The Good Atheist

by Michael Manto

  Not ten seconds after I sat down the holographic image of a young woman’s head sprang up from the table and hovered in front of me at eye level. She was chewing gum. “Hi, my name is Melinda. I’ll be your server. What can I getya?”

  I ordered a steak sandwich and a continuous stream of coffee. I didn’t bother asking what kind of coffee they had. This didn’t look like the kind of place to know there was a difference. She promised to be right there and vanished, leaving me alone.

  Or what passed as alone. You were never really alone these days. There was a holographic movie playing in the middle of the floor, featuring two star-crossed lovers ripping each other’s clothes off. The walls were covered with more traditional flat screens, playing various news and sports channels, and a continuous stream of advertisements played across the surface of the table in my booth.

  The other patrons around me chattered on their phones or thumbed messages. A couple in the booth across from me looked at their phones more than at each other.

  People were never with who they were with any more, it seemed.

  I didn’t much feel like watching the holo-porn show or the wall screens so I pulled out the manuscript. It would help to be familiar with it when I met Lucius, and I didn’t think I needed to be concerned about reading it in public. It might be dangerously antiscientific, but no one was going to stop by my booth to read over my shoulder.

  I started reading through the manuscript. What I found in its pages deeply disturbed me, and I made some notes on my data pad as I read.

  I was about halfway through it when Lucius walked in three hours later, wearing the same scowl on his face. I closed the manuscript and pushed it to one side.

  He slid into the booth across from me. “Is that it?” he asked, pointing at the manuscript.

  I rested my hand on top of it. “We had a deal, didn’t we? I’ll keep my end.”

  “Did you read my book? You should you know – it’s pretty good.”

  I nodded. “I got about halfway through.”

  “Well, you’re a damn idiot having that out in public,” he said.

  The waitress came by. “Can I get you something?” I had already eaten while waiting for Lucius, so all I wanted was another coffee. Lucius ordered a beer.

  After the waitress left, Lucius pointedly looked at the watch on his wrist. “Okay, kid. You’ve got thirty minutes. What is it you want from me?”

  “Like I said over the phone yesterday, I’m trying to locate my father.”

  “What makes you think I can help?”

  My hand was still resting on the manuscript, and I tapped it with my index finger. “The note you wrote on this. You called him a good friend. I was thinking maybe you’ve stayed in touch?”

  “Listen, kid, that was a long time ago. A lot has changed since then.”

  I didn’t much like being called kid, but he had to be pushing at least seventy, easily old enough to be my father if not grandfather. So I let it slide and smiled my most winning smile. “So you don’t believe what you wrote in here.”

  He glanced to his right, towards the center of the restaurant and other tables. To our left, the window overlooked the busy street. “Look, what I wrote could get me arrested. It could get you arrested just for having it. I didn’t even think the manuscript had survived.”

  “Lucius, all I want is to find my dad. I’ve got no interest in getting you in trouble.”

  “I haven’t heard from your father in a few years. We were in touch for a while after he disappeared, but I felt it was getting too risky. I was still out in the world, trying to avoid court-ordered rehab. So I cut off the correspondence.”

  “How did you stay in touch?”

  “Look, you can’t ever repeat a word of this to anyone, all right? Otherwise you, your grandfather, and your dad, if he’s still alive, will be in a whole world of pain. Not to mention yours truly.” He tapped his chest.

  I just nodded.

  “We stayed in touch through your grandfather. He knew where your dad was. He passed letters back and forth for us. I never knew how he did it, and I never asked.”

  I’d deduced as much from my own reading of the letters, but it was nice to have confirmation. “When did you last see him?”

  “When I gave him the manuscript.”

  “Why’d you give it to him?”

  “I wanted him to proofread it for me. And he had contacts in Canada. He was going to help me get it published. Your father was a great man. One of the few great intellects left in the country not afraid to speak his mind. I wanted his opinion.”

  “It would seem he spoke his mind once too often,” I said.

  “I warned him to be more careful. But he was an idealist. He thought that if people were allowed to discuss their ideas freely, without fear of reprisal, then it would make for a better country.” Lucius got a faraway look in his eyes, as if viewing a distant land. “But that idea died in this country a long time ago.”

  And then, just as quickly, he came back to the present. “I want to know how and where you found that,” he said, pointing at the package.

  “My grandfather died recently and left me his cottage. I was up there a few days ago and found it in his study.”

  He took a deep breath and sat back. “I’m sorry to hear that, kid. I liked your grandfather. He was a good man.”

  We both sat quietly for a few moments. It was Lucius who broke the silence. “No offense, but why the sudden interest in finding your dad?”

  “Until a few days ago I thought he was dead,” I said. Then I told him about the letters in the cottage. “Now there’s reason to believe he is alive.”

  “I wish I could help, but I have no idea where he is.”

  “Any idea how or why he got religion?”

  He chuckled. Probably the first time I’d seen the frown on his face replaced with something that resembled a smile. “I suppose that is partly my fault.”

  “Are you, ah, well… religious or a Christian or anything like that? You can tell me, it’s okay. I won’t report it.”

