Honolulu Lite
IN THE BEGINNING, God created Heaven and Earth. And the Earth was soon overrun by a bunch of knuckleheads. There were knuckleheads who believed that God created Heaven and Earth in exactly seven days, right down to the nanosecond. There were knuckleheads who thought that the term "day" was relative since, technically speaking, there wasn't a 24-hour day until the Earth was actually made, so the first "day" could have been 24.3 hours long or 24.3 million years, for that matter. Creationism
doesn’t belong under
a microscopeThen there were knuckleheads who didn't believe God created Heaven and Earth at all. They believe that humans were dropped onto the earth by space aliens. Other knuckleheads point out that someone had to create the space aliens, so maybe God was in on that deal, too.
The knuckleheads who believed in God didn't always believe in the same God. Some knuckleheads believed in lots of gods. Some believed that air and water were gods. Others believed that THEY were God, and therefore didn't have to do the dishes. One knucklehead named Wendel believed his pet poodle was God. The poodle talked only to him, telling him all the mysteries of the Universe when he wasn't telling him to take him outside for a walk and, for godsakes, this time bring something to pick up the poo-poo.
There were many, many, many more denominations of knuckleheads, either pro-God or anti-God or God-indifferent, and each group thought its belief was the correct one, and, in a way, they were right. Because when it comes to God-related matters, everyone's belief is just as true as everyone else's since the only way to know the ultimate truth is to die. And then you can't come back and tell anyone about it. There are knuckleheads who will say that you can come back after death and that they know the ultimate truth, and they'd be willing to prove it by killing me for doubting them. Killing, ironically, is a big part of holding religious beliefs. Which is weird. Because, say you believe that when you die, you are going to live in paradise forever. Why would you care what I thought about it? I mean, if I won the Powerball Lottery for $100 million, I wouldn't care if you believed I had or not. And I certainly wouldn't kill you over it.
People in Hawaii weren't ready to kill each other, but a discussion of whether the theory that God created the world should be taught in public school science classes certainly got people riled. All the various stripes of knuckleheads were represented, each passionately expressing their beliefs and passionately slamming anyone who didn't believe as they did.
In the end, the school board did the right thing, leaving science rooms as places where provable science is taught and leaving the teaching of beliefs, doctrines and all manner of "isms" -- including creationism -- to the home, church, mosque, temple, private school and various cable television channels.
Religious belief is like homemade pickled mango: It should be kept to yourself and shared only with those people with similar tastes. In fact, I think there is a religion whose adherents believe they can get closer to God by the frequent ingestion of pickled mango. Far be it from me to tell those knuckleheads that Budweiser beer works much better.
Alo-Ha! Friday compiles odd bits of news from Hawaii
and the world to get your weekend off to an entertaining start.
Charles Memminger also writes Honolulu Lite Mondays,
Wednesdays and Sundays. Send ideas to him at the
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210,
Honolulu 96813, phone 235-6490 or e-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com.
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