Today is my birthday, so I’m going to tell a bizarro world birthday story. Btw, it’s a true story...
A little over a year ago, I was spending ~a lot~ of time in a pro-evolution Internet forum. The people and the subjects discussed were fascinating, and I found myself trying to figure out what made these people tick. I wondered what it was that causes some of us to hold such astoundingly different views about life, religion, science, politics, etc.
Considering various worldviews and how people form their beliefs, priorities, and values in life is quite interesting, IMO.
Anyway, the majority of individuals posting in this particular forum held agnostic or atheist faith beliefs. Being a Christian, as well as supporting ID, definitely put me in a very small minority.
Well, one evening I was thinking about the atheists in this group. Most of them didn’t think much of me, and many of them treated me with utter distain. But, one of them stood out because regardless of how much he disagreed with my position on various matters, he always treated me with respect.
I decided I’d private message him and ask him some questions about atheism and see if he’d be willing to talk about how he decided to take that path. Sometimes I’m too curious about people I talk to on-line, and they get put off with me, but this guy opened up right away and we had a very interesting discussion.
We found out that our upbringing was quite similar, and we were both brought up in the Lutheran Church. As the conversation continued, we kept finding more similarities between us, and then he told me in passing how old he was. I said “Wow, I’m exactly the same age as you are”. I also said, “Now, if you tell me your birthday is in March, that would be kinda freaky”.
Well, his next message was simply this:
“I was born March 6, 1965.”
I just about had a freaking heart attack on the spot. He was my twin!! We figured the odds of that happening were about 1:14,600.
Pretty crazy if you ask me. I kinda lost track of him since I’ve left that particular forum, but he was a nice guy, and I really appreciated the fact that he treated me kindly regardless of the fact that we disagreed on many issues. I hope he has a great birthday. I sure plan to!!