  “You make it sound like catching a disease.”

  I shrugged and said nothing, waiting.

  “No, kid. I’m not a Christian or religious or anything like that. You can relax. I wouldn’t be allowed to teach if I was.”

  “Then help me out here,” I said, patting the manuscript with my hand. “You write in here that faith is reasonable. Not only reasonable, but supported by science.”

  He nodded. “That’s right. One of the arguments I make in my book, very eloquently I might add, is that looking at the evidence objectively, a person could very reasonably conclude that a superintelligence had rigged the universe for life. The more we learn about the physics of the universe, the more unlikely it seems it could have happened by dumb, blind luck. Science supports belief in God and is entirely compatible with a theistic view of the universe.”

  “If that’s the case, then why aren’t you a believer?”

  “Any scientist worthy of the name who says science necessitates atheism ought to have his knuckles rapped with a ruler. But I have other reasons for being an atheist, which has nothing to do with science or rationality.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I was born in Africa. I was one of the last people to get into this country before the paranoids in Washington shut it down and closed the borders. But while I was still in Africa I saw too many dead babies to believe in God – at least in a good one I’d want to worship. I just don’t like the idea of God. If He is there, I don’t like Him very much. So it’s easier to believe He isn’t there. So I’m placing my bet on blind chance, against all the odds. But that’s hardly rational, is it? It would be more reasonable to suppose that a superintelligence is behind the universe. But then I find it hard to be that objective.”

  “So why did you write the manuscript?”

  “I didn’t like the way things were going in this country. It started as an urban myth, back in the twentieth century, that w
e scientists are cool, rational thinkers nobly fighting for the cause of truth, resisting the wild-eyed religious fanatics. This image was supported and propagated by Hollywood and the media. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The fact is, the evidence leans in favor of theism. But the idea that atheism was the only game in town for thinking, intelligent people took hold in the country. Atheism became the new religion of science and took over the social agenda. Then, at the turn of the century, a popular author wrote a book in which he suggested that it might be ethical to kill people for believing certain things as a form of self-defense. That led to the idea that we should at least lock religious people up for their own good and the good of society. One thing lead to another, and it became law.”

  I nodded. Everyone was familiar with the Tolerance Laws. We saw them enforced on a daily basis. All good citizens supported them, but Lucius was apparently a dissenter. I was supposed to report him, but I kept my thoughts to myself and let him continue.

  “I’m a Free Thinker, like you. Call me crazy, but I assumed that meant everyone should be free to think and believe what they choose. There was a point, up until about twenty years ago, when I thought we still had a chance to turn things around, but I was too late. No publisher in the country would touch my book – they were too afraid. I can’t say I blame them. With the new laws you can go to jail for saying, even thinking, the wrong things. But there are plenty of great scientists who privately believe in some kind of God. They have to keep their opinions to themselves, though, otherwise they put their careers at risk, are ridiculed, or worse, get dragged away in the night.”

  “I don’t see how you can say that,” I said.

  “It’s true. The dirty little secret that you will never hear from the media or politically correct eggheads running the social agenda of this once-great country is that science can be just as easily interpreted along theistic lines as well as atheistic. Both are equally compatible with the science. Take the arguments from design, for instance. Are you familiar with them?”

  I chuckled. “We covered those in school. They’ve been refuted.”

  “Refuted? Not at all, just brushed off and explained away as mere chance. But that’s not much of an argument for atheism, is it? We are still left with the basic theistic arguments soundly intact: that the overwhelming odds against our existence strongly suggest someone fiddled with the formulas at the beginning of the universe to make sure things came out just right for life. While we can imagine other reasons, dreaming up other reasons does not constitute a watertight argument, nor does it negate the other, equally logical possibility. You are still faced with two choices, blind chance or intentional creation. The chance argument is so vanishingly unlikely that many thinking people find the alternative more compelling: that we are not here by chance. So what about you, sport? Which way are you gambling? Chance or design?”

  “I’ll go with chance,” I said.

  “Me too. But is that more reasonable, given the odds? Or do we have other motives beyond reason for taking the less likely bet? Given the odds, a betting man would put his money on God. But we don’t. We prefer to take our chances with, well, the chance argument. Or multiverses. Or the power in the universe to create itself somehow. Why? Maybe it’s because we just simply don’t like the alternative, regardless of the science. I know I don’t.”

  I found myself disturbed by his unorthodox, radical views, so I changed the subject. “I think it’s unlikely that someone would disappear so completely and not be in touch with anyone from his previous life. He knew a lot of people. Is there anyone you can think of that he was close to, that he might be in touch with?”

  “Look, Jack. I think you need to face something here. If he’s not in touch with you, what makes you think he’s in touch with anyone else?”

  “There may be reasons I’m not aware of.”

  “Sure, but your father loved you. He talked about you all the time. I can’t imagine what would keep him from contacting you.”

  “You think he’s dead, don’t you?” It came out more as an accusation than a question.

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to – the look in his eyes said it all.

