As a European, the unspeakable success of Creationism never fails to amaze me. I think it’s time to lean back and look at how it all began. I apologize, it’s quite a long one.
Chapter I – why the fuck am I here?
Every culture has a creation story. As the name hopefully implies, it details how and why the world was made. Because understanding how something came into existence means understanding its nature. And people are curious about nature. This seems to be the fundamental building block of every society, because as the first order of business, everybody has to agree on the answer to “how and why the fuck am I here”.
Early civilizations didn’t know much about anything, so people just improvised to make the others shut the hell up.
Ancient child: Dad, what’s that giant disc of fire in the sky?
Ancient dad: That’s just some dude carrying his magic fireball across the sky
Ancient child: Neat. Um… why’s he doing it? And so punctual, too…
Ancient dad: Well, some other dude made him do it at the dawn’a'time
Ancient child: Why? And who is that other dude anyway?
Ancient dad: *sighs* You know, he’s the Boss Dude and he did that and everything else when he created the world.
Ancient child: Awesome!
And thus, everyone was satisfied and could, finally, shut the hell up to go back to whatever they were doing at the time. The Boss Dude and His Little Helpers made the universe run seamlessly in the background and nobody had to worry about it.
Chapter II – synergy and conflict management
Predictably, after a while the first problems arose:
Child #1: …and that’s because the Boss Dude made the Sun Dude carry his magic fireball across the sky every day…
Child #2: uhm, hang on a second, that’s just wrong. My dad told me the sun is the fart of the Fire Dude when he’s done digesting his evening meal!
Child #1: Listen up, this is plainly nuts! I have it from a reliable source and my entire world view is hinged on the Sun Dude and all that!
Child #2: There is no Sun Dude, just farts! And I guess Boss Dude is really pissed at you for getting it wrong!
If you know anything about human nature, you can infer the only logical course of action available to these children. Clearly, the unbeliever must die. It’s the only way. After all, they can’t both be right. And because Boss Dude would understandably be angry with at least one of them for getting it so wrong, the surviving child gets to claim he was right. Boss Dude is not an asshole, you know. He wouldn’t let the wrong one win now, would he?
Chapter III – world domination
And so, the lively discussion about the nature of Boss Dude and his universe continued for a few millennia. Like any successul TV show, the portfolio of Boss Dude was being expanded continously for the benefit of all mankind:
Some Bloke: Dude, my friend just died. How could Boss Dude let that happen?
Other Bloke: Aw, man, don’t worry. Boss Dude has it all taken care of.
Some Bloke: How can he take care of dead people?
Other Bloke: They’re not really gone. Boss Dude just teleported them to his Magic Kingdom.
Some Bloke: That doesn’t sound so bad. Can I go there, too?
Other Bloke: Sure, don’t worry. Well, as long as you Don’t Do Anything Wrong.
Some Bloke: Whaddayamean wrong?
Other Bloke: If the Boss Dude is pissed at you, you can’t go to the Magic Kingdom.
Some Bloke: What happens instead?
Other Bloke: You get thrown out with the Cosmic Trash!
Some Bloke: Wow, that sucks. But how can I make sure Boss Dude is happy with my performance?
Other Bloke: You know, I happen to talk to him quite often. Just do what I say, I’ll make sure everything’s hunkydory.
Some Bloke: Sweet!
After this, Boss Dude – with his newly added functionality – continued to serve usefully for many aeons. Actually, there was a huge multitude of different boss dudes, since every town had invented their own. But because the different BDs are not really compatible with each other, their numbers decreased proportionally with the growth of civilization. For details on how this was pulled off, refer to Chapter II in which a default conflict resolution mechanism is described that works quite well.
Chapter IV – religion 2.0
For most of humankind’s history, Boss Dude and His Little Helpers were all that was needed to both control people and explain everything to them. From time to time, some guys suspected the whole Boss Dude saga was nothing more than the cumulation of what countless generations had pulled out of their collective asses. For more information about the fate of these people, refer to Chapter II.
However, knowledge about the world increased greatly over time. Explanations starting with “some magic Dude is doing it” were starting to get a bit impractical, because people wanted to predict and manipulate natural events and resources. Soon they were constructing not only calendars and simple arithmetics but entire mathematical models on how things interact with other things. At first, it wasn’t a big problem for Boss Dude’s existence. As long as you could say “Boss Dude created this thing and he made these interfaces available to you so you could calculate some stuff he wanted you to deal with” everything was still borderline OK.
Again, very predictably, things were starting to go downhill as the scope of these models and explanations grew uncontrollably beyond the well-accepted boundaries that were supposed to designate Boss-Dude-only entrances to the back stage of the world.
