The Rickrolling Christian - Help.com

The Rickrolling Christian

IF YOU TAKE OFFENSE DO NOT COMMENT. SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT:

An atheist was giving a lecture earlier this year at a local college. It was a fairly standard speech about why he was an atheist, and the audience was unexpectedly large — several people arrived to find standing room only. The atheist began with a joke about how they must be in the wrong room, as he wouldn’t have thought he could draw such a large crowd. Turns out he was right.

A few minutes into the speech, quite suddenly, the opening of “Never Gonna Give You Up” started playing from a portable stereo somewhere in the room, and a guy jumped onto the stage and started singing. The atheist was being Rickrolled.

The crowd loved it — not just because it was entertaining, but also because a great many of them were Christians — it was later discovered that they had been tipped off in advance that this would happen, and they came just to see it. Hence the large crowd.

Also, the Rickroller, instead of lip-synching the song, as is customary in a live Rickrolling (most of the humor of a Rickrolling comes from the fact that such a deep, resonant voice can come from such a scrawny little redhead like Rick Astley), sung the song himself to a karaoke version. This was so that he could add his own Christian spin to the lyrics:

God just wants to tell you how he’s feeling
Let Jesus make you understand
He’s never gonna give you up
He’s never gonna let you down
etc.

The atheist, who was an older man with a serious face, took this in stride — he smiled and even started clapping along halfway through. Then, when the song was done, he quickly took the Christian by the arm and asked him to stay for a moment. He agreed, largely so that he could stand next to the podium and shout, “Jesus lives!”

When the audience was finished applauding and cheering, the atheist said:

You know, one of the questions I get asked a lot is, am I mostly interested in the truth? Or am I mostly interested in defending my position at all costs? And the answer is, you can decide for yourself by looking at my behavior.

For instance, I’m an atheist, which obviously means I have reasons to believe that atheism is true and Christianity is false. Now, if I’m interested in what’s true, then what I do is, I go to a Christian’s event, and I sit down and I listen to him tell me reasons to believe that Christianity is true and atheism is false. That way, I’ll at least have both sides of the story, and I can make an informed decision.

On the other hand, if I’m only interested in defending my position and beating the other guy, come hell or high water, truth be damned . . . then what I do is, I go to the Christian’s event and I Rickroll him.

The atheist-friendly part of the audience laughed and clapped appreciatively. The Christians, including the Rickroller, were dead silent. The atheist smiled at the Rickroller and continued,

Now, the bad news is, we’ve just found out what side of the fence this fellow falls on. We know what interests him the most, and it’s not truth. But here’s the good news: he can change his mind. Because I’m going to invite him now to stick around and to listen to my own reasons for being an atheist. He may or may not have heard them before, he may or may not buy them, but at least he’ll be more confident that he’s making an informed decision either way.

If he now decides that he’s interested in the truth, then that’s what he’ll do. He’ll stick around and get the other side of the story. But if he’s still interested only in disrupting this event, in putting one over on the atheist, then he’s about to suddenly realize that he has a dentist’s appointment or something.

So, he concluded, turning to the Rickroller, what do you say? Would you like to stick around?

The Rickroller agreed to stay. So did most of the Christians, although some of them left. And for the next two and a half hours, which was well over the time they had booked the room for, they listened to what the atheist had to say. They asked him questions. They argued with him. They asked more questions. They listened some more.

At the end of the event, the atheist left his email address, and kept in touch with many of the Christians. As of this writing, nine of the Christians who were at that event have emailed the atheist to announce that they had deconverted from Christianity . . . including the Rickroller.

This open post was written 11 months, 2 weeks ago | V/U/S: 255, 4, 3 | Edit Post | Leave a reply | Report Post

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