter Bolt, and left.

So, what do you reckon is going on there?