[Original Novel] Pariah of the Little People, Part 10

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Something about their music and other media has that same uneasy, surreal, forced quality as the cartoons I’d seen in the textbook. Like the bare minimum was put in to dress up ideological content as a song, a movie, or whatever else. And we were coached relentlessly to prefer “God focused” media over secular offerings as “anything which does not glorify God is worldly, Satanic trash.”

The result being that the school’s entire library of books, videos and CDs were Christian themed. Whenever I’d seen other students trading music or movies it’d been stuff like Veggie Tales, a rap video about “side hugs”, Bible Man, the Left Behind novels, even videogames based on scripture where you played as Noah striving to collect all of the animals before the flood. It was everywhere I turned, with no respite except at home.

It gave me reason to reflect on how much I could blame any of ‘em. Raised inside something like a bubble made from one-way mirror that you can see into, but not out of. A whole parallel culture created as Christianized clone of American popular culture so they’d never be tempted to expose themselves to any non-Christian information. So that they’d never run into anybody or any book, film, or song which would do anything except reinforce their beliefs.

Must be pretty convincing from the inside. Like it’s simply reality. Fish who don’t see the water they’re in. They recognize this about people in other religions like Islam or Hinduism of course, as they’re looking into those bubbles from the outside.

They’ve just never turned that same perspective back on themselves, never stepped out of their own bubble. Understandable, if you believe doing so leads to eternal torment. Kinda like the concept of Hell was knowingly designed to make you stay in the fold.

To make you fear and distrust your own doubts, powerfully motivated to make sure everybody you care about converts. As I dwelled on it, I began wondering how I could push them out of the bubble. Even if only for a moment! But, in a way that wouldn’t result in punishment.

The rapping buffoon finished up, then introduced the next speaker, someone who looked genuinely qualified to operate a planetarium. “Phil Rosen”, professor of cosmology and head of this planetarium was well as two others funded by the same wealthy backers.

“Thank you Spanky. And welcome to you all! It’s a delight to see your curious young faces”, he began. “I was about your age when first introduced to astronomy, cosmology, and all things to do with the study of the heavens.

None of you who have ever looked up at the night sky with awe could mistake it for a dry topic, I’m sure. It’s all down to who you learn about it from. I hope to bring the majesty and wonder of the universe alive for you dear children! But if I don’t, there will be no refunds.”

A few quiet chuckles. He turned out the lights, fiddled with a laptop, and the laser projector hummed to life. It turned out to be an unexpectedly riveting experience. Sure, there were mentions of God, creation and so forth but the central focus really was on communicating the scale and behaviors of the cosmos in an approachable way.

My apprehension melted away and before long I felt unreservedly glad I’d come. I had no choice of course, but this hadn’t turned out to be the wasted day I assumed it would be on the bus. This guy really knew his stuff, and listening to him explaining time dilation evoked warm memories of stargazing with Jennifer.

The lights were eased back on by the use of a remotely controlled dimmer, the projector shut down, then professor Rosen invited each of us to ask him three questions. That’s when I hatched my plan. This guy was purportedly the director of two other planetariums.

Most likely conventional ones, I figured. He also seemed sincerely committed to educating kids about space. Seemed like better than even odds that he’d give a straight answer to any question I posed.

So when my turn came around, doing my best to sound innocently curious, I asked whether it’s really true that the Earth would burn up if ten feet closer to the sun, or freeze if ten feet further away. His ears perked up, he made brief eye contact, then looked at our handlers. For direction, I suppose. One of them shook his head subtly, then gave me a dour look.

“...In fact, that’s absolutely true young man” the professor said. “The Earth was perfectly placed by God at the exact right distance from the sun. Were it any closer or further, we would perish. This just goes to show the perfection of creation, so that we are without excuse. Next question.”

I balked. He prodded me to continue, but my jaw hung open and I couldn’t find words. How could this happen? The students say these things, so you go over their heads to the faculty. But they’re the same way. So you go over their heads to someone like this, only to run into the same thing. How many layers deep? Is there still a world outside of this nightmare?

He’d nearly moved on to the next kid when I was finally able to compose myself. I was not yet beaten and still hoped to corner him somehow. “Is the Earth’s orbit circular or oval shaped, and what’s a habitable zone?” He could hardly answer either without putting the lie to what he’d just said.

“That’s two questions, my dear boy. You’re certainly inquisitive! What a treat. Indeed the Earth’s distance varies greatly from the sun, but then it also retains heat from when it’s closest, so that it does not freeze while at it’s furthest point.

This, too, shows the hand of an intelligent architect at work. I’ll say nothing of so called habitable zones, as really, we have only the Earth to base such estimations on. All we can say for sure is that the Earth supports life and appears to be unique in that regard. One more question, please do make it simpler as I’d like to get to everybody before the time runs out.”

I wracked my brain for something plausibly deniable. Something that pertained to what he’d taught us and could be passed off as the well meaning question of a bewildered child. I’d nearly exhausted his patience when I hit on it.

“When you were explaining time dilation, you mentioned travel times measured in light years. Some of the stars you used in your formula were millions of light years away. How can we see those stars, when the light from them would need to have been travelling for much longer than six thousand years in order to reach Earth?”

He sat there digesting the question. Other students around me began to murmur to one another. I’d done it, surely? Even Heather was staring at me with an expression I couldn’t decipher. Surprise? Concern? Offense? How I wish that came more easily. At last, he cleared his throat and issued a response.

