I actually had a similar experience on a flight from London to LA a couple of weeks ago.
Was dreading speaking to a man next to me who was reading through some self-help guide for Christians and underlining and circling words and phrases on every page.
I have no problem with religions (though I myself am an atheist), but I really can't stand the type of religious person who insists on never shutting up about that topic (in my experience, normally born again Christians.)
After an hour or so of the eleven hour flight we did start talking, and not once did he mention religion in any way for the next ten hours. Instead we just talked about our lives. Turns out that, after joining a gang, dealing drugs from 13, and going to jail three times before he was 20, he then discovered God, and now spends time helping disadvantaged children, at home in California and in third world countries, and none of his work involves trying to convert the children to believe in God.
It was really nice being reminded that finding religion can turn a person's life around, and make him a better person (yes, my general view is biased heavily against religion.)
No, he didn't. I only discovered that he became a Christian at that time in his life a few days later - we had swapped twitter usernames, and from that I found a few sites of his (personal page, facebook, myspace...)
Reading about him online and the book he had on the plane were the only things I had connecting him to religion.
Was dreading speaking to a man next to me who was reading through some self-help guide for Christians and underlining and circling words and phrases on every page.
I have no problem with religions (though I myself am an atheist), but I really can't stand the type of religious person who insists on never shutting up about that topic (in my experience, normally born again Christians.)
After an hour or so of the eleven hour flight we did start talking, and not once did he mention religion in any way for the next ten hours. Instead we just talked about our lives. Turns out that, after joining a gang, dealing drugs from 13, and going to jail three times before he was 20, he then discovered God, and now spends time helping disadvantaged children, at home in California and in third world countries, and none of his work involves trying to convert the children to believe in God.
It was really nice being reminded that finding religion can turn a person's life around, and make him a better person (yes, my general view is biased heavily against religion.)