Wow. I had almost forgotten that I wanted to talk about this. I had the idea to discuss this particular topic during the blog-a-thon like right after Stephanie came up with the idea.
I'm talking about the old story of Noah and the Flood. (It's Genesis 6:11 - Genesis 9:15. At least according to the site of the hour.)
In it, God decides that humanity has gotten it all wrong, and so he wants to start over with a clean slate. He decides to do this by flooding the world, and drowning everything.
"...all flesh died that moved upon the earth, birds, cattle, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm upon the earth, and every man; everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died."
Despite the fact that the animals weren't what God had a problem with. Oops.
This would be really monstrous (well, it still could be viewed that way) but God has a soft spot, and doesn't scratch out all humans. (Although one's got to wonder, if he could make humanity in the first place, why bother saving any of us?) Anywhat, he picks Noah out of the crowd, and decides that this guy's good stuff. I won't snuff him.
He then tells Noah his plan. And instructs Noah on how to build a survival vehicle so that he won't be wiped out with 99.999999999999999% of the rest of life on earth.
And Noah agrees!!
Dude.
Okay, lets look at this from a "now" point of view. Say some aliens (or God, whatever) come up to you and say, "Hey. We're going to wipe out the planet, except for you, your immeadiate family, and these animals that you save."
What would your reaction be?
Personally, I don't think I'd be okay with the death of billions of strangers, billions (trillions??) of animals, and of course, all of my friends. I think I'd tell God, or the aliens or whatever exactly where they could stick their ark.
Barring that, I would at least try and convince other people to build their own ark, or invite friends and loved ones onto the ark with me. Or maybe I'd make the ark bigger, so it could accomadate more people (and animals).
Or maybe I'd say, "Hey. I don't really want to live in such an empty world. So if you're gonna kill so many innocents, you might as well add me to the list. What's one more gonna hurt, anyway?"
Or perhaps I'd try and find out why humanity deserved to be wiped out. And then I would see what could be done to remedy that, without resorting to the mass murder scheme, if it could be avoided.
The point is, there are plenty of ways around the idea of simply snuffing out so much life, and only sparing a few "innocent" beings. (Do you think Noah and his family had survivor's guilt? I think that I would.)
I read a short story a while back (I can't remember who wrote it, or even what it was called) but it had a similar situation. Wherein some aliens came to the president of the US (it wasn't Bush [wink]) and said, "Here's what you can do to save humanity. If you don't, it will be destroyed in X number of years." And the President (if I remember correctly) said, "Thanks, but no thanks." I can't remember the explanation the President gave, but I think the things I mentioned above may have been included.
All of this is interesting (to me) because in my Perth story, there is a character named Noah. And he does have an ark...of sorts. You'll see.
And hey!! Almost done!! Woo!!
Site of the hour - Really, really funny.
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