“I’m glad you asked! It’s quite simple, really. God created the light in transit, giving the appearance that the universe is much older than it really is. You could be excused for making such a mistake if your estimations neglected to factor in Biblical truths.” The handler in the corner nodded approvingly, as did the other students around me. Once more I was aghast.

No hope. Any hole I meant for the others to glimpse the outside world through was hastily papered over just as soon as I’d cut it open. Like some inane game of whack a mole, deflecting my every effort to tear down this carefully constructed facade so expertly that I realized he must have decades of experience at it. There was never any realistic chance for a child to trip him up.

I was stopped on the way out by one of the faculty and given a talking to about rebellious spirit this, worldly influence that. I behaved as if frightened so that he’d let up. The last, lingering ounce of guilt for deceiving these miserable creatures finally drained from my body.

Where I felt as if I should be frustrated, instead I was forlorn. Even with a near perfect setup, I hadn’t been able to provoke any unfiltered insights. Most if not all of these kids would grow up still believing all this. They’d probably go to their graves believing it.

Somehow it hadn’t sunk in until now what lengths they would go to. Even on the way in, despite all of the creation themed monuments along the path, the enormity of it didn’t click for me. That they would actually bother to build their own special planetariums to send their kids to, just to be sure that they won’t be told certain things.

Could there be more places like this out there? Maybe an imitation natural history museum with Adam and Eve riding animatronic dinosaurs or something. The absurdity of it made me doubtful, but by this point there wasn’t much I’d put past them.

The principal had some choice words for me but I again acted my way out of it. “How strong is faith that is never tested? What if the others wondered the same thing but never received a Biblically sound answer?” and so on. There’s a formula to it. Once you get a feel for their mindset, devising a response that’ll tick off all the right boxes is effortless.

The psychologist was harder to fool, as usual. But also refreshingly sympathetic as he found the answers professor Rosen gave me as absurd as I did. “Protestants. What can you do? I really don’t see the harm though, if the end result is that the kids are saved from damnation.” I thought to point out he was rationalizing deceit, then remembered I’d already not just dismounted from my high horse where honesty is concerned, but sold it to the glue factory.

“Don’t take that stuff too seriously, anyway” he urged. “You’ll be here for what, three years? Then you’ll have a choice of Christian highschools to attend, many of which do not adhere so strictly to fundamentalist interpretations of Genesis.

These people may seem numerous because they surround you at the moment but I don’t meet many of them outside of work. They’re just a handful of fringe loonies I wound up working for because of an...unfortunate misunderstanding at my old Parish.”

I wondered briefly what sort of misunderstanding it was, but then my mind snagged on the bit about a handful of vocal loonies. I knew that to be false. The other night I’d sought out polling data on the prevalence of young Earth creationism in the US. Everybody I’d asked on Christian message boards assured me it’s a vanishingly rare perspective, but I now suspected they lied to me out of embarrassment.

The poll I found worded the question “Do you believe all life on Earth appeared in it’s present form sometime within the last ten thousand years?” I chose this over polls with more ambiguous or provocative wording. How you phrase the question is very important as it’ll drastically affect the results you get.

They’d been careful, accordingly, to specify a young Earth timeframe and to leave out incendiary language concerning man’s common ancestry with other apes. Nonetheless, 46% of Americans answered yes. A minority, but then I found that it is not close to 100% of Americans who are Christians as we’d been told in class, but 75%.

A little napkin math yielded a figure of around 60% of American Christians, as a subset of Americans overall, who reject evolution as an explanation of origins and explicitly embrace a young Earth model of creationism. A little more searching revealed that A.C.E. is a commonly used curriculum in thousands of private schools just like this one across the country.

It winded me, like a surprise kick in the gut. I’d made the same assumption as my shrink until then, that this school was some isolated anomaly, an obscure little madhouse unique in all the world that I simply had the rare misfortune of being sent to.

But no, somehow it’s everywhere. Must’ve taken many years to spread this much, surely? For the life of me I couldn’t understand why in all that time nobody ever took up arms against it, organizing an effort to burn these places to the ground. These centers for the assembly line psychological stunting of children.

Contrary to my shrink’s insistence that Catholics are immune to all this, the same polling data indicated that 35% of Catholics had answered the question in the affirmative. When I asked about this on the forums I was told by resident Catholics that those people didn’t count. That the Vatican has always been fine with evolution and embraced it from day one.

The truth turned out to be less rosy. Some guy named Pius the twelfth had begrudgingly allowed the possibility of evolution but expressed the hope that it would prove to simply be a passing fad.

He went on to condemn those who would “imprudently and indiscreetly hold that evolution explains the origin of all things.” Which technically it doesn’t, as abiogenesis is a separate thing, but I doubt that’s what he meant. Some ‘embrace’! These people don’t quite lie, usually. More like exaggerate and polish the facts to support a particular narrative. “Almost lies”, you could call them.

That’s when I first realized I should never trust anything they tell me, at least not concerning the church, history, biology, cosmology and so forth. Vaguely brought to mind a William S. Burroughs quote I’d once read about doing business with the religious. It seemed dramatic and severe at the time, but I now began to understand what he meant.

Somehow, nothing’s ever their fault. Only the admirable Christians are “real” ones. All great men of Western history were Christians, so Christianity gets the credit for their achievements but does not catch any of the blame for the actions of infamous Christian dictators, who are instead held to have been secretly Godless. Something like the blood libel, but aimed at heathens.

For this sort of person, science proves the Bible if you read it a particular way, anything which flat out can’t be reconciled with it is either a hoax or a conclusion there will never be enough supporting evidence for, that sorta thing. I realize now that I’ll never get a trustworthy answer from them. My shrink was proving to be no different.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 11!}