Creationism Upheld, Theoretically

Father of Evolution Theory still stirring debate

Monkey's Uncle or not, Charles Darwin framed the contentious debate over who we are and where we came from. Meanwhile, Chupacabristas cry foul at the goal line in Amazing Updates and on this Date in Amazing History Fidel Castro settles in for a long stay at the top in Old Havana.

Much of the scientific and academic world this week has observed the 198th anniversary of the birth of the eminent English naturalist Charles Darwin, whose 1859 landmark work, The Origin of the Species, laid the foundation of the Theory of Evolution. Darwin subsequently became one of the 19th and 20th Century's most controversial figures. Even today his towering legacy is contested as fiercely as ever by proponents of Creationism and Intelligent Design. Not long after his passing in 1882, doctrinal zealots in London circulated a story (proven false) that Old Charlie had a deathbed conversion to Christian Orthodoxy whereupon he recanted his celebrated Theory.

Happy 198th Charlie!

Therefore it is quite appropriate at this time that I should address a question that has, over the past fifteen years or so, often been posed to me by a number of sincere individuals. Does my own cornerstone Integrated Theory of Inversional Constructs (ITIC) allow for the POSSIBILITY of Intelligent Design? That is to say, could ITIC allow that all life on the planet was deliberately and precisely placed here (and perhaps within a much shorter time frame than conventional scientists believe) by a single All-knowing, All-Powerful Creator?


To that question, the answer is an emphatic YES. Of course it is possible. Is it probable then? Before dealing with the latter question I should point out that an ITIC embrace of Creationism would raise the corollary, but equally valid presumption or possibility of Unintelligent Design or what has been termed Abortionism. According to this theory, everything on the planet is attributable to a Vastly Powerful but Unknowing and Mostly Incompetent Supreme Bungler who has botched or miscarried almost every single undertaking He has put His clumsy Hand to. Abortionism would explain the myriad inconsistencies and biological blind alleys that proliferate in Nature. It would also go a long way toward explaining many senseless cataclysms and disasters that have befallen the earth over millennia, including meteors slamming into the planet, the Black Death and the Bush Presidency.

Accordingly, the inverse corollary would stipulate that not only did dinosaurs and people NOT share the planet at the same time but dinosaurs themselves were separated by geologic ages so vast that a Tyrannosaurus might have had to wait centuries before a Brontosaurus would show up and provide him with lunch. The age of the Earth is not four or five billion years but more like 40 or 50 billion. Noah and his family didn't spend 40 days and 40 nights on the Ark but 40 years and 700 grandchildren must have spilled out of the boat when it landed at Ararat. By which time the throng of hungry Noahans had eaten every last pair of animals on the craft except for two types of rodents: rats and rabbits which the passengers learned to breed and prepare in an infinite variety of ways. As for fresh vegetables, try having seaweed soup everyday for four decades.

Theologian Melvin postulated
God as an Adorable Boob

These and other such teachings formed the basis of Melvinism, a Protestant sect that arose in 16th Century France and was later spread by ardent missionaries to Equatorial Africa and Brazil. According to Jean Michel-Ange Melvin, the Paris-educated theologian who founded the faith in 1527, mainstream churches had completely misinterpreted the Old Testament texts and Christian gospels. God was not a jealous and vengeful Omnipotent Deity who could order the massacre of thousands at the drop of an idol, declared Melvin, rather He was a kindly and well-meaning, but essentially accident-prone Celestial Parent (named Yeeow-zaah) who just got things wrong most of the time. Jesus wasn't crucified on purpose but accidentally nailed to a cross-bar during a sandstorm that blew up as the Helpful Carpenter was assisting Roman soldiers to erect a suburban racetrack. Actually, it was a gladiator ring but the soldiers withheld that information from the pacifist Savior. Melvinist doxology doesn't involve prayers to the Heavenly Father but for Him.

A number of Melvinist churches flourished in France and its colonies up until the eve of the 1789 Revolution and then rapidly dwindled when Napoleon condemned the faith as an anti-Republican heresy. Today only a few remote Melvinist congregations in Northeastern Brazil continue the practice where it survives as a curious blend of Candomble, Macumba, Spiritualism and Reform Judaism. Melvin himself was buried beneath a small headstone in a corner of the famed Cimetiere Pere LaChaise in Paris but was dislodged in 1971 to make room for Jim Morrison of the Doors. The current location of the Melvin reliquary remains a mystery.

