"The prosaic steel girder is a mass of electrons whirling around each other at incredible speed. These tiny bodies are governed by precise laws, and these laws hold true throughout the material world. Science tells us so. We have no reason to doubt it. When, however, the perfectly logical assumption is suggested that underneath the material world and life as we see it, there is an All Powerful, Guiding, Creative Intelligence, right there our perverse streak comes to the surface and we laboriously set out to convince ourselves it isn't so." -- "Alcoholics Anonymous" (AA's "Big Book") pgs. 48 - 49, Chapter 4, "We Agnostics"
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SCENE 1
GIBLET: "What's this?"
DUMPLING: "A physics text book."
GIBLET: "Oh. What are you reading about?"
DUMPLING: "Physics."
GIBLET: "Ha. Ha. Ha. What in physics are you reading about?"
DUMPLING: "Quantum Theory -- all about how the laws of the physical universe on the microscopic scale, like atoms and molecules and electrons and stuff, and the laws of the physical universe on the macroscopic scale, like the forces between galaxies and stuff, don't really line up."
GIBLET "I thought those laws were universal or something."
DUMPLING: "That's what they used to think, but now they've discovered that there are some things that don't line up. Like the laws that govern how the molecules in that table interact with each other don't seem to quite cover the way galaxies and stuff in space interact with each other."
GIBLET: "Weird. You know, I always thought that was wild, the way a scientist just says, 'This is the new fact' and we all just go, 'Oh, well, he's a scientist, so that must be the way it is.' I mean like that table, it looks like it's not moving, but some guy in a lab coat says, 'I'm a physicist and I know about this' and says that at a microscopic level which we can't see there are electrons and junk flying around, and so in a whole other way the table actually is moving, even though it looks like it's not -- even though I can't see the electrons and all -- but Dr. Physics says they're there, so we all go, 'Ok!'."
DUMPLING: "I guess you have to start from a basic assumption that some people have studied or seen or experienced something and that they're telling you the truth."
GIBLET: "Well of course. Otherwise how could you ever learn anything."
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SCENE 2
GIBLET: "What's this?"
DUMPLING: "Kind of a spiritual text book."
GIBLET: "Oh. What are you reading about?"
DUMPLING: "Spirituality."
GIBLET: "Ha. Ha. Ha. What kind of spirituality?"
DUMPLING: "Well, the idea that if you have a problem that you can't beat on your own and admit that, and then decide to follow a sort of spiritual path, and follow the recipe that this book lays out, you can have a spiritual experience and connect with a Higher Power. It's all about that there are spiritual forces in the world you can tap into which will help you with the problem you can't beat on your own."
GIBLET: "Sounds ridiculous. 'Spiritual forces' -- I mean, come on. That's so lame."
DUMPLING: "Well, the people who wrote this book claim first hand experience. They say that they didn't make it up out of their heads, they figured it out from trying different things and getting information from a bunch of different sources -- doctors, other people who had the same problem, some religious people..."
GIBLET: "You shouldn't believe everything you read."
DUMPLING: "I know. But ... I've met some people who tried what the book said to do, and they claim that it worked for them."
GIBLET: "Probably crazies -- or they want money from you or something. People who believe in any of that spiritual crap are just kidding themselves. Or come on, they're weak. They need something to lean on or... something. 'Religion is the opium of the masses.'"
DUMPLING: "Actually I think heroin is the opium of the masses. Or TV maybe. Heroin or TV, I'm not sure."
GIBLET: "Funny. Anyway, you can ask a hundred different people about this kind of thing and get a hundred different answers. There's no real evidence for any of it."
DUMPLING: "Well, I guess you have to start from a basic assumption that some people have studied or seen or experienced something and that they're telling you the truth."
GIBLET: "Nah. I don't buy it."
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