I met an atheist for supper and had him for lunch.
A mutual friend arranged for us to meet at IHOP for dinner and philosophical debates. It was a little lopsided – I study this stuff for a living and he was just working off the top of his head – but I wasn't mean to him. The conversation did get a little passionate at times but this guy was all over the map and a little confused about where he stood. That was frustrating. He was an intelligent young man but completely aimless.
In fact, I'm not sure if he's really an atheist/agnostic at all. It seems he might really be searching for the truth but is just too sardonic, snide, and snarky (thank you, Roget's) to admit it.
Since this guy claimed to be existentialist, my main point was that this universe is ordered and rational and objective truth can be known. I asked him to explain where this information and consistency came from. His answer? We live in the "Matrix." You can imagine how it went from there; we talked for about 2 and half hours.
I tried to convince him that I don't need him to think like me but rather just to think for himself by pursuing truth. As long as there is nothing rational or absolute in the universe, then there is no purpose to our experience and I wanted better for him than that. I wanted him to know that I cared. He might have understood, but I'm not sure.
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