In an article in The Wall Street Journal, James Mann talks about how President Ronald Reagan once tried to convince Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that there was a God. Gorbachev was an atheist (though he had been baptized as a child). It’s an excerpt from Mann’s new book The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War.
It seems Reagan used the type of poor logic that only Ray Comfort could appreciate:
… Reagan then ventured further, taking a step that quite a few Americans would have found objectionable. The president switched from seeking to persuade Gorbachev of the value of religious tolerance to promoting a belief in God
…
As the meeting ended, Reagan became even more direct and personal. He noted that his own son Ron did not believe in God either. “The President concluded that there was one thing he had long yearned to do for his atheist son. He wanted to serve his son the perfect gourmet dinner, to have him enjoy the meal, and then to ask him if he believed there was a cook.”
Of the two American notetakers who were present for this extraordinary conversation, one took Reagan’s effort at face value. “Reagan thought he could convert Gorbachev, or make him see the light,” said Rudolf Perina, who was then the director of Soviet affairs on the National Security Council in a 2005 interview.
Right… and if a banana exists, there must have been a bananamaker…