Some Scientist: Guesswhatnow, turns out the sun isn’t a magic fireball carried by the Sun Dude after all.
Some Guy: Wait a second, that can’t be right. Prepare to d-
Some Scientist: -Actually, I can prove it. Here, look at my formulas and here’s a telescope, too.
Some Guy, after a while: Ooops, well. It was all kind of metaphorical anyway. See, when Boss Dude created the universe-
Some Scientist: Yeah. Funny thing, see, because technically the universe was created quite spectacularly in a huge explosion a few billion years ago.
Some Guy: Now that is just heretical. Prepare to d-
Some Scientist: -Actually, I can prove it. Here, my calculations and look, I took a picture of the early universe, too. Cute, isn’t it?
Some Guy: Right. Like I said: you can’t take the Book of Boss Dude too literally. It’s more like a metaphor for everything.
Some Scientist: But that’s just a collection of half-remembered stories some people collected a few thousand years ago?
Some Guy, fighting with rage: Sure. But, you know, they were, like, inspired. Yeah, the Boss Dude, like, possessed them to write those. If there are limitations in the Book, that’s because the possessed people made some mistakes. It’s just human.
Some Scientist: Sure, why not.
Some Guy: So, a big explosion, eh? Why’d that happen, anyway?
Some Scientist: I have no idea.
Some Guy: Ah, but I know! See, that’s because Boss Dude blew it up at the dawn’a'time! *awkward pause* If, you know, it’s alright with you.
Some Scientist: Sure, as long as I can’t prove that it wasn’t so.
Some Guy: Excellent! I hereby accept this lack of proof… as proof for the existence of …Hidden Boss Dude and his life’s work!
And so, he became Hidden Nice Boss Dude and his biography was saved again. Sort of. Whenever scientists arrived at the barrier of the unknown, that territory was declared to be the domain of Hidden Nice Boss Dude. Of course, that domain had to be rescaled a few times as the barriers of what science could prove shifted. But as long as you’re a flexible Hidden-Nice-Boss-Dude-guy, this method would work indefinitely as long as you are willing to shift the borders of the Domain of Hidden Nice Boss Dude continously to those areas where there currently was lots of unknown stuff.
Chapter V – it’s, like, all way too complicated
Before too long, people were growing restless with the concept of Hidden Nice Boss Dude. After all, we’re talking about the Boss Dude here! If he’s the Boss Dude, then how come he’s constantly running for cover? Why does he have to hide in dark, uncharted places? And what’s all that wussy talk about religion co-existing with science? Isn’t science by its very nature infringing on the copyright of Boss Dude? Somebody should send these heretics the DMCA notice they so richly deserve! Will the real Boss Dude please stand up!
Some priest: You know what, I’ve changed my mind about this whole science thing. It’s getting out of hand. Cats mating with dogs and all that. Boss Dude will be sending us the Cosmic Eviction Notice real soon. And then what!?
Some heretic: Come on, we went over this already… I showed you all the proof and stuff…
Some priest: Yeah. Turns out, that was all fabricated by Bad Dude. He’s Boss Dude’s evil twin. Bad Dude doesn’t want us to enter Boss Dude’s Magic Kingdom.
Some heretic: Hang on, didn’t you say Boss Dude was all-powerful? Why is he letting Bad Dude mess everything up?
Some priest: Let’s not get into that right now. Anyway, quit your evil ways now, while you still can.
And like that, just because Boss Dude’s followers had somehow re-grown the cochones they lost a few hundred years back after that silly incident with the Spanish inquisition, Boss Dude was on the road to victory once more! There was just one little problem. By that time, not that many people still believed in the original Boss Dude. Worse yet, there were countless factions that all believed in a slightly different Boss Dude.
As shown in Chapter II, it is really difficult to integrate all those completely different beliefs about how Boss Dude wants the world to work. There were numerous cultural differences that separated all the remaining believers. For example, while they were all quite sure about the worthlessless of women, the actual degree to which Boss Dude despised females remained a point of contention. Likewise, how should unbelievers be punished? Was it mandatory to behead them yourself right on the spot where you found them? Or should you wait for Boss Dude to sort them out after you bombed the crap out of them?
Obviously, a resolution had to be found for all of these fundamentally different approaches, and after a lot of soul-searching the head priests all sat together to draft some marketing material they all could use. That’s what computer science calles a template. It’s a piece of text with general one-size-fits-all statements and <insert your deity here> placeholders.
Priest #3: Alright people, listen up. The Cosmic Eviction Notice is near, so let’s get cracking!
