Delusion
Delusion is an alternative word for religion.
It is the process of believing unreal things are real such as magic, afterlife, god and satan.
Oh we so desperately want to believe though!! Shame really.
So many people are deluded.
Dervishes
These are the famous whirling dervishes. They are Sufi muslim mystics who are practising a particular type of spinning mediation to gain a trance and insight.
If they did discover the truth they’d realise that all religion is stupid and stop practicing so that they could devote their studies to science.
Whirling around can be fun though. It makes you giddy. We used to call it giving someone an aeroplane. It leaves you feeling weird. The whirling dervishes claim that this induces a mystical state. I think it just makes you spaced out.
Destiny
This comes out of the study of astrology. Astrologers believe that there is a fixed order to the cosmos and everything in it. Thus your life is already mapped out.
Put simply – this is complete bollocks. It was an idea formulated before anyone had any idea what they were really looking at. They had no concept of stars, planets and galaxies. They didn’t even know what the sun and moon were. They wouldn’t have understood that they were suns lightyears away in space or the nature of a sun or moon, let alone that they were standing on a ball of rock that was a planet. It was mystically divine to them.
It is true that there is an order to the universe as it progresses according to the laws of physics. One can predict where a heavenly body will be in the next minute, next week and the next million years, if nothing changes. The appearance of an asteroid might cause a slight change.
This is not true on a quantum level and neither is it true for living things. We can decide. Our life is full of decisions. Do we do this or that? There is nothing fixed or ordained about it. We are not mindless lumps of rock floating through space subject to gravity. We are living creatures with intelligence and choice. Our lives have not been mapped out. We are not in the hands of fate. We choose our destiny.
Belief in destiny is what happens when intelligent ignorant people start trying to apply partial knowledge from one area to another. There is a pseudo science that seems almost logical, yet it isn’t. It is plain daft. It doesn’t stop some people believing that some things were meant to be as if fate ruled people’s lives and everything that happened to them was ordained. It is written in the stars!
What would be the point? If it was all mapped out there’s no point in trying.
It does not make sense.
Ah well – what will be – will be!
Devil
The devil is the opposite of god. He does lots of naughty things and evil things. The story is that he used to be an angel but he had a spat with god and got himself banished. He set up a kingdom with the demons and got employed as boss of the tormentors.
He loves nothing better than to deceive, betray and disrupt. In that sense he’s a sort of amalgamation of the government and church. I’ve often wondered how they all got into those positions of power.
Anyway he’s dead easy to recognise, apart from the strong whiff of sulphur he’s got horns, cloven hoofs, furry legs and a long forked tail and he goes about with a trident. So next time someone looking like that comes up and starts whispering in your ear ‘Go on …. Do it … why not?’ You know who it might be.
Seemingly he’s responsible for all the evil that goes on – war, rape, income tax, you name it.
Many people believe that the Devil is capable of disguising himself as well-know politicians. Sounds plausible to me given what they get up to.
In the Dark Ages he was so real that people saw him all over the place. He scared the shit out of them. They were convinced that he was after their souls. Seemingly god and the devil had a bet going on who could gather the most. He’d make a bargain with you – wealth and fame for your soul. These were the days before ‘Britain’s got Talent’ and ‘The X Factor’ so people went for it. He was seen lurking in the shadows all over the place. But then that was before they had street lights and we’d chopped all the forests down. He was probably just a stray deer. You know what people’s imaginations are like.
It’s hard to imagine how the devil could possibly do any nastier stuff than religious people have managed over the course of the centuries. They are still at it all over the world – Sunni’s killing Shia with electric drills, christians killing muslims with drones, jews killing muslims, muslims killing jews, hindus killing muslims, muslims killing hindus and christians……………
We’d probably be better off if there was a real satan running the show. I can’t see it being much different to what we’ve got.
Devout
A Devotee is an insecure imbecile who is so unsure that he has to put all his eggs in one basket.
I’m a devout antitheist. So I suppose I’m an imbecile too!
Dharma
The dharma is the law that controls the existence of the universe.
I don’t have a problem with that except that it is the laws of Physics and nothing to do with spiritual guff.
Diabolical
Religion is diabolical.
In Mediaeval times they thought that wickedness and evil was the work of the devil. The devil’s work was termed diabolical. They believed that the devil was real and he was always lurking about waiting for any dropping of your guard so that he could enter into your body and possess you.
When you sneezed they believed you lost control and the devil would jump in. That is why they blessed people when they sneezed.
