On Godliness
I am a fickle god. I do not require my followers to worship me in my absence, but only when I choose to appear to them bearing my Token. Neither do I cleave to a routine but appear to them randomly bearing manna; then they worship me before devouring my gift.
I had a disciple once, but she decided that I'm not worth the bother as I appear to my flock whether she attends me or not. She used to come most days while my temple was building and lay an egg in what was to become the living room. The carpenters, plumbers, painters and other assorted trades would stop work and watch, respectfully, while she made her offering.
So, every day or two, I trudge about a hundred yards uphill to stand on my altar (rock) and hold aloft the plastic bin of kitchen scraps. My loyal followers gather round and, jumping up and down in excitement, respond to my aweful cry "I am your god - worship me" which, naturally, they do whereupon I hurl my gift among them for them to fight over.
My ever-loyal chickens.
And, in return, I steal their babies.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Monday, October 12, 2009
Kiribati is Temporary
So is everywhere else, but some more than others.
Once there was a volcano. It erupted, possibly rather abruptly and noisily, from the bottom of the sea. It grew to a few hundred, or maybe a few thousand feet above the tide, and perhaps in only a few days.
Eventually, movement of tectonic plates shifted it away from its birthplace and the vent that created it and it declined into a mere island mountain in the middle of what we now call the Pacific Ocean.
Wind, rain and abrasion from sand blown from elsewhere turned its surface into dust. It accumulated the leavings of birds, insects carried on the winds and seeds, too.
Over time, a few hundred years or so, plants grew and broke down the very fertile rock into more and more soil which allowed more plants to thrive and so on. Mother Nature (or Gaia or Terra Mater or Python) or more simply biology covered the land with anything that happened by on wind or current.
Eventually humans arrived, certainly by chance since they had no means of knowing the island was there. Perhaps they were fisher-folk blown too far from home to return against winds and currents. Or perchance they had left another, similar island, because it was becoming over-populated.
These people thrived on the bounty of their new land. However, they almost certainly brought with them pigs, which would efficiently reduce the existing populations of birds and plants.
As the (human) population reached the limits of sustainability one or more solutions were adopted. Cannibalism, human sacrifice (especially of infants) and emigration would help to maintain stability so any one or more of these would become popular or even mandatory.
Similar social arrangements became popular in other parts of the world, though usually more for convenience than necessity.
Meanwhile the depredations of people and their animals reduced the flora here and there allowing erosion to diminish the agricultural capacity of the island. At the same time, though more slowly, the weight of the two-mile high mountain (of which the island was only the tiny tip) was causing it to sink into the sea bottom. Eventually all that was left was a caldera or the rim of the original volcanic crater. A roughly ring-shaped island.
This process also led to increasingly shallow water around the island and on the rocky bottom grew corals. Eventually, as the island sank and eroded, the coral reef around its leeward side became a major feature.
As the Sun, Earth and Moon passed though their several and inter-related cycles, the seal level rose and fell. When it was a little higher the coral reef grew and as it fell so the coral was exposed and died. Even a few inches had a significant effect. That still goes on now; it never stops.
And, as the land area slowly diminished, so the population came under increasing pressure.
Sometime after the 6th Century CE the keel was invented, allowing ships to sail close to the wind. This meant that for the first time our island could be visited by mariners able to come from any direction and leave again the same way.
Now, of course, our island is even less isolated, with aircraft, telephone, even the internet keeping its inhabitants in touch with the rest of us - and vice-versa.
So we know how hard life is for them and we do what we can to help by taxing ourselves to send them aid to postpone the inevitable with the unintended consequence of allowing them to increase beyond the capacity of the island to support them, and so we increase our aid again and so it goes...until at last the island erodes away completely or a tsunami wipes it clean.
A few generations ago that could have happened and no-one would ever have known. There are many places in the Pacific where land lies just above or just below the surface.
Now we are told that sea levels are rising. Well of course they are, the Earth is dynamic. The Himalayas are rising too - is that a bad thing? They cause drought on one side and monsoons on the other. Can anyone say what the ideal sea level is? And how it is to be measured and where and against what fixed point?
Once there was a volcano. It erupted, possibly rather abruptly and noisily, from the bottom of the sea. It grew to a few hundred, or maybe a few thousand feet above the tide, and perhaps in only a few days.
Eventually, movement of tectonic plates shifted it away from its birthplace and the vent that created it and it declined into a mere island mountain in the middle of what we now call the Pacific Ocean.
Wind, rain and abrasion from sand blown from elsewhere turned its surface into dust. It accumulated the leavings of birds, insects carried on the winds and seeds, too.
Over time, a few hundred years or so, plants grew and broke down the very fertile rock into more and more soil which allowed more plants to thrive and so on. Mother Nature (or Gaia or Terra Mater or Python) or more simply biology covered the land with anything that happened by on wind or current.
Eventually humans arrived, certainly by chance since they had no means of knowing the island was there. Perhaps they were fisher-folk blown too far from home to return against winds and currents. Or perchance they had left another, similar island, because it was becoming over-populated.
These people thrived on the bounty of their new land. However, they almost certainly brought with them pigs, which would efficiently reduce the existing populations of birds and plants.
As the (human) population reached the limits of sustainability one or more solutions were adopted. Cannibalism, human sacrifice (especially of infants) and emigration would help to maintain stability so any one or more of these would become popular or even mandatory.
Similar social arrangements became popular in other parts of the world, though usually more for convenience than necessity.
Meanwhile the depredations of people and their animals reduced the flora here and there allowing erosion to diminish the agricultural capacity of the island. At the same time, though more slowly, the weight of the two-mile high mountain (of which the island was only the tiny tip) was causing it to sink into the sea bottom. Eventually all that was left was a caldera or the rim of the original volcanic crater. A roughly ring-shaped island.
This process also led to increasingly shallow water around the island and on the rocky bottom grew corals. Eventually, as the island sank and eroded, the coral reef around its leeward side became a major feature.
As the Sun, Earth and Moon passed though their several and inter-related cycles, the seal level rose and fell. When it was a little higher the coral reef grew and as it fell so the coral was exposed and died. Even a few inches had a significant effect. That still goes on now; it never stops.
And, as the land area slowly diminished, so the population came under increasing pressure.
Sometime after the 6th Century CE the keel was invented, allowing ships to sail close to the wind. This meant that for the first time our island could be visited by mariners able to come from any direction and leave again the same way.
Now, of course, our island is even less isolated, with aircraft, telephone, even the internet keeping its inhabitants in touch with the rest of us - and vice-versa.
So we know how hard life is for them and we do what we can to help by taxing ourselves to send them aid to postpone the inevitable with the unintended consequence of allowing them to increase beyond the capacity of the island to support them, and so we increase our aid again and so it goes...until at last the island erodes away completely or a tsunami wipes it clean.
A few generations ago that could have happened and no-one would ever have known. There are many places in the Pacific where land lies just above or just below the surface.
Now we are told that sea levels are rising. Well of course they are, the Earth is dynamic. The Himalayas are rising too - is that a bad thing? They cause drought on one side and monsoons on the other. Can anyone say what the ideal sea level is? And how it is to be measured and where and against what fixed point?
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