Joey
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
I have no idea why Joey wanted to be my friend. Our mutual love of writing and hatred for Coach’s Algebra I class bonded us together, but my mission to convert him to Christianity should have driven him away. We passed each other notes quite frequently, and I can remember one in particular where I tried to save his soul. It didn’t work.
We met freshman year in algebra. Due to changing schools three years in a row and different class availabilities, this would be my third time to take the class. I don’t remember how we became friends, just that somehow, we did. We proofed each others’ writings. His was good. Really good, for high school anyways. I remember becoming engrossed in the manuscript, feeling embarrassed about the story I had given him which bled innocence and naivete. I remember telling him the only thing critical I had to say about it was that he didn’t need to cuss so much in it. Really. Is it any wonder I was not particularly popular in high school? What is a wonder is that somehow, our friendship moved on.
We didn’t hang out together much after class, but I think that was partially my fault. Joey was not a Christian. Joey was the first person I met who did not care about church and was still willing to talk to me. We had long talks about God when the coach who taught us algebra had to teach basketball, too. We would sit in the bleachers and have long discussions about philosophy, life, and the like. I told him God was love. He told me, “I think God is the ultimate sadist.” I still remember feeling quite shocked about this statement. I asked him why and tried to convince him otherwise, but it didn’t work. He was very gentle, but firm about his beliefs.
The next year, we had a study hall together. It was a small study hall, so we used the time to debate religion and philosophy. Another casual friend of ours was in the class, and I can still see her amused smile in the background. We weren’t allowed to do it everyday, but close to the end of the school year, nobody has anything to do anyways. I don’t think the coach who supervised that class knew what to do with us. The next year, we had chemistry together. The next, he graduated.
After that, we lost track of each other for the most part. He called me once a couple years later, after I had run into his sister at the grocery store and given her my phone number. That was about four years ago, and I have no idea what happened to him since. I do still think about him and often wonder whatever happened to the first person ever patient enough to explain a differing view of religion to me, despite how stubborn and conservative I was, and who was also always there for me when I needed (even though I was rather stupid enough to not recognize it at the time, and looking back, I thought of him as a good friend, but treated him as a casual one).
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June 9th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
It’s funny how some people can really affect us like that. Though, some people who affected me positively, I later found out things weren’t the same. Luckily, that’s not always the case. I hope you do hear from him one day and things are as they were but better!
I had a friend Joey who was cool, then starting teasing me a bit in high school (though not as much as some wretched girls in elementary) and later apologized for everything in senior year. That actually made a huge impact to me– him facing up to being a d!ck, which rarely happens at that age. It’s not like your lovely story but I was reminded.
June 13th, 2009 at 2:27 am
I’ve always been an atheist (I remember in 3rd grade deciding to not say “under god” during the pledge of allegiance anymore because I didn’t want to say something that wasn’t true). But like you, I had a friend in high school (and middle school) with very different beliefs, and talked with him about them. He was a conservative evangelical Christian, creationist, the whole 9 yards. We at least shared a love of Monty Python, though
I learned two important things from him. First, conservative Christian creationists aren’t that way because they’re stupid (well, maybe a few are, but certainly not all). My friend was very bright. It would have been easier for me to understand if he hadn’t been, but he was. Second, such people aren’t convinced by logical arguments and empirical evidence. We argued about the age of the Earth, and I did research on various radioactive isotope decay methods, and was excited to discuss them until he pulled out, as he always did at the end, the literal deux ex machina. God did it. God could do anything, so he could make everything look like the universe was 13.7 billion years old (well, 10-20 billion was the estimate back then).
These combined facts depress me. The first means that I can’t simply dismiss the extremely religious intellectually, and the second means that I can’t communicate with them intellectually. (I love explaining things to people, and teach physics and astronomy at the college level, but I can’t deal with people who dismiss logic and evidence.)
This is part of the reason I’m fascinated by loss-of-faith stories. (The other part is that I’ve never personally experienced anything like that, my entire understanding of the world shifting beneath me.) I’m very sorry about the circumstances surrounding your loss of faith, but I’m glad that there was an intellectual process at the core of it, and I’m happy to have you join us out here. Reality is awesome.
February 27th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Charon Says: “I did research on various radioactive isotope decay methods, and was excited to discuss them until he pulled out, as he always did at the end, the literal deux ex machina. God did it. God could do anything, so he could make everything look like the universe was 13.7 billion years old.”
Could be. OTOH, it could be that we are all just brains in glass jars and we only imagine that we are human beings walking around. It could be that we wake up every day and repeat exactly the day before and only imagine that we remember our personal histories. If you allow for any hypothesis you wind up with no hypothesis. I’ll stick to the one where I get to eat Key Lime Pie.