Tim Minchin's "Jesus" Song

I was shocked to heard about Tim Minchin's song which was pulled by ITV from grandad-bully Jonathan Ross's show. Shocked, I tell you.

In fact I was so shocked I could not rest until I found it, so I could be even more shocked. If you're the sort of person who likes to be shocked, you may like to go and hear it so you can be outraged as well. It's here. Oh? Shocked now? Sorry about that.

Now, that song probably lists more of the story of Jesus than most of Ross's audience has ever heard. I'm pretty sure a lot of it went over their heads - including who Woody Allen is, and the meaning of the word "parthenogenesis" - although I'm sure among Minchin's more devout followers such concepts are far more common. And I'm still trying to understand the concept of Jesus "drinking blood", as I'm pretty sure that's what he commanded his followers to do - but it's only got me into a further philosophical loop as I try to work out what was going on with the wine and bread at the Last Supper. That could take me a while.

But I would still like to say I'm shocked. Shocked. Minchin refers to "Schrödinger's Feline" as being in two places at a time. I think that's a terrible  slander on the Blessed Quantum Cat. Although Minchin's right that the wave function of the cat would have been both inside and outside the box, I like to think that the Big E was actually trying to make a point about the existentialist aspect of the Quantum Theory - about the putative need for an observer to collapse a wave form. Not about the probabilistic, diffused nature of quantum wave forms. In other words,  the line should have read "Jesus could be in two wave-forms at a time (particularly if he were unobserved but with a finite chance of something dramatic happening)" which might not make Minchin's point so well, but would make Erwin S's.

I think Tim Minchin would do well not to mock Schrödinger's Cat, who even today has many followers - especially among students. After all, Schrödinger's Cat died for us. Or didn't. Or did it? Or maybe it half-did? Look, could somebody please open the box? Ah. Oops.