Don't know whom to blame?

(Yeah, I would have preferred 'Don't know who to blame?' but grammar is grammar is grammar. Except when it's granpa.)

CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #416

I've been thinking about becoming a polytheist. No, this has nothing to do with missing Battlestar Galactica. And yes, I realize my blasphemous notion flies in the face of a few thousand years of "Ye shall have no other gods before me." (To be honest, even when I was a kid that commandment troubled me. It sounded like a jealous girlfriend saying, "If I catch you looking at other girls, you're in big trouble, Mister!" And don't get me started on how "no other gods before me" kinda implies that there might actually be some other gods loitering about.) But my main reason for considering becoming a Pagan (Pagish? Jewgan?), is that it neatly answers the age-old question, "Why does god allow so much suffering in the world?" When tragedy strikes, the monotheistic approach can only offer the tired old, "It is not for us to question god's will." Really? Why not us? Who else is in the questioning business? But look what happens when we ask the same question from a pantheistic perspective. Why do the gods allow so much suffering in the world? Because outside of their particular area of expertise: farming, war, fertility, what-have-you, they are not even remotely in control. The buck stops nowhere. (In this scenario both the Old Testament and New Testament deities are off the hook as far as your general suffering is concerned.) But here's the really good news: with a polytheistic approach to prayer we can micro-target our beseeching. Trouble with love? Take it to Aphrodite. Not catching enough fish? Poseidon. Are you regularly waking up from alcohol-induced blackouts in the sleeping compartment of long-haul trucks that carry circus equipment and little people? That sounds like a job for Dionysus. Need your sitcom pilot to get picked up for the Fall season? Les Moonves. In other words, whatever the crisis might be, there's a god ready to take your call. What are you waiting for? Call now and receive a free goat-sacrificing kit! (Goat sold separately.)

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CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #392

From what little I know of prehistory, man roamed the Earth for hundreds of thousands of years in small tribes -- probably no more than two hundred people per group. During this time all wisdom was passed along according to the oral tradition. Everything you needed to know in order to succeed as a human being was told and/or shown to you, whether it be how to find a girl, find a guy, have sex, have a baby, find food, raise children, deal with family, argue with neighbors, care for the sick, elderly and dead, fight, work, sing, dance, play and get really loaded in order to hookup with the universe. (Side note: I've always loved the term "prehistory," which arrogantly implies that prior to the emergence of our culture, nothing happened.) Anyway, this state of affairs lasted for a long, long time. It was relatively stable. Peace on Earth, if you will. Then, with the advent of large-scale agriculture and the need for ever larger swathes of land to accommodate it, the tribal system collapsed and people began to live huddled together in towns, villages and cities. In short order, the priceless wisdom that taught us who we were and how we could live a happy life was forever lost to mankind. Which brings us to today. I don't believe that we became a neurotic and self-destructive species because we're born in sin, or otherwise flawed. I believe our fall from grace was simply a forgetting. Speaking of which, don't forget to buy my book of vanity cards, which is chock full of wisdom-rich oral tradition -- that inadvertently got written down -- and can be preordered online right now! Hurry, supplies are limited. (I don't actually know if that's true, but it sounds cool. What is true is that all my proceeds go to charity.)

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