I Hate Prophecy

            I hate prophesies, or prophecy dependent on whether you think there is one for everyone or only one for everyone, which I guess is the same thing.  The only reason there is a plural is because of the competing prophets who say they have the answer.  You ever think maybe that if enough prophets began spouting off at the same time for long enough, saying whatever came to mind, whatever they could dream, they would fill up all the possible outcomes, they would be right in a sense?  They predicted what would happen because they covered all the contingencies, I guess 99.99999... and so forth percent would be wrong, but those guys guesses would be edited out, the good bits about all the various signs and portents would be kept, all the auguries that were read that ran contrary to what ended up would be blamed on the readers who discredited would disappear into history as the nameless boobs and hopeless rejects that followed lost causes, they would be branded heretics.

What do you mean?  It is plane as day.

             And then, everyone who called it as it was would put down their signs and taboos, the methods they use to predict what would happen, none of which would be lucky, they would just be that good, all deserving of praise and wonderment, all their methods would be written into law, because they were right that one time and so they are the authority on what was right, and so it is only logical that they remain the authority forever.  When people in following generations get shoddy predictions that fail to give them an advantage they will be blamed, I mean... they worked that one time, so the fault must be in the newer practitioners, must be in their liberal interpretations, their desire to do things their own as if they knew anything better than those one guys who got it right that one really important time.  It must be the new guys, because if the methods proved right that one time over all the other methods then they must be right, and the people who are giving you bad portents those are the guys who are failing to live up to the record, so they need to be taught a lesson.  Heresy means they go to the torch, incompetence means they get ostracized.

            And then the records get damaged, and some get lost, and the few that remain are deconstructed, and there are schisms and sects, cults and more bloody rules because new prophets with new methods start to crop up on the edges and they are getting things right with new methods, so lets write their stuff into the record too, and make sure those are followed with the old, and just for good measure we'll write down all the best methods for punishing those who don't use these new and old methods, don't want any new cults and sects to mess up the clean little lists.

            And why not, they worked that one time.  Couldn't just be luck... Right?

Right?