Nowadays, unless you are a religious fanatic, we do not see the devil round every corner. We do not believe he is real. Yet we still foolishly bless people. Old habits die hard.
Diana
No. Nothing to do with Charles and Harry. Diana was another Greek Goddess who liked a lot of hunting. Seemingly she chased a lot of deer down with bows and arrows.
I would have been well impressed if she’d had a jet propelled rocket and sliced them down with a laser beam. At least deploy some technology unknown to that day and age. To my knowledge none of the man-created gods ever have. It all gets very vague – You know mysterious ways.
Anyway Diana was Apollo’s sister and, possibly because she is female and has come out of those Mother Nature myths, is the goddess of birthing. Makes sense – or does it?
So ladies, next time you’re straining away for those last series of pushes to squeeze that baby’s head through a channel that is too narrow, because it evolved and was not designed, you should probably start singing that awful song Diana by Paul Anka. You never know. She might be listening and give you a hand.
Disciples
The Disciples are the followers of Jesus. Twelve of them got through the training and were raised up to the status of Apostles. They were often invited round for supper. There is some dispute over who the 12 apostles were but the general agreement is that they were: Simon, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Judas, Thaddeus, Matthew, James, Matthew and Simon. As they all lived in Palestine you’d think they’d have more Arabic names than that wouldn’t you?
Anyway, Jesus told them to give up all their belongings, love everyone and to leave their families and follow him.
It is not recorded what their families thought of all this. Still you have to make sacrifices (particularly if you’re jewish). Neither is it recorded if any of them grumbled a bit or nipped back to give the kids a Christmas present. Their families probably starved and all the kids died, but it was worth it, you got to drink wine and eat bread and fish.
Despite their close contact with Jesus, who was undoubtedly, as far as they were all concerned, the son of god, a few of them harboured a few doubts. Judas in particular went for the easy money. He couldn’t have been too convinced.
They tramped round Palestine for a number of years, up mounts and over lakes, only occasional getting their feet washed or hair oiled. It was like being in a minor Rock Band – the pay wasn’t great but you got a lot of adulation (if no nooky – except maybe on the sly).
After it had all come to a head they went round telling anyone who would listen how great it had been. These tales were passed around for a few generations before getting written up and making an appearance in print as the Holy Gospels.
Sadly none of the apostles had lived long enough to get a penny of the proceeds despite it being on the best seller charts for hundreds of years. They obviously should have been like the guys in the Old Testament who lived for hundreds of years. Now those Old Testament guys must have been really holy.
Dionysus
Dionysus was a bit like Jim Morrison of the Doors; he was the god of the grape harvest, wine, ritual madness and ecstasy.
The Greek gods and goddesses finally accepted him in and he was admitted to mount Olympus to cavort.
At least the old religions weren’t into repression and boredom. Despite the odd sacrifice or two they set out to enjoy themselves. There were no sad signs of repression here. It was always Saturday night and they ripped it up!
Divine
This is everything that comes from a supernatural force – some sort of god, goddess or deity.
Clearly nothing fits that category as these supernatural forces do not actually exist.
I none the less consider life and everything in the universe divine.
I do this on the basis that everything emanates from the incredible Big Bang and that is so overwhelming that I consider that divine even though there was no god involved. It was just one of those mind-wrenching incredible, unimaginable events that are beyond our understanding. A lot of natural events fit that category – things like Black Holes, Quasars and Space.
Secondly there are all these magnificent unknown forces that operate down at quantum physics level, holding atoms together, playing around with quarks and generally performing in ways that are not at all consistent with anything we would recognise as reality. They are so boggling as to be considered divine. I think Quantum Physics, Polyverses and String Theory is absolutely divine. I am certain that all those ignorant imams would love to see them outlawed as heresies. The banning of the quark!
Thirdly there is life and consciousness. This natural event is so barely credible and remarkable that it is almost miraculous. You have to really use your brain to the limit to see that it is not due to any god, it is a natural phenomenon of immense unlikelihood but none the less just likely enough to happen in an infinite system. Life itself is a divine piece of spontaneous chemistry. It had to occur somewhere (given infinite time and space) and that somewhere happens to be here and now. I’m using it now!
Because of the awesome nature of these things, coupled with the contemplation of infinity, I have slightly reinvented the word divine and apply it to these incredible, natural events.
I also apply divine in a more mundane use when I indulge in certain types of ice cream, chocolate (food of the gods) and cake.
Divining rods for Dowsing
People believed that they could detect the presence of water, oil, gems, minerals and a host of other things. Typically a diving rod is a length of forked hazel though there are many variations on this. You walk around and it jerks or points to where the substance is that you are looking for.
