Satire? You couldn’t make it up!
| AN OUTSIDERS VIEW |
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| Ken Fuller |
UK friend recently sent me a link for the US satirical site The Onion (www.theonion.com), which is somewhat reminiscent of Mad Magazine. Specifically, the link drew my attention to a story entitled “Sumerians Look on in Confusion as God Creates World.”
This poked fun at those creationists who interpret Genesis (the first book of the Bible, not the rock band formed in 1967) literally. Based on what Genesis tells them, creationists calculate that the world was created some 6,000 years ago — not long before Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel created Genesis, in fact. One problem with this calculation is that it runs up against the inconvenient, scientifically proven fact that the Sumerian civilization, in what is now Iraq, had been up and running for at least a millennium prior to this.
Yes, the Sumerians had government, agriculture and much else before the alleged Creation. Thousands of Sumerians were, The Onion therefore assumes, “working on their sophisticated irrigation systems when the Father of All Creation reached down from the ether and blew the divine spirit of life into their thriving civilization.”
According to tablets which, spoof the satirists, were recently excavated, the Sumerians experienced not shock and awe (the intended effect of another event in Sumeria 6,000 years later, courtesy of god-worshippers George W. Bush and Tony Blair) but confusion. Typical comments were “I do not understand” and “A booming voice is saying ‘Let there be light,’ but there is already light.” The Sumerians complained that, as the face of God moved across the water, “He scared away those who were travelling to Mesopotamia to participate in their vast and intricate trade system.”.... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20101012com5.html
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