Penguins have gods too
By Terrence Oblong
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Penguins have gods too. It would be arrogant to assume otherwise.
Unfortunately extreme arrogance was the predominant feature of all religious types and it was universally assumed that
a) Only humans have gods, and
b) My god is the only one that counts
The existence of penguins' gods only became known after 'the great prayer mix up'.
Human gods have long since given up intervening in human affairs. Human prayers were frequently contrary to the very nature of the religion they were offered up in, most frequently demands for money, sexual booty, power, world domination or all of the above. Penguin gods, on the other hand, continued to answer the prayers of their followers, because they were more reasonable, a request for some nice cold weather, a plea for at least one healthy chick in their brood, and a nice piece of fish for our tea.
The mix up happened after one of the major (human) tech companies launched a new app which promised to improve the impact of people's prayers via a high-speed link to the realm of the divine. Unfortunately the company making the app happened to share a name with one of the penguins' gods, and this, combined with flaws in the divine-aspiring-technology, led to apped prayers hacking the prayers sent to the penguins' god.
Due to the benign and obliging nature of the god in question, the prayers were duly answered, although not in the way the human prayer-makers had intended.
The mistake was first spotted when fish started appearing in bed next to the human who had just sent a prayer via the app. 'Something fishy with new prayer tech' the papers said, but this coverage didn't help, it led to a vast increase in take-up of the app, as did coverage of the unexpected snowfalls in the middle of a heatwave. They were both (rightly) regarded as evidence of a divine miracle, albeit not the miracle requested.
The pregnancies took longer to show, of course, and they were assumed to be normal pregnancies. It wasn't until a full nine months after the app was launched that the first human gave birth to a penguin chick.
It was to be the first of many such births. Although the birth was a shock to the parents, with the help of veterinary experts they were able to raise the chick as their own child. The parents eventually moved to the Falkland Islands where they opened a tea shop and their son Kevin (for so they called him) married a local 'girl' and went on to have chicks of his own.
Though presented with direct evidence of an interventionist, miraculous god, and the awesome power of prayer, humankind continued to behave as if they lived in a godless, unregulated universe. God was there, if he was there at all, to provide them with booty and an excuse for their worst behaviours.
The problem was eventually sorted when the all-seeing all-powerful god of cats intervened and stopped the prayers en route to the penguin god, though of course humans had no idea that the intervention had occurred and assumed that the resolution was due to an (expensive) phone upgrade.
In fact we all owe our lives to the god of cats. Humankind would have obliterated itself long ago, but the god of cats intervened frequently to stop the latest invention blowing up the planet, or the latest communictions equipment starting a war, instead directing their technology towards development of of heating homes, eradicating fleas and improving food and food storage technology.
The god of cats is of course the most powerful god of all, which is why cats' lives consist of sleeping, eating, finding a warm spot, receiving affection and sleeping again. They are also blessed with nine lives and the ability to lick their own genitals.
Do you ever think you might be worshipping the wrong god?
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Comments
Love this bit of madness. I'd
Love this bit of madness. I'd quite like my own penguin chick. It's Pick of the Day.
Image is from here: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_Egypt_101-black...
Feel free to change it if you're not happy with it. :)
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This is brilliant Terrence -
This is brilliant Terrence - a cat will always get things right. You can count on them. (unless you're a mouse or a bird)
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I have always worshipped the
I have always worshipped the cat god. I have no choice. The cat watches me.
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Funny,
with satirical bite, as usual.
You have a typo in para 9 "he birth", which would have been another miracle one supposes.
This really is my cup of strange brew. Well done.
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