POLYESTER--A New Religion!
 
    Since the early days of humankind, man has looked to the stars, to the
 sea, and to the earth in wonder and amazement.  Such awesome beauty, all
 around.  The serenity of a perfectly calm lake, the power of a 
 thunderstorm in flatlands, the indredible ability of ants to organize 
 without even grunting at each other, and the crying of a tiny infant in a 
 wife's arm.
 
    And, since these early days and the ability to wonder at such things 
 came to be, so also did the ability to be curious about them.
 
    Why does a great light flash and a big boom sound sometimes when it
 rained?  Why is there a great ribbon of colour splashing across the sky 
 when it rains,and then immediately suns?  Why does a baby pop out of a 
 wife nine moons later after you boink her?
 
    Their puny intellects simply couldn't comprehend the facts. They 
 couldn't use the scientific method of empirical data gathering to prove 
 or disprove hypotheses.  They didn't have telescopes, they didn't have 
 Newton, or Einstein, or tunneling electron microscopes.
 
    This worried them.  For, being curious, they wouldn't stop wondering 
 about these things until they could understand them.  And this devotion 
 of mental power wasn't exactly helpful to their early crops. Great famines
 ensued.  Many, many friend died, and often, when they'd be staring up at 
 the sky wondering, they'd bump into each other annoyingly and feuds that 
 have lasted throguhout the centuries and beyond were started. (See 
 Atreides, House of, and Harkonnen, House of.)
 
    There was a great leader of the time, and his name was John.  Now, John
 was a very curious man. But, he was also stunningly wise.  Intelligent 
 beyond his years, and he knew that people bumping into each other and not 
 tending to their crops could never be helpful. He understood the need to 
 be curious, but he knew he had to do something about the dilemma his 
 people faced.
 
    So, one day when the Great John was playing with his fingertoys, he
 thought of a grand idea.
 
    The next afternoon, he called a following together and spread the word 
 the there was a Great Man in the sky, playing with them, controlling them 
 all as he would playtoys!  Everyone went away smiling, joking, and 
 laughing.  Of course! Why didn't they think of that!
 
    So everyone's curiosity was satisfied, except for a very few who 
 wondered how this Great Man came to be. Were there other even Greater Men
 controlling the Great Man? John quickly put a stop to these "anarchists" 
 by throwing them in the first dungeons, much to the surprise of the 
 imprisoned people, and the first censors were born. (See Government 
 Censorship of Free Thought)
 
    Many centuries later, after the now Not-So-Great John (his idea of the
 Great Man was good, and occupied his people, but his idea of imprisonment
 wasn't received too well, and he was quickly beheaded by angry mobs of
 fishermen who claimed John was Not-So-Wise after all.  Unfortunately, the
 Great Man theory stuck) was long gone and dead, another Great Curiosity
 struck the people.  Science, then a strangely quack-like profession, took
 over because of its odd ability to convince people that it could explain
 everything.  But, now that everyone thought it could explain everything,
 some asked how the Great Man came to be. (The anarchists were released
 after the death of John, and managed to spread their ideas before John's
 son took over. And this time they weren't so vocal about the whole 
 affair.)  Science delved deep into its misshaped imagination and decided 
 that the Great Man didn't exist after all.  Instead, Universal laws and 
 theories replaced the Great Man idea.  After all the confusion ended, the 
 curiosity of the people remained, and now the questions was not "How did 
 the Great Man come to be," but instead, "How the laws and theories came 
 to be."
 
    Science, by this point, had become so fed up with the people they 
 threw up their hands and, learning from the Great John's ideas and 
 thoughts, came up with a new cheap material called polyester to occupy 
 the people with something other than Great Curiosity (See "Oooh Lookit 
 the Pretty Colours.")  It turns out John was a Great Man after all.  Or at
 least his method of dealing with his subjects was.  His dungeons were just
 replaced with insane asylums this time around, and his Great Man theory 
 was replaced with polyester.  A main difference between the Great Man and 
 polyester, is that polyester can be worn.  Which makes it a much better 
 choice.
 
  And the people were happy..
 
  For the time being.