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miriam_eNormally I am very optimistic about the human race. We are amazing creatures. Each generation is smarter than the last and we are becoming a more moral and peaceful species. And then something happens to make me wonder if we have any hope at all.
This morning I was visited by two nice old ladies who drove here to bring the word of the lord to me. They looked normal but by any rational standard they were completely insane -- utterly divorced from reality. They happily held completely contradictory concepts in mind simultaneously without any inkling that something was wrong. I swear they didn't hear a word I said, because of course I would have been an emissary of the devil sent to try their faith.
These complete whack-jobs believed that before the flood people lived to an age of 900 years, that all life in the universe was created just several thousand years ago and the fossils are a cunning lie by god to trick us, that the mythical flood was the result of incredible masses of water, being held up high in the air by magic, dropped at god's command. They believe in the absolute word of the bible and that it holds no errors. They believe that being gay is unnatural despite it being a feature of every species on the planet. That it is alright to enslave other people, that women should be the servants of men, that conducting campaigns of mass murder upon those who believe in a different god is okay, that witches (you should kill them) and ghosts exist, and that you should be good to your neighbor. Stark staring mad!
What is it with some humans and fairytales? The weirder, the crazier, the more harebrained the idea, the stronger the compulsion to believe in it. It makes me incredibly sad that such delusion persists and is so actively cultivated.
Absolute lunacy!
This morning I was visited by two nice old ladies who drove here to bring the word of the lord to me. They looked normal but by any rational standard they were completely insane -- utterly divorced from reality. They happily held completely contradictory concepts in mind simultaneously without any inkling that something was wrong. I swear they didn't hear a word I said, because of course I would have been an emissary of the devil sent to try their faith.
These complete whack-jobs believed that before the flood people lived to an age of 900 years, that all life in the universe was created just several thousand years ago and the fossils are a cunning lie by god to trick us, that the mythical flood was the result of incredible masses of water, being held up high in the air by magic, dropped at god's command. They believe in the absolute word of the bible and that it holds no errors. They believe that being gay is unnatural despite it being a feature of every species on the planet. That it is alright to enslave other people, that women should be the servants of men, that conducting campaigns of mass murder upon those who believe in a different god is okay, that witches (you should kill them) and ghosts exist, and that you should be good to your neighbor. Stark staring mad!
What is it with some humans and fairytales? The weirder, the crazier, the more harebrained the idea, the stronger the compulsion to believe in it. It makes me incredibly sad that such delusion persists and is so actively cultivated.
Absolute lunacy!
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Date: 2006-12-07 06:29 pm (UTC)They didn't actually use the word "tricked". But that is what it comes to. They believe god put the fossils there to screw with us. What they say is "He can do anything; he's god. How can we hope to know his plan?" But of course, then they say that they do know god's plan, and further, that he hates this and wants that. [shudder]
Thanks Jean. I don't get TV here though, so I wouldn't have any way to watch it. I used to watch a lot of TV documentaries when I lived in Melbourne and I have to agree with you. Some were brilliant.
Quite some time back (I'm not sure if it was a documentary or an article in one of the science journals) I learned about the Black Sea and its catastrophic past. Apparently back in the days of very early civilisation large numbers of people lived around the Black Sea, north of what is now Turkey. It would have been a wonderful place to live. The ground was fertile, the climate great, but back then the Black sea, which was really a big lake, wasn't connected to the Mediterranean, and it was a long way below sea level. Well, at some point thousands of years ago there was an earthquake (like they've been having recently in Turkey) and it opened up the connection between the two bodies of water. Whoosh! Flood.
Now, this definitely happened, and it was in the early days of civilisation. Whether it is the source of the flood myths is anybody's guess, but it seems a good bet to me.
In the early days of human history there were really not very many of us. It makes sense that a catastrophe that happened in some small corner of the planet that decimated what these days would be a fairly small settlement would seem to them as if it affected the whole world. And as those people migrated and spread over the planet they would carry their legends with them.
I often wonder if the Norse gods were originally Mum, Dad, Uncles and Aunts and a few friends in a village in prehistoric nordic country. The kids grew up, passed on stories of the exploits of their elders. The next generation passed them on to their kids, and so on. Each time with emphasis and embellishment, till they became tales of gods.
Thinking myself back into those days it seems pretty likely to me.