To sum up: In terms of classic (if something first advanced in 1954 could be called classic) ITIC analysis, Creationism and its presumptive corrollary Abortionism must be seen as equally valid and logically compatible alternate theories of the Earth's origin and, I would say, merit equally serious study in our schools and institutions of higher learning.

AMAZING UPDATES:

Rev. Chong Migillicuddie has written from Barranquilla that several of his Iglesia Adventista Chupacabrista (IAC) parishoners are furious that 19-year-old Hamish Gomez of Miami Beach dared to associate the miraculous reappearance of the "Chupas Divinas" in Florida with anything so tawdry as betting on the American Super Bowl. "It's unfortunate nonsense like this," says Chong "that utterly ridicules and sensationalizes the Chupacabra manifestations, obscuring the true nature of their heavenly mission. I would have thought that a person from a Jewish background would have deeper sensitivity for this wondrous apparition. After all," the Reverend continues,"We now know It wasn't really a ram that got tangled in the brambles as Abraham prepared to make a burnt offering of Isaac. It was a goat, placed there by an angelic Chupacabra under orders from On High." Rev. Chong says an IAC task force is working on a Chupacabra Cabbala citing numerous Old Testament passages that are suggestive of Chupa intervention.

We've received the latest revised forecast for the Year of the Pig (which begins next week), from noted Shanghai astrologer Dr. Yao Man Fu-Zi who foresees several startling political omens in the zodiacal alignments for 2007 and beyond. This subject will be further explored in the next Amazing Realms installment.

El Jefe goes the distance
Photo: Philippe Halsman
cover LIFE Magazine 1961

THIS DATE IN AMAZING HISTORY:

14 February 1848 Democrat James Polk becomes the first U.S. President to be photographed in office (by Matthew Brady) and so begins a charming American political tradition: the White House photo opportunity. This tradition will be utilised a great deal by succeeding presidents, especially embattled Republicans waging unpopular wars.

13 February 1865 The desperate American Confederacy approves the recruitment of slaves as soldiers on the proviso that their owner's approval is gained. Thus blacks in the South are offered the unique opportunity to fight on the losing side of a war aimed at keeping them in bondage forever. General Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox two months later thereby permanently ending both the Civil War and slavery in the U.S.

16 February 1959 Victorious revolutionary Fidel Castro takes the oath as Cuban premier in Havana. Exiles in Miami and American CIA agents immediately start planning the Bearded One's downfall but the wily El Comandante-en-Jefe will be around a very, very long time.

Debating the Pig Year Daikichi

Japanese Netsuke Boar

I have just been informed by our distinguished Japanese collaborator, Dr. Senji Hosokawa of Sapporo, that some of his astrological calculations regarding the forthcoming Year of the Pig (arriving February 18th in the Asian Lunar Calendar) have been regrettably misinterpreted by a number of financial publications in his country and in neighboring South Korea. Dr. Hosokawa’s extraordinary work in using traditional Oriental astrology and Zodiacal aspects to forecast economic trends in the major Eastern currency markets and commodities exchanges has earned him an unrivaled reputation in the boardrooms of Japan’s largest financial institutions and brokerage houses.

It was doubly surprising then to hear the “Sage of Sapporo” complaining about the “reverse spin” that seemed to be coloring reports of his generally auspicious Hokkaido Horoscopic Market Outlook for 2007.

In traditional lore, Hosokawa says, the Pig represents prosperity, abundance and fulfillment. It is the 12th and final sign of the Oriental Zodiac representing a culmination of the Heavenly Calendar. Each sign is also accented by a particular element which magnifies or sometimes dilutes the basic attributes. Those elements are Air, Wood, Earth, Water, Metal and Fire and it takes 60 years for an element to rotate across the Asian Zodiac. 2007 brings us the Year of the Fire Pig, last seen in 1947. It is also sometimes called the Year of the Red Pig since Fire is associated with that color. Hosokawa says the Fire element would normally intensify and energize the abundance and prosperity attributes of the Pig, but there is a catch. As the Sapporo Sage points out, the Pig has a Yin character and a Yin Fire is more prone to instability than a Yang Fire. Therefore the intensified prosperity of a Pig Year could be unpredictable and volatile.

