Chapter 4: Conversin’ With a Relic
“But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence.” 1 Corinthians 1:27-29
It was afternoon, after walking all day, and Luke had sat down under a shade tree to read some of the book, with his guitar across his lap the way he had done in college: read a few pages, then play a few songs, to break up the monotony a little when doing heavy reading. But this time Luke barely touched his guitar at all. He had begun reading the Gospel according to St. Luke (it was the catchy name what got his attention), and once he started reading the story about Jesus he just had to keep going and find out how it all turned out! pausing only occasionally to admire the sunny sky, the green trees, and the shocking white sunlit cliff face opposite him, and to feel the gentle breeze and to get himself all peacefulled up.
Well, he must have gone too long between pauses, coz the next time Luke looked up and around, he realized it had quickly become a cloudy day, with lightning and thunder. (Picture it, if you will.) Luke sat with his back against the whistling tree, watching the windy sky. The storm was beautiful, yet menacing--in that brief small moment when you feel the strength of the brewing tempest, and wait with drawn breath and awe, before the rain actually arrives.
Luke wrapped his arms around his chest, coz hugs always give you warmth, even if you hafta settle for doin’ it yourself. “Doggone. It sure does get chilly in these here parts,” Luke lamented. “And me wearin’ only a Hawaiian shirt, and a Bermuda shorts, and a ten-gallon hat.” Luke shook his head in a regret.
It started to rain, and Luke reluctantly put the Bible away in its leather jacket (coz Bibles are cooool), and closed up his guitar in its “waterproof” case and hoped for the best, but he stayed where he was, being a stubborn ol’ country-boy.
It started pouring then, a fierce hurricane-rain. The tree kept him dry for a short spell, but then the wind gripped it and it started shaking off its water onto poor old Luke. Luke shook his fist at the tree. “What a drag. I feel betrayed.” He looked about in exasperation, and by some strange-groovy luck, spotted a cave in the cliff, not too far up.
Luke scurried up there, and went into the cave. It was nice and dry in there, at least, which brought a “Hot diggity dog,” then a moment of reflection, a realization that this was the second time he had been helped by a nice cave, and an even more generous, “I love caves!” He took off his hat and dumped off the water, and he tried to wring out his shirt as well as he was able. Then he smiled and sat down on the rocky cave dirt and the dirty cave rock and he started to play with his rained-upon guitar to see if it still sounded great, and whaddaya know, it did. While he was at it, Luke figured he might as well write a tribute song to caves everywhere.
“Caves of the World, Unite!
Stand up for what you believe is right!
Yeah, doggone it, you’re dirty and rocky,
And I’d bet my Stetson that you can’t play hockey;
But you make a nice home for Cavemen and Bears,
And it’s Days Like These when I’m glad you’re there:
Caves are dry, and they come in handy,
And I reckon right now I fell right Jim-dandy.
Cave... I think I love you.”
Luke the Hun grinned sheepishly. He had needed to borrow a line from The Troggs’ song “Wild Thing” to finish her off, but all-in-all it was a work of art, especially when supplemented by his artful guitar work. Somewhat campy, yes, but he was camping after all.
Luke’s song also proved to be prophetic, too, for just about that time a genuine, bona fide Caveman shuffled out from the back of the cave, into the light. He looked absolutely the part, with long hair, a bad beard, and a cheap face, plus a sloping forehead and a hairy chest, with a stone club and a lousy tunic made of wolf skins. He was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and squinting and frowning. It looked like he was trying to formulate a diplomatic formal greeting, but being tired, all he got out was “What’s up? Besides me, that is...”
“Wow, you speak the modern language pretty well,” Luke observed, startled.
The Caveman looked hurt. “What’s that supposed to mean? How did you expect me to talk? Should I say unga-bunga and oogy-boogy and grunt and wave my arms around? What, do you assume I’m primitive just cossoff this sloping forehead?” The Caveman hastily put on a Northwestern Wildcats cap, and looked pretty normal again. (Even covered the bald spot.) “Or because I haven’t kept my wardrobe up with the latest fashions? Fella, you mustn’t fall in for stereotypes that way. Nothing is ever as simple as it appears to be. Not even me.”
Luke apologized. “You are right,” he admitted. “I hope I didn’t offend you.”
