Monday 28 July 2008

Now and again I get e-mails or messages from well-meaning people trying to convert me to the path of righteousness.
‘Who created you?’ they ask. ‘Who created the Earth and the Mountains?’
To be honest I get very tired of explaining the theory of evolution and that mountains, although majestic and beautiful, are just the random products of geophysical movements and erosion. In fact, doesn’t that make them all the more beautiful, because they were randomly generated, rather than designed?
What are people taught in schools? It concerns me greatly that there are so many people that will not venture out of their comfort zone to even entertain the possibility that they may be wrong.
‘Ahh!’ these people say, ‘but then you can not admit you may be wrong.’
‘You are mistaken,’ I reply. ‘I quite accept the possibility that I may be wrong. The difference between us is that I have studied the evidence on both sides, and you will not even bring yourself to read some of the evidence that may change your mind.’
Absolute belief is a horrible dark thing. It traps the mind in a narrow canyon where alternative beliefs are high out of reach.
All I want is for people everywhere to be able to at least question what they are taught. I have been told many times that ‘in my religion’, and this is no specific religion, ‘we are taught that we should never question, just believe.’
There is something chillingly totalitarian about that, and I will respect no system that denies knowledge to its citizens.
I’ve come over all serious I know, but now and again I get an ache from banging my head against a wall of ignorance.
To cheer myself up, I watched ‘Days of Our Lives’. For the last couple of weeks, Philip Wet-Lettuce has been trying to get rid of a videotape made when Philip, foot-stampingly vexed with his opera-singing girlfriend Chloe, went off to spend the evening with Cynthia. Quite honestly, Cynthia and Philip deserve each other since they bring a whole new dimension to the word ‘dull’.
The tape ended up (for complex reasons we needn’t dwell on) in Belle’s VCR and Belle watched horrified as Cynthia whipped off her brassiere behind a strategically placed cheeseplant before launching herself onto a topless Philip.
It was only a matter of time before Chloe turned up. Belle is one of those people who blurt out secrets like bubblegum vomit, unwillingly, and in huge bubble portions.
‘Please don’t watch the tape!’ she screamed, apropos of nothing, in the middle of a conversation about legwarmers.
Thus, Chloe found the tape, watched it, no doubt wishing she’d had some bubblegum so she could vomit properly, before galloping off to the Dot Com cafe and slapping Philip’s bony cheeks really hard.
That must have hurt. Those cheekbones look sharp.
John Black’s eyebrows continue to scheme, independently of the rest of his face. No good will come of this.