Monkey's Uncle, 1985

Is God Necessary?

Monkey's Uncle
Fun With Atheism Issue, Fall/Winter 1985
Editor: E.T. Babinski

Is God Necessary?

Let us grant, for the sake of argument, that God's existence is unnecessary. That is still not the same as saying that he does not exist. After all, why must the existence of anything be necessary? Why do we have five toes, nine planets, the vastness of space, more brain than man knows what to do with, why is life so fecundant in nature, etc.? I once drew up a story about a group of future scientists who tried reducing man to his bare essentials. These scientists lived, naturally, by eating their own vestigial organs, like their pinkies, the frenulum beneath their tongues, the nictating membranes in the corners of their eyes, their appendixes, the muscles behind their ears, and in fact, eventually ate half of their entire bodies (to have a body with matching halves was merely redundant). Thus, these scientists wound up looking like bowling pins with one arm and one leg hoping about the laboratory. Then they ate portions of each other's tongues so each member of their group could only produce a single letter of the alphabet. Then they hooked their half brains up together and spoke as one being, each member adding his particular sound to their group speech. Lastly, they found a way to live off no each singular atom remaining in their bodies, gathering the maximum energy from each atom, which would enable each of them to exist for approximately 50 quadrillion years. Well, as you can see (with both of your eyes) they reduced their lives to their necessary basis. Everything unnecessary was discarded. All I have to add is that if belief in God is unnecessary, would not most people still prefer living with it, and with the unnecessary vastness and mystery of life, than with bare bones rationality?

Natural Selection (if that was the only thing responsible for the process) has obviously provided man with a brain whose capacity for thought goes far beyond any such necessity to do so. Primitive men surviving in Australia have brains no less inferior than graduates at MIT, anatomically speaking. Why then does such unnecessary vastness, and/or an immense capacity to expand, exist both in space and time, and in our heads?

Also, what is the necessity of laughter and play? These things occur when nothing more needs to be done. They reflect life's over-abundant quality. And yet we somehow sense that their foolish energy is the magnet that draws us toward life, and not the bland, analytical need to survive that the Darwinists proclaim. For really, when you think about it, nothing needs to survive, extinction is the rule! But at least we get to strut our stuff on this planet for a while, and perhaps for fun and laughter and life, and not for survival. (Species replace each other in time and space comparatively quickly, and not unlike the guests on a variety program like Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.) Isn't that the real secret of life?

Perhaps that's why even Koko, a 14-year-old lowland gorilla (who has a vocabulary of over 500 hand-language signs) makes jokes:

THE FOLLOWING INCIDENTS ARE FROM "CONVERSATIONS WITH A GORILLA" BY FRANCINE PATTERSON, WHICH APPEARED IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, OCTOBER, 1978:

Cathy Ransom, one of my assistants, told me that Koko and her had been arguing... Koko was shown a poster of herself... Manipulating hands and fingers, Cathy asked Koko, 'What's this?' 'Gorilla,' signed Koko. 'Who gorilla?' asked Cathy. 'Bird,' responded a bratty Koko. 'You bird?' asked Cathy. 'You,' countered Koko. 'Not me, you are bird,' rejoined Cathy, mindful that 'bird' can be an insult in Koko's lexicon. 'Me gorilla,' asserted Koko. 'Who bird?' asked Cathy. 'You nut,' replied Koko, resorting to another of her insults. (For Koko, 'bird' and 'nut' switch from descriptive to pejorative by changing the position in which the sign is made.) 'Why me nut?' asked Cathy. 'Nut, nut,' signed Koko. 'You nut. not me,' Cathy replied. Finally, Koko gave up. Plaintively she signed, 'Damn, me good,' and walked away signing, 'Bad.'"

Koko the Gorilla
Want to skateboard?, Penny asked Koko with a sign representing two legs on a platform. Koko's tight-lipped grimace indicates slight annoyance after seeing Penny fall several times. Koko does not like to stand on the skateboard, but will scoot around on it.

