A couple of Saturdays ago I and my girlfriend (who happens to be baptised into the Greek Orthodox religion, but practises Greek Catholic...No, she's not Greek) were on the Virgin train from Glasgow to London.
We had reserved seats on the Quiet Zone of the train, because y'know, a 5 hour train journey shouldn't be sullied by mobile phones ringing and noisy conversations.
Somewhere around the Lake District a very tall woman sits at the table across the carriage from us, a table already occupied by a very chatty, bearded man in his late 50s, along with his wife. This man was directing people where to stow their luggage and asking random travellers questions about their journey to the point where I sent my girlfriend a text message (easier to communicate that way without others overhearing us) asking if he was the "train boss".
He struck up a conversation with this new passenger about his travels, but I wasn't really paying attention as I was watching a movie on my iPad, wearing noise cancelling headphones. After a little while I noticed they'd stopped chatting and the woman was now reading. The Bible, as it turned out. And not just any Bible, but one jacketed in silver faux leather. Yes, a newly revised NWT.
And then I noticed that the man behind to her was a Muslim and he was reading the Quran.
Jeezo.
After several minutes of Bible reading out comes the Watchtower, which she starts underlining...Talk about horrifying flashbacks. Via text messages I explained to my girlfriend what she was doing and why she was doing it, and about how the Watchtower "study" is a braindead exercise in making people...braindead.
A little while later I notice the bearded man strike up some chat with the Jehovah's Witness again, this time asking her about the JW doctrines. Of course, the trinity gets mentioned and the JW rolls out the standard "Reasoning From the Scriptures" retorts.
Their conversation continues for a long time while the bearded born again Christian refers to a little doctrinal pamphlet in his hand and the JW rolls out the stock WTBTS approved responses.
Each was witnessing to the other. Each was trying to convert the other.
Meanwhile the Muslim man sat quietly with his Quran and some prayer beads...
Meanwhile I was getting more and more pissed off.
Firstly, this was a Quiet Zone carriage. So they shoulda shut the fuck up. Secondly, hearing the born again Christian "conversion" process (he actually asked her quite loudly whether she accepted Christ was raised from the dead to forgive her sins, at which point my girlfriend and the woman sitting opposite us looked at each other with raised eyebrows) going toe-to-toe with the JW witnessing algorithms, was driving me bonkers as I have enough experience with both to see all the logical fallacies and special pleading and it was taking all of my self-control not to butt into the conversation (in the Quiet Zone) and verbal shoot their arguments down in flames.
And lastly, this is 2015 and people are still debating and arguing over the deeds of a very likely mythical rabbi called Jesus, making judgements, determining life decisions based on the pontifications of men who died hundreds of years ago, the men who decided the canon of scripture and who seemingly set in stone doctrines and orthodoxy that have been debated and fought over long after they lost any relevance to life in our 21st century world...
And all the while the Muslim kept his council and his spirituality to himself.
Y'know, when you buy a seat in the Quiet Zone, I really wish people would do just that - keep quiet.
Anyway, after a long time their conversation ended and our JW passenger turned to the back of her NWT and made sure she refreshed her doctrinal opinions with GB approved logic from the Appendix....
