Dear Satan:
I’m worried about global warming, but I keep hearing people say that “the science is not settled.” I don’t know what to think. Where do you come down on this debate?
–Confused SUV Driver
Like I fucking know. What I do know is how to settle a debate!
Once upon a time there were a bunch of Israelites in the desert or something, and some of them were all, “Hey, God is boring! Let’s worship Baal!”
And everyone was like, “Yeah! Cool! Awesome!”
But then this boring dude came up and he was all, “Let’s settle this debate once and for all. We can use fire,” which was a pretty cool idea.
Bubo the Owl, from Clash of the Titans
And so they built two alters. One was awesome. It was an alter to Baal. It had a giant golden throne on which sat a statue of an angry cow, with mean red eyes made of precious stones. And they brought in some of those little mechanical owls–like Bubo from the movie Clash of the Titans. It was sweet. People were dancing and shaking it and generally having a good time.
Over at the other alter, things were much more subdued. And that was pretty much because the other alter completely sucked. For one thing, it had zero Bubos. And the alter itself was just some sticks and some rocks and maybe some dryer lint or something. It was gay.
Once everything was in place, the two groups of people sat around chanting, praying, and hoping their alter would light on fire to establish, once and for all, the awesomeness of that particular group. Eventually one of them (the groups of people) did.
You can read the Biblical account here: 1 Kings 18:24-40. It totally omits (1) the Bubos, and (2) the fact that the people around the alter caught on fire as well as the alter, which completely changes the impression you get from reading the story. But whatever.
The moral of the story is: All disputes can be resolved with fire. As for global warming, if we light the world on fire, there will no longer be any debate. It’ll be like: “Duh, of course it’s getting hotter, because the world is on fire, and yeah it’s anthropogenic, because we’re the ones who set the fire and stuff.”
