The Creation Of Adam

That is the title of an editorial cartoon by the Clay Bennett, staff cartoonist for a local newspaper, The Chattanooga Times Free Press. It is a simple parody of Michelangelo's famous Sistine Chapel fresco The Creation of Adam. (Michelangelo's painting is featured above, Bennett's cartoon can be view by clicking this link.)

 

What Bennett's very simple cartoon does (for those of you who just don't like to click links) is feature the hand of "Adam" (in this case a very simian looking hand) almost touching the fingertip of a very anthropomorphic God (just as in the original).

 

One certainly has to admire Mr. Bennett for poking a wasp's nest here in the Bible Belt, a land awash in fundamentalist and fundamentalist-leaning conservative Christianity. As you can imagine it did create a "buzz," with over five hundred comments so far. A very high rate compared to his other efforts, even though it was only published on March 4.

 

Of course it brought to fore the bad aspects of religion, the hate and intolerance that the small-minded have so much trouble shaking.

 

For example, one Christian commented:

oh, I get it, this is autobiographical! He's promoting his alternative lifestyle, bestiality.

And another:

Did Bennett use his hand as a reference, the one on the left, I mean.

There can be no excuse for that type of attitude. I objected in my last post to nonbelievers portraying religious believers as stupid. I can only find equally repulsive those (all to many!) who provide them with fodder. There is nothing - absolutely nothing - "spiritual" about behaving in that way, or in misusing one's "God-given" intellect in such a manner.

Perhaps the comment I enjoyed most was the one which observed:

The behavior of people supports the theory of evolution

How true, whether as illustrated by my last post or this one.

Obviously our evolution is far from complete.