The way this book came about was as part of a sibling rivalry that went all the way back
to early childhood. As the oldest brother in the family, I found myself always trying to
dominate Steve, the youngest of the three of us. We argued constantly over almost
anything and must have driven our mother crazy at times.
Even after we had moved out and each of us had married and started our own families,
we still enjoyed weekly phone conversations which often ended in an argument, usually
involving theology. You see, Steve had become a born again Christian by this time, while
I had always preferred the Eastern traditions. These verbal arguments went on for over
thirty years until about two years ago when the idea arose that we should put the debate
in print and maybe even develop a book of sorts. I wanted something with lots of pictures
and a minimum of words.
Steve’s son, Simeon, suggested the format that we finally agreed upon. Simeon would act
as moderator and ask each of us a question which we would answer without seeing the
other’s response. After the first answer, we would then each respond to the other’s answer
and continue the discussion back and forth until an endpoint was reached. The idea was
to let the reader decide who was winning the debate. The original idea was that after the
first question was resolved, Simeon would then ask another and we would debate that
one. But as it turned out, we never got past the first question: What is?
Our answers are presented here for your reading enjoyment.
