On the way to the basketball game, the Boy makes a comment about how many churches are around, and then turns the discussion to religion, remarking that Jesus has been dead 2000 years and has still not returned.

“Two thousand years is a long time,” he suggests.

I simply agree.

He continues: “How do we even know that all that stuff happened?”

“What do you think?” again trying to remain non-committal.

“Well, they say they were there,” he suggests.

“How do we know that?”

“Because that’s what they wrote.” He stops to think about it for a moment and then asks, “But how do we know those documents are authentic?”

The short answer is, we don’t. The Gospels, despite the purported authorship the Bible affixes to them, are anonymous. Those names — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — appear only in documents from the third or fourth century if memory serves. But I say none of this. Instead, I simply respond, “That’s a very good question. What do you think?”

“Well, all the Christian scientists trying to prove that are biased. They want to prove it.”

For a moment, I think, “Wait, how did we get onto the topic of Christian Science, but I realize quickly what he means: he’s referring to apologists and Christian New Testament scholars who consistently make the arguments that support Christianity, explaining away the problems like the one of the gospels’ anonymous authorship. But his point is very salient: apologists are indeed biased. They are not seeking truth as much as seeking ways to buttress Christian belief, and many skeptics suggest that apologists are almost exclusively preaching to the choir, so to speak, giving believers answers to questions they might have rather than providing skeptics with evidence to overcome their skepticism.

These are all very good questions that will lead to some answers that might lead the Boy away from church teaching, but I am trying my best not to provide any answers.

We get to the game and immediately see what we’re up against: a bunch of guys eighth graders who are enormous and merciless. They tower over most of our boys.

Their brutality comes from the coach down: They begin applying full-court pressure in the second half when they already have a significant, and they would only begin doing that (I think) because their coach has instructed them to do so. Every time the opposition scores, the coach whoops and hollers like it’s the greatest comeback in history. The final score is 13-22, and I hear the say to his team, “That was okay, but you missed a lot of easy baskets.” Translation: “You beat them badly, but you should have beaten the —- out of them.” At least that’s how I interpreted it as an objective observer…