At an intersection in a shady part of town where dark immigrants and refugees of foreign disturbances crept in weird tracery among the long sunset shadows, a popular family owned phô joint named the Flyin’ Bowl recently found itself with new competition. Just over the bridge that spanned a tight bundle of Santa Fe railroad tracks, this rival had the same menu, the same recipes, even the same name (the Fly in Bowl) and members of the same family steering the enterprise. Tommy Ruangsawat’s sister had manipulated the matriarch of the family into giving her blessing to an expanded operation of sorts. The rest of the family wrote the sister off in disgust. She kept a tighter ship, a cleaner ship, and that’s why Delilah chose the Fly in over the Flyin’. And it’s usually less crowded, she said as they sat down at a table that soon revealed an unruly short leg, and Tommy has a bit of a crush on me.
Delilah’s five feet of dark hair and Asian lips settled and her eyes finally met his and he became cognizant of just how precarious his position. She’s way smarter than you, Poole had told him, she’s the smartest person in any room she walks into. That’s a reason not to try? isn’t that the very reason to try? Poole had given him a comic gesture of disregard.
You fuckin with the phô? she asked him with a spasm of Groucho brow and her perfect grin.
They ordered the beef phô and Mexican beers and the moment her lime hit the suds, she fired the first salvo across his bow. I assume you don’t subscribe to the notion that it takes just as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a theist. You know I don’t. Explain then. Just like this? we’re gonna jump right into this? I haven’t even touched you yet, he said. And you won’t. Hmm, look, religion never offered me any reason to rely on it as an effective tool to work the universe, he told her. But you don’t see how that requires faith on your part? You already know how this is gonna argue, Delilah, I just find it weird that you—a scientist—play the game this way.
She let those dark cake colored eyes wander for a moment. Big Bang Theory? she said, faith. Sub-atomic particles? Faith. Hatchet, science is an estimation of an estimation of an estimation in an attempt at understanding an observed phenomenon. Anything science explains requires faith. Faith and science are two routes to the same destination.
This amused Hatchet. The faith we place in science can be tested with method and experimentation, he said, tugging on his beer. The faith placed in unfalsifiable metaphysics cannot be trusted.
What about ghost hunters? she stuck her tongue out at him and smiled.
He leaned across the table at her, the beers sloshing under the limits of the short leg. Ghost hunters are trying to sell you toilet paper, car insurance, and prophylactics.
Three things I am in short supply of, she said.
Let’s move to a booth, and she grabbed her beer and stretched out on the red vinyl upholstery set under a moving waterfall picture made of electric motors and revolving rolls of clear plastic. She began again, It takes faith to be an atheist. Just as much as it takes faith to believe the supernatural exists. Science fails to recognize the single most potent element of human existence. Faith. Letting the reigns go to the unfolding of the universe is faith, faith, faith. Science has failed our world, Hatchet.
She was reciting lyrics to some song just to piss him off. Faith is letting go? Science has failed our world? Really, Delilah? Do you say that when you flick a switch and science turns on the light? Do you say that when you turn on your TV and science puts pictures on the screen?
Science gave us light?
Do you say that when you get on a plane and science makes the thing fly true and land at its predetermined destination? Do you really?
Science allowed me to defy gravity and fly! Praise be to Science! Wanna know what would be really hot? If science gave us sex!
He felt his upper lip moisten.
Hatchet, can't you see that those examples are just a manipulation of what already exists in nature? Anytime I step onto an aircraft designed by an engineer, I’m taking advantage of the Magnus effect, discovered by a guy named Magnus although Newton had probably figured it out. Natural advantages designed into the fucking thing by the engineer. What is the source of the nature? Maybe God is the source, Hatchet. A source of energy not created or destroyed but is eternally transformed. Perhaps when we die, our energy will be transformed into something that is not currently tangible. Some type of energy that gravity doesn't influence. Considering that thermodynamics governs every physical/chemical reaction, the entropy cannot be ignored. Every reaction is theoretically reversible, but we all know theory is not reality. I believe entropy in theory suggests an origin that must have been perfect. Go to the source. Science has failed our Mother Earth. The spirit moves through all things.
She was reciting lyrics again.
You sound like one of those zombie people in those pews of that church, so strange from a science student.
I am a scientist, Hatchet. I have a degree.
