Religion is all bunk.

Host:
The night was thick with fog and the smell of old iron. Inside a dim warehouse, forgotten by time, the light of a single bulb swung gently above a table cluttered with wires, books, and half-built machines. The air crackled faintly with the hum of old electricity, as though the ghost of Edison himself lingered there, still tinkering.

Jack leaned against the metal wall, a half-empty bottle of whiskey beside him, his grey eyes sharp but tired, reflecting the bulb’s glow like tarnished steel. Across from him, Jeeny sat on a wooden crate, her hands clasped in her lap, her hair falling in soft waves, her eyes burning with quiet conviction.

Outside, rain tapped softly against the windows, a rhythm that seemed to echo the tension in the room.

Jack: “‘Religion is all bunk,’” he read aloud, his voice dry, deliberate. “Thomas Edison said that — the man who lit the world. Guess he didn’t have much use for lighting the soul.”

Host:
The bulb flickered once, then steadied, as if it had heard the name of its creator and refused to falter.

Jeeny: “Maybe he just didn’t find the right kind of light,” she said softly. “Edison looked for truth in circuits. I look for it in silence.”

Jack: “Silence,” he scoffed, taking a drink. “Silence doesn’t tell you anything. At least Edison’s light worked. Yours just asks for faith — and gives you nothing back.”

Jeeny: “You think faith gives nothing back?”

Jack: “It gives comfort,” he replied. “False comfort. Religion is the world’s oldest business model — selling salvation to the scared. Edison was right: it’s bunk. A beautiful lie to make death less terrifying.”

Host:
His voice rang harshly against the walls, bouncing off the cold metal. Jeeny didn’t flinch. She looked at him the way the sea looks at a storm — patient, knowing it will pass.

Jeeny: “Maybe religion is a lie. Maybe it’s also a language. One humanity invented to speak to what it can’t understand.”

Jack: “A language built on fear.”

Jeeny: “Or on longing. You think people pray because they’re afraid? No. They pray because they hope. That’s what separates them from machines.”

Host:
The light bulb swayed gently again, casting shadows across the floor like broken thoughts. The rain outside had grown heavier — a steady drumming, like the heartbeat of a world still asking questions.

Jack: “Hope doesn’t make something true. People hope for a lot of things — love, justice, heaven — but the universe doesn’t care. Edison understood that. The only thing that works is what you can build with your own hands.”

Jeeny: “He built machines,” she said, “but he didn’t build meaning.”

Jack: “Meaning doesn’t need building. It’s what’s left when you stop pretending.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. That’s survival, not meaning. Machines survive. Humans seek.”

Host:
The room went still again. The bulb buzzed faintly. Jack looked away, exhaling a long breath of smoke. There was a flicker of something fragile in his expression, a hesitation that betrayed his cynicism.

Jack: “You sound like every preacher I’ve ever ignored.”

Jeeny: “And you sound like every man who mistook bitterness for wisdom.”

Host:
The words cut — not cruelly, but precisely. The silence afterward was heavier than the rain, thick enough to taste.

Jack: “So what do you believe in, then? A god in the clouds? Angels counting our sins?”

Jeeny: “No,” she said. “I believe in something bigger than myself — not because I can prove it, but because I feel it.”

Jack: “Feelings are chemicals.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the divine is, too.”

Host:
The light bulb pulsed faintly, a heartbeat in the dark. For a moment, their faces were framed in the same faint glow, two worlds colliding in quiet contrast — the skeptic and the believer, both reaching for something neither could name.

Jack: “You really think faith can coexist with logic?”

Jeeny: “I think faith begins where logic ends. Not against it — beyond it.”

Jack: “That’s just poetic nonsense.”

Jeeny: “No, that’s the line between invention and inspiration. Edison built the bulb. But something told him light could exist before it did. What do you call that, Jack?”

Jack: “Curiosity.”

Jeeny: “And what if curiosity is just faith wearing another face?”

Host:
He paused, eyes narrowing slightly — not in mockery, but in thought. The rain slowed outside, turning into a fine mist that whispered against the windowpane. The light above flickered again, a soft pulse like breathing.

Jack: “So you’re saying even Edison was a man of faith?”

Jeeny: “In his own way, yes. He believed the impossible could be made real. That’s faith, Jack. Just stripped of ritual.”

Jack: “And religion adds the ritual?”

Jeeny: “Religion gives the soul something to hold while it learns how to believe.”

Jack: “Or something to chain it.”

Jeeny: “Chains can also be anchors. Depends on whether you’re sinking or searching.”

Host:
The wind pushed against the windows, and the flame of the single candle on the table trembled but did not die.

Jack: “So you don’t mind the hypocrisy? The wars? The people who use God as a weapon?”

Jeeny: “I mind them deeply. But I blame people, not faith. A hammer builds or destroys depending on whose hand it’s in.”

Jack: “And yet, the hammer was made to strike.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But it was also made to create.”

Host:
Her voice had grown quieter, steadier — the kind of quiet that carries more power than shouting. Jack looked down at his hands, calloused, scarred, strong — hands that had built, broken, built again.

Jack: “So maybe you’re saying Edison wasn’t wrong. Religion is bunk — but the yearning behind it isn’t.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Strip away the superstition, and what’s left is the human ache to connect — to understand what can’t be wired or measured.”

Jack: “Connection, huh?” He stared at the light bulb, its faint glow steady now. “Funny. The same electricity that powers this room is invisible, untouchable — but we trust it’s there.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the closest proof of faith you’ll ever get.”

Host:
A slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, the first in a long while. The rain outside had stopped. The world beyond the warehouse was quiet again, washed clean by its own tears.

Jack: “So maybe religion isn’t the problem,” he murmured. “Maybe it’s the translation.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. We keep arguing over words while missing the light itself.”

Host:
The camera panned out slowly. The two figures sat in the halo of the single bulb, surrounded by the remnants of invention and dreams — tangled wires, open books, pieces of what was and what could be.

The light hummed softly, steady now — a fragile, man-made sun burning against the night.

And as their shadows stretched across the floor, indistinguishable from one another, the truth hung in the air — bright, quiet, eternal:

That even those who deny the divine may still, in their own way, reach for it.