The Indifference League (15 page)

VERSUS

“Don't make me angry.
You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.”

— David Banner (just before turning into The Incredible
Hulk), from the TV series
The Incredible Hulk
, 1978

W
hen The Perfect Pair arrives back at The Hall of Indifference from their trip to the local church, SuperBarbie unfolds SuperKen's wheelchair, and he settles into it like a favourite La-Z-Boy recliner. She parks him on the opposite side of the coffee table in the living room of the cottage, where Hippie Avenger and The Statistician are reading their magazines.

“You guys are back early,” Hippie Avenger says.

“Nobody told us it was an
interdenominational
service,” SuperBarbie huffs.

“That must have been kinda cool,” Hippie Avenger says. “Like, I should have gone with you.”

“They mixed a bunch of Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist crap into the real service,” SuperKen gripes. “We got up and walked out. Well,
she
walked out. I
wheeled
out.”

“The last thing my baby needs after being injured by
them
is to have to sit through a bunch of their chanting and screeching,” SuperBarbie says. “It was just
offensive
.”

The Statistician thinks to himself,
Did every single member of the Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist religions beat up on SuperKen's legs? It's amazing that he can still walk.
He knows better than to say this out loud.

“I'm sure nobody meant to offend you,” Hippie Avenger says. “A lot of different people take their vacations around here. They're probably just trying to be inclusive.”

“
‘Inclusive,'
” SuperKen repeats, rolling his eyes. “Our society is too damned
inclusive
, if you ask me.”

“Language, sweetie,” SuperBarbie says.

“Sorry,” SuperKen says, “but it makes me mad. We bend over backwards for all these freakin' minorities. And half of them are our
enemies
. If they don't like speaking English and worshipping Christ, they can all go the hell back home. It drives me nuts.”

“Did you know that there is less than a
1 percent
difference in the DNA of any two human beings, regardless of their race?” The Statistician offers.

For the sake of his argument, he withholds the fact that the genetic difference between any human being and any
chimpanzee
is also less than 1 percent. He is desperate for a debate.

“When you look at it that way,” The Statistician continues, “being biased against anyone because of their race is kind of asinine.”

“Hey!” SuperKen says, “Did you just call me …?”

The Statistician revises: “Such a bias would be
mathematically
asinine.”

“Whatever,” says SuperKen. “I still shouldn't have to listen to our
enemies
wailing in church with their freakin' diapers on their heads. This is a
Christian
country.”

“It's a Christian
world
,” SuperBarbie adds. “Christianity is the most popular religion on Earth.”

“Is that true?” Hippie Avenger asks The Statistician. “Like, I would have thought that Hinduism or Buddhism would be number one, given the huge populations in Asia.”

“Counts and estimates vary,” The Statistician says, “depending on who is doing the counting and estimating. But it is generally held as true that Christianity is the most frequently observed religion, with approximately 2.1 billion practitioners, or about one third of the World's population. Next comes Islam, at about one-and-a-half billion, or 21 percent. At about nine hundred million, Hindus make up about 15 percent, and, rounding up, there are about three hundred and eighty million Buddhists. That's about 6 percent.”

Hippie Avenger listens to the numbers roll off The Statistician's tongue like poetry.

“This is where the numbers get tricky, though. About another 6 to 12 percent of the population practises various indigenous religions, but it depends on the parameters used to define ‘indigenous religion.' The number is higher if Chinese folk religions are included, lower if they've been mistakenly rolled into the figures for Buddhism. Anyway, about a third of 1 percent would be Sikh, and about a quarter of 1 percent would be Jewish. Confucians, Bahá'ís, Jainists, Shintoists, Scientologists, and pagans would account for …”

“So we win!” SuperKen cheers, raising his fists in the air like he's just scored a goal. “Christianity is number one!”

“But,” The Statistician says, “Atheists, agnostics, and secular humanists blur the truth in the numbers somewhat, as they are often not included in official counts, nor do they have any formal way of declaring themselves on census forms and other surveys. So the figures I've …”

“Atheists and agnostics
do
blur the truth,” SuperBarbie says. “Non-believers don't count in Heaven, so they don't count here, either.”

“But that still leaves about four-and-a-half-billion people on Earth who aren't Christian. And I suspect that they
do
count here.”

“Your
numbers
and your
science
can't explain everything,” SuperBarbie says, pulling a frayed ottoman over beside SuperKen's wheelchair. She points at The Statistician's
National Geographic
magazine.
“
‘What Darwin Didn't Know
,
'
” she quotes from the cover in an I-told-you-so tone of voice. “
Hmmph.
It's about time somebody finally exposed the Theory of Evolution as a farce. And all you scientific types were willing to sell your souls for
that
lie.”

“Well, actually,” The Statistician says, “the article is about how Darwin couldn't have known anything at the time about the science of genetics, which is proving his Theory of Evolution to be
correct
. As subspecies intermingle and migrate, dominant genes are gradually eliminating certain recessive genes, causing species as a whole to …”

“The Theory of Evolution is
not
correct,” SuperBarbie interrupts authoritatively. “We did not
evolve
; we were
created.
Evolution is a flimsy excuse for the miracle of life, invented by non-believers to promote non-belief.
Creation
is proof of God.”

