You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
by Mykel Board
An Irregular Column
by Mykel Board
"If God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him." --Voltaire
"What if God is not as imagined? What, for instance, if he disapproves of gamblers, especially those whose purported belief in Him is dependent on some acorn-beneath-the-cup mentality? God might prefer the honest doubter to the sycophantic chancer”. --Julian Barnes
For months I've been reading about how the Texas Board of Education is trying to insert Intelligent Design in the school curriculum. What's all the fuss about?
For those who don't know, Intelligent Design is a kind of creationism. Instead of the usual creationist 7-Days-Pop-There's- The-World!, I.D. people believe that someone or something set things in motion. Then, there was evolution. Instead of lightning striking a primordial soup, there was a creator who did the designing.
I.D. doesn't use the word God right out, but who else could it be? Aliens? Even if it were aliens, who designed the aliens? Ultimately, it has to be God.
Christians use Intelligent Design to get around the evidence that the earth is millions of years old. The universe is much older. These facts make it hard to swallow the mere 6000 years that Biblical creationism can explain. I.D. people try to bring God to Darwinism. Their basic argument though, is the same as that of the creationists:
When you look at the workings of a watch, if you see that the gears move against one another... What one does, affects the other in calculated precision. You know there must be a watch-maker. A watch cannot happen by accident.
Creationists say that, given enough time, the watch can, in fact, happen by accident. Like moneys at the keyboard writing Shakespeare.
In the current evolution discussion, then, there are three theories: Darwinism (chance and the survival of the fittest), Intelligent Design, and Creationism. I will propose a third theory, but to understand it you have to come take a shit with me.
FLASH TO THE JOHN: It must be all that matzo. Binds me right up. It's lucky I cut my nails because my middle finger is now inserted into my anus, all the way to the third knuckle. I just touch the edge of a turd. As dry as the Gobi.
I grunt it down a little, tightening my abdomen as I give a peristaltic push. Ahh, it's a little farther down now. I can just wrap my finger around it. It's about the size and shape of a Brussels sprout. Push a bit more. Pull with the finger. Come on. A little more. Almost out. Kerplunk! There it is. Sinking in the toilet like a drowned kitten. I reach back in to coax out another one. Jeezus. This is awful.
Why can't your rectum come with a little more lube? Your nose comes with lube. Your mouth comes with lube. Why not your asshole?
I push again, trying to squeeze down the next one. Silver lights pop in my brain... behind my eyes. I nearly faint. In that moment I have a revelation... a vision. I see God-- the designer. Yes!
Let's look at the evidence: it's as plain as the dried dung in my rectum.
Take my balls... please. What a stupid invention. The most sensitive, painful part of a guy's body and where is it? Hanging outside, ready for the slam of a stepped-on rake or an errant baseball. My appendix is protected by layers of muscles and fat... and how often do I use that? But my balls?
“Hmmm, well I think I'll just leave 'em out to dangle in the air. Leave those fragile glands in a spot they'll most likely get damaged.”
What kind of thinking is that? Dumb!
And what about the other part of that dangly device?
“Oh baby, I'd love to, but...”
How come I can't? Or at least can't always. Why can't I just raise my dick like I can raise my middle finger? I can lift that finger to tell someone to fuck off whenever I want to? But (especially after a certain age) I have to take a little blue pill to raise my penis. Why?
But the moronitude extends to more than just me.
And how about the history of the world? Before humans?
90% of all species that ever existed on earth are extinct. They didn't work and died out. Is that intelligent design? Sounds pretty dimwitted to me.
Besides stupidity, there's downright evil in the history of the world. Is it “intelligent design” for some people to be able put others in ovens?
Once, I answered a Facebook critic who said he drove an SUV because he “wanted to show you PC people that we are free to drive whatever we want.”
“You're free to nail your penis to a tree,” I said. “That doesn't mean you should.”
But why should we even be able to nail our penises to a tree? Is that a useful ability in the year of our iPad, 2010? Isn't it plain stupid?
Oh, I know what the Christians/Jews say. That's free will™. God gave the gift of free will™. It's up to individuals to use it for good or to toast their fellow humans-- or nail their own penises to a tree.
Free will? Free will??? I don't have free will. Can I walk through walls? No! Can I flap my arms and fly? No! Can I make myself invisible? Keep an erection for an hour? No. No! NO! Why aren't those things part of free will?
I can imagine God designing free will.
“Let's see. I have a choice. Either I allow people to murder one another... in huge quantities, and build ovens for the bodies... or I let them fly. I think I'll choose mass murder.
Hmmm, should I let people be able to turn invisible or should I let 'em be able to nail their penises to trees? Hah, the answer is obvious. Nail those dicks.”
It's crazy.
****
What I propose is an alternative to evolution, intelligent design, and creationism.
The I.D. people say “Look at the world. Look how everything works in one beautiful pattern. Even if the world is old, you can see it must have been designed by some great intelligence.”
