The Inferno

I remember reading a science fiction story a long time ago, about a scientist who was sent as the first man to a distant world, where the people were peaceful and knew nothing of wars, of killing, of greed and of religion. The scientist was a geologist of some kind and taught the primitive but happy people much of what had created their world and so on. One day this idyllic outpost was shattered by the arrival of a man of the cloth, who insisted that it was his sworn duty to teach these heathen primitives the teachings of one dead Jewish carpenter who had lived on Terra aeons ago. The geologist exploded, but the missionary warned him that there was nothing he could do.

So the geologist sulked and went about his work. One day, some of the natives came up to him and asked him what god was and why he hadn’t taught them about him. The geologist sneered at the idea of God and told them it was all bosh. The natives were puzzled and unable to decide which member of the more advanced race was speaking the truth, retired to give the matter some thought. In a week, they met the geologist and told him they had come up with a test that would decide the matter for once and for all. The geologist divined (no pun intended) in a second what they were up to and ran to the missionary and begged him to leave. The missionary refused and was crucified by the natives, who then buried him. After all, if one dead guy can return after 3 days, another one should be able to, right? Sterling logic, but unfortunately for the missionary, things didn’t end so well.

Anyway, the whole point of this preamble is an article I saw a couple of days ago about a missionary who went to an Amazonian tribe and tried to teach them about Christ. Forget for a moment the colossal arrogance of him and the institution that sponsored this, this shameless “you need saving” bilge that smacks of every detestable -ism there is. The tribe asked him succinct questions, trenchant queries that cut to the core of the ridiculous sham that is organized religion. Lo and behold! One less Bible-thumper and one more atheist. Apparently, their queries were of a critical nature that we only wish everyone else around here had.

Here are some excerpts:

Tribe members asked the missionary whether he had seen or experienced any of the things he was telling them about. He had to admit that he hadn’t; that he was simply passing things onto them that were told to him by people who hadn’t seen or experienced them either.

This is priceless and covers 99.99% of all religious people today. The remaining 0.01% who see visions and talk in tongues are usually in mental asylums or on Fox News.

Here is a little bit of what Daniel Everett himself had to say about the Pirahãs:

The Pirahãs have shown me that there is dignity and deep satisfaction in facing life and death without the comforts of heaven or the fear of hell, and of sailing towards the great abyss with a smile.

And they have shown me that for years I held many of my beliefs without warrant. I have learned these things from the Pirahãs, and I will be grateful to them for as long as I live.

You mean people can be happy without an alpha male in the sky? You don’t say!

And of course, I can’t forget Terry Pratchett’s classic mockery of faith:

On the veldt of Howondaland live the N’tuitif people, the only tribe in the world to have no imagination whatsoever. For example, their story about the thunder runs something like this: ‘Thunder is a loud noise in the sky, resulting from the disturbance of the air masses by the passage of lightning.’

And their legend ‘How the Giraffe Got His Long Neck’ runs: ‘In the old days the ancestors of Old Man Giraffe had slightly longer necks than other grassland creatures, and the access to the high leaves was so advantageous that it was mostly long-necked giraffes that survived, passing on the long neck in their blood just as a man might inherit his grandfather’s spear. Some say, however, that it is all a lot more complicated and this explanation only applies to the shorter neck of the okapi. And so it is’.

The N’tuitif are a peaceful people, and have been hunted almost to extinction by neighbouring tribes, who have lots of imagination, and therefore plenty of gods, superstitions and ideas about how much better life would be if they had a bigger hunting ground.

Of the events on the moon that day, the N’tuitif said: ‘The moon was brightly lit and from it rose another light which then split into three lights and faded. We do not know why this happened. It was just a thing.’

They were then wiped out by a nearby tribe who knew that the lights had been a signal from the god Ukli to expand the hunting ground a bit more. However, they were soon defeated entirely by a tribe who knew that the lights were their ancestors, who lived in the moon, and who were urging them to kill all non-believers in the goddess Glipzo. Three years later they in turn were killed by a rock falling from the sky as a result of a star exploding a billion years ago.

My source is here.

P.S. If anyone knows the name of the sci-fi story, I’d be much obliged if you could leave a comment stating the name and the author.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 1:15 am and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.