Life Is Like The Pie Fight Scene In The Great Race

... it's inherently ludicrous.

Over on Ricochet, someone brought our attention to a series of posts running on Slate describing some of the more, err, unusual aspects of Mormonism, prompted by Mitt Romney's candidacy. Many are written with fake respect, from a very erudite and seemingly unbiased point of view, but since they only deal with the more unusual parts of the faith, there is a strong undercurrent of scorn and derision.

That we exist at all is simply preposterous from beginning to end. The constants that govern the Universe and permit us to enjoy Newcastle United soccer are so finely tuned that any attempt at rationalizing our infinitely improbable existence is going to end up looking foolish. For example, some atheists believe that there are an infinite number of imaginary, err, invisible, err, perfectly plausible universes and we just happen to inhabit this one. Some agnostic secularists think we can create a civil and just society through reason and rationality alone, with no need for religion.

Now that you've picked yourself up off the floor and wiped the tears of laughter from your eyes, I'll continue.

Every belief system can be made to seem ridiculous because life is ridiculous. Like that sequence in The Great Race, it makes no sense, it cannot be explained, it simply has to be experienced with amazement, gratitude and wonder while philosophers and scientists earn their pay struggling with The Meaning Of It All.

Some Buddhists believe that true enlightenment can be achieved only after you understand why watching Peter Falk just slam Jack Lemmon in the face with a pie at point-blank range at about 3:53 makes you laugh every time you see it.