This book consists of definitions of religious words interpreted by a cynical antitheist. It is hilarious, highly offensive, subversive, sacrilegious and controversial. If you are religious and easily offended then I suggest you steer well clear.
Amish
The Amish typify the claustrophobic stultification that religion brings. We all get fed up with 20th century culture. There is a lot of it that is not too pleasant. We could all make a long list. That does not mean that we have to freeze our culture in a time-warp in the way religion tries to do. It has had a disastrous effect on islam (they’re still stuck in a time warp pretending it’s still the 7th Century – apart from Kalashnikovs and TNT) and the Amish are only able to live the way they do because of the resources they have.
The Amish culture is a strict branch of christian thought. For some reason they think the pixie wants them to reject all modern technology and dress as they did a few hundred years ago. They can still use horses and carts but not anything from later technology.
There is something very attractive about living simply off the land. There is something extremely worrying about people creating a set of rules that keep people locked up in a prison of dogma. One wonders where the Amish fit.
Overpopulation is the greatest danger to the world. If everyone tried to live like the Amish nature would be utterly destroyed and we would still not be able to feed a fraction of the present 7 billion. We rely on modern day farming and transport to feed the world.
There again perhaps it would be a lot better if there were a few billion less of us.
Amulet
An amulet is an object that protects the wearer from harm because of its magic protective powers. It’s a bit like the things a lot of Marvel comic heroes have – the opposite of Kryptonite! I’ve got my Mojo working but it just don’t work on you.
My fireguards are all made of chocolate and they work brilliantly.
Ancestor worship
The worship of ancestors is found throughout the world. Many cultures believe that their ancestors live after death and require things, like food, for their continuing life.
Many Iron Age communities buried their warriors with weapons, food and a variety of implements.
In Egypt they mummified important people and provided them with all sorts of wealth and utensils that might help them in their after-life.
Some cultures believed that their ancestors could intercede with god on their behalf.
All round the world ancestors are venerated and even worshipped. Many believe that if they are not worshipped and placated they will come back as ghosts and haunt you. This is very prevalent in China and Vietnam. In the Buddhist countries they burn paper money and paper utensils and possessions in special incinerators in temples. Supposedly the smoke goes up to heaven to the ancestors and provides them with the things that will make them comfortable in the after-life. There are shops stocked with paper merchandise you can buy to burn for your dead relatives. You can even get paper cars, motorbikes and TV sets.
I know – but they believe it!
I would like a paper Halle Berry – you never know.
The Terracotta Army was an attempt by the Chinese Emperor to invade heaven and take it by force! Just imagine! We die and find ourselves in heaven only to discover it’s being run by the Ming Dynasty.
Despite all this, and much as I would like to be venerated and worshipped after my death, there is no basis to any of this. We die. There are extremely sad losses. Once you die you cease to exist. All that remains is a lifeless corpse and the memories and impact of your actions that resound through the world like the ripples in a pond. We live on in the memories.
It’s quite a weird macabre idea to think of your ancestors as some parasitic zombies who are roaming about in the gloom and in need of placating.
The human imagination is both wondrous and extremely dark and bizarre.
Hopefully you’re beginning to notice that there’s a lot of strange stuff that we humans believe is real. The only stuff that isn’t strange is the stuff we personally happen to believe!
Anoint
There are a number of things nearly all religions like doing: dressing up; waving stuff around; creating smells, chanting; sermonising; writing books; and generally laying down the dogma (then there’s the jihads, crusades and pillaging). One of their favourites is pouring liquids over people’s heads. They love it.
They use oil, water, perfume, even butter!
It’s all part of the rich pageantry and ritual of religion. The more elaborate the performance, buildings and anointing, the more people believe it must be true.
I suppose anointing, an all the elaborate ceremonies, make life interesting as long as they don’t heat up the butter too much!
Antitheist
An antitheist is a supremely intelligent person; someone who not only has realised that the whole mythology of god is nothing but a fairy-tale but also that the story of religion is really nothing but the story of power.