“For the sake of debate,” The Statistician says, gearing up for a round of his favourite sport, “explain to me how you think the Theory of Evolution necessarily
disproves
the existence of God.”

“The Darwinists say that all current living things came from previous kinds of living things,” SuperBarbie says, pronouncing
Darwinists
the way she would say
Satanists
, and taking The Statistician's bait. She rises to her feet. “But The Bible says, ‘And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.'”

“Wow,” The Statistician says, “You really know The Bible. Impressive. But, still, the question remains: could God not have
created
life to evolve? Did you know that when a man and woman of different races have a child together, their partner's dominant genes will cancel out the recessive genes of their own race, which usually carry most of the defects? And we're all intermingling all the time, so evolution is actually
improving
the human race. It's an amazing system, isn't it?”

SuperKen rolls his eyes and huffs, “It's amazing that anyone falls for that crap. It makes us soft on our enemies.”

SuperBarbie quotes, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness … So God created man in his own image, male and female he created them.'”

“Okay, fine,” says The Statistician, “but our debate isn't about
whether
the Earth was created or not. It's about whether Creation necessarily
excludes
the Theory of Evolution.”

“It does,” SuperBarbie says.

“It does,” SuperKen agrees, hoping he'll get another ride out of it.

SuperBarbie folds her arms to signal that the debate has ended. For The Statistician, though, it has just begun.

“But the Earth itself slowly transforms itself constantly, right?” he persists. “Volcanoes erupt, mountains slowly weather away. The earth itself is in a constant state of flux. So why not the life upon it? Could God not have
designed
life to evolve, to adapt, to grow, to change, to
improve
with time?”

“
‘
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.' God made the world perfectly the first time. It doesn't need to be
changed
.”

“But can't some changes also be
good
?” Hippie Avenger interjects. “We all grow throughout our lives, become more mature, more understanding, more aware of what we want and need. I think Humanity has grown and changed throughout its lifetime, too.”

“‘He saw that it was good,'” SuperBarbie insists. “God did it right the first time. That's ‘What Darwin Didn't Know.'”

The Statistician, realizing that there will be no sport in this argument, decides to retreat. “You should read the article,” he says. “Then we can have a genuine debate about it later.”

“I don't need to read an article in a
magazine
,” Super-Barbie says, still standing. “I've read
The Bible
.”

“If it helps at all,” Hippie Avenger says, “I remember reading about something called The Eve Project. They isolated this single gene from a two-hundred-thousand-year-old female they found. Then they found the same gene in living women all over the world, from different countries and cultural backgrounds. It showed that all human beings, of all races and cultures, probably evolved from the same ancestral mother.”

“Where did you find
that
bunk?” SuperBarbie scoffs. “In some supermarket tabloid?”

“In a university textbook, actually.”

SuperKen guffaws. “No offense, but what
you
read in university hardly counts. You've got a diploma in Basket Weaving and Lunch!”

“I have a combined honours degree in Visual Arts and Women's Studies.”

“
Women's Studies
,” SuperKen says, rolling his eyes back as far as they'll go. “Your degree might as well be printed on toilet paper.
Women's Studies.
”

“Look, I don't appreciate you implying that my degree is any less …”

“Did anyone notice that their precious
Eve
Project didn't include
Adam
?” SuperKen rants. “Or that the study only sampled
women
from all over the world? That's Femi-Nazi
‘research'
for you. Exclude men! Make men obsolete! Eliminate men!”

“The gene they sampled is only passed through mothers,” Hippie Avenger explains, “so it would have been pointless for the researchers to include men in their …”

“Bullshit,” SuperKen says, waving his hand in Hippie Avenger's face, turning to The Statistician. “
They
invent the terms to put
us
at a disadvantage. Notice that the Femi-Nazis have invented a word for men hating women —
‘misogyny'
— but there's no word for
women
hating
men
?”

“Actually,” The Statistician says, “there
is
a word for that.
Misandry
is a hatred of men by women. Just like
misogamy
is a hatred of marriage, and …”

“Well,” SuperKen huffs, “I guess
you
should know all about
that
one, eh?”

The Statistician clears his throat and continues. “And a
misanthrope
is a hater of people in general. Get it?” At the moment, The Statistician is feeling slightly misanthropic himself.

“Whatever!” SuperKen says, squaring off against Hippie Avenger again. “So, what were your
Women's Studies
courses called, eh? Man-Hating 101? Introduction to Lesbianism? Advanced Studies in Whining and Bitching?”

Hippie Avenger jumps to her feet, steps over the coffee table, and stands before SuperKen's wheelchair. “What were
your
courses called? Killing Innocent Women and Babies 101? Introduction to Thwarting Societies Whose Cultures are Different from Your Own? Advanced Military-Industrial Profiteering?”