My Irrelevant Design Theory

When I take a look around at the crop of Republican candidates for President of the United States, it is awfully difficult to make a case for Intelligent Design, which is the oft-touted favorite origin theory of the religious right. Looking at the same bunch, it is equally as daunting a task to make a legitimate argument for Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection. I need only to point to the existence of Donald Trump to instantly disprove both of those theories.

Maybe it’s just the tiny microbe-sized mind given to me by their Intelligent Designer, but I just can’t imagine that somewhere out in the cosmos, a bearded, six-hundred foot tall ‘Creator’ who bears a striking resemblance, by the way to the late psychedelic guru, Dr. Timothy Leary, is sitting at a giant console, with levers, flashing lights, and the Supernatural Gizmonic Planetoid Synchronizator 2000, deciding which planets to fling around a sun at just the right distance to support life as we know it, and which ones to just blow up because He’s a man and we know how they love to blow things up. With all the gazillions of planets and stars, it just seems like a full time job, doesn’t it? My innately inquisitive mind forces me to ask, if this Being is that intelligent, why would He want to work so hard, or at the very least, learn some managerial skills and delegate a good percentage of the Universe work?

What’s more, if, like the Bible says, this Being rested on the seventh day, how come the whole shebang didn’t just go kaflooey and stink up the Universe while He was kicking back and reading the Sunday Remulack 5 Tribune? Having been an amateur scientist in my youth, I learned the valuable lesson in not paying constant attention to an ongoing science project and the havoc one can wreck by not doing so. I still have scars on my arms dating back to 1964, the result of a brief childhood flirtation with alchemy, when I tried to turn the lead-based paint on my bedroom walls into gold and was distracted momentarily by the tempting presence of a Hostess Twinkie on my workbench. Sure it was an imaginary Twinkie caused by lead poisoning, but the resulting explosion was exactly the same as it would have been, were it the genuine article of abnormally moist sponge cake and sensual, axle-lubricating cream inside. And even though my sister eventually regained the use of her eyelids,  and it wasn’t until 2006 that the Environmental Protection Agency deemed our little apartment habitable for humans once again, I still feel somewhat responsible when you consider that the entire disaster was caused by the momentary distraction of a snack cake’s allure. Now, try to imagine how often the Intelligent Designer is interrupted with prayers and pleadings for things like food, winning lottery tickets, and sports teams praying for a victory and a giant playoff bonus. There’s just no way He could possibly run EVERYTHING without screwing up once in a while. What more proof do you need? So put that in your pipe organs and smoke it, Creationists!

These sorts of phantasmagorical Creationist stories have been around since the beginning of mankind, probably originating right around the time of Richard Simmons’ birth. Although the Judeo-Christian-Muslim version is of the gentle, fairy tale, Adam and Eve type, some of the others are just downright scary enough to keep you awake through a fortnight of Three’s Company reruns, or at least long enough to find out what the duration of a fortnight is. Therefore, in my never ending quest to bring you hard-hitting essays on subjects you would never give a moment’s thought to otherwise, I have scoured the internet looking for pertinent information on this subject that can dull your otherwise interesting  lives by simply reading it. In spite of that, I recently read an article entitled The Top Ten Intelligent Design (or Creation Myths) by Anthony Duignan-Cabrera and Tom X. Chao on Live Science.com, which explores the subject of “What the Hell are We Doing Here?” in depth. I have used info compiled by Messrs. Duignan-Cabrera and Chao and am CREDITING THEM COMPLETELY FOR COMPILING IT. So, all you SOPA addicts out there just leave me alone, because their information is public domain and I don’t make any money from this thing anyway. 

So let’s get back to Creationism and see just how enlightened and informed our early ancestors were about their own origins. Let’s start with... oh ...the Greeks, since they seem to be in the news a great deal lately. Here’s how the founders of modern civilization thought they came to be on planet Earthos.

In the beginning there was Gaia, or mother earth. She, being a good mother, created Uranus (write your own personal joke here), who was the sky. In what can only be described as one of the great cross-breeding events in history, Gaia somehow had sex with Uranus and the union created offspring worthy of the Addams Family- to whit; the Hecantonchires, who were 50 headed monsters with 100 hands and the giant, one-eyed Cyclops. Once the genetic errors were corrected, these two finally settled down and raised a family of 6 sons and 6 daughters, which as we all know was the basis for the Broadway musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

Like most parents, Uranus wasn’t at all happy with his kids and since there was no Division of Youth and Family Services back then, he imprisoned them in the bowels of the earth. I guess if one has to be imprisoned in bowels, it is far better to be in the earth’s, than in human bowels. Still, one cannot help but titter at the irony of a guy named Uranus imprisoning his kids in bowels. I could go on, but it pains me to watch my IQ drop so dramatically in such a short period of time, so I will move on.

