Monday, January 15, 2007

Who is This God Person Anyway? (Fit the Second - Genesis)

In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
Many races believe that it was created by some sort of god, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being calle dthe Great Green Arkleseizure.
However, the Great Green Arkleseizure Theory is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI and so, the Universe being the puzzling place it is, other explanations are constantly being sought.

I suppose, to a radical atheist, this may not seem much more bizzarely improbable than 'God said "Let there be light," and there was light.' But the Universe according to Hitchhikers got into its current state through evolution, which is referred to repeatedly, from the throw-away gag:

Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

to the creation of the super-evolutionary Haggunenons, who will 'quite frequently evolve several times over lunch', and the disruption of evolution on Earth by the arrival of the Golgafrinchans on the 'B' Ark.

But I'm not going to embark on a creation/evolution debate - personally I don't care how the Universe was created, the fact is it's here and we've got to deal with it. Instead (and I may end up jumping forward a bit here) consider:

"...you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

- Genesis 2:17, NIV

and consider the fact that, in trying to establish the Question to the Ultimate Answer, Arthur Dent ultimately secures his own death. Although, of course, it is a well-established fact that the Question and the Answer cannot both exist within the same Universe, presumably because such knowledge would lead to certain death on a cosmic scale. And finally, another quote from DNA on the subject of knowledge:

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

Incidentally, I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up follwoing the books of the Bible - any suggestions for what Leviticus should cover will be gratefully received.

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