  “You could be right,” I said. “But I have pretty good reasons to think he’s alive, and I’m not dropping this until I know for sure.”

  He looked at me deep in thought, and an expression came over his face as if he had come to a decision. “I think it’s probably a waste of time, but I’m going to help you out the best I can.”

  The waitress came by, plunked another beer in front him, and refilled my coffee. Lucius waited until she left before leaning forward slightly. “You can’t breathe a word of this to anyone, understand? Not your wife, or best friend, or your cat. If I ever find out you’re a blabbermouth, I’ll never talk to you again. Understand?”

  “Understood.”

  “There was a group of us that started meeting. We’d gather in homes and other places where we could go unnoticed. That’s how I got to know your dad and grandpa.”

  “Who was in the group?”

  “Are you going to shut up and let me talk? I’m getting to that. We were mostly college professors and scientists, and one or two lawyers. Most were theists, but there were also several atheists, including yours truly. We’d meet to talk about what was happening in the country, what we could do about it. We wrote papers, started a few websites, and wrote a few books.”

  He nodded at the manuscript next to me. “As you can tell, we weren’t very successful. We weren’t expecting what happened next. The believers in our group were driven out of their colleges and went into hiding. Some of them were caught and committed to rehab – a fancy name for prison with a few mandatory re-education classes. Several moved up to Aylmer, including your father and grandfather, to lay low. Your dad disappeared about a year after that. I got a few letters from him through your grandfather. But I never saw him again. It was pretty confusing towards the end, but if anyone knows where your father is, it will be someone up in Aylmer.”

  “Do you have any names?”

  He spread his hands. “Sorry, that’s the best I can do.”

  “Why weren’t you arrested?”

  “I’m an atheist, remember. I passed their doctrinal orthodoxy tests. So they left me alone. For now, at least.”

  “For now? You’re not thinking of converting, are you?” I asked.

  “You know, you remind me a lot of your father,” he said.

  “How’s that?”

  “You’re a smart-mouth just like he was.”

  “So what’s to worry about?”

  “Everyone in the scientific establishment is sniffing each others’ underwear for any hint of intellectual unorthodoxy. It’s only a matter of time before someone decides I’m not orthodox enough and has me drummed out of my teaching career,” he said.

  He looked at his wristwatch. “I hate to cut this short, but I need to get going,” he said.

  The manuscript was still on the table next to me. I pushed it towards him. “I guess I’ve used up my time, and then some. Thanks for meeting me here.”

  He shoved the manuscript back across the table to me. “Why don’t you hang on to this?”

  “I thought you wanted the manuscript back,” I said.

  “I changed my mind. I’d like you to keep it. It covers everything we’ve been talking about.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted it, but it would have been rude to refuse his gesture. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help. Why did you change your mind about helping me?”

  “You mean, aside from trying to blackmail me with the manuscript?”

  “Yeah.”

  He didn’t answer right away, just stared out the window again as if lost in long-forgotten memories. “I guess because you remind me of your father.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He stood up. “Just don’t do or say anything that will get us into trouble, okay?” Then he said goodbye and left.<
br />
  I remained in the booth for a few minutes after he left, watching the rain fall from the sky, mulling over what he had said. I found his words unsettling. I didn’t care at all for what he’d said about God and science. I’d grown up with the settled belief that science had disproven God and there was no longer any question about it. But I wasn’t here to argue with him. I came here to learn what I could about my father. I picked up the manuscript and left the diner.

  Drizzle fell from a flat grey sky, and I wished I had a hat. I stood on the sidewalk thinking about my next move, while the cold rain fell on my head. My close-cropped hair offered little protection and I felt the rain hitting my scalp.

  Lucius seemed to think that my best chance was Aylmer. I still had a week of vacation left, and I decided to go find out. Maybe someone up there would know something useful. It was a long shot, but it seemed like the only shot I had left.

  7

  I called Selene to tell her my plans. When she didn’t answer I left a message. Then I got in my car and bid farewell to Iowa. Around midnight I was somewhere in Ohio and I still had a long drive ahead of me to northern Vermont. I told my car to locate some nearby motels and it directed me to take an exit ten minutes down the highway. There was a collection of hotels just off the ramp and I pulled into one that looked like the cockroaches wouldn’t be too big. I was on the road again early the next morning.

  It was dark when I reached the cottage. I unlocked the front door and reached for the light switch. Nothing happened when I flipped it. I toggled it a couple more times. Nothing. The power was out again.

  Grandpa kept a flashlight by the front door for such contingencies, and I found it after a brief search along the floor with my hands in the dark. I turned on the flashlight and closed the door behind me.

  It felt strange to be making my way through such a dark and silent house, a house that didn’t respond to my presence or answer verbal commands. I didn’t bother turning on any of the kerosene lamps but kept the flashlight with me while I got ready for bed. I used the hand pump in the bathroom to get a little water to wash my face and brush my teeth. Then I cracked open the window in the bedroom to let in some of the cool night air and stripped down to my boxers and crawled into bed. On our last trip we had replaced the bedding with new sheets and blankets.