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God Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope

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Wednesday, 23 November 2005

There may be hope for Kansas after all. Reader Stephanie, she of the mighty herds of roaming muntjac, alerts us to a new course being taught at KU, "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies."

Two points: one, I'm not denying the existence of a creator. If there is one, however, I strongly suspect it's not a deity of infinite wisdom. More like a sophomore deity, doing a summer project to make up a failing grade on his last universe, which fell over and collapsed into a black hole while it was still on the lab table, and right in front of that cute female deity he was really hoping to score with, the one who still giggles every time she sees him.

Seriously. I mean, look around. Tell me that's not what we're stuck in.

I prefer this version anyway. It's easier to cut the guy some slack. Speaking of which, everybody's always going on about asking some god's forgiveness. What if he's the one who owes the apology? Look how many of us are born -- born, mind you, just randomly screwed -- sick, hungry, and in the middle of holy wars that kill lots of us off in the name of some misshapen perception of godliness, largely the result of being stuck with tiny little primate brains barely capable of reason, which, incidentally, we did not even ask for, much less create. And we're the ones begging forgiveness?

Frankly, I think whoever put us here is probably peering down with the same sinking pit in his stomach that you had when you were a kid and realized you'd overfed the goldfish. Oops. Sorry, little guys. And now he's just hoping the teacher shows up to grade him before we finally manage to destroy the entire planet, forcing him to retake the entire semester. Wait until that hot little female deity hears about that.

Secondly, I will be disappointed if the KU course doesn't include FSMism. Let's hope they are touched by the Noodly Appendage and act in Its wisdom.