As I walked towards the kitchen, I saw a man standing in front of my gate.
Almost wanted to say an [name of race] man but I just realised that, and I am beginning to refuse to identify people by race.
Anyways.
He carried with him a sling-type notebook bag, and was dressed in a collared long-sleeve white tee, holding a green-coloured leaflet with one of his hands.
The conversation goes roughly as follows:
Man at gate:
“Hello, can I have a few minutes of your time, sir?”
Me:
“Sure. What is it about?”
Man at gate:
“Can you please answer this questionnaire? It’s ‘Do you think the world will end…’”
Somewhat bewildered, and cautious, I immediately asked:
“Who is doing this questionnaire?”
Was it the BBC? Was it the WHO? Maybe some university-led study. Or maybe a polling agency wanting to know what the general opinion was; what with the amount of nonsense that is being spewed by the 2012 absurdity -the title of the movie notwithstanding. As these exciting thoughts raced through the neurons of the grey mass in my head, he answered:
“It is meant to be something for you to read”
Me:
“Who is it from?”
Man at gate:
“It is from a group sir.”
Me:
“What group?”
Man at gate:
“It is a Bible studies group tha…”
I cut his sentence short when halfway through, I shook my head and hands in a blatantly violent way, and started walking towards the kitchen again.
I’m pretty sure he clearly heard me yelling “We’re atheists” as I made my way to the kitchen.
I’m not too sure though, why I said “we”; it is only a matter of time before my dad joins the church, what with sickos like these.
And that he already believes an omnipresent, omnipotent being is sitting up there (where is up now that the world isn’t flat and that the atmosphere is of a finite height?) wielding all the powers in the universe[s] but still insists on punishing people for the little and large actions that he/she/it deems as a ‘sin’.
This is not entirely unlike an expert programmer having finished his magnum opus AI-enabled ‘child’, and punishing him/her/it to burn in hell for eternity, simply for making mistakes; mistakes that it was bound to make since it was entirely a programming fault by the said programmer.
It is almost impossible to appreciate the sheer elegant genius inherent in Darwin’s theory; a theory that explains not how things go down the ladder (as in the god-humanity a.k.a. master-slave relationship) but up.
You see, religionists and intelligent-creationists talk about how we/all other beings/animals are created by a higher-up intelligence ‘up there’. What they fail to realise is how this is just an intermediate postponement of the inevitable question: who created the creator?
An unending paradox that will never be solved, it is a question for which religionist have no need to care for. No, for theirs is a solution and an answer not for the minds who think along rational lines, and certainly not for minds for which reason still bears meaning.
I cite ‘all encompassing god was always/is/will always [be] there’ as example and digress.
But for the rest of us not so little folk who question, Darwin answers that question in ways no one else ever can.
Through the hundreds and thousands and millions of years, life goes up the ladder slowly, but surely. It takes time to grasp fully the idea, and to realise and understand how fundamentally important it is, and how mistakenly simple (and thus elegant) the solution sounds.
I wonder why that man at my gate had to be so reluctant at revealing his religious agenda. What a sneaky little bastard.
But then again, how else will religionists recruit people if it wasn’t by the projection of fear? Fear as you lie on your death bed in hospital. Fear as your entire career collapses before you. Fear as your loved one leaves you. Fear as you lose your way to the crises of your lives. Fear when you are thrown off balance by the mayhem of the world.
Fear, as you lose the last remnants of your sanity.
Fear as to how the world will end in twenty four months’ time, and that you’re going to hell for ‘eternity’ to burn till every last drop of matter in your body is no more, but still it will burn some more.
