The Templeton Prize
Awarded to Dr. Deepak Oz Mountebank
The Templeton Prize, the annual award given to one who has “made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s
spiritual dimension,”
was awarded to Dr. Deepak Oz Mountebank today for his groundbreaking work in facultative
Parthenogenesis.
Dr. Mountebank awoke this morning by the Templeton Prize team holding a
gratuitously large check for 1,100,000 sterling (approximately 1.8 million US
dollars). The researcher quickly placed his spectacles on and surveyed the
smiling faces and camera crew. “At first I feared for my life,” stated Dr
Mountebank. “Then I saw the check, and knew I hit the proverbial pay
dirt.”
Dr Mountebank’s paper, Facultative Parthenogenesis
and the Virgin Birth of Jesus, took the faith-based science world by storm
earlier this year. It was first printed in the religiously-reviewed Journal
of Speculative Biology. Since then a host of other periodicals such as The Metaphysical Review, The International Apologetics Society
and Theoretical and Applied Dogma have
confirmed Dr Mountebank’s central thesis: Jesus Christ was born of a virgin via the well know biological process known as
facultative Parthenogenesis.
Facultative
Parthenogenesis, broadly speaking, is when a captive female of the species
produces an embryo from an egg with no input from a male. While the process is
not uncommon in the plant world and in some invertebrates, there are some
examples of Parthenogenesis happening with creatures of the higher orders. For instance, scientists have discovered through
genetic testing that some female wild snakes have been found to produce offspring
without the aid from a counterpart. Even the common barnyard chicken can produce
viable eggs without a cock-a-doodle-doo.
– Dr Mountebank
The granting of the award created quite a stir
amongst those who follow the Templeton Prize. March is the traditional time
that the august honor is given, but the committee thought that an important
paper such as Facultative Parthenogenesis and the Virgin Birth of
Jesus warranted an extra prize this year. Dr Mountebank humbly agreed with
them.
On the matter of how Dr Mountebank came to the
conclusion that Jesus’ birth was caused by this biological process the
researcher stated, “I prayed about it, and the Holy Spirit ministered to me.”
Indeed, the other researchers who corroborated the findings also found that the
Holy Spirit revealed the mystery to them after a few minutes of intense
reflection.
Sheldon's note: The above post is a guest post by Andrew Hall of the blog Laughing In Purgatory, and is a work of satire. I have enjoyed reading his blog for several months now, it reminds me of an atheist version of The Onion. I'm honored to have him write a guest post for Ramblings of Sheldon. Pay his blog and Google + page a visit, you won't regret it.....
Might I suggest that "Author's note" be changed to "Sheldon's note"... Otherwise there is some confusion about the roles, since "Author" usually refers to the author of the present text.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Andreas. I edited it :)
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