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Ellis Paul

Feature

Intelligent Design or a bad idea?

Last night, deep in the bliss of a blue sky dream, the booming voice of God awoke me to the darkness.

PAUL!! WAKE UP, MAN!

(God never calls me by my stage name.)

I AM TROUBLED, AND WE NEED TO TALK!

"What have I done now? I said. (I usually keep myself fairly busy with troubles and guilts and trip-ups of my karmic destiny.)"

IT IS NOT YOU THIS TIME.

Well. You can imagine my relief.

"God," said I, "I am a little confused. Now if you don't mind providing me with some clarity. I'm a little sleep groggy-- Did you say you were troubled? What are you troubled about, and why on earth would you bother to tell me?"

I AM TELLING EVERYONE. BUT SOME PEOPLE DON'T LISTEN. I NEED TO GET SOME ANSWERS FROM YOU.

"Well" I said. "Usually this relationship is the other way around. I feel like I'm plenty qualified to ask a number questions myself, and now that I got you on the line maybe a minute or two could be spent asking about, well... I got a few of 'em-- but I don't know if I am qualified to answ--"

QUIET! YOU ARE QUALIFIED.. YOU ARE HUMAN. THAT IS THE ONLY QUALIFICATION NEEDED. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOUR SPECIES. I CREATED YOU IN MY OWN IMAGE. BUT YOU CONTINUE TO FAIL MY HOPES OF YOU.

"Well I've got to agree with you there, sir. I mean. having never seen your image, I can only imagine. But in my mind I suppose that we are somewhat falling short right there in that category sir. Yup, You probably got plenty of reasons to be troubled right there."

I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH WHAT I AM HEARING FROM KANSAS AND GEORGIA AND OTHER PARTS OF YOUR WORLD.

"Well sir, I have traveled many times, with suitcases, stamps, and umbrellas, to those places and I can attest to some beautiful sounds there sir-- and some sights as well.... and smells and tastes and other things ...There is that peach water tank in Georgia near the South Carolina line, now some say, that is a source of state pride, but now to me, that looks like a big fat peach colored butt, but as they say, one man's art is another man's ah... butt... I guess.... and Kansas has all kinds of charm-- there's a big ball of twine in Kansas and sunflower fields yellowing the horizon as far as an eye can stretch... and the sounds in those places-- Ray Charles sings with all sorts of inspired notes about Georgia, and now resides in Heaven, I'm guessing he is causing a beautiful ruckus in those parts of your kingdom and hell, oh... excuse the term sir, just a slip there, Kansas helped inspire the Wizard of Oz not to mention the world's greatest ball of twine, and has some incredible sunsets and thunderstorms and cyclones..."

I GAVE YOU PEOPLE A BRAIN IN WHICH TO EVOLVE, TO STRETCH THE LIMITS OF YOUR PERCEPTION AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD IN WHICH YOU LIVE. WITH EACH INSIGHT FORWARD YOU SHOULD GAIN GREATER ACCESS INTO THE DIVINE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE. BUT INSTEAD YOU FAIL ME. YOUR SCHOOL BOARDS ENFORCE UPON YOUR CHILDREN THIS MAN-MADE CONCEPT CALLED "INTELLIGENT DESIGN". WHY DO YOU NOT SEE THE STRENGTH OF YOUR OWN SCIENTIFIC INSIGHTS?

"God. You got me there sir, That is a stumper.. If ever there were two worse words to describe the nature of this ol' species of human, "INTELLIGENT DESIGN" ... I couldn't come up with them. Geez, I would go so far as saying that no human being that was intelligently designed would come up with the term itself. Or "war". Or "prejudice". Or "Walmart" for that matter. But I am thankful that Garth Brooks has a place to sell that new cd box set of his. "

"Well, I personally always thought that the assembly line of evolution was sort of a smart design in of itself, a way of upgrading and tweeking like they do at Microsoft so to speak.
Homosapiens System '05, Cro Magnon System 9.0 ....seems like the better model survives each generation... didn't you create that? Why can't they give you credit for that. That was a good one."

IT DOESN'T LINE UP WITH "GENESIS".

"Well, I gotta say, picturing Adam and Eve as cavemen/monkeys spoils the cinematography a wee bit in my mind. But with makeup. Some lighting. Speilberg could pull it off... We could get the cast from "Planet of the Apes" and just kick out Charlton Heston and Nova."

HE DID MAKE FOR A GOOD MOSES. BE WE`ARE OFF TRACK... BACK TO MY QUESTION.


"Why doesn't mankind just let go of the literal interpretation of "Genesis". Snakes talking, Apples giving knowledge. The rib thing. "

"I mean, no offence here Lord, but I've had a hard time buying it. Even when I was eight in Sunday school. In fact, when I figured out Santa Claus wasn't real-- I began to question just about everything adults over eighteen ever told me. Genesis seems to stretch the bounds of reasonable conceivability a bit. A universe in seven days.... I mean you're fast. And no offense, but when was the last miracle like that?"


WELL, THERE WAS THE BOSTON RED SOX, 2004.

"You got me there. And thank you for that one. There are a whole lot of reasons for me to believe in you, but I look at my daughter and that's all I need. But some people want to restrict how the rest of us perceive you. They want to control our journey to you by digging a tunnel according to their version of the road map. The tunnel restricts free thinking, free perceptions, self discovery,science, creative human insight."

"The fact that we evolve from apes doesn't make me doubt your existence. It makes me doubt the story of Adam and Eve."

THEY FEAR YOU MAY BEGIN TO DOUBT EVERYTHING AS WELL. THE TWO EMUS ON THE ARK. THE PLAGUE OF FROGS. JESUS WALKING ON WATER.

"Well, no offence. I don't know how to say this, Lord, and I apologize ahead of speaking it. But I do doubt those things. I mean, isn't the purpose of faith to bridge that very gap of doubt?It takes a leap in faith to think Jesus walked on water or rose from the dead after a few days, because any reasonable person would doubt it could happen. And just because doubts rise from Bible stories doesn't mean I doubt your existence. Or doubt the moral of the story. I just doubt some of the details. I doubt a lot of things. I doubt you are talking to me now."

BUT THIS MY VOICE.

"Well. This is a creation of your voice through my imagination. I do believe you created my imagination. And the imaginations of everyone everywhere. And therefore you helped to create this blog and the internet it exists in. So, in all honesty, I will try my besy to give you justice. Just as the creative minds who were writing the Bible tried to give you justice. Just as the people who are trying to push "Intelligent Design" are trying to give you justice. Boy... it's getting crowed in the "let's represent the real God party." Everybody's got their own agenda.

WHO IS RIGHT?

Well. That's the question, God. And that's why we have to protect the individial's right to find their own path to you. And that's why we must keep the church version of the universe in church schools and to give our chldren in public schools the tools to cut their own path to you..."I COULD SEND PLAGUES TO THE SCHOOL DISTRICTS...

"Please don't... let's hope evolution itself will keep these people's genes from "dvancing into our next generation..."