Wednesday, May 11, 2016

World-Swap, an Underfable



          World-Swap

         
          Once upon a time, a Technocrat and a Theocrat compared notes. The Technocrat said, “My values are reason, order, efficiency, and control. My methods are mechanistic, and my central concern is evolving humankind. I am a rationalist.”
          The Theocrat said, “My values are centered on God, the creator and designer of Heaven and Earth, infinite in power, mystery, glory, and wisdom. I am a mystic.”
          An Artist said to the Theocrat, “You say the world is intelligently designed, yet fundamentalism itself evolves along Darwinian lines, with random variation and natural selection. Religions choose their beliefs at random, and those with the fittest beliefs survive.”
The Technocrat chimed in, “This can be seen in the capricious irrationality of fundamentalist doctrine and practice, combined with the unexpected practicality of those irrational doctrines and practices.”
          The Artist said to the Technocrat, “Whereas science posits that the world evolves along Darwinian lines, with random variation and natural selection; yet science is intelligently designed!”
          The Theocrat said, “Putatively.”
          The Artist said to the Technocrat, “Now consider your world. By your own account, you live in a vast, mysterious, powerful, beautiful, terrible and wonderful cosmos that dwarfs all human endeavor.”
          The Theocrat said, “Your cosmos is mystical!”
          Then the Artist said to the Theocrat, “And your cosmos is tight, little, well-mapped, and human-centered.”
          The Technocrat said, “Your cosmos is rationalistic!”
          The Artist said, “It is as if you have created each other’s worlds!”


          Moral: Minds mate whenever they meet.

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