The Good Atheist (12 page)

When I found the office I stormed up to the reception counter and asked for Professor Singh. They directed me to a smaller building across the wide lawn. Charming red-brick paths crossed the green lawn between buildings. The grass was covered with students sitting in groups, soaking up the warm sun. Other students bustled along the paths and cut across the lawns between buildings.

I reached the other building, walked up the steps, and marched in the front doors like I owned the place. Act like you belong and people will assume you do.

There was a small foyer with chairs, and a long white counter barred my way. Behind the counter several people busied themselves at their computer screens and data pads. I stood at the counter and announced my presence.

“I’m here to see Lucius Rex Singh,” I said, clearly enunciating each syllable of all three of his names, like a lawyer speaking to a hostile witness in a courtroom.

All heads snapped up to look at me. “Do you have an appointment?” one of them asked.

“No,” I said in a tone that implied I didn’t need one. “There wasn’t time to make one. This is urgent.”

One of the women got up from her desk and came over to the counter.

“What is this about?”

“I’m afraid I can only discuss this with Mister Singh.”

She looked me up and down, taking in my power suit and sunglasses. “Are you some kind of lawyer?”

“I have a package for him.”

“You can leave that with me if you like.”

I shook my head. “He has to sign for it.”

“I’m afraid he is in class right now.”

“I’ll wait. Can you let him know I’m here?”

She cleared her throat. “Well, like I said, he’s in class. It might be a while.”

I left the counter and sat down in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs and smiled. “No problem, ma’am. I’ll wait right here until after class. If you can just let him know I’m here with a package I need him to sign for, I’d really appreciate it.”

“And who shall I say is waiting?”

“Just tell him Bill’s here.” William is my middle name, so that was close enough. But I couldn’t give my full name. It was only yesterday when I called and he would likely remember the name Callaghan.

She sat back down at her desk and tapped something on her keyboard. After a moment she smiled sweetly up at me. “He knows, Mister, um… Bill.”

I settled down to wait. It was a good thing I had some good novels on my data pad. It was forty-five minutes before Singh showed up.

The door flung open and a large, imposing figure barged in. He had thick grey hair and a deeply lined face and wore a rumpled suit and an old pair of cowboy boots.

“What’s this all about?” he demanded loudly as he approached the counter. “I’ve only got five minutes before my next class.”

The young woman behind the counter nodded in my direction. He spun around as I stood up, and I held out my hand. “Hello, Mister Singh.”

He looked me up and down with a scowl. “What’s this nonsense about me having to sign for a package? What is it?”

I held the package up for him to see. It was wrapped in brown paper and secured with tape. But scrawled across the front of it, in black block letters, was the title of his book:
The Rational Basis for Faith in an Intelligent Universe.

He pointed a finger at my chest. “You’re the jerk on the phone yesterday.”

I nodded slowly.

“I don’t need this crap,” he said and turned to go.

“You don’t want to do that, Lucius. You wouldn’t want this getting out into the wrong hands, would you? Or worse, published on the internet.”

That stopped him cold. He turned around and stared at me. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me,” I said.

A lady behind the counter stood up. “Is everything all right? Do you want me to call security, Mister Singh?” The others behind the counter had stopped what they were doing to watch the exchange.

Singh held up a hand. “It’s okay, Mable. That won’t be necessary.”

“All I want is half an hour of your time, Lucius,” I said.

“And why should I do that?”

“Maybe to help a good friend,” I said, quoting from his autograph. “Or do you not mean what you say?”

“Is that the manuscript?” he asked, pointing at the package in my hand.

“Yes.”

He held up his index finger. “One condition. I get that manuscript back. Agreed?”

I nodded. “Agreed.”

“There’s a place downtown called Roxie’s. My last class ends at three. I’ll be there shortly after.” He walked out, leaving me alone with the wide-eyed clerks staring at me from behind the counter.

6

I didn’t know Kelona, but using GPS it was easy enough to find Roxie’s. It was a small dumpy place with a long bar, round tables in the middle and booths along the walls. There was little to commend it, but a look at the menu scrawled on the electronic whiteboard above the bar told me the food was cheap. I found a booth in the corner and sat down facing the door.

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 we 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.”