Sunday, September 16, 2007

God business


Well, well, well ... weekend again. And so, on the usual not so serious note, let'sreturn to God business again. No stories today of the Christian variety of God popping in to create this wonderfully perfect planet with its wonderfully perfect Homo sapiens sapiens at the top of the food chain (are the believers really suggesting that we are the best our perfect creator was able to come up with? c'mon, you just got to be kiddin...)

So, without further ado then, and also to show that flat-eartherism isn't entirely the exclusive domain of creationists in the US educational establishment, here's a fun story from India.

India's culture minister offers to resign over a row re the question of whether the Hindu Gods are a mythical figures or whether they really existed. According to a report, 'Hindu devotees believe the area between India and Sri Lanka - now known as Adam's Bridge - was built millions of years ago by Lord Ram, supported by an army of monkeys.' Yep, Adam's bridge was built by Load Ram and his architecturally minded chimps. Well, the country's Archeological Survey determined that the edifice actually came about as a natural formation of sand and stone.

It goes without saying, much like many enlightened Muslims when given half a chance, Hindus started burning tyres, and blocked highways to make their point, namely that the scientists committed blasphemy and that the chimps and their Lordship really did it.

Now, you tell me, blasphemy... that's begging the question, because in order for us to commit blasphemous acts against any given deity, surely there must be proof of its existence, right? So, in the absence of that proof blasphemy may or may not have been committed, but almost certainly we cannot know for sure. Kinda cool though that the believers, always keen to see their relished fantasies 'respected' by agnostics like myself, think that the coolest way to establish the truth or otherwise of the matter at hand is to block highways and demonstrate in the streets.

In other God news, the religious leader of a sect supporting polygamy is on trial for having faciliated the marriage of an underage girl to an older man (funny, I have not yet come across a case where a really old woman would have been forced upon a teenage boy, but hey, such is the hard life of being a guy in polygamous religious outfits). Goes without saying that this is all in the name of the ever-elusive God of their's.

In Canada the leader of the Conservative party, the aptly named Mr Tory wants to spend more public funds on private religious schools, to the detriment of public school funding. So that we get more folks in this country burning tyres on highways in case sciences comes in the way of their religious beliefs.

Njoy the rest of your weekend.

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