The Caveman waved it off. “Don’t worry about that, I’m pretty thick-skinned, no pun intended. But I do love my sleep y’know, and I am wonderin’ why you came in here and woke me, fella. That’s none too noble.”
Luke shrugged apologetically. “Sorry Mr. Caveman. Just tryin’ to get out of the rain. No harm was meant.”
The Caveman accepted his apology. “No problem. Actually, it’s good that you came to visit. You can stay for dinner, and help me finish off this buffalo I killed--there’s more left than I can eat. Here, help me get this fire started.” They fixed up a fire, and The Caveman barbecued some burgers, remembering to use plenty of hot sauce.13 They also ate some carrots and casserole. After dinner, they sat around the fire talkin’.
“So, Mr. Caveman, what’s it like to be a caveman?” Luke wondered after a while.
The Caveman pursed his lips and pondered. “Hmm. Well. It’s interesting I guess. Different. Peaceful, no stress. No rent to pay, no one to impress. You can be yourself. That’s important y’know. It’s laid-back, no 9-to-5 schedule. Just a little hunting and gathering once in a while, and the rest of the time I can follow my own interests. I’m into archery somewhat, and I like to fly kites. I read when I can, and I’ve even taken a few correspondence courses from the University.”
Luke was impressed. “Wow. What kind of courses?”
The Caveman tried to be modest, “Well actually, I’m working towards a Law degree from Chicago-Kent. But who knows if I’ll finish: these things take a lot of time and money. And hard work,” he added, wiping the sweat from his brow just thinking about it.
“A law degree? Wild, man. You must be one clever cat. But hey, is that really compatible with your lifestyle? I mean, how can you practice Law out here in the cliffs?”
The Caveman laughed. “True. See when I first started college I thought I could wind up using my education to help my people. But then I realized, Cavemen don’t need much help. They don’t use lawyers anyway. So I’ll probably wind up breaking the cardinal rule, and working pro bono for some of the legal foundations that represent causes dear to my heart, such as defending religion, and resisting the forced indoctrination into evolutionism in the public schools.” The Caveman kind of threw that hook out there deliberately to see if Luke would get in a debate with him. Even when he was being hospitable, the Caveman still had a little chip on his shoulder.
Luke laughed, and dodged the bullet. “They never taught us about that stuff at all as kids. Never even heard or thought about it until I went away to college. In Hun-Country they mainly just taught us how to fight.”
This surprised the Caveman a little. “You never wondered at all about your origins? Or where the world came from? Seems like pretty important stuff to me.”
Luke shrugged. “I think what my grandfather Chief Owen said to me one time is probably typical of Hun theology on that subject. He said: ‘It doesn’t matter who made the world. It belongs to the Huns now!’”
The Caveman scoffed, “I’m not sure ‘Finders Keepers’ counts as Theology.”
Luke laughed
again, “I wondered about that too actually, but I wasn’t going to say that to his face!” Luke raised his fists to imply what the tough old guy might have done. Then he gave the Caveman a second chance to get the argument started, by putting his foot in his mouth. “So you said there are other Cavemen around then? Man, I thought you guys were all extinct, or had evolved, or something.”
That did it. The Caveman snorted and shook his head in a disbelief. He got up and put another log on the smoky red fire, and put another burger on to cook while he got goin’: “Evolved, huh? Extinct? Fella, that’s what the scientists will tell ya I guess, but what do they really know about it? How often do they even get out here to the cliffs? Most of ’em stay holed up in their labs, puzzling over complex formulas and government grant applications, and getting skinny and pale. Granted, a few of them actually like looking in caves, but do you think we don’t see them coming a mile away? With their fat bottoms and their expensive hiking boots? And we move on. If they were coming to pay a social call, that would be another story: I’d fry up a buffalo-burger and treat them all hospitable-like, just like you. But that ain’t why they come. They’re always wanting to make great ‘discoveries’, and dig up our caves, and disturb the bones of our ancestors, and then concoct elaborate stories about them and get on the cover of a magazine. And they never even knock before they come in and do all that,” he added breathlessly. “So of course, we just slip out the back way, and don’t let them find us. (I don’t even draw on the walls anymore, it’s not worth it.) Let them believe what they want to believe. But I’ll tell ya, son: jumping to conclusions is a dangerous thing. If you don’t find what you are looking for, you can assume that it must not exist. Or you can humble yourself, and admit that maybe you just weren’t looking in the right place, at the right time, or in the right way. The second conclusion is less often drawn, but for my money it’s usually the more accurate one. And I’m not just talking about cavemen, son,” he hinted, with hushed and humble power. “What was that line about God dwelling ‘with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit?’”
