OK, THIS is very impressive. It is not, unfortunately, quite unique, but still, it's impressive. Apparently, we have powers previously unknown and undreamed of by mankind. All we need to do to tap these resources is to congregate in large enough numbers, and Things Will Happen. This, no doubt, explains why San Francisco has those earthquakes every so often. (How they explain the 1906 earthquake, I have no idea. Maybe the city by the bay was entirely gay at that time, but it was all in one giant collective closet. And I'm really curious how that would account for the 1800s New Madrid earthquake, since there were hardly any people living in the area at the time. Maybe if the population density is low enough, just one of us is enough to trigger Major Natural Events.)
You know what gets me about this theory? (Which has been scientifically disproven, even--apparently, places with a lot of us around are actually a bit safer. We could be natural occurrence good luck charms! But I digress.) This makes god out to be not only petty--doing in vast numbers of people for things they had no idea about--but forgetful. I mean, it's not like an earthquake or a hurricane or even industry decimating disease is going to stop people from doing what they do, is it? (Well, unless they actually die from the earthquake or hurricane or industry-decimating disease, of course. Death does have a knack for just cutting into one's social life.) If the disapproval is so strong that god wants to kill so many people, why wouldn't it be just one long unending earthquake or hurricane or industry-decimating disease until we changed our heathen ways? Our memories are short! Wouldn't reminding us be more effective? "Hmm ... still have heathens. It's half-past April, haven't had a major disaster for a day or two, better throw another one in."
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!