Ticks On Chimps Riding Asteroids

The other day a tick was bounced off a United Airlines flight because he was reported by a fellow passenger to be hiding in economy class.

Evidently the tick not only did not have a Monday-Thursday ticket, he had refused to go through security because he did not want to remove four pairs of shoes. And his carry-on was…well, anyway…

The airline in its wisdom determined that the flight could not continue until all ticks without proper tickets were removed, so the Denver-Des Moines flight was scratched until another plane could be flown from Colorado Springs to pick up the passengers.

United then triumphantly reported that they had found at least one more tick in the grounded plane. Just another day in the silly, bizarre, and sometimes nutty world we live in.
As a counterpoint, just over 6,000 years ago, if we are to listen to Dr. James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Bishop James Ussher adherents, and other stalwart apocalyptic evangelicals, Tyrannosaurus Rexes were focusing on the families of our distant relatives and having them for lunch.
Science tells us dinosaurs were killed off about 65 million years ago, possibly by a huge asteroid hitting the earth, which caused a complete change of climate.

But how we have changed if the Bishop Usher crowd is right that God created the earth 6,000 years ago. Just imagine one of Adam’s grandsons serving as an appetizer for a flying dinosaur—and then one of his distant cousins being threatened by a tick. Can you imagine Homo Chimpus Erectus worrying about a tick bite when he knew a T-Rex might be behind the next giant fern?

Perhaps religious leaders and scientists should sit down and debate why a Harvard professor has on his desk two stone axes, one rough-hewn and craggy, the other smooth and polished. The historian claims that the difference between the two implements represents the total technological advance in 10,000 years.
If that is true, then Charlie Darwin was mostly right.

Are All Religionists On Meth?

The idea of grounding a 747 because of a tick on board seemed so preposterous that I thought of other dangers we are facing in this world.
A June 2008 article in The Atlantic titled “The Sky Is Falling” reviews recent discoveries of asteroids, comets, and other large rocks in space waiting to fall on earth.

Then two articles about our great apes really opened up a Pandora’s Box for religion and science.

The Spanish parliament has approved resolutions granting chimps, gorillas, and other great apes the right to life, freedom from captivity for participation in medical experiments, and protection from any kind of torture. The entire package of “human rights” is expected to be finally approved next year.

There is also a court case in Austria which involves the rights of a chimp to be a “person” capable of having a legal guardian who would manage funds for his care. The case is currently being heard by the European Court of Human Rights.

While science is rushing ahead in genetics (chimps have 98.5 percent of human genes), examinations of the universe, and medical research, we still have two major religions of the world acting as if they are both on meth.

As religious writer Tom Krattenmaker puts it in a USA Today article. The “Islamic terrorists” and the “Christian infidels” are duking it out on the world stage today the same way they did in the 12th century when Richard the Lion-Hearted was killing “terrorists” in the muddy streets of Europe.

Both sides proclaim that the Bible and the Koran emphasize peace-teaching, but only the portions of the two books that exact revenge and an eye-for-an-eye seem to be consulted.

In that neither side has made any progress in their centuries of existence, maybe it’s time to say “a plague on both your houses” and try something new.

Perhaps all the Islamic clerics should get good day jobs, Pat Robertson (who publicly called for the killing of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez) should hit the streets with a real tin cup, James Dobson would make a tremendous circus barker, and Pope Benedict could become curator of the Vatican Museum.

Why should these violent religions take the rest of humanity back to the Stone Age? Muslim fanatics behead the innocent and throw acid in the faces of unveiled Muslim women. Fanatic “Christians” kill abortion doctors and hang gays on fences to die in the Wyoming wilderness. Who needs it?

Space Objects May Bring On The Rapture

While we are busy killing each other on earth, we are also discovering more space objects that have the potential to kill us all. Science advances while religions are mired in the ruts of history.

According to the Atlantic article, in 1980 we knew of only 86 near-earth asteroids and comets ready to blast a big hole in the planet Earth. By 1990 there were 170. As of June 2008, that number has risen to 5,388. NASA has determined that 741 of these objects are at least one kilometer across, sufficiently large to cause a global disaster. At least 186 of these are in an earth orbit and are classified as high “impact risks.”

