I was with some close work-mates at a place to interview folks for a technical position we're hiring for. Almost all of them were from China and India and I was annoyed and grumbling when we left to go get coffee and take a break. There was a guy there handing out literature with a sign that says "Darwin was a liar".

Being in already a pissy mood I took his literature. It was the same ID nonsense that has been discredited a million times but yet is still perpetuated by fanatics that refuse to hear or accept anything other than what they believe.

He asked me "Are you familiar with this?"

I said "Yes, I am, very much so." He thought he had a believer and started to talk to me.

"Okay, I'll talk with you but I need to ask you. Do you actually care what I think?"

"Oh yes, of course I do!"

"Okay, then I need a promise, you will listen to me and not interrupt me."

He promised and so I began.

"This," I held up the paper, "denies the Grandeur of God."

His face turned to what? I think he had begun to suspect he had someone that was going to argue evolution to him and he was prepared with this litany of nonsense. But instead he just said "no, it extolls it."

"Nope, it denies it. What it says it says is that man can know and understand God's Magnificence."

His face was blank. What I hadn't noticed, and what my work-friends (guys I have known for more than 15 years, one for 25) is that I now had an audience.

"This paper says that mankind can understand God's Mysterious Works and how God developed the Universe."

"No," he said. "It says that scientists cannot understand how God works. Evolution says they are better than God."

"You promised to listen to me," I said. "I'm not talking about evolution or what you believe scientists think. I'm talking about this (I held up the paper)."

He shut up. I know he did because he thought I was a fellow believer. But he let me go on.

"When you say the Earth is 6,000 years old you are saying that you know how God did it. This is one of the most egregious insults to God I have ever heard. It is basically saying that God is a technician and you can understand his work. You can understand how people, inspired by God thousands of years ago to write the Bible, fully understood what God was trying to tell them. That they had the ability to know God, to know God's thoughts, desires and wishes."

"No," he said. "It follows the trail God left us in the Bible."

"Nope," I said. The trail you think you are following is one man created. God already gave us the tools to explore and study His Handiwork. We cannot understand His reasons but we can study what he did."

"Yes," he was excited "That's what this does."

"No, it doesn't. It says 'this is how God did it'. I'll tell you, there was the void, there was nothing," his face changed he thought I was about to go into scripture "and God reached out a finger and touched the void and from that touch erupted all of Creation. The Universe and all the worlds in it. From that point God created everything, the heavens, the earth, the animals, and man."

"Yes," he said, "in His image."

"This paper says you know how God did it. That says you are on an equal plane with God."

"It doesn't say that." He was getting pissed.

"Of course it does." I grabbed a few lines (I don't actually have it anymore as I tossed it.. but I should have kept it, but it talked about the ear, the eye, and the perfect alignment of the world and how it's just for us.

We went on like this for a few minutes, basically going over his little paper until he finally acquiesced and said "okay, yeah, this paper can come across that way but it's not what the message means."

"Of course it does," I said. "It denies God's Handiwork. It denies how God really created us and the universe and instead takes a bunch of crap people made up and said here, this is how God did it.

"No, you don't understand."

"Actually, I do. You are the one that has been misled. Didn't Matthew say " whoever receives a child in My name receives Me; but whoever causes a child who believe in Me to stumble should have a millstone hung around his neck and drowned?

He pulled out his Bible, looked it up and read the quote. And, okay, I wasn't verbatim of his translation, but I said "see, you my friend have been led astray. You see, God works in Mysterious ways. God's Grandeur and His Handiwork know no bounds.

"God created everything yes?" I said. He nodded. "Well God created Chemistry, Physics, Electronics," I looked for acknowledgment. He wasn't sure. "That cell phone on your hip, it's because of God yes?" He said yes of course. "Well, chemistry, electronics, physics, all made the cell phone. Astronomy, Physiology, Geology, all from God. These are the tools God used to craft the world. God gave us the ability to learn and study and make use of His Gifts, did he not?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"The car, the cellphone, the computer, all use physics, electronics, chemistry, mechanics, are you saying none of these come from God?"

"No, of course not. But I don't see what you're getting at."

"How can you not see it?" I waved my hands all around. "God gave man the gift of Free Will and Intelligence did He not? God created the sciences so that man could create cities, and medicine, and advanced Agriculture techniques so that the planet could hold more in His Name. This too, Evolution. That was how God created man. God doesn't care about human time, to think God does is insulting to God. Trillions of years to us is nothing to God. "

"I didn't come from a monkey, that's a lie."

"Could God come down and make a monkey into a person if He so desired?"

"That's stupid. God wouldn't do that."

"Are you saying God's Power is stupid?"

"What? No?!?"

"Well, that's good. First, God already told us people did not come from monkeys. You know how? Evolution. Evolution was created by God. The science of Evolution never said people came from Monkeys."

My friends were trying to pull me away.

"Okay, here, think on this," I said. "God created everything. That means God created the science you abhor. Those were the tools that God created and then used to craft His universe. Why would you then deny them?"

We went back into the building and I sat through more asinine interviews. The guys started ribbing me about being a street preacher and I was the butt of many a good joke.

Then on our way out the guy came up to me. He asked me flat out "Are you a pastor?"

I smiled at him. "I am of a sorts, yes," I said.

"You got me thinking. Can I ask you some questions?"

So he and I had a chat right then and there. He really did think about what I said. He found it really easy to accept that God created all the sciences and that we could study "how" He did things, but could never see 'behind the veil" to know the Why. And that, I emphasized to him, was "God's Gift" to us. That we could see how He worked and understand His Gift. We could deny it or accept it, but it was Our choice.

While we were talking a few more people came up to me and said I made sense and the more they thought about it the more it made the marriage of their belief in God and science fit better. They had issues and the way I explained it all made perfect sense. They thanked me!

TL;DR -- I apparently started preaching in the street and convinced a fundie young earther that God created all the sciences so he could use them as tools to create the Universe; even evolution. And, yes, I am an atheist.