I like to listen to what’s going on out on the streets.   One way to do this is to talk to a cab driver.

Since I was taking an extended cab ride in Long Island yesterday, I decided to ask the driver about religion and politics.  He was a 40-year old divorced Greek man.  Here’s what he had to say:

He fears the “lunatic” Muslims.  “They” will stop at nothing.  “They” are all fanatics. “They” want to see all of “us” dead, for no reason.  We did nothing to them.  We are good Christian nation.  We’re “good people.”  “How dare they execute that fellow in Afghanistan for converting to Christianity!”

My cab driver was raised in the Greek Orthodox Church, but he doesn’t attend services anymore.  The problem is “fornication.”  His church forbids it but he wants it, maybe even “needs” it.   He isn’t going to get married anymore and that’s that.  But he needs sex.  This, as he explained it, is quite a conundrum for him.  He was sincere and his voice trembled a bit as he described his struggle.  

I asked him where the Bible clearly forbids sex outside of marriage.  He’s sure it’s there, mentioning that the Bible specifically forbids “fornication.”  Therefore, he knows that he is fornicating his way to hell.  But at least it’s not celibacy or marriage, he reasoned.

I asked what he knew about when the books of the Bible were written and by whom.  He knew nothing.  He knew nothing about the Council of Nicea, Constantine or the Gnostic Gospels.  He showed no interest in knowing any of this.   For my cab driver, the Bible simply is what it is. 

He dropped me off at the airport and continued on his journey to hell.