As an atheist, who not only doesn’t believe in god but thinks Religion has been the most destructive force in human history, responsible for more death, destruction, torture and hatred than anything else; that religion is based on fear and division; that American evangelicals are no different to ISIS Muslim Neanderthals; and that atheists have a higher morality, I thought this article was quite accurate.
People Who Don’t Believe In God Often Have These 15 Qualities Too
Are you opposed to brainwashing kids?
Do you believe that religion has held back development?
Do you think that religion is misogynistic?
Do you believe atheists can be as moral as believers?
Do you believe in an interventionist god?
Do you think all religions were created by people?
What do you think about the thousands of religions that have died out?
How many gods have there been?
Is there a difference between religion and spirituality?
You might find these books interesting:
Antitheist’s Dictionary: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9798389994171: Books
This book consists of definitions of religious words interpreted by a cynical antitheist. While hilarious it is sacrilegious, offensive and controversial. If you are religious and easily offended then I suggest you steer well clear. If you are not religious (or are of a less sensitive nature to your more serious religious colleagues) then dip in and have a laugh along with me. However, I should warn you; I have serious intent as well. I view religion as a social menace that should be kept clear of children, schools and the State. I believe history has shown religion to be a major source of evil worldwide. I believe it creates war, misogyny, torture, hypocrisy, exploitation, bigotry and hatred. There is little good that ever comes out of it. I hope all religion withers away naturally. Until then I respect your right to believe in whatever brand of superstition you wish – just as long as you do not try to force it on anyone else!
The Antitheist’s Bible: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9798391606536: Books
A controversial, blasphemous novel full of sacrilege and irreverence, laced with pathos and humour. One man struggles with the death of his mother, retirement from a career he loves and a desire to do something with the remainder of his life. He moves towards retirement while wrestling with the hypocrisy of religion, its power and wealth. He wants to expose the rotten heart of manmade religion.
Jihads, Crusades, Evangelists, ISIS, Religious Fanatics, Brainwashing, Pogroms, the Holocaust, Burqas, Torture, Heretics, Inquisitions, Witch-Hunts, Misogyny, Daft Costumes, Rules and Dogma, Terrorism, Life After Death, Heaven, Hell, Satan, Fear, Bibles, Torah, Koran, Persecution, Anti-Semitism, the Taliban, Control and Intrigue – that’s the religion we have created. He’s sick of it.
He wants to write, to travel and read; to live. In his eyes the world is full of wonder and awe. He sees a huge difference between religion and spirituality.
The first book he will write will be an expose of the power-struggle, brainwashing and greed that is organised religion. It will be called The Antitheist’s Bible.
This is that story.
The Book of Ginny: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781500890742: Books
WARNING – Sexually Explicit and Religiously Dangerous! This book is a sexually explicit expose of religion. If you are easily offended by sex or hold strong religious views I suggest you read no further. Ginny was a young party girl with a close group of friends. Life was good. She had a job she enjoyed and her world was fun. There was the round of parties, clubs, dancing, drugs and sex that provided the spice. Apart from one or two ‘aggravations’ such as getting herself prosecuted for shoplifting life was pretty sorted. Then came the voices and life would never be the same. She had been chosen and instructed to spread the word. Ginny put the world of sex, drugs and dancing behind her and embarked upon the task of delivering the new gospel to the world. At first it seemed to go so well but then she discovered that there were many with vested interests who were not so enamoured with any new revelations. They had a battle on their hands.
As I understand it, White Eagle was a Native North American Chief who specialised in healing and led a spirit team of healers, including Uncas. He had ‘passed over’ to the spirit world hundreds of years before. He was one of a number of benevolent spirits who worked through my Grandfather. He is quite a renowned spirit teacher and healer. There is an active White Eagle Lodge with branches in the UK, Ireland and worldwide. I presume this is the same White Eagle that my Grandfather ‘worked’ with.
These are the teaching of White Eagle as dictated from the spirit world through my grandfather Lewis Fraser Forsyth.
