Mankind not inclusive enough


Now I'm going to venture on to religious ground—not physically of course—so if you're scared or worried about me being blasphemous or irreverent please move on to a more erudite and religious blogger. He talks loads of sense while I talk and jabber useless twaddle.

But remember twaddle is hardly always useless. I mean, we humans sprang out of dust so even dust, that most undignified of materials, is quite important and if it wasn't for it we'd have remained a playful thought in God's inner mental chambers. Of course I'm not sure if the Almighty does have any such chambers, and less sure what the connection between twaddle and dust is.

Anyway let me get to the hot part of my thought process seeing I am hardly divine and definitely not an illuminated being. My gripe of the day is this: do we still talk of mankind being saved by Christ the Son of God? What about Androids? Aliens? And machines? Have I really lost my marbles I hear most of you say. Should I be pelted with egg, stoned to death or given some new life sentence to pass my time down in a Vatican dingy dungeon?

Before you damn me, hear me out—and please stop grinning about my marbles. If mankind (or is that womankind?) has been saved by Jesus Christ we are forgetting the rest of the universe and outer universe which now, it seems, is teeming with planets. These could harbour life in any sort of form—either super-intelligent and so will not bother with us who are, to them, unbelievably primitive, or else super-dumb and cannot communicate with us as they are like our vermin, carrots or hamsters. They do not necessarily bear the shapes of these latter species but the end result is that they do not—and cannot—communicate with us. Just as hamsters do not talk to us or understand why we enjoy seeing them poke fun at us by going round and round in a wheel while conveniently caged and fed by humans.

End result is that when Christ came down to save Man he forgot the possible and now probable aliens. Is that a slight, but rectifiable, omission? Should the scriptures be re-written and some little mention made of inhabitants of the planet Zork and other such still-to-be-discovered lands? Now let's hear you laugh out even louder. What if machines and androids develop further and become thinking beings with a soul? This is serious so do please keep a straight face. Today all this sounds like utter garbage and a madman's bilge.

Take a leap back millions of years and if you look in the mirror you'd see yourself as a tiny—or large (I know not whether our propensity for obesity was already in our genes then)—fish with hardly any thought of humanity, civilisation or a soul. But we fought, we managed to not get fished out of the huge pond of the oceans and we evolved out of the sea and into some crawling, then walking, being. Down the line we descaled and turned from fish to ape I know not how. Then we stood slightly erect and became apes and somehow made the final evolutionary leap to homo sapien-hood.

Just as we moved on and progressed—or regressed—into humans, machines and silly robots might one day evolve and turn into something else which will then, most definitely and defiantly, have a soul. When you exclude everyone else from the equation of being in Christ's thoughts and plans do keep in mind that mankind is hardly being kind to all the other species which could need salvation and entry into the gates of heaven.

So let's scrap the use of the word mankind, womankind and humankind and add on all beings who one day might have feelings and hate us for offending them so awfully by excluding them from celestial bliss.

If I have offended your religious sentiments because you deny the theory of evolution and think that the story of Adam and Eve is a literal story please forgive me. If I have offended any other religious sentiments or described evolution quirkily or wrongly I apologise profusely. Finally if you are an atheist, well I can't do much about that.

I blog therefore I am

How great it is to go partying and over-indulging in these days of festivities. Hurray for the birth of Christ—He who came to take the sins of the world and hated all materialism. And to celebrate His birth we feast till our guts need gutting even in these oh-so-austere days.

It was also most poignant of the Pope to attack materialism and ask all us Christians to try keeping Christmas holy and not materialistic. As one atheist said to a few other heathens: “Oh God how apt that the king of pomp and glory decries our materialistic ways while dressed to the nines in shining clothes and sitting on a shinier throne and holding a marvellously bejewelled mitre. ”Not sure what the Saviour would do when confronted with such mighty effrontery.

But I rail and rant like an old man. Oh bugger—I am an old man or well on the road to joining the old brigade, the damned geezers who are so so sweet but then forget all the reasons for being sweet. Does dementia still afflict you when you turn up at the pearly gates? If this is so then we and other assorted folk like serial sinners, divorcees, gay paraders and fundamentalist Catholics might scrape through the gates.

When grilled about our sins and fundamental beliefs by the St Peter brigade at heaven’s passport control we might plead forgetfulness when quizzed about our ways on earth. Senility be praised would be the everlasting mantra of the atheists’ union in heaven.

How sad am I to rant on these days of festive fun—and from ranting I went straight to mentioning dementia and dying. This must be the effect of too much food and some extra alcohol. And now that I am blogging I should get myself a less boring quest than just finding fault with all around me and find a few things to applaud.

OK: let’s get back to partying and the everlasting effects of fun. Well the only long lasting effects are on the flab compartment and on the serial killing of our brain cells through strangulation. While eating and imbibing myself into a sweet stupor a great friend of mine introduced me as Malta’s latest bugger. Merriment and surprise gripped his friend—the one I was being introduced to. I perspired profusely. I’ve been very interestingly introduced in my life but bugger really seemed over the top or, more aptly, the bottom. Thoughts of how awful I’m being with this blog raced through my mind—in those few nano-seconds where all is motionless and all is viewed from some high tower of knowledge in suspended animation I promised I must stop blogging if I am bugging people so much…or worse than bugging people.

And this friend who was doing the introducing was hardly a fiend: he is in fact one of my best friends and there was no humour or irony in his face or in his intention. We then cleared it all—the friend had introduced me as a “blogger” so we all sighed a great sigh of relief and you dear reader can suffer on, reading my pieces in this blog.
As one philosopher who came too early in life would have loved to have said, I blog therefore I am (a bugger).