atheist 1 spiritualists 0

It had been a while since I'd a chatted with door-knockers but yesterday that ended and I entertained a couple of people trawling the area talking about spiritualism. I was friendly throughout and warned them at the outset that I am a "fundamentalist atheist". They were still game for a chat so I asked them if they were religious or spiritual - spiritual they said, though I’m not so sure. I rolled up my metaphorical-mental sleeves and we were off.

They - a middle aged man and a woman who may have been in her late twenties - were in the area to discuss the current state of the world; climate, the economy, wars - that sort of stuff. What did I think? By this stage Sal, her sis Jo and the in-laws had retreated to a safe distance, for they know better.

So what did I think?

First, I explained, there are too many humans. If you look at the biomass of a species versus the number of that species we should have a population number around that of the sea lion. But, alas, there are now 6billion of us. So, should we cull people he asked, half jokingly? Not at all, we will drive ourselves to the brink of extinction; there is not need for a cull. We will simply keep pumping CO2 levels up until a greatly diminished planet will simply not be able to support us and our numbers will drop, possibly to zero. But how can this happen? Well, I'm glad you asked! We are a primitive mammal with a higher consciousness. We are smart enough - those in the developed west who have the luxury and ability to consider it - to be able to work out and understand what is happening. But we are, unfortunately, too dumb to do anything about it. How can that be? He was asking the questions; she kept quiet, smiling in a way that suggested either she was not game to engage in conversation with me because she knew she'd lose or she knew I was Satan. Not sure. Back to his question, how could that be? Well, I explained, that is also quite simple. Look at most animal populations at at the top of the heap are a handful of alpha-males. A lion and his pride, a silver back and his whatever-silver backs-have, a dog in a pack. The problem with us humans is we are all convinced we'll be in the alpha position and when the crunch comes we'll be OK. We all think we'll win the lottery, be a rock star or a celebrity or among the few breeding pairs of humans to survice the coming crunch. So, I concluded, until the shit really hits the fan we'll not do anything. You see, I explained, as a species we really are that stupid. I'm not depressed or unhappy about any of this, I went on, it is simply the way we are and it really cannot be any different.

Now, have a guess what he came back with. Go on, have a guess.

Nothing. Nothing at all. He didn't try to push his views on me - in fact he didn't even profer a view at all. He simply said it had been nice to talk with me, thanked me for sharing my views and left me to continue painting my new fence. I was victorious, yet a little disappointed.