Luke didn’t know. So the Caveman resumed. “The wonderful thing about science, is it takes every discovery, every advance, and applies it to solve further questions. Certainly there is the potential for great progress there. But is there not also the potential for grave error? Make a mistake in the beginning, and everything else you go on to postulate will likewise also be false. Like a house of cards, and that built on shifting sand for good measure. Especially if you postulate a Universe without God!
“Now Descartes had the right idea: Call everything into question. Doubt everything, and start again from scratch, accepting only that which must be true, not merely that which appears to be true. And what did he find? I’ll trim it down for you of course, but he decided that from the act of thinking, he proved his own existence. “cogito ergo sum; I think therefore I am” is how it’s taught. But he said more: he realized that while he doubtless currently existed, he could not claim to have always existed and thought, or to necessarily exist. This place he offered to God. Aquinas humbled himself similarly: he showed that there must be a first mover, a first cause, to all the things we now enjoy. And gave glory, saying that ‘this all men refer to as God’. I’m not sure Paul was as grand a philosopher as the other two, but his spirit bowed in expressing the same recognition of the one true thing, first and last, Alpha and Omega: ‘I have resolved to know only Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.’
“This, sir, is where modern science undoes itself. As soon as they remove themselves from the truth of He Who Alone Is Truth, they necessarily will fall into error. Necessarily!” he repeated, to emphasize it. “Your Bible says, and it is confirmed by my experience, that ‘the folly of God is wiser than man’s wisdom’. When we forget that, and try to write our own answers in place of the ones that were already delivered to us, then instead of the simple yet accurate, ‘In the beginning was God’, you get the cop-out: ‘in the beginning it just was. We hope to know more later.’ And instead of ‘God created man’, you get ‘life just spontaneously occurred and then it made itself better and better until...’”
Just then, a funny-looking bird with no feathers flew in through the mouth of the cave, and it landed by the fire. The interruption gave the Caveman a chance to remember to breathe. “Luke, meet my pet pterodactyl, Brennan Howard X. Brennan, Luke,” the Caveman introduced them. “By the way, Brennan’s extinct too. Or maybe he just evolved into a pelican or something. Which does it look like to you?” Luke kind of resented the sarcasm, and he thought about answering back with a wisecrack of his own, but the Caveman was pretty big. Also the juicy burgers were very delicious after weeks of subsisting on nuts and fruits, leaves and shoots, stems and roots. So Luke held his peace a bit longer.
Brennan picked like a vulture at a hunk of meat the Caveman had cut for him, while Luke savored his own meal more slowly. The Caveman was continuing a little more calmly, trying to explain to Luke why he was so upset. “Some people think, ‘It doesn’t matter, it’s not that important an issue, why can’t you believe in God and yet believe evolution happened too?’ But to me, that concession is just the first step to not believing in God at all. ‘God exists, but He didn’t create us, slow natural processes did’? That view tends to go hand in hand with ‘God doesn’t reign over us, people can choose their own religion and values based on what fits best into their own life’. What a heresy that is! If ‘a good tree brings forth good fruit’, then what kind of tree is it that leads children away from God, teaches them to give His glory to another, and to submit to His authority only if they think it will make them feel good about themselves? I’m all for cutting down a tree like that! Especially since it’s a tree drawn with me hanging from a lower branch of evolutionary development than you! And we both know that’s not true!”
To prove his last point, the Caveman grabbed Luke’s arm and led him through several chambers and tunnels, down into a crevice, and out the back door of the cave. The rain had stopped, and Luke noticed that the caveman had a makeshift basketball rim put up in his backyard. They played a few games of 1-on-1 to see who was more evolved, and they each won three games and called it even.
“See?” said the Caveman, as they sat back down and fed their re-awakened appetites. Luke had to admit that the Caveman did have a pretty good crossover dribble and fadeaway jumper for a lower life form.
