Paschal paradox

Two blogs in one day?  Well I’m too tired to do much else but think, so just be glad if the sentences are formed coherently.

An old school chum from Freyed Edge: The Early Years posted an update that set my mind unravelling again.  I heard it start whirring as though it had hooked a mighty fish and was waiting for the line to go taught.

The battles we have around Christmas and Easter to get the best joint of beef, the best turkey, or the last must-have toy from the shelves of the supermarkets set off a minor paradox alert in my brain.  I do all my shopping online because of the phenomenon I’m about to explore.  The rage, the competition, the absolute imperative to trample one another to win the spoils and take them home to the family really must stem from our most ancient genes.  The Hunter/Gatherer in the vast majority of the population of this country kicks in and goes out precisely to hunt and gather, forgetting the evolved processes of politeness, civility and as for good will, well that stays at home in the cave.

What’s the paradox?  Well, you’re out there facing the melee in all your prehistoric splendour in order to celebrate a Christian festival.  Some of you might be with me already, but for those that aren’t…

For centuries, Christian people have been taught to believe in creation and to denounce evolution.  According to Christianity via the prequel also known as the Old Testament, the human race was made exactly as it is today (minus the designer labels and Apple products (another irony which I’ll come to some other time)).  So when the festivities come around twice a year, there is no explanation for the frankly un-Christian behaviour that ensues.

Really, is there a better example of our primeval origins than their clear display over the meat counter or in the toy department?  Under the pressure to have the best at the same time as everyone else must have the best, and when there might only be one of the best left, how far removed are we from the idea that we were created as civilised, intelligent creatures?  Pretty damn far, I’d say.

If we are expected not to believe in the proven record of evolution, how do we explain that in the aisles of the supermarket at these times of year, people are barely even able to walk with their knuckles above the ground?  Do you see the paradox yet?

People are celebrating the festivals of a doctrine that teaches creationism and in preparing to celebrate they are displaying the most blatant evidence for evolution.  The two cannot both be correct.  They cannot co-exist.  But somehow, at Christmas and Easter (both festivals transposed to different times of year to hoodwink our non-Christian ancestors into entering the paradox) people are ostensibly accepting both.  Not that many people really remember what they’re actually celebrating let alone understand the origins.  Easter could just as easily be called Chocolate Egg Day to most.  I’m so much in danger of launching off on a tangent about why no-one remembers, but I’ll save that for another day when I’m feeling even less PC.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Neanderthal man brought home a leg of lamb to celebrate a festival that would, at its root, cause him not to exist in the first place.  Good news for the lamb, who has been spared by the cancellation of the man.  Maybe that’s what the reference to saving the flock really means…