Another very soggy day down on our little allotment here in South Gloucestershire in the good old Dis-United Kingdom.
The ground is too soggy to walk on without creating waterlogged Wellie-bootprints, and after checking over the little seedlings in our greenhouses, Nosher and I retreated mid-morning to the shelter of his shed.
Once inside, and comfortably seated in our old deckchairs, we resigned ourselves to listening to the rain falling on the shed roof for the next few hours.
Which is what it proceeded to do, and relentlessly.
Nosher handed me a glass of fruitjuice and equipped himself with one also.
'Parsnip wine reserves falling a little low' he explained 'have to eke them out now for a few months, until the next batch comes on stream.'
I nodded sagely. You can't rush parsnip wine, or, like anything that's been rushed, it comes out less than perfect.
Nosher also nodded sagely.
'I've been pondering the meaning of the word "worship", and I really can't get to grips with it' he announced.
'You mean worship as in worshipping a god?' I inquired.
'Precisely' affirmed Nosher. 'And the thing that strikes me is that it appears to be a particularly circular process. The worshipper praises the god in question, promises undying love and obediance, and then feels good about themselves because they think they've achieved something. But how would one distinguish between a simple, uncomplicated "feel-good" psychological response, and one that genuinely demonstrated that god was listening and responding by sending waves of spiritual warmth in the direction of the worshipper?'
'You mean how can one be sure that god is listening and that's what you feel good about, as opposed to feeling good merely because you've convinced yourself your prayers, praising and grovelling are working, which would be entirely self-serving?'
'Exactly' Nosher confirmed. 'The point is, it could be said that our carrots worship the sun. Once they've pushed their green foliage above ground, they respond to the sun's rays by growing as fast as they can, and the more they grow, the more sunshine they can absorb, which permits yet more growth. They do it without self-awareness (no-one's ever demonstrated thought in a carrot) but, nonetheless, in their own way they tell us that the most important thing in their lives is the sun. They depend upon it to sustain their lives. I can't see that the situation of a carrot is much different from that of a religious believer, except that a carrot doesn't rely on a holy scripture to tell it what to believe and what to do. It doesn't need a holy scripture, because its development is solely down to genetics and the effects of its environment.'
'So what are you saying, Nosh?'
'I think I'm saying that it's up to religious believers to explain how their worshipping their god is any different from a carrot worshipping the sun' said Nosher 'I'm not claiming that religion is necessarily the same as vegetables worshipping the sun, all I'm asking is that there should be some demonstrable and significant difference between the two if religion is to be treated any differently.'
'Which you haven't yet detected?'
'Exactly' said Nosher.
'Some might say you've been spending too much time in your allotment shed drinking parsnip wine and it's addled your brain' I suggested.
'Yep, there's always that!' Nosher agreed.
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
Find out more at www.paulsturdee.co.uk and
www.PGSBooks.co.uk.
Paul Sturdee's book Is God a Terrorist? is available from all good booksellers - please support your local bookshop - if you don't, it may not be there next time you visit!
If you have any difficulty obtaining a copy, contact the PGS Books website.
Best Wishes and Happy Gardening!
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Do Carrots Worship the Sun?
Labels:
carrots,
demonstrable,
difference,
environment,
genetics,
grovelling,
holy scriptures,
love,
obediance,
prayer,
religion,
self-serving,
sun,
worship
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