Here is the News

 

12^th February 678 AD

Here is the news

This morning, Abner Willard, a well known rumour monger, declared that he had, today, met a direct descendent of the man who had changed water into wine. As ‘the idea of water’, ‘the idea of wine’ and ‘the idea of change’ are well known ideas this tale has the ingredients that will change its status from myth to reality by the year 1000AD. Having attained that status, Polystyrus, our news analyst, has predicted that the story will endure well into the 21^st Century. When questioned further he stated, “This idea has all the innards required to become an enduring, powerful idea and will last for years and years”. When asked to enlarge on his thesis he had this to say.

“The legitimacy of most myths depends on many features and this idea seems to embrace most of them. I have no reason to doubt that this tale could even become part of a world-wide religion.

Firstly, it has been included in a large, complex, tome. This tome has been written in an ambiguous language which fulfils the essential requirement for this matter to be the subject of copious amounts of academic discussion regarding its real meaning. This also satisfies the need for the existence of a hierarchical structure comprising teachers and followers. This collection of tales could well become the foundation for a massive philosophical movement.

 Secondly, it will be fervently embraced by ordinary folk because it is simple in concept and the ideas embraced are well known: in this case they are water, wine and change; the ideas are conceivable and discussable. Yes, outrageous simplistic ideas are the key.

Thirdly, the final ingredient, in order that the system can be a guide for life, simple all- embracing rules of a general nature need to be laid down. A good name for them would be The Seven Commandments or the Thirteen-fold Path.”

However, the institute of regular affairs have come out with a statement that such an idea is preposterous.  “We live in rational times,” they said, “No one would accept a new idea without it having fulfilled the burden of proof.”

1^st April 1795 AD

Wilfred Cox was arrested this morning for the spreading of seditious rumour.  He seems to be spreading the idea that everything that we see is made of atoms and that these atoms could either be seen to be particle like or wavelike in nature. Anyway, he seems to think that these particles – or are they waves – reflect electromagnetic radiation which make them look like solid objects to us. What is more the only reason that these particles do not merge together into one object is because they create large forces of repulsion when they are pressed together. He thinks that the real world is just a lot of space.

A government spokesman said, “The whole idea was preposterous: no one in their right mind could possibly imagine this scenario; it was so imaginative that it could only have been thought up by some lunatic.  It would never catch on because it was not a mish-mash of simple ideas thrown together in amazing ways; it was far too imaginative. Now ‘the water into wine thing’ that was truly something we can all believe in.”

A member of ‘Open Think” said, “Well the government are probably correct in their assessment but that the main reason for such an immediate response was the increased frailty of the current ideologies which have been slowly crumbling since the result of the French Revolution in 1789. Everyone knows that most ideas become the province of vehement fanatical support when they are under attack from other equally weak ideas. It is felt that the ideas of the current regime need a boost from fundamentalist idealists.”

2^nd April 1795

 Here is the news.

The man (Wilfred Cox) arrested yesterday for spreading seditious rumour has insisted that his revolutionary ideas were an April Fools hoax, for the ideas were far too extraordinary to be anything like reality. “How on earth could everything we see possibly be the result of electromagnetic waves being reflected by the force fields surrounding minute particles,” he scoffed. “Who could ever dream up such nonsense?” A member of the newly formed Science Foundation stated that it was often the case that reality contained far more unimaginable ideas than most myths.

Wilfred stated that his outburst had been prompted by his abhorrence of the inability of namby-pamby mankind to face up to the reality of existence. “The fact that they need to turn to myths for solace which highlights their pathetic weakness,” he said. “Life presents us with a preposterous dilemma; we are born and can look forward to the certainty of our demise. To cope with this, our disturbing existence, generations have lived their lives in accordance with many doubtful beliefs. He supposes that Religious beliefs lie in this category. Other beliefs, he believes, are so self-apparent that to question them seems preposterous. In this category, among many others, he cites such ideas as ‘Freedom of Choice’ and ‘The Need for National Boundaries and Identity’. Do these ideas, when closely investigated; reveal themselves to be mythical in nature? Many philosophers believe so.

Mr Cox was fined £160 and was bound over for the sum of £2,500 to refrain from such behaviour for the next twelve months. “Perhaps he will get over it,” commented the judge.

 

12^th December 2011 

“The Christian ideals have been sabotaged.” stated Charles Fortune of the ‘Presbaptoangics For Joy’ movement. He was speaking in response to the humanist’s recently publicised view that Christianity was dead. “It never ceases to amaze me how fanatical an organisation becomes when its tenets are most in doubt,” had said chief humanist John Wilson. “I have noticed that holders of the more fragile beliefs are strongly motivated to recruit more acquaintances to join them in their beliefs. This is particularly prevalent in the sphere of religious conviction. Mordocs and The Witnesses of Bathsheba are particularly evangelical. I know a man who, being convinced that aliens exist, has offered to give me some books so that I too can join the believers and become a member of his gang. What is it with these people? It’s true what they say, isn’t it: that myths give people a lot to talk about. They can freely exercise their jaws about that.”

3^rd January 2013 

Dr. Wilson Fimone announced today, that a seminar will be held to decide whether or not myths have played a largly positive influence on the growth of humanity or not. On the stuff of myths he said:-

 

“Myths tend to be simplistic. The discovery by sailors of the narwhal tusk when added to the known idea of the horse gave us the unicorn. Even the miracles in the bible are based on known phenomenon. ’Water into wine’, ‘walking on water’ and such are nothing more than the rearrangement of well known ideas. No genius was needed in their conception. I would suggest that all the fantastic monsters of the science fiction world are conglomerations of the existing life forms which we find repulsive.

 

Scientific ideas, on the other hand, cannot be conceived so easily. To imagine that the physical reality of the world consisted of little electrons buzzing around protons and neutrons creating forces between them which led to the illusion of solid, liquid and gas was beyond our wildest dreams prior to the growth of the scientific method. Yes, Democratus said that everything was made out of little bits but we all know what a little bit is don’t we?. Just try braking up wood into smaller pieces and we get little bits of wood, don’t we? To imagine that the universe was made up of mainly space and comprised of minute particles exerting forces on each other took the best brains 3000 years to establish.

On Mathematical ideas he had this to say:-

 

“In Electrical Engineering ‘The square root of minus one’ is of useful practical value. What is this thing which when multiplied by itself comes to minus one? It is not positive nor is it negative. It is certainly not a real number so it is known as an imaginary number; a useful concept to be used in calculations which can give us useful, correct, answers.”

 

“Science fiction writers refer, willy-nilly, to dimensions which do not physically exist.  Were a fourth physical dimension to exist, here and now, we, being confined to our three, would have to account for observations which were entirely unacceptable. For instance we would have to be able to comprehend and observe the existence of entities which can move in and out of existence at random; entities which could exist partly in one room and partly in another. another. All such entities would be touchable and uncontainable. Yet the idea of a fourth dimension in mathematics is nothing more than defining the Pythagorus theorem using four lines arranged so that the sum of their squares is equal to the square of its hypotenuse, whatever that may look like.”

 

“Those myth like mathematical ideas have proven to be extremely useful in a practical manner,” he said, “What we really wish to establish is if the religious and philosophical myths are really beneficial or whether they might, on balance, retard our growth as a species.”