They have realised that controlling sociopaths have either used politics or religion as a means of controlling people and usually both. The result is often tyranny. The outcome of this tyranny is invariably a whole set of intricate dress codes, religious paraphernalia, rituals and laws that needlessly restrict people’s freedoms and pleasures. At worst it promotes sectarian hatred, torture, genocide and war. People often end up persecuted, tortured or killed for their own personal beliefs, religious paraphernalia or mode of worship. The religious do not like the idea of personal freedom or the right to speak out. That’s why I have to do it.
An antitheist is consequently opposed to all organised religion and sees religion as a form of insanity.
To be an antitheist you have to be a very strong character. You have to take responsibility for your own morality and make your own purpose for life. That’s quite an undertaking. It’s not all fun and games. But it does mean that you can enjoy poking fun at all the absurd dress codes, rituals and diets people have imposed on themselves.
Aphrodite
At least she’s female for a change.
It used to be that most of our gods were female (like Mother Nature) but misogynist Abrahamic Arab culture put a stop to that nonsense. Men rule – right?
Now this Aphrodite myth sounds quite possible – really. Not made up at all. I particularly like the sound of her birth. It seems quite plausible to me. It appears that Zeus, her father (though I can’t see why he’s called her father – you can’t have two fathers can you? Well I suppose with Gods and religion you can do what the hell you want) is involved. Cronos cut off Uranus’s genitals and threw them in the sea. Aphrodite then rose from the foam. (I gather Uranus was not too enamoured at the idea of becoming a father. He wasn’t cut out for it). So Aphrodite was created out of the fertilisation of Uranus’s sperm from his severed testicles and the sea, or was it the goddess of the sea’s egg? So why is Zeus her father? All a bit confusing really. But then it is religion. Mere mortals are not meant to understand. That’s why we invent priests.
You know millions of people actually believed all this garbage. They believed the gods really did live just like human beings in a big palace in the sky and when you died you went to Elysium on the edge of the world – the Greeks thought that the world was flat!
Aphrodite basically evolved out of previous mother figure goddesses that are lost in the mists of past belief before her and hence she was the goddess of beauty, love and fecundity.
It was a good thing to be. She seemed to spend a lot of her time fucking around and getting involved with guys like Adonis. If you’re going to be a Goddess Aphrodite is a good one to pick. She has a good time!
Angels
I’m no angel. I’ve been told that by a number of people. Angels live in heaven which as everyone knows is up in the sky. They play lutes, sit on clouds and join together in big angelic choirs to sing to the fictitious fairy every Thursday, forever and a day!
Because heaven is in the sky, just out of reach of the main airline routes, they have to have wings. Even though it is very cold and airless up there they are naked and apparently have no trouble breathing. They are really well behaved – quite angelic. They carry messages around for this supernatural pixie as he hasn’t yet got round to figuring out his internet.
They are humanoid celestial beings who are benevolent. They can be invisible and sit on your shoulder whispering advice in your ear and saving you from danger. Quite handy really. I wish they spoken a bit louder at times, though.
They originate from Zoroastrian times and probably before that.
Angels take many forms in various cultures. Some of them are fish but I think that’s a different type of thing. Don’t know as I’d want a fish sitting on my shoulder whispering in my ear. I wonder if that’s where Douglas Adams got the idea from? Anyway, the concept of little naked babies sitting on peoples’ shoulders looking out for us seems perfectly reasonable to me! You couldn’t make it up, could you?
Apocalypse
This doesn’t sound too good and probably isn’t. It’s the end of days, the end of the world, the final battle when good triumphs over evil.
It’s a bit of a let-down really. Not something to look forward to – like Christmas or a holiday. An apocalypse has a slightly negative connotation.
I always think that if you know the outcome it kind of spoils the match or film. If you know life’s going to end in an apocalypse it puts a bit of a downer on things.
Despite that, the apocalypse is another favourite of film makers. They get off on the visuals – explosions, tsunamis, falling rocks, screaming people. The end of the world.
