The Religion War Read Online Free PDF Page A

Avatar continued. "Sometimes, especially when you've been drinking, you wonder if there's any point in living. You think about ending your life. You aren't sure what's stopping you."
    The interrogator placed the electrodes on the cart and clicked the Off button. He crossed his arms, his posture revealing that he was both angry and interested.
    The Avatar continued, "You think about the risk of going to hell ifyou kill yourself, versus the odds that hell is just a fairy tale to scare people into good behavior. You wonder if God would forgive a suicide. You figure the stakes are too high to take a chance. You wish you had someone to talk with about your urge, but you think people would see you as damaged goods ifyou let your feelings out. It would affect your career and still not give you the certainty you crave."
    "You're a bastard," said the interrogator.
    "I hear that a lot," said the Avatar. "One more thing:Your arm itches," said the Avatar, merging his knowledge of hypnosis with the cold read to make it more powerful. The interrogator was now in a highly suggestible frame of mind, boggled by the seeming accuracy of the Avatar's insights, though they were little more than observation and pattern recognition. The human brain doesn't like confusion. It will seek the relief of certainty wherever it can find it, even if it has to hallucinate to do so. The Avatar was keeping the interrogator in a mentally uncomfortable position, preparing him to crave the certainty that the Avatar would provide.
    The interrogator stared at the Avatar, trying not to blink, trying harder to ignore the itch forming on his right arm. The seconds passed painfully until the silence was broken by the sound of scratching and cursing. The door to the interrogator's subconscious swung open.
    "You're a collection of molecules," the Avatar explained, his manner now serious, "and those molecules are made of smaller bits, and those bits are made of even smaller bits. The smallest bits in the universe are all identical. You are made of the same stuff as the concrete in the floor and the fly on the window .Your basic matter cannot be created or destroyed. All that will survive of what you call your life is the sum of your actions. Some might call the unending ripple effect of those actions a soul, or a spirit."
    "What's your point?" asked the interrogator, more confused than ever.
    "Had I not met you today, you would continue to hurt people until your body lost its coherence and your dust was loaned back to the universe. Every day that you're alive causes harm to the universe, and you are aware of it. It eats you because your most basic nature is to contribute to your species, not work against it. Your life is a losing battle against a million years of evolution."
    The interrogator listened, and paced. He said nothing, wishing for mental comfort but finding none in the Avatar's point about tiny bits of matter and evolution. It occurred to him that he needed the answer to a bigger question, perhaps THE BIGGEST QUESTION. Maybe this Avatar fellow knew the answer; he seemed to know so much about other things—things that a person couldn't know. The interrogator paused, took a breath, then looked directly at the Avatar. "Is there a God?"
    The Avatar smiled. "In a manner of speaking."
    "How can you be so sure? Half the guys in my unit are athe-ists.They don't seem so dumb. Maybe they're right."
    "After you have released my arms, I will be happy to explain it to you," offered the Avatar, using another common hypnosis technique, making the interrogator focus on what happens after the arms are released, leapfrogging the question of whether they should be.
    The interrogator weighed the odds that this old man could escape the room, shackled or not. The door was locked from the outside, and the interrogator had a sidearm. His curiosity was piqued. He had searched his whole life for a better argument about the existence of God—either for or against—and he had a feeling