Interactive Bob...

[Presumably at some point Bob has invited his reader{s} to vote on their favourite post so far (?!?) I couldn't find the post or a similar invitation - but then, I didn't really look very hard...]

Hi Swipesters,

Well, the response to the offer of choosing this site's content was quite overwhelming. A big Swipe thanks you to all of you who took part in this. Now, the votes were not [only] very numerous, but also, incredibly close [...it surely need not be added that *neither* is remotely true... M.S.] So, in order to ease the pressure on my mailbag, I've decided to post up the three most popular items in reverse order. Starting with today's entry - Stephen Hawking's revisited[,]his born-again Creationist account of the origin of the Universe - I will post up the runner-up and winner tommorow and Friday. In the meantime, enjoy!

(Bear with it - it works if you read it in the voice...)


A brief History of the Universe (Revised and updated by Rev. S. Hawking)

In the be-gin-ning God cre-a-ted the hea-ven and the earth. And the earth was with-out form, and void; and dark-ness was up-on the face of the deep. And the Spi-rit of God moved up-on the face of the wat-ers. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God di-vi-ded the light from the dark-ness. And God called the light Day, and the dark-ness he called Night. And the e-ven-ing and the morn-ing were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a fir-ma-ment in the midst of the wa-ters, and let it di-vide the wa-ters from the wa-ters. And God made the fir-ma-ment, and di-vi-ded the wa-ters which were un-der the fir-ma-ment from the wa-ters which were above the fir-ma-ment: and it was so. And God called the fir-ma-ment Hea-ven. And the e-ve-ning and the mor-ning were the se-cond day. [...]


Tomorrow,

"He do the Police in funny Voices" - What T.S. Eliot really meant to say.*



Love on ya,


Bob

[Originally posted by Robert Swipe, 03.08.2005]

It perhaps needs actually to be heard - that grating, mechanistic, robot drone of his - to get the full effect and make the gag work; the trampling under shining silver cyberbooted foot (or in this case, wheel) of all nuance; the ineffable and the mysterious - the glorious *imprecision* of our understanding of our existence arrogantly swatted aside with a sheetful of - what? Equations. Our purpose in life? To be told which stop we're approaching by a mechanised voice. The age of reason, eh?

Was it Socrates - or am I thinking of Zico? - who said that all he was prepared to say he knew was that he knew nothing. If it's true that there are many religious leaders who could do with a little humility, then how much more so the average, rat-dicing, thalidomide dispensing scientist? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for *rationality*. But to believe that science as we experience it today is theobjective, disinterested pursuit of knowledge stretches the the incredulity more than would the news that there are, indeed, little green men on Mars. Bob's view? A plague on both their houses, probably. He's in fine fettle laying into media interest in 'The Rapture' in this post from 31.07.2006. But, just to prove that there's no ideological gulf that can't be bridged with a little pointless and offensive satire, this post not only shows Bob as being prepared - if this is indeed possible - to play devil's advocate for God, but proves once and for all that even the most heavily foregrounded irony still appears to be beyond the comprehension of many Americans.


So, as the man said, may your God (or stop announcer) go with you...


xxx

Mort


* Unfortunately most of the links no longer work, but you'll get the idea after clicking a couple of them should you feel so inclined...