Reply #43: God or the Devil

[LibertyLover]

Years ago, back when I was a senior in high school back and dirt was in beta, I attended an Assemblies of God church with a friend. She had asked me go with her because the adult Bible Studies group was going to discuss evolution and while she didn't believe in creationism, she also didn't know that much about evolutionary theory, whereas I spent my life with my nose in National Geographic and their articles on the Leakeys. Anyway, I went with her and of course "lost" the discussion. The youth pastor condesendingly explained to me, poor stupid Catholic that I was at the time, that the Bible was the inerrent Word of God and so therefore evolution didn't exist. I asked about the fossil record and the Leakeys' discoveries and was told that some of them God had created to test our faith and others were counterfits created by the Devil to, guess what, test our faith. Luckily I was intelligent enough to understand that the deck had been stacked against me from the get-go. I told the pastor and the group that if that was the case, I didn't want to worship their God since I didn't appreciate jokes very much. I'll never forget the stunned look (think gaffed fish) on the youth pastor's face.

After the Bible study class my friend apologized and said that she had honestly thought there would be a back and forth discussion like in school. What amused me was that she wound up going to a small Bible college near our hometown, but was constantly being watched to see that she didn't spread heresy among the other students because she was, in addition to being a pentacostal Christian, a student of Edgar Cayce and believed in reincarnation. Two and a half strikes against her. She had a wonderful time, did graduate and moved to Virginia Beach to work for the Cayce organization, the A.R.E. Because she could "talk the talk", she went on the 700 Club several times as the ARE spokesperson.