Then you of all people should be able to accept certain things; there are things we can deduce. No, the sun will not always come up tomorrow. One day it won’t but there is absolutely no evidence or indication that it will not come up tomorrow. Faith is a funny word. He examined her breasts and cheeks and her neck and what parts of her ear he could see below a smooth wave of hair. She gave him a sigh that she turned into a joke by laughing at herself for doing it.
She was baiting him. He couldn’t see it.
Delilah’s five feet of dark hair and Asian lips settled and her eyes finally met his and he became cognizant of just how precarious his position. She’s way smarter than you, Poole had told him, she’s the smartest person in any room she walks into. That’s a reason not to try? isn’t that the very reason to try? Poole had given him a comic gesture of disregard.
You fuckin with the phô? she asked him with a spasm of Groucho brow and her perfect grin.
They ordered the beef phô and Mexican beers and the moment her lime hit the suds, she fired the first salvo across his bow. I assume you don’t subscribe to the notion that it takes just as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a theist. You know I don’t. Explain then. Just like this? we’re gonna jump right into this? I haven’t even touched you yet, he said. And you won’t. Hmm, look, religion never offered me any reason to rely on it as an effective tool to work the universe, he told her. But you don’t see how that requires faith on your part? You already know how this is gonna argue, Delilah, I just find it weird that you—a scientist—play the game this way.
She let those dark cake colored eyes wander for a moment. Big Bang Theory? she said, faith. Sub-atomic particles? Faith. Hatchet, science is an estimation of an estimation of an estimation in an attempt at understanding an observed phenomenon. Anything science explains requires faith. Faith and science are two routes to the same destination.
This amused Hatchet. The faith we place in science can be tested with method and experimentation, he said, tugging on his beer. The faith placed in unfalsifiable metaphysics cannot be trusted.
What about ghost hunters? she stuck her tongue out at him and smiled.
He leaned across the table at her, the beers sloshing under the limits of the short leg. Ghost hunters are trying to sell you toilet paper, car insurance, and prophylactics.
Three things I am in short supply of, she said.
Let’s move to a booth, and she grabbed her beer and stretched out on the red vinyl upholstery set under a moving waterfall picture made of electric motors and revolving rolls of clear plastic. She began again, It takes faith to be an atheist. Just as much as it takes faith to believe the supernatural exists. Science fails to recognize the single most potent element of human existence. Faith. Letting the reigns go to the unfolding of the universe is faith, faith, faith. Science has failed our world, Hatchet.
She was reciting lyrics to some song just to piss him off. Faith is letting go? Science has failed our world? Really, Delilah? Do you say that when you flick a switch and science turns on the light? Do you say that when you turn on your TV and science puts pictures on the screen?
Science gave us light?
Do you say that when you get on a plane and science makes the thing fly true and land at its predetermined destination? Do you really?
Science allowed me to defy gravity and fly! Praise be to Science! Wanna know what would be really hot? If science gave us sex!
He felt his upper lip moisten.
Hatchet, can't you see that those examples are just a manipulation of what already exists in nature? Anytime I step onto an aircraft designed by an engineer, I’m taking advantage of the Magnus effect, discovered by a guy named Magnus although Newton had probably figured it out. Natural advantages designed into the fucking thing by the engineer. What is the source of the nature? Maybe God is the source, Hatchet. A source of energy not created or destroyed but is eternally transformed. Perhaps when we die, our energy will be transformed into something that is not currently tangible. Some type of energy that gravity doesn't influence. Considering that thermodynamics governs every physical/chemical reaction, the entropy cannot be ignored. Every reaction is theoretically reversible, but we all know theory is not reality. I believe entropy in theory suggests an origin that must have been perfect. Go to the source. Science has failed our Mother Earth. The spirit moves through all things.
She was reciting lyrics again.
You sound like one of those zombie people in those pews of that church, so strange from a science student.
I am a scientist, Hatchet. I have a degree.
Then you of all people should be able to accept certain things; there are things we can deduce. No, the sun will not always come up tomorrow. One day it won’t but there is absolutely no evidence or indication that it will not come up tomorrow. Faith is a funny word. He examined her breasts and cheeks and her neck and what parts of her ear he could see below a smooth wave of hair. She gave him a sigh that she turned into a joke by laughing at herself for doing it.
She was baiting him. He couldn’t see it.
Edit 11.7.2018