letters from the earth

So, this weekend was fun. Saturday was beautiful and we made it to Oxford Street to watch the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade. Actually, we ended up watching it at the Beresford Hotel on their big screen, which was much better than standing for hours and starring at the backs of people’s heads. The bad thing (or no so!) was I proceeded to drink myself silly. I didn’t eat very much that day and, well, need I say more? No, no, no I did not get sick – I don’t get sick. At some point the alcohol saturates the brain and you become super human, or at least you believe you are super human.

Speaking of super humans, yesterday I watched a programme with Richard Dawkins about Charles Darwin. I’m still amazed that we live in a world where the majority of people do not believe in evolution. I’m not really sure what there is not to believe at this point? The god complex is bizarre to me. Our species has a strong need for self importance – this is a good thing on some levels, but I don’t understand people’s need to have a god or gods to validate their existence? The older I get the odder it appears to me. This is probably due to the fact that religion has become so toxic that I can’t understand why anyone would want to waste their time? Hubby points out regularly when people say, “This isn’t representative of what ‘real’ religious people believe.” This being hateful right-wing nut jobs. His answer is, “Well, yes, it is representative of what ‘real’ religious people believe.”

My favourite satire on religion is Mark Twain’s Letters from the Earth. 

This is a strange place, and extraordinary place, and interesting. There is nothing resembling it at home. The people are all insane, the other animals are all insane, the earth is insane, Nature itself is insane. Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is a sort of low grade nickel-plated angel; at is worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm. Yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the "noblest work of God." This is the truth I am telling you. And this is not a new idea with him, he has talked it through all the ages, and believed it. Believed it, and found nobody among all his race to laugh at it.