Euro-boar in bronze

Kenji feels that the problems writers at other journals may be having seems to stem in part from a lack of understanding of the finer points of astrological interpretation and the complex interplay of elemental influences. The Korean-based weekly Seoul Sellers Guide and Satanic Star Chart (affiliated with the Rev. Moon movement) for instance mentioned a “Roasted Pig Forecast” while the usually respected Tokyo Traders Tout and Tipster Sheet spoke of a possible “Fire Sale” of tumbling Nikkei stocks as occurred in another Yin-Fire year, 1997.



Nikkei bored

Asian Markets ended 2006 (the Dog Year has one more month to play out) on a fairly upbeat note with the general expectation of even stronger economic gains in 2007, especially in China where it could really be a year for Red Pigs. Hosokawa says Japan’s outlook is good, too, particularly for machinery, computer and high tech industries along with property, hotel, mining, and insurance though not without the risk of a Yin-Fired third-quarter slowdown that could diminish the traditional Daikichi (good luck) associated with the Pig Year.


Pigs feeding at trough

Hillary: Happy as a pig in daichiki

Politically, the Sapporan says the year could likewise be excellent for some prominent Pigs in the US. Hillary Clinton is a Pig, indeed a Red Pig as some of her opponents no doubt will note. (Her husband is a “Hot Dog” as Fire Dogs are sometimes playfully termed.) Hosokawa says that historically the Democratic Party has been kind to Pig ambitions. Both party founders Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson were Pigs as was President James Buchanan and even Ronald Reagan who spent decades as a Democrat prior to changing parties.



Proving an Arctic Ark

The word that Canadian scientists have newly discovered a massive break in the artic ice shelf (matching the kind previously reported in the Antarctic) and news that the Polar Bear is in trouble due to Global Warming are unpleasant reminders of a climate change path humankind has been down at least once before.

My enterprising Dutch colleague (and onetime in-law) Viscount Wim Van Wynkoop of Utrecht has sent word from his latest expedition in Northeast Turkey that the most recent analysis of splinters from timbers located on the side of Mount Ararat has yielded the clearest evidence yet that he has found the fabled site of Noah’s Ark. The ice crystals found embedded in the timbers also contain ancient arctic plankton and therefore suggest confirmation of Van Wynkoop’s long-held theory of contact with an iceberg.

Aerial view of Ararat site

Possibly lending additional credence to this interpretation are the newly discovered Red Sea Scrolls, a set of cuneiform scriptural passages on sheepskin unearthed by Israeli construction workers near Elat in July 2003. The scrolls, now in the custody of specialists at Beersheba University, were found secreted in large terra cotta jars and are estimated to predate the Qumran scrolls from the Dead Sea by some 3,000 years. Several of the stories, crafted in an early Sumerian-type alphabet, parallel the Old Testament versions but with notable differences.

US version of Noah..note soaring American eagle

The tale of Noah (No-Hah) reveals the ark builder not as a pious patriarch but a sober-minded dealer in exotic animals captured to satisfy the extravagant tastes of Near East potentates and satraps. His noted brother was Hoo-Ha, an itinerant jester who entertained in various Mediterranean courts, often paired with their flamboyant sister Minnie-Ha-Ha, an exotic dancer. In this account, No-hah wasn’t trying to spare his family and the world’s wildlife from the wrath of God but attempting to find the quickest route for getting to India and back again ahead of Phoenician competitors. He was especially keen to secure a contract to supply animals to the new Hanging Gardens rumored to be in the planning stages at Babylon.

As a result of a just-concluded Ice Age and rising waters from retreating polar caps, Van Wynkoop says, this proved far more hazardous than in modern times. No-Hah’s floating menagerie was gashed by an iceberg before foundering on an Anatolian mountaintop. The dealer and his sons were able to recover a few of their precious cargo but both the East Sumatran Rhinoceros and the Himalayan Yeti specimens, in particular, got away. The Yeti also took No-hah’s youngest granddaughter, Shirley, with him. Local legends affirm that the couple and their hirsute heirs operated a popular Greek restaurant on Cyprus called “The Abominable Aegean” until it burned down during the Trojan War. Generations of their rowdier offspring were no doubt responsible for a subsequent spate of werewolf legends across the Balkans. Particularly those in which the lycanthropes seemed to be wearing yarmulkes since Shirley got the Yeti to convert shortly after their elopement in Asia Minor.