A scientific study carried out on 58 diviners in 1948 found that their success was no greater than would be expected through sheer chance. In other words it is a pile of bollocks.
Dolmens
I love Dolmens. They are old lumps of rock erected like doorways and used in Iron Age burial mounds. They are like some portal to the after-life. You look at them, touch them, and realise that your ancestors stood here, erected these at the cost of great effort, thought they were immensely important, touched these rocks and looked out over this landscape. It is salutary.
The beliefs of past generations have gone and been replaced by a different set of equally fervently believed garbage.
But I like connecting with my distant ancestors. I can see why so many religions got into ancestor worship. It is very compulsive.
The wonder of it is that this primitive thinking of portals and after-lives has persisted to this day even though we know that most of what they believed back then, in the days of extreme ignorance, was utter rubbish.
Doom
Doom comes from a Saxon word for Judgement. It infers that you will be judged by the pixie and found wanting. As a sinner you will be cast into the pits.
I am doomed but I don’t care.
You wonder where god gets all the time to carry out all these judgements. Perhaps that’s why we don’t see him around any too much?
Drugs
Lots of religions use drugs. The Hashashins got stoned out their heads on cannabis before going off to do what all devout religious people did and slit the throats of their neighbours. Seemingly there motto was: ‘Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.’ We get the word assassins out of that one.
In Mexico it was peyote – a hallucinogenic cactus. In South America is a whole range of psycho reactive substances – usually blown up your nose with a blow-pipe. In Europe it was the hallucinogenic magic mushroom. Whichever you chose the results were similar. The Shaman and or participants went on a trip. Reality was distorted/embellished/revealed, depending on your perspective. Sometimes they soared through the astral plane, to communicate with the dead, to communicate with deities, to gain insight, knowledge and wisdom. Psychedelic trips are wonderful, aren’t they? They are more real than reality!
It seems that human beings like to explore, to find a reason for things, to be in control as well as just to get out of their heads.
Druids
These Celtic priests were central to the functioning of Stone-age Britain. They were involved in the politics, worship and were reported to have made human sacrifices in their ceremonies. They were intermediaries to the deities. As they did not record anything, nothing is known about them. Back then they had enormous power and carried out rites of divination. They could see into the future. When the Romans invaded they were suppressed and ousted. They didn’t see that coming did they?
Nowadays there are a small group who dress up in pantomime costume, chant a lot, raise their hands into the drizzle towards the clouds, in the rough direction of where they think the sun might be and who meet every year for a solstice celebration at Stonehenge before nipping down the pub for a pint or two. They all look a little silly in their costumes and made up ceremonies but at least they don’t torture people or brainwash kids.
Hopefully the christians, jews and muslims will all look just as daft as the tiny remnants dress up to perform their quaint little ceremonies in a thousand years time. Most of them do now anyway.
Easter
This was another pagan festival, celebrating the equinox, the coming of Spring and Summer and return of fertility to the land, that was stolen by the christian church. The church was so good at stealing stuff. They’ve pillaged art, gold and ideas. They nicked most of the festivals round the world. But we don’t forget. The christians adapted it to celebrate the crucifixion of Christ. That is something well worth celebrating. I would suggest a few more names they could add in to be crucified. Or was the main part of the celebration about his supposed resurrection?
The real Easter was a celebration of life and birth as the land was reborn – hence the eggs symbolising that rebirth. I like celebrations. Back in the pagan days there was a riotous time with much drinking and the indulgence of great fertility. Not quite what the Christian church did with it.
Anyway in the christian version they still retain a lot of the pagan traditions. They dress up, drag the icons out of the churches and lug them through the streets, light candles, chuck ash about, exchange eggs, pray a lot, give sermons, light incense and generally party with choir boys.
This was also Pancake Day. That’s the day you use up the last of the stuff you’ve been hoarding to get you through the winter – eggs, flour and fat.
Easter eggs
These are another pagan bit. The eggs symbolise rebirth. Easter is when the land is reborn. John Barleycorn comes back to life. The Green Man emerges from the foliage and all is well in the endless cycle of life.
It is a nice, quaint idea. Well worth a celebration or two with the odd tipple and a bit of dancing.
We can always celebrate the passing of a harsh winter and look forward to a nice warm summer – unless you happen to live in England – then you can look forward to long periods of gloom and warmish rain before it turns cold again. Nothing wrong with that.
Ectoplasm
My Granddad was a spiritualist healer. He’d put on funny voices and go into trances. One of his favourite tricks was to materialise ectoplasm out of people’s bodies.
