So I went out to the boondocks to buy a used TV and took the bus back from the subway stop. While I was sitting at the bus stop the guy sitting next to me eyed the TV and asked, "What is that...a Sony Trinitron? 19 inches?" And I was all like, "yeah, I paid $20 for it." "Does it work okay? Did you try it out?" "Yeah." "That's a good price." "I guess." [pause] "Do you believe everything you see on TV?" I'm somewhat taken aback at this and at first I try to parse it into a technical question about the TV. Finally, I say, "No..." "How do you tell the difference?" [pause] "Well, I try to use common sense." Then he asks me if I've seen some movie and I say no, and he explains that the movie uses computer-generated imagery, so that there are parts that aren't really the actors, but you can't tell the difference. And he knows, because he's seen it three times. With computer-generated imagery, he says, you can't tell what's real and what's not...and he knows something about computers, although not much. "You see? You can't tell the difference!" "Well, actually, I know a fair amount about computers -- I'm a computer science grad student. And I think that..." But he's not interested in that. He emphasizes the point that it's impossible to tell between a real and a fake image. And not only that, on computers, everything is a graphical interface now! But he still uses DOS. "I use Unix...it's sort of like DOS, but only better." But he's not interested in Unix either. He continues on the subject of the difficulty of distinguishing reality from fiction and I finally say that sometimes you just have to take what you see on faith, that I believe that everything is made up of atoms and quarks even though I've never actually seen a quark. "But where does it all come from?" "What?" "Where does it come from? The quarks, the atoms?" "Well, where do you think it comes from?" "Default!" "Default?" "I know some programming, I know if you write an if statement, 'if 1 = 0 then...', if it's not true, then there's a default. If I hit return, it does the default thing." "Uh huh..." "If you hit save, and you don't put in a file name, it just saves it into the air. Default! And then when you try to go back to it, it's nowhere." "Well, actually, if it's a well-written program it'll check whether the filename you entered is empty, and signal an error..." "That's true. But still! It just saves it into the air. Opens up any port and sends it there. You can't hear it, but that's what it does." [pause] (him again:) "Are you saved?" "Oh! Here's my bus!" Coincidentally enough, he's getting on the same bus. After I manage to get the TV up the steps (he doesn't offer to help) and flash my ID at the driver, he follows me into the back and starts up again. "Are you saved?" "Saved on a disk?" "Are you saved on the hard disk of life?" (I start to see where this is going...) "What does that mean?" "God has a gigantic hard disk. A humungous one. But part of the hard disk is the hard disk of life. And that disk contains all the people who have accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior. Everything else doesn't matter. When you accept Jesus Christ, nothing you've done before that matters. Have you accepted Jesus Christ?" "Um, no, can't say I have." "God doesn't look at any parts of the disk except the book of life. And when you die, it will come time for God to judge you and God will look up your name on the disk. He'll look up my name and see that I'm there, in the book of life, and God will be on my side. He'll look up your name and see that you'll not there, and you'll have to stand up for yourself. You'll have to go to a place where there's nothing, but where you'll stay forever, because you have an eternal soul and God won't destroy that. What do you think about that?" "Well, I don't think I've done anything that would make God choose to send me to hell--" "But that's just it! He can't choose! Default! Everyone is born evil -- you're a sinner the moment you're born. That's why you're going to go to hell unless you accept Jesus as your personal savior." "I don't believe that. I think people are born good." "It doesn't matter what you believe! It matters what God says!" "How do I know what God says? Lots of people think they know, but I won't believe them unless God comes to me personally and tells me." "The Bible is how you know. Paul was the smartest man in the world, and..." "Oops, here's my stop! Goodnight!" -- December 6, 2001 Berkeley, California