A couple of afternoons ago, when I was out whacking down weeds with my lawn trimmer, a car drove down my driveway. We don’t get too many visitors at our place, so I was curious about who had come. Two young ladies got out, and I immediately knew what was up. They politely introduced themselves, and said they had driven down to McBride from Prince George, and they wanted to talk to me about all of the bad things that were happening in the world today.
I courteously interrupted their spiel and told them, that they were wasting their time. I explained to them that I was an atheist, who knew all about Christianity and the Bible, and I could never believe the things that they were going to try to tell me. They ask me a few questions, hoping to make a hole in my unbelief, and I told them why I believed what I did. They then nicely said good-bye and I helped them out by explaining the best way to turn around and go up my driveway.
After they had left, I thought to myself, I should have told them about one experience I had, while spending two years working at the Indianapolis Goodwill store as a Conscientious Objector. I hate to have a good story go to waste, so I will tell you the tale:
I was not the only Conscientious Objector working at the Goodwill; there were maybe ten other CO’s doing their two years of Alternative Service there too. Most of them with the job of driving the Goodwill trucks. They would pick up the donated items from the drop boxes scattered around the city, and bring them back to be processed in the big main Goodwill Store. There the items were repaired and cleaned, then they trucked them from our warehouse to the various stores.
The group of Conscientious Objectors working at the Goodwill Store were a very diverse group. Most of them were very religious, but a few like myself, held beliefs that were moral, rather than religious. Whenever they breached the subject of religion, I was always open with my views.
One of the “religious” CO’s who I will just call John, had nothing in common with me, except that we both worked at Goodwill. While I worked as a “Pricer,” John worked on the maintenance staff, walking around the building all day with a tool belt on his hip .
We did occasionally talk to each other; he was a fundamentalist Christian, a Jehovah Witness, very strait-laced and conservative, while I was a free-thinking hippie. I was open to John about my beliefs, so he was aware that I was an atheist.
One year as Christmas approached, I was approached by a member of Goodwill’s management staff and asked if I would play the part of one of the Three Wisemen in the upcoming Goodwill Christmas pageant. This request had nothing to do with my religious beliefs, but was made because I looked “biblical” with my beard and long hair.
I was happy to help out, “Sure,” I replied after given the request, “I’ll be one of your Three Wise Men.”
When John heard that I had been asked to be one of the Three Kings in the Christmas pageant, he was outraged that an atheist was going to be featured in such a holy depiction. He confronted me and said “I hope that God strikes you dead,” and then walked away. That didn’t seem very Christian-like to me, but I let it stand. I assumed that he felt like he should have been offered the part, since he was more “holy” than I was.
Although the pageant itself has totally disappeared from my memory, I do remember that I was in the Nativity play, as forgettable as it was, and I am happy to announce that God didn’t strike me dead for doing it.
For John however, it was a different story.
Several months later, I was informed by the Goodwill grapevine that John lay in the hospital in serious condition. I don’t remember what had happened to him, probably it was an automobile accident. He needed a blood transfusion, but because of his Jehovah Witness religious beliefs, he refused to allow that to happen. A few days later he died; true to his beliefs to the end, but dead because of them, when his life could have been saved.
I was of course really sorry to hear about John’s death, but also very angry. I couldn’t understand any justification for a religion to cause the unnecessary death of a young person, when it could have been avoided. If getting a blood transfusion was such a major sin, John could have easily just asked to be forgiven for it, after he recovered. I was pretty sure that one of the main pillars of Christianity was that you could always be forgiven, no matter how horrendous the sin.