Priest #1: Well spoken. First order of business: we need a new version of the creation story.
Priest #2: What’s wrong with the old ones?
Priest #3: For starters, we all have different stories and the believers are getting confused.
Priest #1: Besides, they’re tragically out of date and nobody actually believes in them anymore!
Priest #3: But how in Boss Dude’s name can we ever converge on a single one?!?
Priest #2: Excuse me, but in our religion we call him the Mighty Boss Dude, could we please stop using the other forms, ’cause they’re all heretical and technically I’d have to blow you all up for it…
Priest #1: I have an idea! We just omit specifics alltogether. It worked for the cosmetics industry, why not for us?
Priest #2: Brilliant, and we’re calling it… “Mighty Boss Dude’s Smiting-The-Infidels Creation Story”!
Priest #3: No way, it’s gonna be “Boss Dude Playdoh’d The Universe With His Bare Hands In 6 Days” or nothing!
Priest #1: You two clearly don’t get the concept. No specifics! Let’s see, what do all of our Boss Dudes have in common?
Priest #2: They’re almighty! And angry, too.
Priest #1: No, we actually did polling on that. It doesn’t play so well with moderates. And in California, for some reason.
Priest #2: Mighty Boss Dude is pretty smart. He knows everything!
Priest #1: That’s it! Instead of “Boss Dude” we’re using “Intelligence”. Sounds modern, doesn’t it.
Priest #3: I dunno. Sounds like an X Files episode or somethin’.
Priest #1: That’s one more demographic we’re reaching, then. We can’t be too picky, you know.
Priest #3: So… “How a Divine Intelligence Made Everything In 6 Days”, good name.
Priest #1: Dude, that’s a non-starter. It’s way too long and not modern enough. Besides, we can’t keep that “Divine” in there, ’cause we need to get that sucker past the spam filter of all those undecideds.
Priest #3: Spam… what?
Priest #2: Ever heard of email?
Priest #3: Isn’t that something the Bad Dude invented to make people stray from Boss Dude’s path?
Priest #2: You can be so dense!
Priest #3: Don’t use the tools of evil!!!! Don’t you know they’re invented by science and used by liberals?
Priest #2: Really? Tell me, how do you coordinate your suicide bombers then? With smoke signals?!?
Priest #3: We don’t blow ourselves up, stupid. It’s called surgical strike, you should try it some time. Also, you really don’t have to kill yourself to smite those filthy whores on their way to their abortion clinics, that would be such a waste…
Priest #2: If you guys didn’t think about sex all the time, you wouldn’t need abortion clinics to begin with! Your culture is rotten at the core!
Priest #1: Guys, we’re getting sidetracked here. What’s a more neutral word for “making something where nothing existed before”?
Priest #2: How about “design”? I read that in a particle physics book, once.
Priest #3: Why do you read particle physics books? Aren’t they based on, how shall I call it, science?
Priest #2: Yes, but we really needed to figure out how this whole plutonium enrichment works, you know…
Priest #1: Design! I like it. Sounds… scientific! Great!
Priest #3: “Intelligent Design”, yes. Because Boss Dude is very smart.
** several hours of intense discussion later **
Priest #1: Gentlemen, Boss Dude will be quite pleased with our new marketing material, I believe.
Priest #3: Now we must make everyone read and believe it.
Priest #2: We could threaten to kill everyone who doesn’t.
Priest #1: Way too old-school. How about children?
Priest #3: Yeah, they’re pretty dumb, they’ll believe anything.
Priest #1: I believe the politically correct word is “open-minded”. Anyway, let’s get this brochure into our classrooms. And in a few years, we’ll have our first new generation of Boss Dude-fearing-
Priest #3: -abstinent-
Priest #2: -stop talking about sex!-
Priest #1: …young people. Truly modeled in Boss Dude’s image.
Finally, the unifying Theory of Everything was born. Explaining everything by explaining nothing, the potential of a timeless classic. A version of Boss Dude that was immune to any advances in science as well as any form of reasoning at all!
And like this, the world was saved from cold, heartless materialism and once again laid to rest comfortably in a state of ignorant bliss and united in the divine enlightenment only Boss Dude can provide. A world, where the value of life has once again decreased to the cost of a one-way trip to the Magic Kingdom. A world, where we can finally stop all this senseless wondering and prodding at the universe. Because, remember, the only kind of productivity Boss Dude had in mind when he created us was the production of many Boss-fearing children, by means of targeted and strictly pleasure-less unions executed by lawfully married couples that support traditional family values.
As we can see, the history of the world is actually quite simple. Why is everyone still arguing?