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.

God week continued: Margaret Somerville wises up on polygamy

Margaret Somerville, the Vatican's permanent representative at McGill University in Montreal has published a piece titled 'If same-sex marriage, why not polygamy?' in today's Globe and Mail. She issues another dark warning that gay marriage (which as a Vatican emissary she doesn't like much) would lead to even worse stuff like polygamy. It's a truckload of bollocks, really, but it's fun to read, mostly because it is so badly argued that one wonders whether the newspaper just wants to get angry responses tearing her argument apart.

Anyway, keeping with the spirit of trying to entertain during the weekend, I wrote this tongue-in-cheek letter to the editor of that paper.

'Sir,

I read with great interest Professor Margaret Somerville's incisive
analysis on the vexing issue of gay marriage and polygamy (Sat Globe
'If same-sex marriage, why not polygamy?'). I am always amazed how
Professor Somerville manages to write brilliant treatises on ethical
issues, given her near-lack of professional training in the area. Not
only that, in a world of overpopulation, the destruction of the
environment, genocides and mass murder, she routinely addresses
ethical issues that really matter, such as polygamy.

Her analysis cannot be faulted. She realises that there is no need to
provide reasons in support of her basic premise. We all know, deep
deep in our souls, that the only and the true reason for why people
should get married is in order to breed. It's all nice and well that
those homosexuals go on about loving each other, but surely it is
self-evident that love is neither necessary nor sufficient for
marriage. It takes true intellectual leadership, such as that
displayed by Professor Somerville, to drive such obvious points home
to our by and large ignorant populace.

As a great admirer of Professor Somerville's leadership in a field
that in many, tragic ways ignores her, allow me to draw a few further
conclusions that seem to follow from her path-braking analysis. It
seems to me as if we need urgent legislation designed to dissolve all
marriages that have not been reproductively successful within a
certain period of time. It would make much more sense to enter
reproductive losers back into the pool of potential breeding partners
and let them marry again. So, may I suggest that, as a first step, we
agree on a time-limit on marriages. If there's no off-spring within,
say, a year, we issue a first warning, second and third warnings could
follow within a few months. If no pregnancy ensues there must be
compulsory divorces. There is no other way. We should not get swayed
by some overly romantic nonsense such as the couple's professed love
for each other. No breeding, no marriage. End of story. Furthermore,
we urgently need to introduce pre-wedding fertility tests. After all,
if they can't breed, they can't breed, they can't marry. Of course, we
must be very careful with folks trying to cheat the system by means of
artificial reproduction, surrogacy or (horror of horrors) adoption.
Just because there are a few million orphans on this planet doesn't
mean we should allow non-breeders to get away with such betrayal of
the primary function of marriage.

Prof Schuklenk is author of 'How He Did it in Seven Days', 'Why
Non-Breeders are Losers' and other essays, Flat Earth Press: Roma.'