“K, so what about the fossil record then,” Luke said between bites, “I was told it proved something like evolution.”
The Caveman shrugged. “If anything, it raises more questions than it answers for evolutionists. If there really were a process by which one creature gradually turned into another, then there should be some in-between critters, showing the transition. A continuum in fact. Not just different types of creatures, as distinct and complete as the ones we see today. Not to mention the fact that even a single out-of-place fossil (of which there are many)14 undermines the whole theory. Because, how can a creature exist before it existed? or reappear after it is extinct? Or how can a descendant appear before its ancestor? It’s a logical impossibility. Not to mention that the puzzles for science are more damaging: if something can’t be made to fit a single consistent, rational framework, then by rights that whole framework ought to be abandoned. But... in a framework that includes God, and miracles? Nothing is impossible or unacceptable, and hence nothing can shake it.”15
Then he raised a warning finger, and pointed out a challenge to his own beliefs, “Then again, however, if there is ‘for the most part’ a pattern or general rule in deposition of fossils, than that also seems to demand an explanation as to why this would be so. Are marine organisms at the bottom of strata because life began in the ocean, or because they lived in the lowest places and got covered first in the Flood? Do amphibians, reptiles and mammals survive differently in a maelstrom, or sink differently in a muddy suspension? Our theories also have their problems, they too are incomplete. One wishes there were a bett
er way to test them. Unfortunately, the whole phenomenon is beyond the range of science: The past is the past. Whatever happened, happened. No way now to replicate either our flood, or their billions of years. It‘s a wash.”
That startled Luke: “Sounds like you ducking something, there.”
The Caveman shrugged. “A fact’s a fact. Oh, but the scientists hide behind it as much as I ever could: make up whatever story they want about what a dinosaur looked like, what it ate, who it slept with, who its children were, and what the weather was like for their birthday party. C’mon. Speculation and conjecture,” he said mildly, then spat harshly, “Fables and lies.”
He scratched his flat head as a thought came to him: “If evolution really happens, enough times to produce all these myriad organisms, and all these organs and components and whatnot, then shouldn’t we see at least a couple examples of it now? Coz of all the thousands and millions of people in the world, are there any that actually have new organs, some new mutation that adds instead of corrupting? Coz you would expect at least a few. Especially since to actually be of any use, most of them would have to occur in concert: that is, several of them, against all odds, would have to accrue simultaneously in the same individual. If there is to be an evolutionary advantage gained by a mythical prototype suddenly being born with a mouth to take in food energy, it is only gained if it was also suddenly blessed with a stomach to digest it, an intestine to absorb it, a bloodstream to carry it to other cells and an arse to excrete the waste, beg pardon...
“Or we could talk about the eye, if you want to get complicated.” (Luke didn’t.) “Only works at all if you also throw in an optical nerve and a visual cortex16. Not to mention eyelids! tear ducts! retinas! lenses! corneas! rods! cones! vitreous and aqueous humors! A veritable tour de force of design! All put together both practically and aesthetically: Good for looking with, and yet still lovely to look at.” He sighed longingly, as he here bethought himself of his favorite fetching Cavegirl named Casie. Heatin’ up at the very thought of her, the Caveman raised a hairy forearm to wipe the sweat off his brow ridges, and hastily put her out of his mind again: “I won’t even get into the intricacies of sexual reproduction, and how all those well-developed moving parts could have occurred simultaneously, if God hadn‘t ‘created them male and female’.”17
Luke was glad for that: he was still having trouble understanding the part about the eye. “Vitrea-huh?” Huns didn’t know all the modern terms. (Instead of making precise medical diagnoses with a British accent, as in “My eye is leaking vitreous humor...actually”, a Hun would probably just say, “My eyeball hurts.”)
“Vitreous humor, as in ‘I fall into a vitreous humor whenever I hear someone preaching evolution!’” the Caveman warned18 before coming to his point: “Partial creation as a rule does not work well. Try living in a house without a roof sometime19. And while you’re there, look up the phrase ‘irreducible complexity’ on a day without rain. Or worse, try living in a house with a roof but no walls! ...And read about ‘interdependent systems’ in a thin, flat book.”
“Now you talkin’ like a lawyer,” Luke pointed out. The Caveman smiled, flattered, so Luke shrugged and played along like it had been meant as a compliment.
