"Hey, bud," the policeman calls to you, "what's the matter with you?"
"Nothing—nothing at all, officer," you tell him, and dive into the next church you pass.
This one is called the Church of the New Cosmology. Inside, a round-faced little man is talking to a few listless people.
"A geologist will never know the rocks until he has seen the Rock of Ages. The botanist will never know plants until he has beheld the Lily of the Valley, the cosmologist will never know the universe until he has listened to the Word of God!
"Let us consider for a moment the sun. What do we know about the sun, my friends? What do the so-called scientists know about it? What do they tell us about our heavenly light? They say it's a giant ball of fire millions of miles across and ninety-one million miles away. Now why, I ask you, would that be so? The Bible says that God made the sun to light the world. Now have you ever known the Lord to do anything silly or foolish? Of course you haven't! Then why do they ask us to believe that He would put the sun, which is supposed to light the world, ninety-one million miles away from it? An engineer who did something like that wouldn't be much of a God. The true answer, my friends, is that Jehovah God did nothing so impractical and no matter who tells you different, don't believe it!"
The little man's voice dropped to a husky whisper. "I have studied my Bible and I've listened to the scientists and I've talked to God Himself about it and I tell you this is the truth. The sun is our heavenly light, the sure sign of God's love, and right this minute it is just two thousand three hundred miles from Los Angeles! It is not a wasteful million miles across, it is just forty-five and five-tenths miles across ... just the right size to give us our beautiful California sunshine.
"How do I know?" The whisper had grown to a hoarse shout. "How do I know? I know because it's the Word of God, my friends! The personal word of God given to me by God Himself.
"What else do I know? What else has God told me, to confound the Godless scientists? Why, my friends, the Bible says that this earth upon which we live is flat—as flat as this book!" He brings his hand down with a sharp slap on the Bible. "You ask then how is it possible to circumnavigate the world when it is a flat plane. The answer is that it isn't possible. A ship that seems to go around the world really makes a circle on the flat surface like this." With a stubby forefinger he draws a circle on the book. "Now I know that those scientists up on the moon say that the world is round, but whoever saw or heard of a scientist that wasn't a liar? Can any of you really bring yourselves to believe that this flat earth of ours is traveling through space at the tremendous speed that they say it is? Tell me, do you feel any wind from this great speed? Do you feel anything at all?"
No, you have to admit, you don't. You don't feel a thing. Even his own congregation doesn't seem to.
This is thirsty work. You have a couple more drinks and then you look for another church. You find one called the Church of Christian Capitalism.