Friday, September 16, 2011

The Cell Phone Bible, Part III

Idea courtesy of apostate, who found the 'What if...?' text in his Facebook feed. If you're coming in late, you can start at Part I.

III. The Word Spreads
The news spread like wildfire. Only a few people received calls at first, but they were quick to spread the word - and friends and family were equally quick to investigate. Faithful, doubtful, or scornful, they opened their Bibles and found themselves connected Heaven's Call Center. Everyone who tried it came away convinced.

In southern California, a street preacher collapsed and had to be taken to the hospital, where he was found to be suffering from exhaustion and dehydration. His initial disappointment at finding that his tracts were nothing special had been completely overtaken by his joy in learning that the Bible in his hands could convince anyone of the existence of Jesus. By the time he collapsed, he'd been on his feet for forty-two hours - this, despite repeated Biblical warnings that he needed to stop and rest, or at least drink some water.

In Ottawa, there was a chemistry teacher - who, as an avowed atheist, had only opened his Bible to refute a particularly obnoxious commenter on his favorite message board. When his conversation with Jesus was finished, he sat in thought for a few minutes. Then he went next door, to visit his Jewish neighbors. In a matter of minutes they'd confirmed that the Torah worked just as well. Half an hour and several phone calls later, they'd discovered that the Q'uran, the Gitas, and the Book of Mormon all connected to the same unearthly voices. Within an hour of his conversion, he'd discovered that he could get the same effect on a computer or e-reader, by opening one of the sacred texts there. That, in turn, allowed him to record the conversation electronically.

And that put the story in the media. It jumped from national to international news, and for two days world events effectively ground to a halt as humanity struggled to come to grips with the effects of direct communication with the Divine.

6 comments:

  1. awesome! I have no witty funny words to say, this is highly entertaining. I can't wait to get my smartbible I have TONS of questions. :)

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  2. Mine's not working. It keeps dropping the calls. Any idea where I can get it fixed?

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  3. Oh, sure - just take it down to your local megachurch or tune in to nearly any of the TV preachers. They all double as Bible Repairmen - you know, fixing problems with text, assisting people with these sorts of communications, and like that.

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  4. Tried that already. I took it to my local church. It still wasn't working quite right so I found a place on TV that said they could fix it. They're solution was the exact opposite of my local church. I wasn't too sure about that so I googled the problem. Seems there are so many different ideas about how to go about repairing it I'm not too sure whose advice to follow. Do any of them know what the heck they're talking about?

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  5. I'm pretty sure that They're in the second sentence of that snarky remark was supposed to be Their. *sigh*

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  6. Depending on the internet savvy-ness of the atheist the holy book(s) of the flying spaghetti monster might be the first thing (s)he checked. One wonders if both the "Gospel..." and the "Loose Canon..." would work, or only one of them, and if so, which.

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