The Game they play in Heaven

In the beginning...

God created Rugby, and into Rugby, He placed Brute Force, and he called Brute Force 'Forwards'. He gave unto Forwards a ball, and they squashed the ball and banged their heads together. And God saw what He had made and it was good.

And God said 'Rugby needs Intelligence and Flair', and He called Intelligence and Flair 'Backs'. And He said 'As the beasts of burden serve their masters, so shall the Forwards serve the Backs.' And the Forwards delivered unto the Backs the ball. And the Backs ran around the Forwards and scored tries. And God saw what He had done and it was good. And sometimes He even cheered.

But it came to pass that some of the Forwards said unto themselves 'Why do we belt our brains out while the Backs get all the glory'. And these Forwards began to eat of the forbidden tree of Intelligence and Flair. And some of them learned to walk upright, while others learned to speak in polysyllables. Hell, one even ran the length of the field to score a try! And God looked upon His creation and was slightly perturbed.

And it came to pass that some of the Backs said unto themselves 'Why do we allow these primordial behemoths grind our bones in tackles, scrums and mauls'. and they began to eat of the forbidden tree of Brute Force. And some began to pump iron, and some lost their necks, and others began to grunt, and they became larger than even the Forwards of generations past. And they stood flat and ran into the forwards and not round them. And they forsook scoring tries in favour of drawing penalties. And by now they were starting to give God the shits.

So God said unto his creation. “Why hast thou transgressed the natural order which I set upon thee? I shall smite thy players with marks which cover their backs, their chests, their necks and their arms. And they shall think these marks make them look 'cool' and 'individual' but verily they shall look like tools. And thy players shall talk of themselves in the Third Person so that they shall also sound like tools. And I shall plague thee with inane rules, stupid penalties, senseless kicks. And I will curse thee with 'Boredom' so that League, or AFL, verily even Soccer, will look interesting by comparison. And fans will forsake thee. And parents shall say unto their sons “don't play with those wankers”.

But there came a Prophet who spoke thus, “Cry not Rugby. There shall come a team wherein the Forwards will play tight and with grit such that the Opposition will be forced to commit themselves unto the maul. And this Pack shall deliver unto the Backs clean ball. And the backs will stand deep and will attack with determination and imagination, and will run the ball wide, for phase upon phase, and shall not kick the frigging thing unto the opposition. And the Players shall treasure their Jerseys more than their commercial contracts. And they shall banish their managers unto the wilderness. And they shall speak of themselves in the First Person Plural as if the triumphs and trespasses of each were the triumphs and trespasses of all. And they shall win many games and cast out many opponents. Including the All Blacks. At Dunedin!”

And the Prophet said “There will be rejoicing through all corners of the land. And children will hide their round balls in shame. And Fathers and Mothers shall stand proudly on the sidelines in rain and sleet and weather of the foulest kind. And the playing fields will ring with the sound of young children playing for the love of the game and cheering their opponents in victory or defeat. And God shall look upon His creation and say 'Well Played'”

Universe Design 101

Universe Design 101 - Major Project

Task: Create a universe featuring intelligent beings made in your own likeness and demonstrating the elements of Intelligent Design

Student: God

Markers comments:Your project was certainly ambitious, interesting and generally beautiful, however it falls short on a number of important elements.

• Scale - it is important when you are an omnipotent creator to resist the temptation to show off. I don't want to discourage your obvious enthusiasm for Astronomy, and all those galaxies are certainly aesthetically pleasing, but was it really necessary to create 200 billion of them, each containing billions of individual stars?
• Proportion and Focus - the ambitious scale of your project has led to an imbalance in proportion and a lack of focus. Intelligent beings were supposed to be the central feature of your universe. Your decision to confine them to a small planet orbiting a dull star in a nondescript galaxy suggests that, rather than being the purpose of your universe, you added the unfortunate beings as afterthought.
• Elements of intelligent design - This is the area in which your project really falls down and I hardly know where to start:

• Your life forms are often intriguing and complex but you really should put a lot more effort into prototyping and testing. Since you submitted your project over 99% of the species have become extinct!
• What on Earth made you think venereal diseases were a good idea?
• The Dodo - were you serious?
• Your intelligent beings were supposed to be the centrepiece of your project, but you seem to have cobbled the design together at the last minute. Why plumb their sewer pipes through their recreational areas? Why force mothers to squeeze melon-sized babies out through a grapefruit sized pelvis? Why put the wiring for the eye straight through the middle of the sensor? And their lower backs constitute just about the worst design for a lever/pivot system that I've seen in an eternity of marking these projects. You're just not thinking these things through, lad!

• Other comments -
  • fossils, radiometrically old rocks etc. - these are nice touches and I have to admit that I did have a bit of chuckle watching the poor creatures getting so confused about where they came from and when. Keep up the good work.
  • free will - also a nice touch, better than the boringly deterministic ideas like 'karma' that other students came up with. Unfortunately, it does seem to have the tendency to spawn selfishness. You really needed to balance it with better designed 'common sense'. What's the point of giving your creations the free will to destroy themselves, the selfishness to make this self-annihilation inevitable, without the common sense to avoid it? Makes your whole project feel a bit 'temporary' really, doesn't it? 
  • heaven and hell - These ideas have merit, they are certainly in more interesting than the endlessly tedious cycles of death and rebirth submitted by some of your classmates, but you have failed to develop these concepts to their potential. Would anybody really want to spend eternity surrounded by a bunch of pious goody-two-shoes? Zeus had a similar idea but spiced it up with lots of drunken orgies. Even Allah had the foresight to throw in a few virgins. By comparison, your Heaven just looks dull, dull, dull 
  • Your Hell on the other hand I like, though you may have gone over the top a little. The threat of too much fire and brimstone does run the risk of turning your beings into sycophantic little toadies, and eternity is a very long time.

Summary - an ambitious attempt but sadly lacking in proportion and attention to detail.

 Mark: C- (resubmit)

BER Program Explained

Comrades

The Government's Building the Education Revolution (BER) program continues to be dogged by controversy. This is inevitable in such an ambitious and complex program and is probably the result of confusion and misunderstanding. In order the increase public understanding of the program, I have put together the following simple guide.

The BER Program Explained

• Your Aunt Julia gives you a huge amount of lunch money but tells you only to spend it at the BER tuckshop;
• You choose something fantastic from the menu like a works burger with chips and a cola;
• You are informed that there has been an inexplicable price rise since the menu was printed (that morning) and that now all you can get for your money is a sausage roll. As you are hungry, you reluctantly accept;
• When you receive your lunch you look inside the bag to discover that you have been given a mini sausage role. You question this and Ms Firth, the tuckshop coordinator, explains that there was a cost over-run and your lunch order has been 'de-scoped';
• While you stand there a little stunned, she quickly removes the tomato sauce bottle just in case you were planning to squeeze some onto your 'lunch' to make it more palatable;
• When you complain, she replies that the tuckshop is serving thousands of lunches, there are bound to be some problems, most of the other students are grateful, and in any case, a mini sausage roll without sauce meets the tuckshop's benchmark for a 'lunch';
• At this point you are encouraged to walk gratefully away, reassured to have been served by the most 'audited and transparent' tuckshop in history.
• Across the road you notice your cousin, who goes to the local Catholic school, happily tucking in to a works burger with chips and a COLA.
  

Hope this clears things up a little

If you're not happy with my explanation, you can hear the Minister Verity Firth give her own explanation in this interview with Katya Quigley of ABC MidNorthCoast

Oh, and did you know that "Verity" is a synonym for "truth"?