Museum of Iscariot – Virgin Black.

“Jesus lies dying in my bed. Companions since birth in this stagnant dingy haunt

He never really lived.

Last night I beat him as he would not leave.

My insane eyes stare at him as his welted body bleeds

Frequently I rape him as I know nothing else. He curls up like a fetus and paints his face with sadness

Now a fragment of remorse has etched I bandage his wounds, I kiss the face of Jesus Christ but he is dead

What can I do? You have forsaken me, called yourself messiah, expected me to follow.

But now he is dead and his prophecies with him.

I will bury him not as insult to your face. As I stare at his corpse one detail disturbs me.

His cold stark finger points where I have not been…

From my house, a cage of rotten wood I stumble forth to lay beneath the bush withered bones groan.

I cultivate as the soil and I grow closer.

The sun receives an empty gaze, it mourns, it knows my life is gone.

No more to offer but my flesh to this soil, and a single tear marks my final prayer, a rosebud sits in the palm of your hand as I end. This flower.

It blossoms.”

I had the chance to have a discussion with a theologian this evening.

A gentleman with whom I have worked for the past six years recently announced his resignation.

He is a salesman and is moving on from telecommunications to enabling what one could cynically call debt in third world countries; though more kindly viewed would be seen as providing a chance for ownership of that which they may previously may not have had the chance to hold tightly to themselves.

He is a nice fellow, a very intelligent man, and when I discovered that he had a degree in theology, I must confess to having asked “why”.

I am an atheist, I declare that openly, though I am not of the militant Dawkins-esque breed.

Personally I feel that militance in disbelief is as damaging as militance in belief.

That is a discussion for another day however.

At my chosen location of work, we have a tradition whereby the company fridge (always laden with inebriating substances) is thrown open on a Friday afternoon to reward the employees for a week well served…shit, that sentence makes it appear as if I am management -rest assured I am not!

This evening, my soon to be ex-colleague approached me for a discussion on theology. Perhaps it was due to him recently signing up to facebook and seeing my scarlet A, but whatever the reason, it was a welcome approach as I haven’t had anyone to discuss theology with for over a year and it is a favoured topic of mine.

It was the first time that I had ever discussed theology with someone who claimed a “degree” in the subject however.

It was interesting.

I was discussing theology with not only someone “qualified” in the subject, but with someone who had spent his life as a salesman.

It was hard to gauge whether or not he was prosletysing because he was very subtle.

Of course, we disagreed on the “personal expeirnece” factor that is required for “faith” but there were a couple of pertinent analogies that were raised:

He drew a circle on a piece of paper and suggested that it indicated the entire wealth of human knowledge and asked me to indicate, with a pen, my amount of said collected wisdom.

I placed a dot within the circle.

He then asked:

“If that is the case, how can you say for certain that god does not exist?”

My reply was:

“I cannot say for certain, only that with the knowledge afforded me, that his or her existence is highly improbable”

My rejoinder was to inquire as to whether or not he could say, with absolute certainty that god did exist. His reply was that, based upon personal experience, he could.

A slippery slope.

He posed the question “If I ate a piece of chocolate cake that you refused to taste and told you that it was the best chocolate cake I had ever had, how would you know whether I was lying or telling the truth?”

A fair point, though I indicated my preference for caramel.

In as much as he could not impart unto me the wonderful sensory experience of dipping his spoon into said piece of chocolate cake and thence consuming it, nor could I convince him of the superiority of the flavour of the caramel desert.

We discussed matters theological for an hour or two before I said to him “you know that I will never be tempted by the chocolate cake despite your subtle prosletysation” to which he replied “that takes the pressure off!”

All in all, it was the most pleasant theological discussion that I have had with a theist. Whilst there were initially subtle undertones of conversion, though at the conclusion he had realised that he was speaking to an equal with an equally as valid view – even if it differed to his.

If you read this my friend, I am sorry, but there were elements of unmistakable prosletysation in there – though you do it better than anyone I have ever met

I am completely at peace with my chosen course, though I welcome the opportunity to continue to discuss theology with you of a Sunday morning at my church of choice – the local beer garden