Jehova's Lava

Had our quarterly visitation from our local Jehova's Witnesses yesterday - two very nice ladies, but they don't seem to live in the real world. We invite them in (we know them quite well - the son of one of them is our window cleaner) and end up having a chat about all manner of things for about an hour, but then there's always the 5 minutes of God Talk at the end, when they appear to be living in an alternate reality. 

They know we're both non-believers, but nevertheless we're still subjected to the 'lesson' and asked a few philosophical questions. Without fail, we answer these questions honestly, and sometimes I think I see one of the ladies wavering in her belief. The other, though, remains deadpan and her eyes seem to glaze over when we speak of science; she just doesn't want to know.

At the end of yesterday's 'lesson' I asked them to both comment on Leviticus 17-21:23, where God forbids anyone who is disabled or disfigured to enter the holy of holies to make food offerings and how this is interpreted in light of anti-discrimination law in a more enlightened society. They were a bit at a loss for words. There was a half hearted attempt to explain it away, but it failed miserably and still condoning discrimination on the part of God.

They then moved on to Creation and if we believed anything could come from nothing. I countered with the proven fact that particles wink into and out of existence all the time from the quantum foam. This was new to them. I also used the analogy of 1 + -1 = 0 and matter annihilating antimatter to produce nothing. If nothing can be produced from something, then why can't something be produced from the potential within that nothing? There ended the lesson, till the next time. We received our copy of The Watchtower, which Hay usually reads with incredulity when there are articles on science. I don't even bother.

Got the bulbs for the lava lamp in the post yesterday and got it working finally.