I’m not quite sure what is meant to happen to the rest of the universe. Perhaps that gets destroyed as well?
Unfortunately, back in those days, when they thought up the apocalypse, they didn’t know about the rest of the universe. They thought this planet was it. Not even that really. They didn’t know most of the world existed. What they did know was flat with a big dome over it. The sun and moon travelled across the dome and the stars were little chinks in the dome through which the light of heaven shone through. Religious bodies had to modify the story as more and more was found out. I mean, they couldn’t simply burn everyone who possessed a telescope, could they? When they burnt Giordano Bruno for saying the earth wasn’t the centre and that the stars were really suns it caused a bit of a stir – and Galileo only just escaped the same fate. Not knowing about the zillions of stars and galaxies making up the cosmos kind of limited their scope. They could have gone for whole galaxies colliding with each other. Very cinematic.
Nowadays four horsemen of the apocalypse riding off spreading war, pestilence, famine and death might have a bit of a job. It’d take a bit of time riding around the whole world. But horses were the most advanced form of transport back then. As this came from the revelations of the great pixie one would imagine he might have given everyone a premonition of a variety of futuristic technological developments, some great starship unfathomable to primeval minds – but no – four ragged horsemen was the extent of what those people could conceive. Four ragged horsemen it is.
The world, as we now know, is a bit bigger than the confines of the Holy Land. Space might require a star-cruiser or two.
Once again the imaginations of our distant forebears were severely hampered by a lack of understanding. Technology has changed the world beyond recognition.
Just think how impressive it would have been if the four horsemen were roaring around on strange mechanical beasts called Harleys. I’d be much more impressed.
Surely any super-being worth his salt would have an idea of what he was organising for the future. He could have equipped them with laser blades and genetically modified viruses. Horses don’t cut it with me.
So there will be no apocalypse as described by our unimaginative forebears. We’ll have to wait for the sun to explode and melt us – that’s much more likely.
Apollo
Apollo was the Bastard son of Zeus, father of all gods (at least that’s most people believed back then – but then things come in and out of fashion, don’t they?).
Apollo was worshipped because he presided over the flocks and herds and the muses. So he was connected with feasting and music and poetry. Sounds good!
You don’t suppose this somehow represents the sort of culture that resided in Greece at that time do you?
You don’t suppose all these pixies we have created have come out of human imagination do you?
Don’t you find it a bit strange that they always have the accoutrements of their particular age? You never see a Greek God flitting about on a Harley Davison or living in a palace made of plastic? Even their clothes are always in keeping with the current trend. – Yahweh in gowns, Apollo in tunics. Why not a jumpsuit? No, this guy lived up a mountain, herded sheep and played the flute. I’d have been more impressed if it had been the saxophone.
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who lived around 400 years BC. He was a bit of a polymath and influenced the philosophy of judaism, christianity and islam as well as shaping early science prior to Newton. Aristotle championed reasoning and logic.
It’s a wonder that he had anything to do with influencing religions. They are as far from reason and logic as you can get.
Ark
Seemingly there was this great flood. Flood mythology is pretty common in a lot of cultures, along with volcano wrath and famine and drought. The flood was probably a real event. There is some geological even where the sea broke through and created an inland ocean out of an area of low lying land. That may have happened.
What did not happen was:
- It was the whole planet
- It was caused by rain for forty days and nights (I live in England – we’re used to that much rain)
- The Pixie done it
Noah had been given prior warning from the Pixie and gathered all species on the planet in two by two.
If we put aside all the farcical elements of this for one moment, like how long it would have taken Noah to get out to Australia to grab a roo or two, a couple of huntsmen spiders, the odd guano, and then head off to the Antarctic for a couple of penguins. Then look at the accommodation and feeding. I mean Koalas are pretty picky about their eucalyptus and hippos get through a lot of veg. What did he feed the lions on? Did Noah take a lot more than two of some species so he could chuck the odd one to a hungry tiger? Or did the mysterious fairy stop everyone getting hungry and thirsty? But then if he was going to do that why didn’t he just wipe out all the naughty ones and not bother with the whole flood business? Then there’s the question of limited genetic variation. Breeding from just two animals creates a lot of incest down the line with all the inherent genetic weaknesses that throws up. But religion glosses over all this stuff. Incest is not something religion likes to think about. That suggests sex and sex is a taboo (at least in the Abrahamic Arab tradition – which is why I veer towards the Dionysian. Much more fun.)
