Why would I go on a game show with a lose-lose premise?

What a crazy idea for a game show: a Turkish program is looking for 10 atheists to compete for the chance to be converted. What next, a show with healthy contestants competing for the chance to be infected with a disease, and the winner gets a long hospital stay?

The game show producers give their bias away when they announce "We don't approve of anyone being an atheist". They're also planning to have a team of theologians to screen out religious people pretending to be godless so they can get a free trip to the holy site of their choice.

Well, I'm not a fake atheist, but I'm wondering what they're offering to people like me. We go on the program, we get non-stop harangues from crazy imams, priests, rabbis, and monks, and if we don't fall for their foolishness, we lose? I'd be tempted to just say "yes!" to the rabbi to really piss off the Muslim hosts, get a trip to Jerusalem, and then annoy the rabbi when I tell him I lied. Or would the theologians also have to confer to determine that your conversion was sincere?

More like this

I forgot to mention this from last night's dinner conversation. Don told a joke, actually an old Jewish proverb, that is absolutely hilarious. Here it is:
This is not going to be an "all debate, all the time" blog, but readers have sent me a few accounts of recent skirmishes, so I'll toss 'em up here. This one is a description of a debate between the ferocious Mr Hitchens and that smooshy gooey feel-good rabbi, Shmuley Boteach.
Only religion seems to have the power to give deranged nutbags credibility and influence in government.
Many have been the times that I've pointed out that many forms of "alternative" medicine are in reality based far more on mystical, religious, or "spiritual" beliefs than on any science.