That fuzzy zone where demons roam

Anyone who has seen a flock of starlings wheeling about in the air may wonder how they do so without crashing into each other, and falling to the ground in a heap. Apparently, each starling keeps track of seven ‘wingmen’, and the overlap creates the stability. We also have seven ‘slots’ for instant recall – presumably this is why telephone numbers are seven figures long in Britain, although of course they didn’t used to be – so what happens when the escalation in telephone usage forces an expansion into eight digits? Will our minds explode? Possibly.

Mammals have seven vertebrae in the neck, so perhaps this is where each of the numbers is stored – if the phone numbers increase, we’ll have to grow that bit taller, add another vertebrae to accommodate the dialage. The expansion of the phone network is therefore a key determinant of human height, hence the relatively undeveloped ‘hobbit’ people near Indonesia, who didn’t have access to a phone at all.

This kind of fuzzy nonsense is exactly why we have science, to try and provide empirical proof for what goes on around us. But it can breed a terrible arrogance which is comparable in its bull-headed close mindedness with fundamentalist religion. The Pope is a curious case in this matter – plenty are the stories of him ‘shunning’ science, and the man once known as the ‘Panzer cardinal’ is easy to demonise. We forget in all this that the state is all too eager to draw the line between itself and religion, but people object when religion does it in the other direction.

The church is easy to mock, it always has been – people believing in things they can’t see has that ring about it. But by denying any sense of spirituality whatsoever the extremists on the other side are only limiting themselves, and, aside from that, making life a terribly cold, hard place. (Perhaps this is where humanism comes in, or the more exotic Baha’is Faith.) Perhaps wilful fuzziness isn’t such a bad place to sit – then one can imagine things like this roam the planet.

Superhighway to Heaven

Tired of Facebook? Tired of constantly updating your status, confirming impenetrable friend detail requests and being stalked by faces from the past? Then you need… religion. Yessiree, roll up, roll up for the greatest show in town – GodTube is the fastest growing religious site of recent years, combining all the fun of YouTube with the social networking of Facebook. It claims to have registered 973 per cent growth, and has a cross in place of the ‘T’ for tube to add class. Apparently the question isn’t would Jesus approve, but what would Jesus be downloading, were he among us today? (And which broadband provider would He be with, presumably. Imagine the endorsement possibilities.)

Well, perhaps an interview with his father – or Christian comic Cory Edwards relating the many virtues of skipping. The choices are endless. Atheists and those of other faiths are welcome, to a certain extent (the cynical reader might point out that the more eyeballs, more advertising revenue). The GodTube social network promises the following sections: Videos / Friendships / Ministries / Chats / Christ / Meaning.

The Muslim world is in danger of being left behind by all this razzmatazz, especially with GodTube’s formidable ability to stream sermons around the globe. Muslim Space presents a rather forbidding front page (although love-seeking Muslims should head to Muslim Friends), while the Jewish equivalent is the fabulously-named and friendly Shmooze.