That boat would have to be pretty big, once you start packing it with rhinos and elephants you soon run out of room. There’s a lot of buffalo, deer, elk and wildebeest to accommodate. Then when they finally hit land after the floods have receded it doesn’t leave you with much of a genetic gene pool to work with. The deleterious recessive genes would soon start to manifest themselves. Starting from one pair of anything is not going to work. Starting from one pair of everything is totally not possible. I mean, what if just one of them was gay? Is that why the dinosaurs all died out? Too many of them were gay? Surely not? What happens when the carnivores get hungry and eat one of the deer?
Perhaps he just forgot the dinosaurs? Who knows? I kind of wish he had left the spiders behind. They’re creepy.
Now I like fairy tales as well as the next man. This is a fun fairy tale. It is of course complete bullshit.
Even so, despite all the obvious stupidity, there are hundreds of thousands of educated Americans who believe this actually took place. They’ve had expeditions to ‘The Holy Land’ to look for boats up the top of mountains. One group even claims to have found the Ark. Makes you wonder how a boat big enough to fit in all those millions of species could have been overlooked for so long, balanced on top of a mountain peak..
Their answer to all of the total impracticalities is that the pixie organised it and made it possible. So why the hell did he need Noah? Why didn’t he leave a few plateaus sticking up for the wildlife and erect a force-field that keeps humans out? Seems a lot of silliness for no reason. But then we are dealing with the limited imaginations of a rather illiterate group of people from long ago and nobody had invented Sci-fi or force-fields yet. You can’t expect too much.
That is not just farcical; it’s beyond that. The fact that so many people actually believe it – now that is worrying.
I don’t even want to go into the reasoning behind the flood in the first place. But I will. Seemingly a lot of people had taken to drinking alcohol, fucking and wanking. Some, horror of horrors were having homosexual sex. They were enjoying themselves far too much. They needed sorting out. Drowning was too good for them! But then, I suppose, after they had been summarily drowned they were then burnt for eternity. That’ll teach them to stop having fun! One wonders whether the great pixie with all his wisdom and power couldn’t just have selected all the pissheads, fuckers, homos and wankers and sorted them out (not that I am an advocate of that. As far as I’m concerned they can fornicate, wank and enjoy the odd bevy as much as they like. I’m not a killjoy). Mind you, even if you think all those errant adults deserve all they get, to flood the whole world seems a triffle harsh on the little kids and babies who weren’t fucking, wanking and drinking. It was a bit unfair on the babies. No reprieve. They were washed away with the others.
What a bastard.
Armageddon
As if vthe Apocalypse wasn’t bad enough. We have this to look forward to.
Seemingly the great pixie is not quite all powerful. At some point in time he has to come back and there’s one almighty battle where he pits his armies of cherubs and angels against the massed ranks of demons, antichrist and the Devil.
That would make quite a spectacle. No wonder it’s popular with film makers.
I can see all those little cherubs sticking demons with little spears (not a nuclear warhead in sight). The absurdity is extremely amusing. The films should all be comedies.
I get a picture in my head of little pink cherubs attacking scaly Orcs with cocktail sticks. I know who I think might win.
Despite the huge canvas of the untold reaches of outer space with its trillions of galaxies this final conflict takes place on a tiny planet called Earth. The outcome is final for all eternity.
Ho hum.
The whole concept sucks. I think it clearly demonstrates the limited thinking of the day. They did not know about galaxies and stuff back then. The Earth was the whole universe. God put on the show just for humanity.
I think we’ve moved on.