I say, “Look at the world. Look at earthquakes, hurricanes, war, capitalism and American Idol. It must have been designed by some great idiot.”
And that's my theory. STUPID DESIGN.
Why does it hurt so much to have a kid?
Why are black holes eating the universe, destroying everything in their path?
Why are newborns so fragile that they'll die when left on their own?
Why are our heads supported by such a flimsy thing as the neck? Ripe for the axe or an accident under a truck?
Why do teeth rot just when an animal (or person) gets too old to chew effectively?
Why are there mosquitoes, cancer, viruses, swine flu?
These things cannot happen by themselves. There's just too much wrong, too much ugliness to happen by accident. The answer is clear: STUPID DESIGN.
Aliens... God... The master planner... They're idiots. Morons with power. Retards. Mentally challenged.
I say, image a watch that spins out of control... Where the gears fight each other... Which is right only once every several thousand years... Which requires you to take it apart before you can know what time it is...
You'd say that watch was designed by an idiot.
I'd say, EXACTLY!
The letter X is better designed than this universe. That letter is simple, with clean lines, easy to understand, and causes no pain. The parts work together, getting along well, even when they cross.
The same cannot be said of the rest of this universe.
I propose schools teach STUPID DESIGN. Textbooks could be any history, geology, astronomy book. Students can learn about an earth too weak to hold in its own insides, causing volcanoes to wreck havoc like pus out of a pimple.
They can learn about cosmic collisions like the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.
The can learn about human slavery, or the universal tendency of all matter to move to chaos.
Any subject. Any time. Anywhere. It all points to the same unavoidable conclusion. A unified theory of the universe. STUPID DESIGN.
ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]
--> Bambi does it again dept: President Obama disappointed millions of Americans by announcing his plan to open vast coastal areas to offshore oil drilling.
When we need clean energy and climate solutions, this plan is a giant step backward -- allowing oil companies to reap billions, while feeding America's addiction to dirty fossil fuels.
Of course Candidate Obama said in 2008, "We can't simply drill our way out of the problem. And we're not going to be able to deal with the climate crisis if our only solution is to use more fossil fuels that create global warming."
The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that by 2030, the new oil drilling regions would yield only two months worth of oil in the next 20 years.
Talk about Stupid Design...
-->Naughty Boy dept: Army chief warrant officer Lewis Welshofer will spend ZERO months in jail after a military jury convicted him of homicide. The trial was for the murder of political prisoner, Abed Hamed Mowhoush. During the interrogation, Welshofer forced Mowhoush head-first into a sleeping bag, tied him with electrical cord and sat on his chest. There was a penalty, however. Welshofer was sentenced to 60 days restriction to his home, church and office. How horrible!
-->Naughtier people dept: The St. Patrick's Day Four is a group of anti-war protesters who threw blood on a military recruitment center in upstate New York. A judge sentenced them to an average of 5 months each for "damaging government property and entering a military station for an unlawful purpose." Shows where priorities are, huh?
-->Make up your mind to be naughty dept: In Ashland Oregon, the mayor cast a tie-breaking vote. That vote defeated a proposal to ban nudity within 1000 feet of schools. Yeah!... But, wait.
After the vote, the mayor sent out an email saying he was rethinking his position because a tourist from Minnesota wrote that he wanted to be naked near Ashland schools. I don't get the fuss. But in any case, it ruins MY vacation plans.
-->666 dept: The Virginia House of Delegates has passed a new law. That law will prohibit employers and insurance companies from requiring people to implant microchips into their bodies. Why? Well one lawmaker gave the reason:
“It might be the mark of the Beast,” he said.
Pet owners and parents are exempt from the ban.
Pet owners, I can understand, I mean those sub-skin microchips ARE the mark of the beast. But parents? Already some are doing it... in their children's best interest, of course. Nya hah hah!
-->Look at the right-center lobe for that one dept: Stanford Magazine reports on the new scientific field of decision neuroscience.
Using MRIs to map the brain. Scientists are learning to determine “what triggers certain responses during purchasing decisions.” The idea is that if merchants/advertisers can create something to pull that trigger, they can sell more product.
I don't know why they bother. Apple has had that information for years. They can spit into a thimble, name it i-Sputum, and people will line up around the block to buy it.
-->Keep this under your towel dept: The French magazine Maisonneuve writes that Islamic clerics have decided “there's no opposition to a husband sucking his wife's breasts, but he should avoid drinking her milk.” This is related to an earlier decision that “a married couple may engage in oral sex as long as no semen is swallowed.”
Sounds positively Christian to me.
-->What the f**k? dept: Google finally admitted that it's Nexus One voice recognition software is constructed to censor “offensive words.” The software, used on iPhone competitor Android, drives that system's voice activated commands.
That's not STUPID DESIGN. It's malicious!
That's not STUPID DESIGN. It's malicious!
