Monday 10 August 2009

Hallelujah!

Pharyngula took about 300 atheists to the Creation 'Museum' at the weekend, looking for a dignified discussion with that organisation. There are a lot of posts and pictures about it over there, so I won't go into details, but I wish I'd been there as it looks like a lot of fun. I particularly loved the exhibit notes which described every geological period (Jurassic etc) as dating to about 2348 B.C., and the careful explanation that dinosaurs ate meat 'after the Fall', as everything was vegetarian prior to that.

My Fall came in the second year of university. I went vegetarian in school when I was 16 - the only one in the place, which caused trouble. Everyone else viewed it as subversion, and the staff literally didn't know what it entailed. Cold ham appeared ('it's just ham') at first, and seafood was regularly presented. The general standard of the food improved massively though, as somebody had to cook it specially. For the first year at university, I mostly ate carrots - just because I liked them. I was a trifle on the slim side though. Then gradually curries and bacon sandwiches, even kebabs started to appeal and I gave in: I now enjoy a multitude of species, though only free-range and local corpses.

6 comments:

jadedj said...

Har, har, har, the "Creation" Museum. A little bit of Disney World, a whole lot of poppycock.

Have you tried road-kill? Of course one can't be too picky, but it does cut down on the grocery bill.

saxon said...

If anything sits still long enough, I'd probably try to eat it. However whenever I'm out somewhere providing a "lunch" (things on sticks or in paper bags) for which I'm asked to state a preference beforehand, I will usually go for the vegetarian option. Usually more interesting, much shorter queues and less goop all over it trying to disguise what it used to be.

Sorry veggies, no hope with me, fluffy things are just too tasty :D

The Plashing Vole said...

The existence of lambs and rabbits disproves the existence of God. Unless she has a nasty sense of humour in making the tastiest meat also the cutest.

Zoot Horn said...

I am kind of veggieish, as you know Vole, and I've often wondered: do we in the West eat any carnivorous animals, and if not, why not? I'm sure that we do eat carnivorous animals (sometimes by accident... you seldom see the same cat twice on Broad St you know, near all the fast food outlets) but I wonder whether the paucity of such dishes relates to their taste, the difficulty of factory-farming them, or do they just run too fast, or what? Is there anything in the bible about avoiding the flesh of that which hunts the hoof or rendeth the herbivore or anything? I also spent the whole sunny afternoon reading the accounts of the trip to the Creationist 'museum'. Brilliant. However, as you probably know, many of my in-laws are Branch Davidians or something (they are good haters: homosexuals, the devil, Roman Catholics, Freemasons, me, fornicators, scientists, etc, all are passionately loathed in the good Christian way) and I can't be arsed to argue with them any more. I think it might be easier, and more humane, to eat them. Let's fulfil some prophecy or other and turn the pious into number 666 on the menu.

The Plashing Vole said...

They eat rook in Somerset, but mostly I think carnivorous animals taste horrible. Though come to think of it, many fish, ducks and chickens are omnivorous.

I had no idea you're from a family of cultists, Zoot. Tell us more. You must be a serious disappointment.

Zoot Horn said...

Nah - just the in-laws. My dad was an autodidact with left-internationalist leanings who encouraged me to read popular science and H.G. Wells (I'd read his 2 vol. beautifully illustrated Outline of History by the time I was 9, and eventually all his major novels and short stories while I was still at school). We were forced to go to Sunday school for a bit but I think this was for my mum to get some peace (2 sets of twin boys. Not good). Once I'd made it clear to my mum that I preferred John Lennon to god she was ok with it. A lot of my mum's family are of the Bahai faith however (don't worry, they live a few thousand miles away). I was going to look into it but I saw a shiny bit of paper or something and was deeply distracted so I didn't...