Large objects do strike the Earth. In 4,800 B.C. a three to five kilometer space object hit the Indian Ocean, causing a Pacific tsunami with waves 600 feet high. The recent Sumatra tsunami reached a possible 30-40 feet and killed about 240,000 people. Most of them were Muslim, although hundreds of Christians were vacationing in those beautiful islands.
NASA estimates there are possibly 20,000 asteroids and comets in our vicinity of space. NASA astronomers are now tracking one called Apophis 99942 which could strike earth in 2036. If it falls on France, it would destroy the entire country with the power of 60,000 nuclear bombs.

It is possible that large space objects may be steered away from earth by gravitational forces, explosive forces, or by “nudging” them off-course with rockets. But we are so busy killing each other and spending billions to devise new and exciting ways to do that, we are spending virtually nothing to protect earth from space objects.

Russell Schweickart, an Apollo astronaut who went into space in 1969, says: “Are we going to let a space strike kill millions of people before we get serious about this?” He is lobbying NSA to provide funds for development of space object defenses.

“Give Me That Thar Copperhead So I Can Put It Around My Neck!”

While we are doing awful things to each other in the name of religion, the universe may be catching up to us. While fighting the barbarities of Islam fundamentalism, we stomp on Abu Ghraib and Gitmo “detainees” testicles to get them to tell the “truth.”

We also allow our female interrogators to play with the testicles of Muslim men to get them to tell the “truth.”
We chain them to the floors of 130-degree rooms and leave them naked in 40-degree rooms to get them to tell the “truth.”

While we are torturing prisoners in violation of the Geneva Convention and the Sermon on the Mount—and the Koran—we have “true” believers who believe that if they truly believe, they will not be bitten by poisionous snakes. Fundamentalist churches across Appalachia interpret the Bible that way. Some ministers assume that only they have the right interpretation.

Others believe that the Bible is difficult to follow and interpret, is multi-faceted and complex, and actually demands humility.

The Reverend Gregory James Coots of the full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name of Middlesboro, Kentucky has the “truth” because of his interpretation of Bible verses. He was recently arrested for having 42 copperheads, 11 timber rattesnakes, three cottonmouth water moccasins, a western diamondback, two cobras, and a puff adder for use by himself and his flock. Geez, wouldn’t his church services make a hit TV reality show?

Perhaps We Should Not Only Award Binti Jua Personhood, We Might Make Her Secretary Of State

While humans were busy blowing each other up with IEDs and cluster bombs and torturing each other utilizing KGB, Chinese Communist, CIA, White House, and Pentagon manuals, guidelines, and lawyerly summations, the animals we have dominion over were acting as if they read and believed the Good Book.

One sunny day in 1996 Binta Jua was enjoying playing with her little gorilla infant in Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo when a three-year-old boy climbed over the barrier separating humans from gorillas and fell unconscious to the concrete of the gorilla’s outdoor yard. Binti Jua rushed over, carrying her baby, picked up the boy, and carried him over to a door to the enclosure where the zoo staff could pick up the child. The video of this encounter was viewed around the world, amazing people. But ape researchers were not surprised at all. They said Binti Jua was just being the good mother she is.

A Seattle animal shelter took in a goose from Pinto Lake that had a fishhook in her leg. A vet had to cut it out because it was in deep. She was then brought to a covered facility with a pool for her recovery.

Ten days later a man called the shelter and said he was bringing in a goose he had found walking down Freedom Boulevard and across other busy roads. As he was carrying the male goose into the shelter the goose spotted the other swimming in the pool. He immediately honked and raised a fuss. The female began to flap her wings and thrash the water. The male jumped in with her and curled his neck around hers while hissing a warning.

Either he was a real horny goose or he had finally found his injured mate. We would like to believe it was his mate because geese normally mate for life. They seem to have more sense than two-legged animals with more complex genes.