Further Adventures of the Unlikely Prophet

Well, god spoke to me again last night. I know, I know. I can hear you already. "But Nigel, you don't believe in that god foolishness, do you?" You already know the answer to that question. No. No I don't. Not even a little bit. Which is what makes it so weird that he keeps talking to me. So I'm sure you can imagine my dismay when as I'm walking out of the locker room at the local gym after getting in some quality cardio, he starts talking to me. Again.

"Oh, Nigel?"

I'm tired, I'm still wet from the shower, and I'm hungry. The last thing I need to do right now is engage a non-existent deity in a lengthy discussion, especially when there are people around who could overhear me. So I ignore him.

"You can't ignore me, Nigel. We've been through this before."

I nod polietly to the attractive young lady at the front desk and I push the door open, leading out into the parking lot. I spot my car, which is in need of a bit of a wash, and head off in that direction.

"Nigel?" he says again.

I'm fumbling for my keys. I finally manage to dig them out of my pocket, unlock my car, and get in, closing the door smartly behind me.

"What?" I ask, making no attempt to disguise my irritation. "Why are you bothering me again?"

There is a pause, long enough for me to think that perhaps he isn't going to talk to me after all. Then, finally....

"I see no reason to be testy," he says, sounding a bit whimpery.

"Fine," I say, shaking my head in dismay. "Talk."

"Don't you think maybe you owe me an apology?"

"No," I say. I thought about saying something a little more cutting, but I have no interest in encouraging further conversation with someone who doesn't exist in the first place.

"What do you know about Michele Bachmann?" he asks.

"Isn't she that bug-eyed twat from Minnesota?"

"Yes."

"The one who always looks as though she's straining to pinch off a loaf?"

"Yes, that one."

"The whacko who said something to some group or other about how they should slit their wrists and be blood brothers against Obama's healthcare reform?"

"Yes, she's the--"

"The brainless git who equated the census to World War II prison camps? The dimwitted buffoon who says that you want her to run for President?"

"That is what I want to talk to you about."

"Ah," I say, nodding slowly. "Go on."

"Well," god said, clearing his non-existent throat. "She is saying all of this nonsense about me talking to her, and telling her to do this, or do that. I'm not. Plain and simple. I'm not talking to her at all. Never have. Why would I? She's Exhibit A in the case for why I should have given the world to the lemurs."

"No argument there. The woman is clearly bonkers. But what do you want me to do about it? I don't live in Minnesota. I don't even know anyone who lives in Minnesota. Except for that wanker that used to be governor. Oh, and Al Franken."

"I want you to tell people to stop saying that I'm talking to them. Except for you. I'm talking to you. You'll need to tell them that part, I suppose. But I want you to emphasize that I am talking ONLY to you. Not to Sarah Palin, not to W., and definitely not to this ill-informed, incendiary, ignoramous."

"Nice alliteration," I say. See? Just because I don't believe in him doesn't mean I can't be complimentary from time to time.

"Thank you. Now go forth and spread my word."

I don't say anything. I just sit there, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel. Finally, he clears his non-existent throat again.

"Sorry about that," he says. "Old habits. Let me rephrase. Nigel, would you please tell people that I'm not talking to her?"

"Glad to," I say as I turn my key in the ignition and begin my drive home.

People like Michele Bachmann are dangerous. Not dangerous in a cool way, or not dangerous because they somehow represent a real threat to those of us on the left side of the political fence. She is dangerous because she actually believes what she says. It would still be scary if you could listen to what she says and think "she's just doing that to get people worked up." Sadly, that's really not the case. A side-effect, at best. She says what she says because that is what she honestly believes.

These sorts of beliefs are outdated and are nothing more than an evolutionary hold-over. The philosphical equivalent of the human tailbone. It served a purpose once, but the species has moved on and it not only is no longer necessary, it is flat-out counterproductive. Back in the infancy of the human species, when humans lived in tribal groups, these sorts of uber-conservative ideals were necessary. Food was where you found it. It, as well as the other items necessary for life and a modicum of comfort, were in finite supply. As a result, you would naturally develop a tendency to be rabidly group-oriented. Your group would be comprised of a small-ish number of people who had similar philosophies and ideals, and once the group expanded beyond ten or so members, it would also be natural for a totalitarian form of rule to emerge. If I am in group A and we have this nice little watering hole and a tasty berry patch, and someone from group B shows up to help themselves to my berries, you better believe I would react most aggressively. Take my berries, will you? I think not. Here's a swift kick to the hoo-hoo instead. And go ahead and take this sharp blow to the head for good measure. So go back and tell your friends that they are not welcome to my berries. See? Simple, effective, no fuss, no muss. It is easy to see how these sorts of isolaitionist beliefs, once upon a time, would have conferred an evolutionary advantage.

But what happens when the groups become much larger? Let's say we now are in groups of several hundred, or several thousand. Now what happens? Well, unless I want to end up in some sort of gang-like brawl, I must necessarily act differently. You want some of my berries? Well, perhaps you have something you could offer me in exchange. They are my berries, after all, and it only seems fair that I get something to compensate for the loss of the berries. Oh, you have goats, you say? I could use some goats. So how about you help yourself to five containers of berries and you give me two goats? Ok, how about a goat and two chickens? Deal. Let's shake on it. As the species expands and evolves, the rabid need to fight against those who look different or those who have a different philosophy diminishes. It is an outdated, vestigal behavior, hardcoded into the reptilian part of the human brain. Just as we moved away from outdated ideas like the earth being the center of the universe and that headaches were caused by having demons trapped in your head, so too must we move on from this sort of assinine thinking.

This sort of thinking is a virus. Or a retrovirus, to be more specific. A retrovirus reproduces in a host cell by forming DNA which is then incorporated into the genome of the host, at which point the virus replicates as part of the host's DNA. People believe these Michele Bachmann-esque ideas because they learned it from someone. Probably a parent, but definitely some sort of authority figure. Outsiders are bad. People who think differently from us are EVIL. Say it enough times, and--as Dick Cheney and Karl Rove showed us--people will eventually begin to believe it. Therefore, person A confers these ideas on person B. After an incubation period of varying length, person B is fully infected, and they proceed to infect persons C and D. And so on, ad infinitum. It is the same sort of viral behavior we see in actual viruses, like Swine Flu, of which by sheer coincidence Michele Bachmann showed herself to be a true authority with her comment about how these things seem to happen during Democratic Presidencies.

I'll return to the viral idea at length in a future series of posts where I will discuss religion as a virus, which is sure to endear me to the highly religious. Let me conclude by saying that people like Michele Bachmann should be viewed as they truly are: people suffering from organic dementia brought on by a viral infection.