Sermon on the 10th birthday of Wikipedia

I believe it was John F Kennedy that said "Knowledge is power". And it was, of course, Gandhi that followed him in saying that "absolute power corrupts absolutely".

And what more could you need to tell you about Wikipedia on its tenth anniversary? For all the knowledge in the world is there - as St Sebastian said of the library at Alexandria. And if all knowledge is there, then in using it we are absolutely corrupted. Or possibly it is Wikipedia that is corruped, by our human nature.

For was it not Pelagius, holder of the world long jump record for 800 years, who posited that our human natures are absolutely corrupted by Origami Sin? Whatever we try to do, there is an equal and opposite reaction - as Isaac Newton told us. And therefore any human enterprise built on the belief that humans are basically good - be it Wikipedia, the European Union, or Russ Abbott's Madhouse - is doomed to cause the utmost woe.

And so we find that the most well-meaning can cause the most utter havoc. Although of course the deliberately awkward can cause trouble as well, by claiming that Luther Van Dross invented the hovercraft or that Cher is a singer, as the case may be.

But isn't that the way of human nature? When even the article "Wikipedia is wrong" contains broken links, whom can we trust?

No, as Paul Simon said, "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". While TS Eliot (who I notice is 120 today, still the oldest living Anglo-Catholic poet - well done, Tommy E! - said "I'm so pretty vacant."

So, I close by quoting the words of St Margaret of Antioch: "Where there is hatred, let me bring love. Where there is anger, let me bring peace, where there is hunger let me bring Crunchy Creme donuts."  And let us give thanks to Wikipedia, without which we would all be far more ignorant.

[Hnaef: can you check some of these quotes in proper reference books? Thanks.]