Featured Book – The Antitheist’s Dictionary – Pt. 4

Agnostic

An agnostic is someone who has realised that the whole concept of god and religion is utter bollocks but is still psychologically unable to completely overthrow their childhood, and cultural, indoctrination. They still hope against hope that, despite all common sense, there just might be a god.

They are wishful thinkers who want to hedge their bests.

They have got over the fact that Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy and Pixies do not really exist. They have, despite a residual liking of Tolkien, also accepted that Goblins, Hobbits, Orcs and Dragons are fanciful creations of human imagination.

They none the less are a little open to ghost stories and a yearning for a possible purpose to their life and the comfort of an after-life. They sort of believe that magic might be real. They doubt that there is a heaven and are not prepared to fly planes into buildings, strap on bombs or fight for Jesus, in the hope of waking up in eternal bliss or endless sex with twenty-four virgins, but they are hopeful.

They’re a bit weak and sad really.

Perhaps they’ll make their mind up one day?

Alchemy

This is the search for the Philosopher’s stone that can turn base metal into gold and the hunt for the elixir of life that will give you everlasting life (there’s quite a few politicians and businessmen/women that I hope don’t get their hands on this.).

I’m not sure I’d appreciate everlasting life. Just imagine sitting on the planet when the sun expands into a red giant and envelops us. That might not be too pleasant. I doubt you’d live through even if you had the elixir.

I’m not sure I’d want to be there billions of years in the future when the universe is running down to darkness with just hydrogen and heat dissipated to next to nothing. You’d be left sitting around in the frigid darkness with no ice-cream parlours, gigs, books or cinemas. That’d be boring.

I bet even sex gets tedious after the first billion years.

Now we know about atoms I’m sure at some time we’ll be able to manipulate them to create different elements. It won’t be alchemy. It will be science.

But then science came out of alchemy.

It is another fanciful dream. It even beguiled as good a mind as Newton’s. Just goes to show how gullible we are.

I wouldn’t mind living fit and healthy for a few hundred years. That’d give me time to fit everything in. But that’s it. I think I would have had enough. Science will solve that and give us a span of a few hundred years to look forward to, if the religious nutters don’t wipe us out first.

As for alchemy, well – it is just another red herring in the litany of wishful thinking.

Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley was an occultist who also went under the names of Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast 666. He was the founding father of Thelemite philosophy and at one time was described by the Press as ‘The wickedest man in the world’.

I think Vlad the Impaler, who liked shoving people down on big spikes that stuck up their anus, or Pol Pot, Hitler or even Stalin and Mao, might have something to say about that. Compared to them Crowley was a pussy cat. He merely spouted a lot of mumbo-jumbo and scared the shit out of the religious minded people who do not like other people’s mumbo-jumbo.

Aleister was born in 1875 and rebelled against the current stodgy religious thinking. He was a showman who did a lot of stuff to shock the bourgeoisie but came to see himself as a prophet who was ushering in the new Aeon of Horus. Perhaps it was his drug taking that put them off him? He was a libertine and his motto was ‘Do what thou wilt’. He would have been happier living in the 1960s.

He was largely seen as a promoter of witchcraft and the study of the black arts. Any allusion to the old pagan British and European religions was thought wicked. That’s due to centuries of persecution and terror driven propaganda put out by the prevailing christian church. Aleister was probably attracted to the naughty sacrilegious overtones and the effect it had on the religious believers. It also attracted in a host of nubile acolytes who probably made his days (and nights) quite similar to the muslims view of the after-life. Like Charlie Manson he had a great time.

Aleister loved the power and notoriety it gave him. He may even have deluded himself into believing it. Obviously not everyone gets it right. We are all the product of our time and place.

Allah

Allah is the Islamic name for the made-up supernatural being they call god. The name Allah predates Islam. It goes back to the pagan supernatural deities that the Arabs had before the dawn of Islam. Back then Allah was one of many. Allah was the most important creator deity but he had many co-deities and he had sons and daughters. All these were later conveniently deleted by the powers that created islam.

Funny how all these gods have family structures similar to us, isn’t it? These gods have physical bodies, families, partners and presumably have sex. Now there’s a concept to juggle with on a dreary day.

Seemingly there are 99 names of god but Allah was the favourite.

Although coming out of the Abrahamic tradition Allah is not the same as the god represented in either the old or New Testament. He has many similarities and many differences. This is basically because he had quite a journey out of the pagan Arab tradition and has a number of attributes picked up on the way. Myths always become embellished on the way.

Don’t go telling muslims that Allah is pagan though; they get upset.

Alms

The concept of alms is present in many religions including christianity and islam. It is an act of virtue to give to those who are in need.

I would much rather give alms than give arms but many fanatical religious people do not agree. They prefer arms to alms.

There are some good things that come out of the religions we manufacture for ourselves. This is one of them. I wish tolerance was another.

Altars

It is quite sobering to think that all those altars that you see in all those churches stem from the altars that were used for sacrifices. Humans and animals of all types were dragged on to these altars to have their throats ritually cut or hearts ripped out of their chests. Sometimes their blood was drunk, sometimes the beating heart was held up, and sometimes the sacrifices were burnt so that the smoke wafted up to the heavens – to where the gods supposedly lived.

Now that we’ve sent space ships up there and exposed that myth it is rather a forlorn hope but it doesn’t stop the gullible looking to the heavens.

Those barbaric times lived on into biblical times. Goats and sheep were regularly slaughtered. Abraham was close to sacrificing his own son Isaac.

Human nature is extremely cruel. The religions we create reflect this.

Ambrosia

This is alchemy in action. Ambrosia is the food and drink of the gods in Olympus. Seemingly it was brought to them by doves and it gave them immortality.

I wonder how the doves knew where to go to get it?

Quite quaint isn’t it? There were all these people worshipping gods that they imagined living in houses (Olympus is a sort of house), eating and drinking merrily, having adventures and making liaisons for the most exciting sex lives possible – sounds all a bit too human to me; doesn’t really demonstrate much in the way of imagination. The things our ancient forefathers believed in – I ask you?

Where are all those gods now? Abandoned? Forgotten? No – they’ve been banished to mythology. I bet the ambrosia is piling up somewhere. In fact, I was in the supermarket the other day and saw heaps of tins of ambrosia. I bought a bunch. Mine turned out to be full of cream rice. Quite nice but I can’t imagine Thor, Zeus and Odin sitting around in Valhalla or Olympus eating cream rice, can you?

There are a lot of doves in my back garden – I’ll have a word. You never know. They might arrange a batch of the real stuff.

Amen.

So be it.

Let us rid ourselves of this god nonsense. It’s the product of indoctrination. We don’t need it. Besides, it should be Awomen too!

Amen