"My associate, Barbara Hiller saw Koko signing, 'That red,' as she built a nest out of a white towel. Barbara said, 'You know better, Koko. What color is it?' Koko insisted that it was red--'red, Red, RED'--and finally held up a minute speck of red lint that had been clinging to the towel. Koko was grinning. Another time, after persistent efforts on Barbara's part to get Koko to sign, 'Drink,' Koko just leaned back on the counter and executed a perfect drink sign--in her ear. Again she was grinning."

"I asked Koko, 'Tell me something you think is funny.' She signed, 'Nose there,' pointing to a bird puppet's tongue. 'That red,' showing me a green plastic frog. When I put a stethoscope to my ears, Koko smirked and put fingers over her eyes."

"I asked Koko, 'Are you an animal or a person?' Koko's instant response, 'Fine animal gorilla.'"

Cro Magnon Man
Cro-Magnon man's self portraits show his sense of humor.

Fun With Atheism - Atheism Test

Monkey's Uncle
Fun With Atheism Issue, Fall/Winter 1985
Editor: E.T. Babinski

ARE YOU AN ATHEIST?	(TAKE THIS SIMPLE TEST TO FIND OUT!)
Question #1	Do You Have Free Will? (A) Yes (B) No
Question #2	What Do You Say After Receiving An Unexpected Sock In The Face? (A) "God Damn!" (B) "Blind Chance!"
Question #3	Is It Possible To Stand On A Platform Outside The Universe And Snipe At It? (A) Yes. (B) No.
The Following Questions Are Either True Or False Circle The Correct Answer): Man Is A Machine The Manufactures Manure... True? Or False? The Average Human Being Is Close To 70% Water (H²0) True? Or False? Human Beings Were Invented By Water As A Device For Transporting Itself From One Place To Another... True? Or False?
ESSAY QUESTION (Worth Nearly The Whole Enchilada): A) Pretend That You Are God B) Pretend That You Are Nothing. Examine The Universe And Alternate Furiously Between Pretensions. After completing this test, rish it to Monkey's Uncle where your score will be calculated by a million monkeys entering a million digits every millisecond on a million pocket calculators for a million years, at the end of which time... All of the monkeys will have expired, along with the warranties on the pocket calculators. So don't expect a prompt, certified, special delivery letter in the mail, letting you know if you're an atheist or not. I guess we each have to decide that for ourselves.

Theistic Evolution

Monkey's Uncle
Fun With Genesis Issue, Summer 1985
Editor: E.T. Babinski

THEISTIC EVOLUTION -- AN UNFINISHED SYMPHONY
The cosmic hierarchy I perceive resembles a row of drunken, dancing Russian revellers. Or it resembles the pointlessly abundant yet beautiful filagree lining the margins of medieval manuscripts. Or its like the endlessly extravagant music of Bach. God's play is likewise, splendiforous! And as I gaze at the universe I do not see an ironclad PURPOSEFULNESS clenched tightly between God's teeth, but an utter extravagance of space--God's gracious gratuitous improvisation of immensities! I surmise that God, like most great artists, needed a cosmic-sized loft' in which to loose the reins of His creativity. None of that crowded cluttered desktop appearance that might suggest God was a business executive in a three button suit savagely seeking to increase his net worth...No, He sets off each star like a prime jewel, against infinite yards of black-velvety space.

The Big Bang was a festive firework! Imagine God bellowing, "Everybody stand back! Gimme room! I'm gonna create!" He rolls up His sleeves, and infinite space appears a blank artist's canvas. He points a finger at the center of the canvas and a bright ball of light instantly begins to sparkle there. A few angels fly over to take a peek. 'It's ticking!" they chime. God remains impishly silent. Suddenly, KA BOOM!! The sparkling ball of light discharges into zillions of tiny bits careening all over the canvas. As the sparks settle, God nudges one shoulder towards a rather far off insignificant spark, spinning near the edge of the Wheel of the Milky Way Galaxy. All the angels then bend toward that spark with eager eyes and ears, for it suddenly begins ticking. In only a third of the time it took for the Big Bang to subside, that star flares up: Nine little sparks shoot forth from the sun, and they slowly begin to cool. But now the pace accelerates even more. The third planet is ticking! Suddenly a veritable explosion of life floods the oceans of that tiny planet! (The Cambrian Era!) followed quickly by more explosions, the Devonian, Pennsylvanian, Cretaceous, faster and faster...age of mammals, for ever since the first creative act the pace has been inversely astronomical! Life explodes in profusion upon the earth like kernels of sunripened popcorn.