Anyway, Gaia was not thrilled with how Uranus was treating the kids. According to an interview in Greek Mythology Monthly, Gaia “felt really bad, especially around the holidays. I used to cook for all the monsters and kids, and now I feel alone, you know? I swear, Uranus can be such an asshole sometimes!”

Eventually, the loneliness got the better of Gaia and like any doting mother who wanted to help the kids, she sprung to action. So one night, when Uranus was watching the semi-finals of Dancing with the Stars, she made this huge sickle out of old tin cans and a baseball bat, and snuck it down below to her son, Cronus, who later became the god of timepieces. She also left the door to earth’s bowels unlocked, as part of her master plan.

Later that night, after finishing yet another bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream, Uranus staggered up to bed in search of Gaia. His hope was a night of amorous frolicking with the wife, but instead, the minute he began pawing at her, old Cronus jumped out of the closet, swinging his sickle, and cut Uranus’s genitalia right off! OMG!

As Uranus’ blood poured out of the spot where his member used to be, so did MORE MONSTERS!  The is the first recorded instance of a urinary tract infection, by the way, and what a doozy it was!  And his testicles,  apparently were so large that the seas foamed up when they crash-landed in them, and magically produced Aphrodite, who in turn produced Wonder Woman. It was a, ahem...seminal moment in Greek mythology.

Cronus went on to father Zeus and the Olympians, though we don’t know who the mothers were, thereby making him the first single parent. The kids adored the old man and on the second Sunday of every June, began hanging medals around his neck, which is where Fathers’ Day, the Olympic traditions, and most important, Greeks, come from.

Pretty amazing stuff, huh? Well if that didn’t get you, how about the Hindu version of Creation? Here you’ll discover that Julia Child, the world famous French Chef is actually the MOTHER OF US ALL! Sounds impossible, no? But wait, I’ll let the Hindus explain it.

Once upon a time there was a giant being named Purusha (English translation, Julia Child). Now, Purusha had sort of what you might call a distinctive look, being the proud owner of a thousand heads, eyes, and feet. Now you might argue the Julia Child connection by saying, “Well she didn’t have a thousand heads, eyes, and feet”, and you would be correct, of course. But please bear in mind that she was indeed, a giant being, and the Hindus believe in reincarnation. Are you following my logic? Good! Because there’s more proof in the pudding, so to speak.

For some unexplained reason, the gods got together one day and decided to sacrifice Purusha. Personally, I think it was Purusha who made the sacrifice, but why quibble? In any event, when ‘P’ was indeed sacrificed, his body produced clarified butter, a key ingredient in all of Julia Child’s recipes! This butter created all the birds and animals, both of which Julia Child cooked regularly! Need I say more?

I could go on with these stories because each one is crazier than the next. It just so happens that in our time, and by that I mean these past two or three millennia, the Adam and Eve story is the one that just caught on, kind of like Pinkberry. But it could have been the Persian version (wow, accidental internal rhyme!), the Japanese, the Chinese, or even the Aztecs, whose version of Creation includes a ball of feathers that fell from the sky, which had the power to impregnate women just by them placing it in their waistbands. Jeez Louise, unwanted pregnancies from accessorizing-what next?

Look, I don’t know if Adam, Eve, Gaia, Purusha, or Uranus ever really existed, though I doubt it. For all I know aliens could have landed here millions of years ago in a reconditioned 1958 Ford Edsel and had their way with the female hominid population. I don’t really care if my ancestors looked like fish or monkeys, although I’m pretty sure it was monkeys judging by the looks of a couple of them. What matters to me is where we are right now and how we handle this moment. Because if we don’t learn how to love one another and get along, one of these days this Natural Selection by an Intelligent Designer is going to pull the lever on the Supernatural Gizmonic Planetoid Synchronizator 2000, and is going to select us for extinction. And then who will entertain us the way the Republicans have?

That’s it. I’m done bitching. Everybody hug, everybody eat! Abbondanza!