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| The 'Surgeon's Photograph' - Nessie in the 1930s... |
Nessie of Loch Ness shows up very nicely the way human beings think. Loch Ness is a place of such natural beauty and genuinely astounding facts, it makes you ask yourself why people through the ages have felt the need to look at it through the prism of a green monster. It is a true fact that you could drown every human being 3 times over in the Loch; that it holds more fresh water than is in all of England and Wales put together; that it is deeper than the BT tower is tall; and so on. It is not a true fact that there is a beastie living down there which may, or may not be dinosaur-like but either way does wonders for the cuddly toy industry in local village Drumnadrochit. But true facts often don't make for great cuddly toys and interestingly shaped chocolate bars...
Th Nessie myth endures a) because it is mysterious, b) because it has fascinating characters and c) because it is fun to speculate about things just for the sake of it. There is something more fun in finding about something which is probably not true than in finding about something that definitely is. That's why children love stories about mysterious monsters and ghosts so much more than continental drift and what have you. But it's point b) there that really makes something like the Nessie myth work for me; all those characters over the years who have spent time hoaxing photos and hoodwinking journos. Everyone loves a good story, and someone's always willing to supply one. A good story doesn't have to be rooted in truth as long as it's a good story. When people went exploring in the Loch looking for Nessie, they found some Arctic Char which they believed had been there undiscovered since the last Ice Age. That should be (and is) mind-blowing, but they didn't also find a big monster wearing a tam o' shanter so no one - or at least, no one from the press - was all that bothered. When a frankly demented looking journalist claimed to have found gigantic footprints down there the press were all over him though, even when it turned out he'd just cobbled something together from hippopotamus feet.
So anyway, whilst walking around the Drumnadrochit Loch Ness Exhibition Centre (£7 was too much for what there is to see, but some interesting stuff nonetheless) I found myself thinking about how Nessie and God might as well be the same thing and it wouldn't really change anything. The credible evidence for the existence of either is quite patchy, and if anything the idea of an unknown creature living deep deep down in uncharted territory is more beleiveable than a superbeing who not only created everything, but by being everywhere at once is everything. The myths surrounding Loch Ness have survived because of the colourful characters who have told tall tales over the years, and faked photographs and artifacts of varying quality. It's these people who truly fascinate - not just those cheeky rascals who have convinced the credulous to believe in monsters, but those who genuinely appear to have deluded themselves; so-called cryptozoologists, men who never stopped believing in monsters and ghosts. People who have seen a piece of wood floating in some water and who have unconsciously managed to develop it into something astounding is in itself astounding.
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| God, looking a bit cartoony if we're honest. |
God has also survived as a concept because colourful characters throughout the ages have told if anything even more colourful stories about him. Whatever you say about Nessie, no one has ever claimed (to my knowledge) that they were the Son of Nessie, or has been willing to die for the love of Nessie. But really, why do we take the testimony of people from thousands of years ago who have claimed to act as they do because they talked to a burning bush? I mean we do take religious people more seriously, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't; but I do want to know why? On paper, that kind of behaviour, running around believing in omnipresent beings looks like insanity on a much larger scale than people believing in unexplained wildlife. And that in itself wouldn't be an issue, except that it tends to be very religious people who look down on believers in the paranormal and unexplained phenomena. They dismiss other peoples' theories as nonsense and then go and worship a man who came back from the dead, and society considers this to be normal, and that's something I don't get.
Also, as the pictures here show, at least there are photos of Nessie, badly faked ones admittedly but surely more 'realistic' than the often hilariously overblown paintings, cartoons and drawings of God we have to rely on? Look, I'm fully aware that I'm being facetious here, but surely there's some kind of point in there somewhere...?
Historically speaking, I don't believe much would be different today if we thought that God was an omnipresent lizard living in the sky and that Nessie was an old man living at the bottom of Loch Ness. Because there's not enough evidence for the existence of either, they are completely interchangeable. All it would mean is different iconography and more amusing flags in religious wars. People who believe in the ongoing wonders of the natural world come under mockery in a way that the religious often don't, which is a shame. I wouldn't mock someone for their beliefs whatever they were (not to their face, anyway) but somehow one type of belief is more socially acceptable than the other.
Really I should admire people for having any beliefs because I don't really have any of my own. At least lovers of God and searchers for Nessie have something that drives them and gives their lives meaning. I'm not actually criticising either group for having their beliefs; I just think that the fact that one belief is considered 'normal' and the other 'freaky' by a lot of the world needs to be explained to me more.
