"Well, I don't know about the Sahara in particular. Deserts have their own ecologies, after all, that might well be upset by naive introduction of large amounts of water. But droughts do happen in non-desert areas."

"I think the Sahara in particular is undesirably expanding around the edges."

"I don't think I was aware of that. The edges of the Sahara can have imported rainstorms, then, if we can finagle it."

May grins. "You're going to do your version of the meaning set for invisibility soon, right?"

"Of course!"

"And then we compare them and it'll probably take hours and hours to get a diagram arranged but then, eeeeeeee." May rubs her hands together.

Kanimir's fingers curl with anticipation. "Ee indeed."

The curry is pretty demolished at this point. "They have mango ice cream," May recalls. "I'm not sure I have room."

"That's why I had a mango lassi with the meal. I should have warned you, I suppose."

"I wouldn't have had room for a lassi either. Oh well."

"Oh well. Worth it."

"Yeah. I love dal."

"Personally, I think a good lamb vindaloo is evidence for the existence of a benevolent deity."

May makes a face.

"I was joking. Sore topic?"

"Not exactly. I've just gotten into the habit of not immediately arguing with anyone who brings up religion but I don't have it down pat yet."

"I'm firmly agnostic. I'm unlikely to be offended."

"Aha. Well. Anything reasonably described as a deity is either not particularly benevolent or it had better be stretched really thin holding the laws of physics together and not have a speck of attention to spare for lamb vindaloo. My life is quite nice, but there are many inexcusable failures of adequacy in the world in general. I have heard that there are critter-like things which do not work like normal critters and are called respectively angels and demons, so I'm not sure I can categorically assume that the role of 'deity' is empty, but I remain as sure as ever that theodicy doesn't resolve in its favor somehow."

"I go to church," he mentions, "because I like the aesthetic and regardless of the presence or absence of a deity Jesus's moral teachings make a lot of sense. Jesus's, specifically, not those mentioned elsewhere in the Bible," he clarifies. "But I'm not attached to the idea of God. Historical evidence suggests that Yeshua ben Jusuf was a real person, and he was neat, but" he shrugs. "I suppose it would be inaccurate to say that I don't care at all if God exists. Even if they were otherwise utterly morally myopic the presence of an afterlife is better than not. But I don't know and I'm not going to make decisions based on the assumption that they are and what you're saying makes sense. I don't know if I absolutely agree with it--if God exists anything could, maybe this is all a pocket in a greater reality set, maybe God-if-they-exist is hampered by a set of rules higher than them--I don't know. The only thing I know for sure is that I don't know. I won't make jokes like that, if it bothers you," he adds.

"I haven't actually read the Bible but I have spent enough time interacting with the sort of sandpaper-personality atheists who do to be tempted to repeat choice Jesus quotes," May remarks. "The jokes about the divinity of lamb vindaloo don't bother me in and of themselves, but my flinch reaction when I hear things like that is, 'is this one of those oddly common people who thinks it's morally obligatory for finite wrongdoing to be punished by infinite torture', or 'do I need to not mention being bisexual this afternoon', etcetera. In the absence of reason to think that from you I will not have this reaction to jokes like that from you."

"Oh, god no," he says. "...Pun not intended. I am very, very sorry if I have that impression at all."

"I didn't really think it, I just wondered for long enough to twitch."

"That's fair. It's unfortunate that society is set up such that it's such a reasonable thing to guess."

"I'm not even sure that's a problem with societal setup. It's not like I'm politically opposed to religious freedom."

"It's unfortunate that our culture as it currently exists consists of so many and vocal of the worst examples of Christianity and other religions. I intended to exhibit dissatisfaction with peoples' life choices, not advocate a policy change."