One day an angel, examining this strange world hears a sound in a tree overhead... a hairy little creature in the tree is ticking! BOOM! Hunters-gatherers, Agriculture, Civilization...then one day a man heard the ticking of the universe in his own heart. He obviously took this as a sign that an imminent explosion was on the horizon. He preached the apocalyptic end of all things, a new heaven, a new earth. "Come closer God! Abba, Father!" he cried. "just a step closer, and the sky will surely tear asunder, the veil of the Temple will be torn in two, and grave stones will be kicked aside like pebbles!" Tick, Tick Tick!

Hammer, hammer, hammer! "Pass me another nail, Cestus, this one didn't go all the way through his feet. (An Unfinished Symphony...)

The Fall of Man Taken Allegorically

Monkey's Uncle
Fun With Genesis Issue, Summer 1985
Editor: E.T. Babinski

THE FALL OF MAN TAKEN ALLEGORICALLY
"All the optimism of the age had been disheartening for this reason, that it had always been trying to prove that we fit in to the world. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world. I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other which sought its meat from God. But now I really was happy, for I had learnt that man was a monstrosity. I had been right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better than all things. The optimist's pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; in the light of the supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in aquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring... That is the inmost philosophy of the Fall. In Sir Oliver Lodge's Catechism, the first two questions were: 'What are you?' I could only answer, 'God knows.' And to the question, 'What is meant by the Fall?' I could answer with complete sincerity, 'That whatever I am, I am not myself.'" --G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Naming the Animals in Eden

Monkey's Uncle
Fun With Genesis Issue, Summer 1985
Editor: E.T. Babinski

EVER WONDER WHAT GOD WAS THINKING ABOUT WHEN HE CREATED THESE BEASTIES?

Dinosaurs in Eden

Adam must have had a lot of fun naming the above animals, but did you know that there are some animals that Adam didn't name
like the "geep," for instance? A "geep" was produced in Cambridge, England in 1984 by crossing early-stage cells of the embryos
of a goat and a sheep! (cf. Science Digest, Jan '85, p. 52)

Carnivores, Meat Eaters in Genesis

Monkey's Uncle
Fun With Genesis Issue, Summer 1985
Editor: E.T. Babinski

"TO EVERY THING THAT MOVES ON THE EARTH. I HAVE GIVEN EVERY GREEN PLANT FOR FOOD."

In the October ' 83 issue of Bible-Science Newsletter (on page 16) one reader asked:

While I am a Christian, I have difficulty reconciling the Bible a particular account of creation with nature. In Genesis 1:30 the animals were given plants to eat, but not meat. How can Genesis 1:30 be reconciled with all the carnivores? Were carnivores created after the fall of Adam? Or are we supposed to believe that carnivores actually were "designed" and "structured" for plant eating and that their present apparatuses employed for pursuing meat is contrary to what they were actually destined to do? Can you list some special books or references which show that carnivores can be made to live contentedly on a vegetarian diet?
M.R., Long Beach, California

To which the editor replied:

1. We cannot obtain direct evidence supporting either the Genesis or evolutionary account of carnivorous origins.

2. A "meat-eaters" teeth and claws are well suited to eating plants with fleshy stems and tough skinned fruits, like for instance, the fleshy trunk (in reality a vine) of the banana tree. One may speculate that though animals today do not generally eat material such as banana stalks, the animals which once filled that niche have switched to meat.

3. The editor also quoted Henry Morris to the effect that carnivores today can live on a vegetarian diet if they must, though they cannot be made to exist contentedly on such a diet. He also added that his own cat loves corn on the cob and sauerkraut. Lastly, he suggested that plants existing before the Flood provided more complete nutrition than plants do now.

But questions still remain. Like...

