The Dharma Revelation

Chapter 21

"A prophet is never welcome in his hometown," Vincent quoted philosophically.

Daniel chose to eat lunch with Vincent Dualla and Aaron Breuer, in an effort to get to know them better. Aaron was in his 50s. He had a receding hairline and always seemed to dress well. In addition to his rather loud voice, he had a disarming smile and a sarcastic demeanor, which Daniel fully appreciated.

Vincent had a distinguished, close-cropped beard and looked every inch a professor. Although these two men were at least 20 years older, Daniel felt quite at ease with them.

"What do you mean?" Aaron asked.

Vincent shrugged, "Just that here we are, we're all outcasts in our own way. And after hearing Father Daniel's story last night, it's clear that none of us has been accepted in the communities from which we came, and yet we find a home here."

"Are your stories similar?" Daniel asked. "Did you deal with the same type of controversy?"

"Well, I did," Aaron said. "I was much like you, although a bit older. But things are different in the Jewish faith. Our traditions have so much history that there is less wiggle room for coloring outside the lines." He looked at Vincent, "Scientists have a different problem because they are not associated with an organized religion—though, atheists seem to be the most respected."

"That's just not true," Vincent disagreed. "Atheism is not seen as some sort of hip segment of the scientific community. In fact, religions like yours," he looked at Daniel, "love to hate people like me."

"Well, wait," Daniel looked at him. "Are you or are you not an atheist?"

Vincent cleared his throat, "The best answer I can give you is that I used to be. Growing up, I never believed in some sort of almighty being who doesn't like a group of people so he floods them out one minute, and the next minute he says thou shalt not kill. I never bought a lot of the dogma we are sold, especially the line that if I didn't convert to the religion du jour I was doomed to eternity without an air conditioner. And let's face it, most organized religions disagree with each other so much that there's no way they can all be right—yet they all claim to be."

"You thought this way as a child?" Daniel asked.

"I was a smart child."

"The other piece," Aaron chimed in, "is the strong-atheist, weak-atheist argument. Weak, or implicit, atheists have not thought at all about the belief in a god or gods. They haven't made up their mind and are similar to what you'd call an agnostic. A strong, or explicit, atheist will affirm quite unequivocally that there is no god."

"Well, which one are you?" Daniel asked Vincent.

"Strong of course," he replied. "I am a scientist. I always was, at heart. Show me the empirical evidence. Give me the Big Bang over an old man with a white beard waving a wand. I've watched firsthand as the most fundamental building blocks of matter scatter. It kind of makes us all god-like."

"God like?"

Vincent grunted, "Back at the lab, we used to slam neutrinos into an aluminum nucleus. Sometimes it took forever to get an event. Those neutrinos are pretentious little buggers. We only got about seven collisions per month, and yes, it had been done before, but it didn't matter. A muon track formed and—sorry, I digress. Get me talking about this stuff, and it's hard to shut my mouth. The point is, we've grown more powerful each year. That sort of thing makes us much less reliant on the idea of a creator."

Daniel was actually quite intrigued with physics, but he was more interested in the matter at hand. "So what happened to change your mind? Your conversion?"