“Thousands of dead octopuses wash up on Portugal beach” (BBC News)

It’s a tragic little story, more than just a little odd:
My suspicion is, an octopus had just invented “god”;
When he told the other fishes, most dismissed him as a fool,
They had never heard such nonsense in their years in fishy school.
His relatives, embarrassed by his ineffective search,
Through a misplaced sense of sympathy, signed up and joined his church.

As we skip ahead a little, past the growing of his flock,
Past the bible-thumping rhetoric, the gospel-driven schlock,
To the cult of personality, their leader is their friend,
And they’d follow where he takes them, true believers to the end!
If they only have sufficient faith, the stars are in their reach—
Now they wash up by the thousands, on a five-mile stretch of beach.

From the BBC:

Thousands of dead octopuses have washed up on a beach in northern Portugal, in what is being called an environmental disaster.

They cover a 5-mile stretch of Vila Nova de Gaia beach – no reason has yet been found for their appearance.

The authorities have warned the public not to eat them.

Update: ok, so it’s not an update on the actual story, like I had hoped. I was looking to see if there was more information anywhere, but without luck. But over on Current, a reader’s comment suggests that my version may well be the truth:

The money quote: Whatever the reason, its what god wanted. Maybe they were just stupid, like all the whales getting washed up.

I’ve seen fossils of the ammonites, in lovely curving spirals,
I’ve seen children saved from certain death by modern antivirals,
I’ve seen salmon swim up waterfalls, to find their tiny brook–
And you’re asking me to trade it for the contents of one book?

I’ve seen galaxies, and nebulas of brilliant glowing gases
I’ve seen Painted Desert valleys; I’ve seen Rocky Mountain passes
I was at the Gulf of Corinth when the earth beneath me shook–
Do you really think I’d trade it for some stuff that’s in a book?

I’ve seen elephants and rhinos; I’ve seen buffalo and deer
I’ve seen humpback whales I almost could have touched, they came so near;
I’ve seen giant redwood forests, where I craned my neck to look;
Is there anything so awesome in your tiny little book?

I’ve seen microscopic beasties of a thousand different forms
I’ve seen hurricanes, tornadoes, snow and hail and thunderstorms
I’ve seen babies reach adulthood—Oh, how little time it took!
And I would not trade one heartbeat for that obsolescent book!

I’ve seen beauty that you couldn’t buy, no matter what the price;
I have tasted of life’s bounty, each ingredient and spice–
I would throw it all together in a pot, and let it cook…
And I guarantee it’s better than the contents of your book;
Yes, I’d sooner starve, than swallow all the poison in your book.

******

Inspired by, but totally not a copy of, this.
And yeah, it’s all true. Which is the best part of all.

I am the Bishop, the moral authority,
The good of my flock is my highest priority
Unless (or until) there’s a Shepherd accused,
And a lamb from my flock is among the abused.

I am the Bishop; to me they will come,
Both Shepherd and Sheep (because people are dumb)
I’m trusted to do what is just, what is right,
To head off a scandal, and keep things from sight.

I am the Bishop; the power is mine,
The law is of earth, but the issue’s divine
It’s morally righteous to hide the report,
And to fight and appeal when they take us to court.

I am the Bishop. The transcripts disclosed
I created a smokescreen when duly deposed;
I watched for my shepherds, and helped them escape
From those cruel allegations of beatings and rape.

I am the Bishop—Archbishop, New York;
I won’t admit shame, like in Dublin or Cork,
Here, cases are fewer, convictions are less—
It’s to me, not the cops, to whom Shepherds confess!

I am the Bishop, so I can forgive—
They’ll surely be punished, but not while they live.
The civil authorities think it’s a scam
But I am the Bishop; I don’t give a damn

I am the Bishop; I’ll sink straight to Hell,
With most of my Shepherds beside me, as well,
Where Satan’s the judge; no one grants an appeal…
But I am the Bishop. I know it’s not real.

A very depressing editorial in the New York Times today speaks of Bishop Egan, the moral authority who did his job protecting his abusive priests.

In the end it was not the power of repentance or compassion that compelled the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., to release more than 12,000 pages of documents relating to lawsuits alleging decades of sexual abuse of children by its priests.

It was a court order.

That immoral, secular court stepped in when the Bishop’s Christian conscience failed to motivate him.

The most moving portion compares Egan’s [lack of] response to the clear message (to some, still inadequate, but that may simply be a reflection of the enormity of the sins involved) delivered in Ireland under similar circumstances:

Absent in those pages is a sense of understanding of the true scope of the tragedy. Compare Bishop Egan’s words with those of the archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, who, after the release of a recent report detailing years of abuse and cover-ups in Ireland, said:

“The sexual abuse of a child is and always was a crime in civil law; it is and always was a crime in canon law; it is and always was grievously sinful. One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the report is that while church leaders — bishops and religious superiors — failed, almost every parent who came to the diocese to report abuse clearly understood the awfulness of what was involved.”

Bishop Egan, with institutional pride, looks at the relatively low rate of proven abuse cases as a sort of perverse accomplishment.

“It’s marvelous,” he said, “when you think of the hundreds and hundreds of priests and how very few have even been accused, and how very few have even come close to having anyone prove anything.”

Religion is the perfect tool
To motivate the common fool;
So long as leaders crave its power,
The church delays its final hour.

Religion’s purpose is control
(And not the saving of the soul);
No holy mind; no will divine,
But rather, keeping folks in line.

Religion, having once evolved,
Is just one way this problem’s solved.
But having once found this solution,
It may not die through evolution.

It likely won’t, to be succinct,
Just fade away and go extinct.
They’ll be here till the world grows old:
Religion… and the common cold.

“How Will Religion Evolve?” asks the New York Times’ TierneyLab Blog. The occasion is the publication of Nicholas Wade’s “The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures”. Of course, there have been many treatments of the evolution of religion, whether as an adaptive behavior adding to the reproductive fitness of human beings, as the byproduct of other adaptive mechanisms, as a self-replicating meme evolving independently of ourselves… or as a true part of our environment to which we respond. The question the TierneyLab Blog raises is “what will religion evolve into?”, which is a decent question to ask.

I figure (and I may be wrong–I just slapped this together between grading papers) that whatever religion might evolve into, evolution works with what it is given (from the past genetics and the present environment), so there are some limitations on what religion might evolve into. Just as humans are constrained by our tetrapod lineage and will never evolve supernumerary angel wings (batlike wings are unlikely, of course, but far more possible), the religous lineage also imposes constraints. We cannot roll evolution backwards, only forwards, so we must build on what religion is, not on what it could have been.

What religion is, is a way of controlling people. And a very successful one. Anything that can, without too much strain, lay claim to both the Sistine Chapel and the Jonestown Suicides, to the Parthenon and to the Crusades, to Sarah Palin and to Torquemada, has got to be good at controlling people. Hey, if you want to take credit for controlling in a good way, you gotta take the fall for controlling in a bad way. Evolution does not care; religion, as an evolving creature or behavior, does not care. It just (very successfully) controls.

Religion does what it does (control) very well. So does the common cold. Both “religion” and “the cold” are oversimplifications, one name for myriad creatures, but sharing a fuzzy but functional role. And while I may well wish the world were rid of both of them… like I said, evolution does not care.

PS. If any of you got an extra copy of the bananaman Origin of Species, I want one! Might even be persuaded to trade a copy of my silly book for it… (so long as no profit goes to Ray of Darkness)…