your-god-is-too-small May. 2016 | Page 106

odd thing is that the stories hold that animals were made before humans, so YHWH made all these original creations before thinking: “hey, wait a minute. Why not make one that looks like me?” Please, don’t get me started on the idiocy of the Hebrew creationist myth and its lack of creative imagination. It was mostly cribbed from nearby peoples, and is not even internally consistent or logical. I prefer Yimar and the ice cow, quite frankly, out of Norse mythology. At least the Hebrews gave animals one day off each week for the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-10, Deuteronomy 5:14). The monotheisms go out of their way to protest that animals don’t have souls, at least until recently. Perhaps as a result of the lower birth rates and family scattering after children reach maturity, many people have become rather fond of fido the dog and fluffy the cat. So we see in many places the advent of baptisms for animals, animal weddings, people burying their animals in pet cemeteries, etc. I always find it odd that someone would buy gourmet food for their pet and at the same time deride government spending on food support for poor humans – but perhaps this is an exclusively American anomaly. Science is Leading Us Back to Where We Began Western philosophy, religious teachings and what used to pass as science, are replete with examples of how humans sought to differentiate themselves from other animals. Almost any farmer could have told you that much of what passed for established fact was errant nonsense, like the idea that animals don’t mourn for their de