World Religions - Hinduism

The Hindus are different because they have a bunch of gods, some of whom are blue. They even have one with an elephant head, which is really weird because who thought that was a good idea?

"Hey, let's take an elephant head and slap it on a person body and, bam!, we got ourselves a god! That's one more down. How many left?"

The story goes that Ganesha's mom, Parvati, took a bath, collected up the dirt and molded it into Ganesha. (Okay, first off, that's a lot of dirt. If you have that much dirt on you - I've been dirty. I've seen dirty Earthlings - If you have so much dirt on you, you can make a whole other person out of it, you need to be taking way more baths.)

Anyway, Parvati sends Ganesha out to guard the door while she finishes her bath. She wasn't even done! What the heck was she was doing that got her that dirty? That's crazy dirty.

So Ganesha is out guarding the door and Parvati's husband, Shiva, comes home and is like, "Who the heck is this guy?" So he cuts Ganesha's head off. Parvati comes out and is like, "Wah!" So Shiva's like, "Crap!" and grabs an elephant head and slaps it on there. Which makes sense as a stop gap measure. Gotta stop the bleeding. But they leave it there. Jeez mom, take another bath. Wad up another head. Go roll in the mud a little. Would it have killed her?

I don't know. Maybe Ganesha liked the new head. Maybe once you have a prehensile nose, there's no going back to the bump. I don't know. I think I'd stick with it.

Which brings up a whole other thing. Who of these Earthlings, way back ago, thought it was a good idea to evolve away from prehensile tails? Man, I would never have done that. How many times have they been wrapping presents and thought, "Man, if only I had one more hand, just to hold the tape." A prehensile tail would take care of that.

Or, they're carrying groceries in and they drop their keys and they don't want to put anything down because there's snow or it's raining? Bam. Prehensile tail saves the day.

Of all the arguments they have about evolution and intelligent design, I'm not sure where this would fall. If I had a prehensile tail, there would be no way you'd talk me into evolving away from that. I'd take the walking upright and the frontal lobe, sure. But I'd be keeping the tail. And if I had to choose? Tail.

I think a prehensile nose would be better, though.

It maybe falls on the side of intelligent design, but only if the god that made them didn't think of the tails until after he made Earthlings and was working on monkeys.

"Oh man, this is so cool. I wish I'd thought of this for people. Darn it. Oh well."

Pause.

Hey! What if I stuck this on an elephant face? And with big floppy ears. That would be funny! I am so going to do that. Hee-hee!"

Elephants are what happens when a creator god stays up too late.

Observer003 - Earthlings

Eastern Religions: Buddhism

The Buddha had curly hair that he tied up in a bun. He also had these weird, droopy ears that no one wants to talk about. You ask Earthlings about it and they just look at you funny. He also must have been pretty lazy because all the statues I've ever seen of him he's either sitting or laying down. And looks half asleep. But maybe preaching really takes it out of you, so I shouldn't judge.

But, going back to Jesus, at least that guy got around. He went to Galilee. He went to Jerusalem. He as a mover. And they didn't have the good sandals like they have now. These were cheap old ones with no arch support. That had to get old pretty quick.

So maybe Buddha was right to stay put.

So, anyway, everybody had to go to Buddha. He just sat in one spot and everyone came to him. Then he would teach them for a little while and then he'd say, "Okay, I'm going to lie down now. Go away."

By the way, Buddha had super powers. He could witness the Earth really well. (I don't know what this means, but it must be important. Earthlings have a lot of statues of it.) He can also detach himself from things, like maybe his arm or a retina, I guess.

What else, what else? Oh! He might have been gay.

That's not a super power, but when he was becoming Buddha, these three hot chicks tried to make him stop, but he wouldn't. So, I think he had the power to become gay so women couldn't tempt him.

I wish I had that. Because women are very confusing. Especially if you like them. And, if they like you, it's even worse. Because then they have the Power to Stumble You. All of a sudden words don't come out of your brain and your hands suddenly have to find something to do, but they don't know what. (Pick this up? No. Pick this up? No. Go in the pocket. Go out of the pocket. Let's arrange papers! - Like that.)

When Buddha was little, somebody told his dad that he would be either a great king or a great teacher. Since teachers don't get paid that well, his dad tried to push him toward kinging.

But Earthling kids always do the opposite of what their parents want, so he took off to become a teacher. He got so lazy that he even didn't eat for a long time. Then he thought, "this sucks." So he ate something. Then he sat under a tree, which is when the hot chicks came, until he figured it all out. Then he told everyone else how to figure it all out until he ate a bad mushroom and died.

You have to be careful with mushrooms. Some are good; some are bad; and some make you see things. (See things that aren't there, I mean.) To be safe, only eat the ones at the store. The ones you just find are iffy. And don't eat the ones your roommate at school has. Better yet, don't eat any of them. They're fungusses. Why would anybody eat a fungus?

Observer003 - Earthlings

The Arc of Earthling Civilizations

I've identified six stages - no, wait - five stages. Five. Hold on. 

Okay. I've identified four stages (I counted two of them twice, because they broke onto two lines) in the rising and collapsing of all Earthling civilizations. They go like this:

1. Our Forefathers Who Built This Great Nation

This mostly involves killing all the natives, who obviously don't appreciate how good they've got it.

2. My Great Great Grandfather Came Here With Nothing And Built This Company With His Bare Hands and/or From The Ground Up

This inv- well, it's self explanatory.

3. When I Was Your Age

An era when they didn't have to work as hard as the Forefathers, but at least they knew how to work, god damn it.

4. These Kids These Days with Their Long Hair and Crazy Music

Surely the end of this once great nation.

3 and 4 are the longest periods as they circle back on each other in a long downward spiral which ends in the Earthlings becoming natives and new Forefathers moving in.

When they look at where they went wrong, Earthlings always get hung up on blaming These Kids These Days, when it's pretty obvious that the real problem is with the Forefathers. They are work hogs. They use up all the hard work so there's none left by the time they get to Stage Four.

What they need is lazier forefathers. Look at it. By the time Abraham Lincoln died they'd already done all the building log cabins and reading by candlelight there was to do. So they had to go to electric lights and prefabs.

Each generation strip mines all the work, leaving none for the next generation. They think it will last forever. So These Kids These Days are left with rocking out and growing hair. It's the only hard work left. (I've done these two. They aren't that hard.)

Here's a partial list of all the hard work that's gone extinct:

Intercontinental Railway

Plowing The Back Forty

Crushing The Carthaginians

Boldly Going

Putting A Man On The Moon, For Christ Sake

The Alphabet

Making This Marriage Work

Interbreeding with the Neanderthals

Securing The Blessings Of Liberty

Turning Back The Nazi Tide/Defeating The Red Menace

Splitting The Atom

Evolving From Single Celled Organisms

Pizza Delivery In 30 Minutes Or Less

They are really going to have a hard time of it, if they don't get on top of this.

Observer003 - Earthlings