Acción de gracias

[volmos@...>]

Salud,

Me ha llegado esto en la lista de Energía Alternativa en la que estoy, y
aunque es algo largo, aunque está en inglés y aunque es un poco yankee,
me
encanta y me parece que la lista de escépticos sería mejor sitio para
ello.
Lo he resumido algo:

                    A THANKSGIVING 'SERMON'

     MANY ages ago our fathers were living in dens and caves.  Their
bodies, their low foreheads, were covered with hair.  They were eating
berries, roots, bark and vermin.  They were fond of snakes and raw fish.
They discovered fire and, probably by accident, learned how to cause it
by
friction.  They found how to warm themselves --- to fight the frost and
storm.  They fashioned clubs and rude weapons of stone with which they
killed the larger beasts and now and then each other.  Slowly,
painfully,
almost imperceptibly they advanced.  They crawled and stumbled,
staggered
and struggled toward the light.  To them the world was unknown.  On
every
hand was the mysterious, the sinister, the hurtful.  The forests were
filled with monsters, and the darkness was crowded with ghosts, devils,
and
fiendish gods.

     These poor wretches were the slaves of fear, the sport of dreams.

     Now and then, one rose a little above his fellows -- used his
senses
-- the little reason that he had -- found something new -- some better
way.
Then the people killed him and afterward knelt with reverence at his
grave.  Then another thinker gave his thought -- was murdered -- another
tomb became sacred -- another step was taken in advance.  And so through
countless years of ignorance and cruelty -- of thought and crime -- of
murder and worship, of heroism, suffering, and self-denial, the race has
reached the heights where now we stand.

     Looking back over the long and devious roads that lie between the
barbarism of the past and the civilization of to-day, thinking of the
centuries that rolled like waves between these distant shores, we can
form
some idea of what our fathers suffered -- of the mistakes they made --
some
idea of their ignorance, their stupidity -- and some idea of their
sense,
their goodness, their heroism.

     It is a long road from the savage to the scientist -- from a den to
a
mansion -- from leaves to clothes -- from a flickering rush to the
arc-light -- from a hammer of stone to the modern mill -- a long
distance
from the pipe of Pan to the violin -- to the orchestra -- from a
floating
log to the steamship -- from a sickle to a reaper -- from a hand loom to
a
Jacquard, a Jacquard that weaves fair forms and wondrous flowers beyond
Arachne's utmost dream -- from a few hieroglyphics on the skins of
beasts,
on bricks of clay -- to a printing press, to a library -- a long
distance
from the messenger, traveling on foot, to the electric spark -- from
knives
and tools of stone to those of steel -- a long distance from sand to
telescopes -- from echo to the phonograph -- a long way from the trumpet
to
the telephone -- from the dried sinews of beasts to the cables of steel
--
from the oar to the propeller -- a long distance from slavery to freedom
--
from appearance to fact -- from fear to reason.

     And yet this distance has been traveled by the human race.

     Whom, what, should we thank?

  ...Knowing something of the history of man --- here on this day that
has
been set apart for thanksgiving, I most reverently thank the good men,
the
good women of the past, I thank the kind fathers, the loving mothers of
the
savage days.

     I thank the father who spoke the first gentle word, the mother who
first smiled upon her babe.  I thank the first true friend.  I thank the
savages who hunted and fished that they and their babes might live.  I
thank those who cultivated the ground and changed the forests into farms
--
those who built rude homes and watched the faces of their happy children
in
the glow of fireside flames -- those who domesticated horses, cattle and
sheep -- those who invented wheels and looms and taught us to spin and
weave -- those who by cultivation changed wild grasses into wheat and
corn,
changed bitter things to fruit, and worthless weeds to flowers, that
sowed
within our souls the seeds of art.

     I thank the poets of the dawn -- the tellers of legends -- the
makers
of myths -- the singers of joy and grief, of hope and love.  I thank the
artists who chiseled forms in stone and wrought with light and shade the
face of man.  I thank the philosophers, the thinkers, who taught us how
to
use our minds in the great search for truth.  I thank the astronomers
who
explored the heavens, told us the secrets of the stars, the glories of
the
constellations -- the geologists who found the story of the world in
fossil
forms, in memoranda kept in ancient rocks, in lines written by waves, by
frost and fire -- the anatomists who sought in muscle, nerve and bone
for
all the mysteries of life -- the chemists who unraveled Nature's work
that
they might learn her art....

     I thank the great inventors -- those who gave us movable type and
the
press, by means of which great thoughts and all discovered facts are
made
immortal -- the inventors of engines, of the great ships, of the
railways,
the cables and telegraphs.  I thank the great mechanics, the workers in
iron and steel, in wood and stone.  I thank the inventors and makers of
the
numberless things of use and luxury.

     I thank the industrious men, the loving mothers, the useful women.
They are the benefactors of our race.

     I thank the honest men and women who have expressed their sincere
thoughts, who have been true to themselves and have preserved the
veracity
of their souls.

     I thank the thinkers of Greece and Rome, Zeno and Epicurus, Cicero
and
Lucretius.  I thank Bruno, the bravest, and Spinoza, the subtlest of
men.

     I thank Voltaire, whose thought lighted a flame in the brain of
man,
unlocked the doors of superstition's cells and gave liberty to many
millions of his fellow-men.  Voltaire -- a name that sheds light. 
Voltaire
-- a star that superstition's darkness cannot quench.

     I thank Humboldt and Helmholtz and Haeckel and Buchner.  I thank
Lamarck and Darwin -- Darwin who revolutionized the thought of the
intellectual world.  I thank Huxley and Spencer.  I thank the scientists
one and all.

     I thank the heroes, the destroyers of prejudice and fear -- the
dethroners of savage gods -- the extinguishers of hate's eternal fire --
the heroes, the breakers of chains -- the heroes who fought and fell on
countless fields -- the heroes whose dungeons became shrines -- the
heroes
whose blood made scaffolds sacred -- the heroes, the apostles of reason,
the disciples of truth, the soldiers of freedom -- the heroes who held
high
the holy torch and filled the world with light.

     With all my heart I thank them all.

                                 --- ROBERT G INGERSOLL, 1897



 Me despido con mi nombre en minúsculas (después de esto...),

vicente olmos