1. True, we cannot obtain direct evidence supporting either the Genesis or evolutionary account. But there does exist fossil evidence of large skeletons with smaller skeleton remains of their final meaty meal tucked neatly in their rib cages. Futhermore, no one seems to doubt that many dinosaurs were carnivorous. (Or there must have been some very big banana stalks for Tyrannosaurus Rex to chew on, while gazing longingly at the brontosaurus-burgers he could be eating instead.) And since these and other fossilized remains were supposedly laid down by the Flood, this evidence does refute claims made by many creationist authorities (cited by the editor) that "all animals were vegetarian before the Flood."

2. Where did these heavily clawed and sharp toothed animals learn to stalk their prey prey, after living on nothing but banana stalks before the Flood? Of what use were special adaptations of hollow fangs, and their accompanying venom, and the spider's ability to build a web in the garden of Eden. if the spider only ate green plants? Were green plants, like Venus fly traps, allowed to eat flies in Eden? Did the female praying mantid mate without having to bite off the male's head to induce copulation? Did the bees and wasps in Eden have stingers? Did the wasps partially paralyze a caterpillar, then use their ovipositors to insert their eggs into its flesh, afterwhich the eggs hatched and ate the caterpillar from the inside out? The editor explains that "all abilities and features known today were present in perfection (in animals in Eden) although, like recessive genetic traits, they may not have been expressing themselves." So I guess God utilized his foresight and creative ability to include the genes for venomous poisons in plants and animals, web-making in spiders, stingers in bees and wasps, etc., to be expressed later. Thank God.

3. Creationists deplore evolution since it requires millions of years in which billions of creatures fed on one another, with over 50% of all known species (as evidenced in the fossil record) becoming extinct. To creationists this is a 'brutally harsh' scenario inconsistent with a creation that God found to be initially "Good." But is the evolutionary tale more 'brutally harsh' than God wiping out all life on earth in a great Flood; punishing animals that knew no sin for man's sin; making carnivores out of harmless herbivores; or even making his own Son suffer extinction on the cross? (Not to mention the eternal suffering awaiting 'the many.') Compared with the brutal harshness of a fundamentalist's unquestionable God. it is the evolutionary scenario that appears rather 'Good!' After all, evolution is no worse than the 'brutal harshness' going on around us right now.

"The Biblical words about the genesis of heaven and earth are not words of information but words of appreciation. The story of creation is not a description of how the world came into being but a song about the glory of the world's having come into being. 'And God saw that it was good' (Genesis 1.25). This is the challenge: to reconcile God's view with our experience." --from The Wisdom of Herchel, ed. by Ruth Marcus Goodhill

Geocentricity of Genesis

Monkey's Uncle
Fun With Genesis Issue, Summer 1985
Editor: E.T. Babinski

THE GEOCENTRICITY OF GENESIS
According to Genesis the earth was made first. All the rest of the universe was an accessory. On the fourth day of creation the sun, moon, and "the stars also"--mere trifles, lumped together at the end of the inventory--were brought into existence. These were "created" and "set" in heaven "to give light upon the earth." With as much reason it might be said that mice were made to eat cheese. The celestial systems do not exist for the sake of the earth any more than an army exists for the sake of a single soldier. He gets his share of rations, but he is not the object of the combination. Astronomy shows us the insignificance of our planet. It is but a drop in the ocean, a grain of sand on the sea shore. We know of at least 182 stupendous objects revolving in regular orbits round the sun, of which the earth is far from being the largest. For them also, and not merely for the sake of the earth, does the sun "rule the day." And when we look beyond our solar system into the mighty universe of other suns and planets we might well ask what light is ruling each of them. The Genesis account, compared with our wealth of knowledge, does appear like a geocentric dream. When Anaxagoras dared to suggest that the sun was as large as the Peloponnesus he startled his Greek contemporaries. What must have been the notions of a pre-scientific people like the ancient Hebrews? For them it must have been easy to regard the sun, moon, "and the stars also" as mere satellites of the earth, set up in the sky as lanterns for the human race. Calvin stated, in his Commentary on the Book of Genesis, that "God himself took the space of six days, for the purpose of accumulating his works to the capacity of man." Inotherwords, the creation of all the various planets and suns in the cosmos revolved conveniently around man's weekly time schedule, measured in earth days. How geocentric can you get?