So I’ll post it here as filler until I get off my arse and start bitching about politics again 
Once upon a time there was a man who didn’t know something. Normally, this wouldn’t have affected his life adversely, because it wasn’t one of those things that nature tends to educate you about in merciless fashion (such as “What would happen if I coated myself in bacon grease and played with these wolves”, or “The Wife will love this new broom for her birthday!”). Instead, this man didn’t know this thing because he could not quantify, analyze, demonstrate, substantiate, validate, or in any way prove that this thing existed or did not exist, and what it’s nature was if it did.
What this man didn’t know was whether God existed, or what his/her/it’s nature was if it/he/she/them did. And, being a man of uncommon honesty, minimal ego, and unfortunate naivety, made the mistake of telling people he didn’t know.
The good folk of the humble village this man called home were a varied and tolerant lot. There were many different houses of worship in the small town where all were welcome to come in and enjoy the company of others who knew the thing that the man did not in the same way. Those who knew that there was no God were not shunned for staying at home. Everyone was content, because everyone knew, and even though everyone knew that the others who knew differently were wrong, it wasn’t something one brought up in polite conversation if one knew what was good for oneself.
Word spreads quickly in a small village, and soon everyone was gossiping about the man who did not know. For years uncounted, everyone in the village had just assumed he was one of the ones who didn’t know the same as they did, and since he was a quiet sort with a tidy little home who never caused trouble the villagers never pried into his business, because that would be rude.
This new revelation, however, changed the man’s status from Quiet Neighbor, to Potential Convert.
Soon, the man couldn’t hardly leave his home without one of his fellow villagers trying to convince him to know what they did. Quickly, he had uninvited folks knocking on his door at all hours of the day.
In ways simple, yet eloquent, he explained his lack of knowing to his friends and neighbors, all of whom knew that God existed, or didn’t, and of course was kind, cruel, loving, stern, omnipotent, nonsense, male, female, animal, mineral, and/or (in the case of the odd young villager who spent most of his days inhaling burning rope plant fumes, eating mushrooms, and giggling at clouds) vegetable.
One by one he pointed out the flaws and benefits in what they knew, made arguments in favor of the things he just made arguments against with the previous proselytizers, discounted both sets of his own arguments as impossible to prove right or wrong, debated the nature of fact versus faith, and with nothing but the utmost respect pointed out in detail why he wasn’t able to know what they did.
All because of how he felt in his heart, and that he had to acknowledge such because he was an uncommonly honest man of minimal ego.
Never because he thought any of what they knew was wrong, but simply because he honestly just didn’t know. And he was comfortable with that. And all he asked was that his friends and neighbors respected his choice, or lack thereof.
Every year thereafter, there was a great feast celebrating the day they impaled the unfortunately naive man in the town square. All the varied houses of worship rang their bells seven times to symbolize how many hours it took him to die, writhing as he slid slowly down the greased stake splitting his anus. Musicians led the parade starting from the blackened circle where his tidy little home once stood, to where his bleached skull still perched atop of the stake he expired upon. Children would run underfoot, faces sticky from eating the festive candy men-on-a-stick, singing nursery rhymes immortalizing how the pitch of the man’s screams changed by how far the stake slid upward into his bowels. Men would drink and tell stories of how the man whose empty eye sockets gleamed overhead had stubbornly refused to be enlightened by anyone, while women would gossip about how if only the man would have had a good wife to set him straight his tidy little home would still stand. Those who knew there was no god sneered at his remains, while the odd young villager ate some mushrooms and continued debating with the man (who was now apparently occupying this plane of existence as a particularly stubborn bud of rope plant, which the odd young man then burned and inhaled to teach it a lesson).
Centuries passed, and the village became a city. The stake and skull were inscribed on the city seal. Once a year, all the bells rang seven times to celebrate the Day of Knowing. Children run underfoot, faces sticky, singing their lilting rhymes. Men drink. Women gossip. Scholars argue about the history of the festival, the origin of the symbolism, and the only thing that any of them agreed upon at all was that they knew something really wonderful must have happened on some day long ago….
Posted under: Odd Musings, Religion and Crap by Graumagus
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