This is something I came up with as the result of a thought experiment a few days ago. There are several ways I could take this and I'm not really sure which is best, but I decided on the current ending just before writing it, so let me know what you think...
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One day long ago, I walked into a bar and met a man who had been there for a while and looked to be down on his luck. I offered him a drink and asked him what was wrong and he replied with a grim chuckle, "It's god. God is what's wrong. Or maybe he's what's right. I don't know anymore..."
I grimaced a little and gave a small sigh. It wasn't the first time I'd seen a religious person having a faith crisis, but it was the first time I was the one being confided in so I wasn't terribly sure what to do. Telling him god didn't exist seemed insensitive, but I didn't really know enough about religion to help him properly so I decided for a sympathetic friend type approach. After all, with atheism on the rise in our world, people like him didn't have too much to turn to anymore. "Well I don't believe in god myself, but supposedly he works in mysterious ways. Maybe if you tell me more?"
The man stared straight ahead, head supported on hand, and snorted. "I don't believe in god either, but I know exactly how he works. It took me my whole life to realize it, but there is no such thing as free will. God just made us believing we had it. And then later for kicks he made us not believe in him anymore."
I stared at the man incredulously. That was one of the craziest things I had ever heard, and either it showed on my face or he just read my silence because the man laughed and continued. "You don't believe me. Of course you don't believe me, it's not as if you have a choice after all. But think about it and you'll realize that the fact you don't believe me is the best proof you could possibly want that it is actually true!"
He gave what I can only describe as a ghost of a smile and got up, leaving the bar with a sound I couldn't identify between a laugh and a sob leaving me the only customer left in the bar. His words sent a chill down my spine and maybe it was the drink, or maybe the fatigue, but his voice seemed to ring ominously and echo behind me as I payed my tab and walked out into the dark night.
Over the next few months his words continued to haunt me and no matter how hard I tried I could not forget them. I tried getting drunk, but it just reminded me of where I first heard those words. I tried quitting my job and moving to a different state on a spur of the moment decision in order to prove that I actually had free will, but realized that what I thought to be my own idea may have been someone else's. My life was slowly spiraling down a drain that I could not find the plug for.
I began to stop caring that bars reminded me of the source of my depression and going in the vague hope I could find the man who had done this to me and... well I still don't know what I planned. Maybe I would ask him how he dealt with it, maybe I would just try to beat him up. It became an obsession until one day I was sitting at the bar in a slump and a man walked in. I didn't pay him much attention until he offered me a drink and asked me what was wrong.
Deja vu slammed into me and I gave a small chuckle as the irony of the situation struck me. One day long ago I had been that man, asking some other stranger that same question. So I gave him the same answer, "It's god. God is what's wrong. Or maybe he's what's right. I don't know anymore..."
I imagined with a sense of satisfaction the man next to me grimacing. I half listened to his generic reassurances and thought about how satisfying it would be to bring him down this same path. Maybe I didn't have control over my own life, but perhaps I could at least have control over his. So I launched into the same spiel I had been given in another bar, another state, another life. The details were different, but the message was the same and I finished with the words that had not left me alone since, "Isn't the fact that you don't believe me the best proof you could possibly want that I'm actually right?"
For the proper effect, I looked at the man for the first time with that same gaunt smile that had snagged me and froze when I saw his face. Maybe it was the drink, or maybe the fatigue, but the man next to be seemed to be the exact same man who had ruined my life so many years ago. The sensation passed quickly, if it were the same man he'd recognize the argument instead of just looking puzzled for a moment before he opened his mouth and said... "But isn't the fact that YOU believe it the best proof you could possibly want that you're wrong?"
