Come on! What about THIS KING? |
It happened last week. It was an otherwise completely normal morning, except for one exceptional detail: All religion ceased to exist in every part of the planet.
And it was as beautiful as you'd imagine: The birds where singing(except for those birds that whern't.) the sun was shining(except those places on the other side of the planet) and life carried on(except where it wasn't able to).
No longer did Crescent Moons, Crosses, or Pentagons represent any belief at all. No one said "Oh my God" anymore, as no one knew what that meant, but they yelled "Oh my Gosh"! which they didn't really know what meant either.
And the preachers, the pastors, the orishas...they where gone! No one was going to mislead people into any religious ideology.
It was Sunday, I think. Feeling this brave new world, I turned on the news. It seems the religious conflict between Muslims and Jews in Palestine was over. It apparently was now a straightforward "We want all the good land, you take the shit land" conflict. No longer driven by any sense that the divine was leading them to claim land for themselves, they banked on years of respective recrimination and ethno-social differences to continue their endless struggle for the most resources. But at least is wasn't a religious battle anymore.
I put on the channel where my favorite televangelist used to be on, only to find Jenny McCarthy in a big podium, yelling about how vaccines caused every disease under the sun. The crowd watched intently as McCarthy yelled and condemned and welcomed and scorned. She was clearly a very charismatic woman, despite having the IQ and the medical knowledge of a Playboy Model. Good to see her using it on things that aren't Religious. She clearly had a following.
She Blinded me with (pseudo)science! |
When I changed it, I beheld a well dressed man who was telling a crowd that America had destroyed it's own economy in a devastating attack on itself to start war on several middle eastern countries. He had a pretty big following, too. Which is pretty amazing, for a guy whose theories are that things that aren't supposed to happen happening means the U.S. government is involved somehow.
But oh, the sciences! Without religion around anymore, nobody was able to stop wondrous scientific achievements. I mean, aside from petty bickering between scientists. And lack of funding. And competition. And...you know, the stuff that stops science today. That isn't religion.
And people loved, yet they also still hated. And people cried, yet where also known to laugh. And people where people, and corporations where people, too. Aren't human rights wonderful with religion out of the picture?
And I realized this new world was much different than mine. The names where different. The Statue of Liberty was no longer based on "Libertas". And everyone acknowledged how awesome the Ancient Greeks where for being gay, and not just for subjugating most of the known world to a xenophobic regime in which only Greek Men had rights. I mean, gayness makes imperialism and slavery ok.
Aww, I can't stay mad at you for subjugating us, you saucy Greek Queen, you! |
I get the appeal of a world like this, where changing one detail makes everything better, regardless of where everything came from. I used to have that, but of religion. I guess that's over now. I guess I can want anything to make the world better. Marijuana? Karate? Breast Augmentations? Dinosaucers? Hey, and even if claiming the world will be better if everyone watches Dinosaucers is pretty much ridiculously optimistic at best an outright fabrication at worst, at least I'll get more people to watch Dinosaucers with me. More people doing what I do and believing what I believe is good. For me.
It was a bold new world, so I wondered what I should do now for a while. Then I figured it out.
I'll do what I planned to do from yesterday.
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