Why I believe that God loves Punk Rock?

 As I understand it, the Universe came into existence about 13.8 billion years ago. There are two main theories how this happened. Th first is that there was a 'Big Bang'. The second is that someone called God was rather bored and lonely and said 'let there be light' and then sat around waiting for something interesting to happen. I can remember when I was little. My Dad showed me to make nitroglycerene, in a rather wise bit of parenting. He told me that it was a useful life skill. We then made and detonated a small bomb. It was a massive buzz, so I can completely get why God would enjoy making a 'big bang'. If I was in Gods shoes and nothing was happening, I'd make a Big Bang myself.

God then sat around for 9.3 billion years watching all of the galaxies, stars, planets and moons forming. I guess that if you've been surrounded by nothing for an infinite period, that''s not verylong really, is it? Around that time, a little planet, about 93 million miles from a fairly non descript star formed. I personally have no idea if that planet is unique or if the Universe is full of such planets. I've always been interested in that question, but sadly God hasn't chosen to share the info with me or anyone else, to the best of my knowledge. Maybe one day we'll find loads of other similar planet, with all the same problems we have, or maybe, like God before the "Big Bang", we are utterly alone. But anyway, that little planet was in what is called the Goldilocks zone. This does not mean that three bears eat your porridge on the planet. It means that it's orbit is not to near to boil off the oceans and not too far to freeze them. It had an ample supply of water, it had a reasonably large moon, that exerted a strong enough tidal force to move oceans and make an intermediate zone between land and sea. This was quite useful when life evolved (or was made by God). It meant that creatures in the sea, where it started, moved on to land. The first life forms are believed to have existed 3.5 million years ago, about a billion years after the Earth came into existence. We don't know anything about the first life forms, as they were simple creatures that left no fossils. We can guess that they flourished, as there were no stronger organisms murdering them. That came later. 

Two main sorts of life forms evolved. Plants that made oxygen from CO2 in sunshine and animals that ate the plants. Sometime later, animals started eating each other as well. Now if, like me, you believe in God, this is where God started having fun. If you were God and you had a planet full of boring plants like ferns and grasses and boring animals like worms and slugs, what would you do? I know what I'd do. I'd have some fun. I'd make some cool monsters like dinosaurs, some amazing looking plants with brilliant flowers. Dinosaurs appeared around 240 million years ago and the first flowering plants appeared about 140 million years ago. After about 75 million years, God got bored with dinosaurs and sent an asteroid to destroy them, according to various theories. I have my own theory. God made some cute, furry animals called mammals, that were small and the dinosaurs couldn't catch. These little bastards ate all the dinosaurs food and they died out. Those little furry cuties, evolved into, rats, mice, horses, wolves, lions and eventually humans. 

Now imagine you're God and you've been sitting around forever and all of a sudden there's all of these humans running around. They form tribes, bash each other up and breed like, well humans. It's all very well but it isn't exactly exciting is it? So what do you do? Well you encourage them to bash things with sticks rythmically. You then encourage them to make alcohol and dance to the sound of the things being bashed. It's only taken the whole of eternity, plus about 13.8 billion years, but hey ho, you've invented fun. After sitting around being bored for ever, all of a sudden there is something worthwhile happening in the Universe. 

So if you are God, what do you think to yourself. I am just speculating, but I think God would look at his work and think "yeh, this pretty cool". The first evidence of people playing music was about 40,000 years ago. Drums and flutes appear to be the first musical instruments. The first stringed instruments appeared around 13,000 years ago. More advanced stringed instruments started to appear around 4,000 years ago. The first musical groups appeared to form around 2nd century BCE, in Mesopotamia and Iran. So imnagine you are God for a second. It's taken all this time, you've seen countless life forms come and go and up until now, all they've done is eat, reproduce and kill each other. Now they are having some fun, doing something creative. You've been waiting an eternity for this, so what would you do? It's obvious really, send one of the kids down to see what it's all about. 

Now the trouble with this is that us lot really weren't ready for a fella to turn up and tell us that it would all be better if we were nice to each other. He gave us a few hints, turned water into wine when the plonk ran out at a wedding. If you believe the book, he made 40 gallons of the best stuff. Sadly we all know what heppened next. I guess we can count ourselves lucky that we didn't go the way of the dinosaurs there and then. This is always something that has puzzled me. I'm a Dad and if anyone hurts my kids, I am not going to be reasonable. There must be some reason that he put up with our savage behaviour. Now it is clear it is not because we are good or nice. What can it be?

Well there is a small clue in the Holy book, where Jesus tells the religious types that the tax collectors and prostitutes will enter heaven before them. There are many interpretations on this, mine is that having fun is OK, in fact it is highly desirable. Sure we've all got to be nice to each other as well. But we should not be scared to have fun. So having established that nothing much happend for a very long time, lets skip the bit of the story up to 1976. A brief summary. Drum kits, Marshall amps, Les Paul and Fender guitars have all been invented. All manner of musical genres have come into existence, classical, folk, jazz, soul, ska, reggae and glam, to name a few. This was all great. Music had become the soundtrack to our lives. Whereas the dinosaurs simply had the wind and the sea to listen to, we had a plethora of amazing music. There was only one small element missing. Musicians seemed a breed apart. The band was the band, the audience was the audience. And then the second big bang happened. Punk Rock burst onto the scene. A chap called Mark P produced a magazine called Sniffin Glue. On the front cover, he put three chords and an invocation to go out and form a band. Now we all had permission to be a part of it. 

And I believe that God saw this and thought it was good. Sure we are as imperfect as we've ever been. Sure we do bad things, we screw up, we hurt each other. But we also make beautiful things, we make beautiful sounds. I've lead a charmed life. Like the Earth in the Goldilocks zone, I was born in the Goldilocks zone of music. I was born in 1962. I was just the right age to be immersed in punk music. God has given me many gifts, but being born in 1962 and having the life I've had is the best. I was pondering on this. An odd thought occurred to me. If the universe was created in a random big bang, it could end in one, at any time. We could all disappear in the way we all appeared. Gone, not a trace. Or this could all go on for a hundred trillion years. Whatever happens though, we are in a special time. We have music all around us. We can listen to almost every piece of music ever made at the touch of a button. I just wanted to thank God for the fact that 13.8 billion years of evolution has put me here, now and able to appreciate it. If you don't believe and buy into the random chance theory, that's fine with me. This isn't a sermon, it is just me trying to explain why, despite rotten politicians, greedy oligarchs, bad priests, malicious forces that we can't control and fools on the internet, there is beauty in the world and we should cherish it. There has been death and destruction for a very long time, art, music and beauty is a relatively new thing in the big scheme of things. Isn't that a cause for hope. I believe there is a God and that God loves punk rock, because it is something that allows us to be creative and express ourselves. And I have to conclude that being creative and expressing ourselves is perhaps, our saving grace. And is we want to be creative and express ourselves, it makes us nicer, which is, as best as I can tell, the message of all the holy books. And I hope if got this all wrong, God doesn't hold it against me. I am doing my best.

Anyway, here's a little tune I made earlier, which sort of sums it up

And as it's St Patricks day, here are some of the finest tunes from the Irish diaspora to celebrate!