“But see, here’s my take on bones in the earth,” the Caveman continued, returning to that. “Even if it turns out every single Genesis believer’s natural explanation lacks merit... even if fossils are actually arranged to suggest some kind of long history...all this proves nothing. Because here’s my own little theory about this: there is one they call the Destroyer, the Father of Lies, or the Lord of the Flies, who “walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” And the interesting thing is that the two sources of evidence that supposedly confirm evolution, fossilization and radiometric dating, both involve decay processes!” Punching his finger in the air to dramatize his point, the Caveman declared with finality, “That, my friend, is what in legal parlance is known as ‘motive and opportunity!.”
Looking past some of the big words the Caveman was usin’, (Luke’s degree was in Arts, you’ll remember), Luke could see that the Caveman had a bit of a point, but, “Do you have to resort to that? Some great supernatural conspiracy? Not going to look for a rational explanation first?”
The Caveman corrected him: “‘Resort to?’ See, that’s where people mislead themselves, when they use the natural world as the measuring stick of what must be true, and look merely to the evidence of the senses to discover where God may be found. Put God first! It makes more sense to look to the Creator of the world for a clue about the meaning of that world, and to the designer of the senses for instruction on how to interpret those senses. Sure, if you keep the argument on the scientists terms, on ‘what is scientific’ (instead of what is True), they’ll hold their own--by definition. But who says they get to set the terms for the debate? You ought properly to keep the supernatural, God and the devil, out of the equation only once you’ve ascertained that they do not exist: which is beyond the power of humans to prove. More commonly, people merely assume they don’t. And you know what happens when you assume...”
Luke vaguely remembered. “But this God you speak of? Would he let that happen? A global grand deception?”
The Caveman felt strong on this point, and counseled confidently, “Read the Book of Job. God allowed him to be tempted, so why not us? What is free will all about do you think? It means love is not compelled: how can it be? Not compelled intellectually either. It seems natural that the human mind would always be able to contemplate other possibilities to God, flawed though they may be. In the end, you choose what you want to choose. Nobody’s going to beat you over the head with a club.” (At this, the Caveman glanced at his stone club in the corner, as though he had thought about it for a second, though. Cavemen have their instincts too I suppose.) “In the end, I guess all I can really tell you is this: Choose well.”
Luke let that sink in for a second...thinking maybe this was one of those teachers, and maybe this was even one of those days that had been promised for him. But then he grinned and reached towards the fire with a laugh, “Mmm. I choose me another one of these groovy burgers.” The Caveman laughed too, and gave him a pat on the back and a light-hearted ‘help yourself’, and they ended their discussion on that less-tense note. “I’m not totally convinced,” Luke admitted as he ate, “This matter will require further investigation.”
“Hey, fair enough. So long as you apply that same caution to both theories.” The Caveman reminded.
They went on to eat a little more, and tell a few jokes, and compare notes on the fighting techniques of Cavemen and Huns, including trading tutelage in a couple rare tricks used by the masters of Club-style: Luke showed off the Sidearm Swat, the Backhand Blast and the Overhand Omygoodness, while Caveman demonstrated the Watchoutnow! Windup, the Woe-betide-you Wallop, and the dreaded ‘Underhand Unconsci-fier’, (though in keeping with a youthful vow, he refrained from revealing his years of secret training with the mysterious order of House Ajabro). At last Luke set out on his way, saying, “Thanks for the thought-provoking advice, and thanks for the chow. Ciao.”
“Hey, thanks for your company,” responded the Caveman. “And for that cool song--I will sing it to my cave every morning,” he lied.
Luke walked a few steps west, then turned and asked, “Have you any ideas where I should go next if I wanna keep learnin’ stuff, O Ancient One?”
“Hey. I’m not too ancient to kick your butt at hoops you’ll recall,” protested the Caveman. (Even though they split the series, the Caveman had won the last game, and technically had bragging rights.) “Try Chicago,” he suggested helpfully. “They have a pretty cool library. Also some peculiar characters. Anything can happen.”
“Ooh, that’s the way I like it!” said Luke, and headed in that direction.
Caveman went back into his cave and put a leash on Brennan the Pterodactyl and took him out for a fly, so he could do his Pterodactyl-business. It was a lovely evening
and everyone was happy.