People are so gullible. They desperately want to believe any old strange doctrine.
Ectoplasm is a biological term for the colloidal suspension found outside cells as opposed to endoplasm which is inside cells.
Spiritualist mediums were very popular in Victorian Britain. They did all their clairvoyance and communed with the dead. The ectoplasm was a great crowd pleaser. Psychologists have done a lot of research and discovered that the power of the mind is incredible. A skilled hypnotist can make people believe they are riding about on pink elephants. The people think it’s real.
Education
Education is the great weapon against religion and fascism. They wither away under its glare. This is probably why the islamists want to keep women well away from it. They are far more perceptive than men. Oestrogen is a less disruptive hormone compared to testosterone.
Education is dangerous. That’s why politician underfund it. Once the population becomes educated they start to think. Once they start to think they begin to realise that the world is run as a power structure geared to subjugate most people while giving immense power status and wealth to a few – usually the religious.
They also rapidly begin to realise that all religion is bollocks.
Of course the religious nutters want to get a foot into the door and organise it.
Bible school and RE becomes an indoctrination process. The Madras’s are even more evil. They force young kids to learn and memorise the whole Koran. They misname that education. They know that having invested so much time and energy into this process it will be so ingrained they will be caught for life.
The Creationists even want to take over the curriculum and interpret everything through their own crazy minds. Evolution is a dirty word. Science is bollocks.
Yes of course, the world is flat, the Earth is the centre of the universe, heaven is above the sky and hell is under the ground. The world has only been in existence for a few thousand years and men walked around with dinosaurs. Shame the dinosaurs were too big to fit on the ark. Never mind. The pixie will make them again if he wishes. After all he put all the false fossils in the rock strata and fixed the carbon dating.
And just think: they actually tortured burnt people to death for suggesting that the Earth might actually go round the sun!! What stupid bastards!!
So education is our only hope.
We need to keep religion out of it and get politics in (at least so that people understand what the politicians are really about and the battle for freedom and fairness that has taken place down the centuries)!!!
Education is the only way to counter the bollocks of religion.
Eisteddfod
An Eisteddfod is probably a hang over from the old Druid traditions though all a bit obscure. They do a lot of poetry and drinking so the hang over bit is probably true.
Elegy
A poem or song of sad nature used at funerals. It is about that ending of all things we call death – not so much a final frontier as a final full stop.
Elysium
Elysium is Greek heaven – where you go after you die. It was said by Homer to be found on the edge of the world.
I’ve been there and there was no edge and no heaven. Though Australia was pretty nice it was not heaven, neither was it festooned with dead Greek warriors.
Sorry.
Elysium, Eden, Paradise, Heaven – I prefer Aaru but that seems to have gone out of fashion along with Valhalla and thousands of others. Come to think of it I quite like that picture of Valhalla – the great hall where all the Viking warriors hang about drinking and wenching for ever. A sort of muslim paradise with booze.
Enchantment
A witch’s spell that operates in fairy stories which is where they belong and should stay. There’s no use for them in the real world.
Enchanted I’m sure.
Enlightenment
Enlightenment is the awakening to the workings of the mind and universe. In Buddhism they believe it is the result of meditation and study of Dharma. I believe it is the result of painstaking research and the application of scientific method.
I achieved enlightenment when I realised what a bunch of bigoted monsters many religious fanatics were. Give me tolerance any day.
Real enlightenment is the realisation that all supernatural events are merely ordinary events that science has not yet fully explained. This awesome infinite universe is full of scientific secrets just waiting to be discovered.
The power of the human mind is one of those incredible mysteries that science has not yet fully understood. There is a lot more to be known.
Enlightenment – Age of
In Europe the Age of Enlightenment was the most radical and important event that ever took place. It introduced the age of reason and gave importance to secularism. It fought intolerance and questioned the right of the church to dictate people’s lives. From that day forth the power of the church was reduced, theocracies crumbled and sanity began breaking through. We in the West now enjoy freedoms, tolerance and the right to free speech that is and was unthinkable under the tyranny of religious bigotry. Theocracy is a shackle for human thought and expression.
Unfortunately islam and judaism have yet to go through their enlightenment. Indeed in recent times they have been making great strides back into the dark ages of mediaeval times. Seemingly there are a lot of people who can’t cope with their own minds; they want some dictating to them so that everything is nice and simple and black and white.
I’m all for enlightenment. Let’s have some light shone into the darkness of superstitious belief!
So break free from the shackles of religion and don the shackles of political lies.