Mona Lisa..? You Gotta Be Kidding, Right..? by Merwin

Recently (around 12/10/10) an atheist friend of mine wrote a Hub (blog) and in it he mentioned a few things that are fairly telling if true, and only moderately telling if its some kind of Freudian slip, and total rubbish if he simply wrote it as fluff fodder for his atheistic followers... as sort of "manna" from on high. If it was the last, then it failed, as it was not well received by them judging by their comments.

Here is the link to the Hub he wrote, that I am queuing off of...

http://hubpages.com/hub/Awe-for-an-Atheist

My friend constructed, if you will, a sort of primrose path for his adherents beginning with a picture of an almost micro-miniature sculpture (artist unnamed) of the Golden Gate Bridge made "from a single toothpick" (I think maybe three toothpicks) with the next step on the path of "enlightenment" is the (sculpture's ?) explanation of the inspiration for the art, the movie Rainman and the toothpick scene.

This, my friend uses as a segue into his mention of the chaos theory and then he touches the epic origins of the possible (he "isn't placing any bets"), big bang theory saying, "The Big Bang - Ultimate Toothpick Toss", to the next step on his path to "Awe" and the reason I am writing this... the segment titled, "Should We Be Surprised?"

Here it is...

"Should We Be Surprised?

No, we shouldn't.

If we tossed a box of 250 toothpicks in the air and they landed once out of thousands of tosses into a perfect likeness of the Mona Lisa, we should be surprised.

Truthfully, if this happened to me, I would stop being an atheist.

But no one was there for the creation of the primordial universe, so to be surprised that we live in this particular one is illogical.

This particular pattern -- if were were able to witness multiple Big Bangs -- might be ordinary."

Really..?

"If we tossed a box of 250 toothpicks in the air and they landed once out of thousands of tosses into a perfect likeness of the Mona Lisa, we should be surprised.

Truthfully, if this happened to me, I would stop being an atheist."

Again... if this is really his position and he believes it, it is very telling. If it is merely a Freudian slip, he will probably recant after after reading this (if he reads it) stating some eel like, clever wriggling which he is very good at. And if it is simply fodder for his anti-spaghetti monster, groupy-sheeples, then he will probably attempt some tongue in cheek defensive back peddling to keep his minions on the hook. He may have already done that though, it has been about 2 weeks since he posted that and they did not seem happy with his... "Truthfully, if this happened to me, I would stop being an atheist." comment.

Let's take the position that he was serious and that his "path" through the "Chaos Theory", "The Big Bang Theory (that he wasn't placing bets on)" and any other non-creation theories of random origins that he may entertain, are applicable to his self imposed exile from the realm of us believing, know nothing idiots,

Let us take it a step further into fantasy...

We find ourselves in a world where it is much like our present world. Though, here there is little controversy among the masses about our origins... most folks don't care, and they that believe in the supernatural are few, and the brunt of nearly every bigoted, mean spirited joke known to man, and my friend happens to be a popular comedian on stage jibbing at the believers... "If we tossed a box of 250 toothpicks in the air and they landed once out of thousands of tosses into a perfect likeness of the Mona Lisa, we should be surprised. Truthfully, if this happened to me, I would stop being an atheist. I would likely become a superstitious dolt worshiping the world being created on the backs of four elephants..." Bawdy laughter breaks out...

After the laughter dies down, a prominent, atheistic scientist, who just happened to come to the club stands and declares loudly, "Actually out of chaos came the Mona Lisa."

The club falls silent and all eyes turn to the usurper, who is then recognized by everyone including my friend who worships this scientist, it is his hero of heroes. My friend, never at a loss for words says "huh..?"

His hero continues, "Well we all, except for a few superstitious idiots, have accepted the non-relevance of our geological origins. What is relevant is our march throught evidence and history, to our present level of evolutionary development."

Everyone in the room including my science worshiping buddy, give the obligatory and mute nods, and the Science God continues turning the comedy bar into a classroom with, "Some who were qualified have postulated that Big Bang thing, while others have put forward the eternally existent position, ultimately none of that matters.

What does matter is the relative chaos that we all came from." Again, the adherents nod, "Here is where your assertion, and I assume your joke..." he gestures to my friend who of course nods his worship in return... "falls into something worthy of my remarks and not my smiles. You see the Mona Lisa does exist. It did indeed spring from chaos. You... comedian..." pointing to my friend, "are a result of a non specific perhaps even unintentional creation of you.

Your parents had no knowledge of the Masterpiece of you, that their random music together would create. Your children sir, if you have them..." again the gesture, again the nod, "are Masterpieces way above the level, that of the Mona Lisa, and likely done with less intention, than the toss of toothpicks by you, to see if they would fall into the likeness, of a likeness. Or the intentional hours spent by Da Vinci on the two dimensional likeness of his model.

Instead..." he continued, "We have a much greater, unlikely sequence of events that have as its Genesis the rudimentary crux of your humor... that all these," the Science God gestured to everyone in the room, "Mona Lisas, that are in turn capable to reproduce more masterpieces... come from ancient random chaos, having advanced throuhg the further chaos of evolution right down to instant immediate chaos of chromosome selection, matching and knitting, to make exactly the snowflake fingerprint, Masterpiece that they are.

It is indeed a random chaos, more than a mere trillion tosses of the toothpicks, producing in each case fellow artisans and not merely their subsequent art."

The Science God re-cast his wandering gaze upon my friend and let it settle there saying,"If you joke Mr. Comic... do not attempt to include Science, stick to your superstitions... its funnier."