August 15, 2005
Well, I started into this with a specific train of thought, and yet, even as I started the page creation, I had other threads entering my brain, so I'll ask your forgiveness now if I get off on a tangent or three.
We'll start with the original thought. As I was chatting (via IM -- how very 21st-century of me) with my beau today, we touched on the topic of the rockslides that closed I-70 yesterday, and how that was about the third such occurance on our mountains recently. He theorized that maybe Someone was trying to tell us something. And this little scenario (or something close to it) popped into my head. Please pardon the mixed directional styles.
Scene: Beautiful mountain road in Colorful Colorado. Tourists, residents, truckers are driving along, as they do on a daily basis.
BOOMING VOICE: Ahem.
(Nothing happens.)
BOOMING VOICE: Ahem-hem.
(Still, nothing happens.)
(A large hand appears from the heavens, the middle fingernail tucked behind the thumb, and heads toward a pile of boulders on the side of the mountain.)
<flick>
It's entirely plausible. And even if not, it's a clever little Monty Python-esque scene, innit?
Now, for our first tangent.
I've theorized for some time now that God hates California. Really. Look at what He inflicts on it: Earthquakes. Floods. Mudslides. Droughts. Wildfires. Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don't know why He hates the Golden State, since He created it, but I think the above list is proof enough, don't you? And I'm a little worried that, since all of California seems bound and determined to move to our beautiful state (Colorado, for those who don't know me personally), they might bring that wrath to us. Maybe the rockslides are the first indication of that?
Next slightly related tangent: Intelligent Design, better known to you and me as Creationism. One of my biggest pet peeves is the presence of the decals* on the back of cars, that show the "Truth" fish eating the "Darwin" fish. As if to say, "There's no way that evolution exists, and once you see the Truth of that, you'll be better off."
Ahem.
I had a fantastic biology teacher in high school (Don Morgenstern, thank you!) who explained what evolution really is. It's a series of random, spontaneous mutations. If some creature is born with a mutation that proves beneficial (like, say, a neck that's a little longer, allowing a mutant giraffe to reach a little higher and get a little more food), that trait is passed along simply because it was beneficial and the mutated creature survived because of it. And if a creature is born with a mutation of a feature that isn't detrimental (for example, a pinky finger that's shorter than everyone else's), that trait may be passed along, because the being born with it survived in spite of it. See how that works?
Now, during this biology class, we grew fruit flies (and let me tell you, nothing is more exciting) in mayonnaise jars. As we were preparing our jars with that blue stuff that was theoretically food for these little guys, I had this image of a Far Side-style cartoon where a bunch of kids are in a class, preparing little worlds in jars. Sort of a biology class for God and His friends, if you will. Everyone's jars are full of worlds enveloped in daisies and rainbows and happy little trees. Everyone, that is, except the nerdy God in the corner (with the buckteeth and horn-rimmed glasses), whose jar contains a world with tiny mushroom clouds and pestilence and famine.And all the other God kids are laughing at Him.
Now, I'm not a polytheist, but it's a funny image, no? And it made me think, what's to say that God didn't put the first bit of primordial ooze somewhere on a bit of rock, and then stood back to see what happened? I certainly don't doubt that He's stepped in from time to time, to say "Nope, nope, sorry....just can't let you go there...that way.....that's better". But there's just too much evidence of evolution, on so many levels, in so many species, to deny its existence altogether.
Right. Help me down off this soapbox, wouldja? Thanks. And watch out for those rockslides -- could be aiming for your Truth fish decal.*
*that's a 'deck-al' for you Canadian speakers. :)