Current mood:	hopeful
Entry tags:	debussy for oboe and harp

A History of Bad Ideas
Given that Hallowe'en here in San Francisco was largely rained-out last night, and that none of the events available to us were overly compelling, we decided to stay home. While K. made a supremely excellent pumpkin curry, I carved a jack o'lantern with the face of an oni.

As the rain piddled down outside, we ate and watched an utterly fascinating documentary on PBS about the history and evolution of the mythical figures of Satan, the devil and other related archetypes.

Now, I consider myself to be relatively educated about Judeo-Christian mythology, but I learned more from this one hour presentation than I had ever known before about this particular aspect of it. It was noteworthy not only for its subject matter, but also in the way it demonstrated that the entire concept of dualism in Western religions is an artifact of Zoroastrianism, taken to a preposterous extreme.

Simply put: this one-hour show should be sufficient to cure any open-minded viewer of belief in Yahwehism.

Two things about the presentation itself struck me:

1. As a BBC presentation, it was probably aired during prime-time in Britain. That shouldn't be an amazing thing, but it is to this god-weary American.

2. The only way such a thing could be shown in the US is (a) on PBS and (b) in the context of Hallowe'en (any normal time would smack of blasphemy).

Thankfully, the show is on GoogleVideo, and can be watched in its entirety here. Hugely recommended!