[NEW AGE]

DARLENE: Oh yeah. There are books in the stores. Very easy to get.

MICKEY: Yeah, but it's all phony stuff.

DARLENE: It is not phony. Unfortunately, you haven't been around.

MICKEY: Oh, I've been around. And I've never seen anything paranormal like that.

Then why doesn't the medical community know about this stuff?

DARLENE: They do. But they are entrenched in their own way of thinking.

MICKEY: And you know why? Because they deal with reality every day. That's why.

DARLENE: No.

MICKEY: Because I've done a lot of reading on this stuff. And..

DARLENE: ..what have you read?

MICKEY: I've read "Healing, A Doctor in Search of a Miracle." William Nolen.

DARLENE: Yeah, I know of him.

MICKEY: And he was not able to find a miracle.

DARLENE: He wasn't, so he wasn't..

MICKEY: ..yeah, but he spent a whole year.

DARLENE: A year, a year!

MICKEY: Well, he's a surgeon, and he knew what to look for.

DARLENE: A year? Is that all? Sometimes you can spend a lifetime many lifetimes studying this stuff.

MICKEY: To find just one?

DARLENE: God, there's so many people out there I'll give you the name of a bookstore, you may have already found it. Do you know Seven Stars in Cambridge, on JFK Street?

MICKEY: But I don't believe any of that literature. It's all phony.

DARLENE: It is not phony literature. You will recognize a lot of names. Names that have been on the best seller list.

MICKEY: But being a best seller doesn't mean it's true. The Bible is the best seller of all time and I think it's full of baloney.

I don't need to read more. I need to find a person that can do something. I need a person that can levitate this plate, or can read my mind.

DARLENE: Then you go to that bookstore and you look for the names of the people who are claiming to do all these things.

MICKEY: OK. I have an appointment with a woman, a channeler [an author, whose book is undoubtedly in that bookstore], who says she can talk to deceased people. And this appointment is coming up in a couple of months, and I'm going to see whether she's able to tell me anything about my father or my grandfather that would show that she is really talking to them. And I guarantee you she is going to fail miserably. She can't talk to the dead. Do you think she can?


[THE BOOK OF MORMON]

MICKEY: this book is probably this is not meant to offend you, but I have to say it as I see it the most boring book I have ever read in my life.

I had to force myself to read it. I had committed myself to doing it, to read it all the way through. But it just keeps repeating itself, and repeating itself. And the insights are not all that great. My conviction is that God is interesting. He wouldn't be boring. I mean, do you enjoy reading this?

HYDE: Very much so. Very much so. Probably more in fact, I guarantee, more so than any other book in the world today.

MICKEY: Wow. I think you're putting an awful lot into it that I don't see there. I mean, it just keeps repeating itself so much. Even the writing style is oh third-rate. If you use a phrase like "And it came to pass," and you use it 3 sentences in a row, that's just poor writing. And the idea of a group falling away from God and then repenting and coming back and then falling away again, that just keeps going on and on and on.

HYDE: Why do you think that might be in there?

MICKEY: Why? Because Mr. Smith lacked real imagination, or real religious insight.

HYDE: Or maybe God was trying to teach you a lesson.

MICKEY: But I'm not like that. When I was 6 years old, I realized with my friends that we shouldn't be going back and forth, back and forth we're either friends or we're not friends. Let's make up our minds. When I was 6 years old! This is not a message for me. I don't spend my life doing evil, repenting, doing evil, repenting. That's what Christians do.


[JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES]

AL: There is so much to it that it's hard for me to reveal these things to you, because it's like teaching a first grade student algebra. They can't understand it. They can't understand.

MICKEY: I grew up as a Christian, so I don't think I'm well, let me see if I can cover some more subjects here.

Is it a stake or a cross? If Jesus was crucified on a stake, with his hands over his head, why does John 20:25 say nails plural, instead of singular. See, if he was on a stake, it would be just one nail.

["Awake," April 9, 1974, page 14, and "The Watchtower," January 1, 1995, page 4, both clearly illustrate Jesus crucified on a stake with his arms directly overhead, his hands crossed, with one nail through both hands.]

AL: What about his feet? What about his feet, Mickey?

[When I have a strong point, a frequent debating technique for me is to deliberately hesitate, so that my opponent senses I might not be on good ground and gleefully attacks at that point, when in fact that's exactly what I want him to do, since I am on good ground, and I know he is not.]

MICKEY: Well.. uh.. it says..

AL: ..Mickey, what about his feet?! You said that only one nail was needed. What about his feet?

MICKEY: So the second nail would be for his feet?

AL: Right. So you see, it is consistent!

MICKEY: No.

AL: No, because you don't want it to be.

MICKEY: No, because of what it says.

Let me read it to you. "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails" Plural. It doesn't refer to feet at all. Hands, nails, plural.

So there is a clear biblical contradiction to your theology of Jesus being crucified on a stake.



Email: mjako@merrimack.edu