There are no roaches in America

I was a kid when I heard from someone that in America there are no rats or roaches. That it was a very clean place, you can almost lick the sidewalks. Being a little older than me, and a boy who is cool enough to already wear trousers, I took the person who said this as an authority and his statement as truth. And for a long time I believed it as all in all. Eventually when the dazzling effulgence of coolness diminished and I being a trouser-wearing kid myself, I found out the “real” truth. But to give that person the benefit of a doubt of being just a complete liar, I think he was only able to come up with that statement because his actual experience of America was of a theme park where his parents took him for a trip. The place was in America alright, and true enough the park had no rats or roaches and the mock sidewalks seem to have just been painted the other day. So given these givens, my man concluded that yes, America is so clean. Having limited vision, not to mention limited brain power, there’s no way for him of knowing what is outside the theme park. That in fact just a few meters from the park entrance there is a water drain and underneath it is an ecosystem of six legged and four legged species of vermin. And being distracted by the goodies he got from the gift shops the real grimy sidewalks outside escaped his attention. As far as the limits of his human facility, what he reported was all the truth he can muster. But it is not the actual truth, just because he said it. His imperfect senses are not the proper vessels of the truth, so what he professed cannot be accepted, in other words it is false. Absolutely, America is not a clean place, and America has rats and roaches, and if you want to lick its sidewalks be my guest. 

In the big league there still are those who play as cool, trouser-wearing men among trouser-wearing men.  These guys love to tell you truths they gathered from big kids’ theme parks, accessible only by rocket ships and telescopes on mountain tops. Like my childhood friend, they never seem to lay off the habit of saying “there’s nothing there.” “No roaches and rodents here. Yes, sir. If there were, I should’ve seen them by now.” So they tell us, wide-eyed kids on old men’s trousers: “There is no God. Only human determination.”  And we nod, because they are so cool with their messy hair and spectacles with lenses thick as an electron microscope. Nobody is smart enough to ask: have you guys been to every part of the universe, and actually saw everything? Have you guys even ever been to every single place in the planet earth? But we give our faith to Mr. Science Man. I mean, how can you doubt? Is it even possible that a shred of lie can come out of a leather-bound science book written by PHD such and such?  And when someone expresses it in formulas isn’t that synonymous with The Truth? And the truth can’t be wrong right? Because they are scientists, they are disciples of Science, and science means truth. They invented the gadam computer right, and the computer is never wrong. And I heard science can explain everything, including why the moon is not made of green cheese. Scientists, I heard never tell a lie, it’s like their secret code, a creed of honesty. What they see is what they profess. They have such perfect vision thanks to their very scientific spectacles. But what about this book that says about everything being created by someone? What about that? I have a whole stack of creation stories in my private libe, under the mythic nonsense category.  Jesus, the truth, the way and the life, who is that? It’s like these silly books saying Odin will slay frost giants, and I’ve not seen frost giants. I mean is there even evidence that Jesus is a real person, come on. Show me. Epics. Myths. Mine is a science book, yours is a story book. Are you willing to build your life upon some Homer of the Far east? There’s no God, if there is, show me. Show me if there are roaches in America, show me a filthy American sidewalk. I dare you. And we do a standing ovation in some big hall in Sweden. Well said Mr. Science Man, I give you my heart and soul (oh, wait, there is no such thing as soul). We sleep soundly at night, dreaming “There’s nothing out there.” And we live peacefully in life shutting our eyes seeing nothing. Just simply living, and then dying and become nothing. The end.