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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: 2006-12-09 09:11 am (UTC)http://www.gutenberg.org
Because my copy is in raw text form it is very easy to load and search in my favorite text editor TextPad which has regular expression capability (http://www.textpad.com -- a truly brilliant program!)
I divided mine in 2 parts (old and new testament) and added contents lists at the beginning to make them easier to use. I can upload my copies to my website if you want them. They're about 3MB and 1MB.