SOME OF THAT ANCIENT TIME RELIGION

The thunder of Zeus be upon you, O mortals! Your leaders have announced a great summit to address global warming this coming May.It is obvious that they intend to seek an audience with I, Poseidon, the immortal deity of the deep.

Although this post-industrial sorcery has left me sweaty and bloated, I am still omnipotent, mortals. I carry your fate in my hands, your life on my back. Yet still my hands go unwashed, and my back remains oily. Between tanker spills and pattern dryness, my godly visage has become worn and weary.

So it is with an all-powerful spirit of cautious optimism that I greet this news. I need none of your sympathy, but it would be nice if I had it. An occasional goat sacrifice might go down pretty well, too. And if your weak, flesh-bound leaders wish to meet me halfway, I may be willing to grant you a merciful passage on this salty earth.

Fools! You have engaged in the terrible heresy of monotheistic cults! You have abandoned the graven images that once granted you glory in battle and plenty in peace! You have worshipped a false God, a betrayal that would surely have led you to a chalice of hemlock if the great Pericles still reigned!

Socrates. Plato. Aristotle. Do you believe that these great men simply got it wrong when they worshipped me as a true and glorious god? Do you consider yourselves to be wiser than they? Pitiful mortals, your planet burns! Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism…In the words of Phil, that shiny-headed heir to Hippocrates: How’s that working for you?

What you mortals need is some of that ancient time religion: the faith that those philosopher kings and Mediterranean island-dwellers of 3000 years past knew to be true.