Sermon

Sometime while I was in high school, during which I frequented not only church but all manner of Pentecostal gatherings aimed at keeping teens sober, celibate and, most importantly, charitable, a story began circulating. I heard it three times: Not long ago, there was a science teacher at a high school who got into a debate about evolution with a Christian student… Were this story factual, not only would it have been a simple task to name the school where this occurred, but they certainly would have done so. Instead, we are led to unquestioningly believe that teachers everywhere are trying to lead Christians away from “The Truth” by not only forcing evolution upon them, but actively attacking Christianity. Reducing the debate to the historical accuracy of the Book of Genesis versus Darwinian evolution and calling it Creationism versus evolution is already a win for Christians, as doing so slyly and unjustifiably eliminates any exploration into the validity of the thousands of other creation stories found in every culture throughout history. It’s the same technique used to argue the existence of an eternal, omnipotent creator while immediately disregarding the possibility of the existence of any god or gods other than the one they envision, ironically ignorant that their description is not even found in the Bible, but is an ultimate Idyllic being proposed by the Neo-Platonists in the 3rd century AD.

The teacher insisted that the Laws of Physics will always win out over supernatural forces. To prove this point, he held up an egg… Where the hell did the science teacher suddenly get an egg? What kind of egg? These nagging questions were never addressed. However, this story always made sure to stress the dangers of knowledge. Christians despise education; it is counter to their agenda. Secular teachers are all only trying to deceive, confuse and discourage you. It is preferable to blindly assume you are right and everybody else is wrong. Research for Christians seems to consist of finding others who agree with what they already believe or, more accurately, want to believe.

”If I drop this egg,” the teacher declared, “it will fall to the ground and break every time.” “Not if God wills otherwise,” the student countered…” Anyone like myself who had grown up in the Church already anticipated one thing about the outcome of this story- the teacher wasn’t going to drop the egg. If there was one thing Jesus was an exemplar of, it was weaseling out of debates. A popular dodge in Christianity is a Scripture verse Jesus used to ignore the taunts of a demonic spirit he saw after fasting in the desert for 40 days: Thou shalt not tempt (always misconstrued as, or to mean, “test”- one of those times when people who can’t even tell you what language the statement was originally written in suddenly become experts in translation) the Lord thy God. This kind of thing makes it hard to believe that people at the time compared Jesus to Elijah, who incessantly mocked the followers of Baal while publically pitting their god to a test against his (before having them killed).

Parables are stories used to explain beliefs but disguised to make it sound like they prove them. This subterfuge was, according to The Gospels, Jesus’ favorite tactic. Seemingly every opinion can be reduced to a comparison with a wheat farmer or fisherman. It shouldn’t be all that difficult to work out that how many seeds a Roman farmer plants has nothing to do with the price of beans in China, so to speak. I suspect Jesus’ tendency to avoid answers with unnecessary explanative examples is why Christians often confuse disagreement with misunderstanding. In a supreme illustration of egocentricity, they will assume that any failure to agree with their point of view is due solely to a misunderstanding of what their point of view is. Further, they seem to insist, although not in these exact words, that, “My ignorance (somehow) acts to demonstrate God’s infinite wisdom; therefore my words will always be wanting enough that you will likely never understand that I am right and you are wrong. (Of course, if you don’t believe me, you will burn forever in hell.)” They spend a lot of time making up excuses for retaining coherency in their beliefs, and no time verifying any of them. They are not even interested enough in Jesus to peruse any of the plethora of stories about him and quotes accredited to him other than the four included in the modern Bible, and they don’t research the provenance of those, either.

”Feel free to drop the egg and see what happens,” the student challenges, “but allow me to pray first.” The teacher laughed and acquiesced… See how persecuted we poor Christians are, having to beg permission to pray in school? It is a God-given right that we should be allowed to pray (as long as these prayers are to the God of Christianity). Don’t try and confuse us by pointing out that this is circular logic. Also, don't point out that this particular debate regards compulsory faculty or peer-led religious liturgy in public schools and not the right of an individual to pray in school. We are so easily confused! ”Dear Jesus,” the child prayed, “if it be your will, let the egg not break when it is dropped. And, at the same time, let the teacher be instantly struck down dead for his disbelief…” Okay, whoa there, kid. Either he’s bluffing or he is psychotic. Either way, he should definitely be expelled for publicly announcing his wish that a teacher be killed. Presumably, if we are to adhere to the lesson of this story, even overt threats are okay as long as they’re in the name of the Christian God.

Rattled and shaking, the teacher carefully placed the egg on his desk and stutteringly began a lesson on another topic…. Christians are in deep denial regarding those that believe differently than them; assuming they must be unhappy, desperate immoral villains living in fear. Most non-Christians would unflinchingly splatter the egg.

The punctum saliens of this quaint little tale, according to everybody I heard tell it, is that people’s belief in God is actually stronger than their disbelief. Why then didn’t the kid just simply agree to have the teacher drop the egg? The teller of this transparently fictional story could have easily wrapped it up by claiming the egg bounced around the room like silly putty. Problematically, most would be hard-pressed to believe that ending. Ironic.

Nobody really follows Jesus’ teachings. His solution for how to pay taxes, for example, was to catch a fish and pull a gold coin out of its mouth. If you truly believe in the Christian God, you should try that and let me know how it goes. If you don’t try it or it doesn’t work, then you don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus- and that’s according to the canonized teachings of Jesus. But I’m sure you’re too busy smugly reading about Elijah and how he mocked the impotence of Baal….