I thought of myself as a tolerant person but, there again, you had to oppose intolerance and fight it with all the force you could muster. We lived in such a ridiculous time that you could get your head sliced off for drawing a cartoon! That was not the sort of world I wanted to live in. I raged against any system that forced people to wear a standard uniform and follow an enforced routine and doctrine, whether that was Mao suits or Islamic Burqas. Surely religion was a personal choice? Any imposition or restrictions on the way one lived should be opposed?
But then, perhaps I had been spouting off too much? Was I all mouth and no trousers? What was I doing about it?
My great idea had been to write a book exposing the obvious stupidities of all religions; to show how they were mere human fabrications: to reveal the real history of religion, the way it had been constructed and used. My belief had been that if you simply stood back from religion and looked at it objectively, it simply did not hold up. The inconsistencies, power struggles and fabrications shone through. It had so obviously been thought up by men.
I loved running my ideas around friends. I was passionate about it, though Liz said I was boring the ears off everyone. But that didn’t stop me. I couldn’t resist it. I enjoyed the repartee and it enabled me to examine my thoughts and ideas, to shape them.
Kathy thought I was a bullshitter. She wanted me to be more coherent and did not really believe I would get around to writing the book. She was pushing me and believed in the Socratic Method. That was cool with me.
Returning to our new home, Kathy and I had settled in the comfy sitting room of the three hundred year old house while Liz and Tobes took their turn at preparing the evening meal. Liz and I had fallen in love with this rustic retreat with its old brick, cracked ancient wood and rough plastered walls, all very distorted with age and unpretentious. It was an old and friendly space, welcoming and harmonious, mirroring the relationship of old friends.
The meal was cooking in the oven, and Liz and Tobes had taken themselves off to the kitchen to sort the peripherals and continue their conversation about the children and the lives they were carving for themselves, distancing themselves from the intensity of discussion about infinity and religion. You never stopped worrying about the kids, even though they were now all in their late twenties and thirties. You just didn’t. But I just had to examine other issues – when it wasn’t politics that invariably went to religion, spirituality or nature. I couldn’t help myself.
Kathy and I were left sitting in the front room with a bottle of red between us. I knew Liz would never believe me, but it had been Kathy who had brought the subject back up.
I surveyed her imploring face and frowned quizzically. ‘Well now Kathy, I think I’d like to come up with some new smart retort that’d make that bigoted redneck feel stupid – make him want to reassess his whole life.’ I replied mischievously, reflecting for a moment on what that could possibly be. I went on, clutching around for something that fitted the bill. ‘Unfortunately you can never think of anything smart to say at the time,’ I explained, playing for time. ‘That never happens. Not until you’ve walked away and ruminated on all the clever stuff you should have said. Still, I’d probably resort to paraphrasing Hitchins and tell him to take that giant enema so he could be buried in a matchbox.’
‘But Oph, old chap,’ Kathy said with a hint of a smirk, puffing on the dying spliff, ‘he might not understand that! Besides you’re much too polite to say anything of the sort.’
That was the good thing about old friends – you could talk about anything and have a laugh without having to watch what you said. I topped up the wine. Tobes’ laughter drifted through from the kitchen where he was nattering to Liz while she sorted the dressing for the salad.
‘That’s the trouble, isn’t it? Religion stops you thinking. I’d never change his mind. He’d never even question it.’ I observed reflectively, swirling the wine around my glass, looking sideways at Kathy.
‘So, what do you think the world’d be like without religion, Oph?’ Kathy demanded, draining her glass and topping it up, passing me the spliff.
That was an interesting question. I wanted to say straight off how much better it would be, but there was more to it than that. Phew. The more I pondered that the more the implications were enormous.
‘I dunno, Kathy,’ I mused, frowning and pulling on the spliff. ‘It’d be a lot different. Just think – if we didn’t have all that energy put into building all those churches, temples and cathedrals; if everyone hadn’t wasted all that time and energy in pointless ceremonies and prayer; if we hadn’t been held back for thousands of years with all that superstition.’ I was warming to it. My imagination was already extrapolating out the possibilities, all the better uses those energies could be put to —– ‘If all that energy was put into more positive things!!’
‘Yeah, but Oph,’ Kathy retorted rather aggressively, reaching across for the spliff, ‘those temples are beautiful, and the music and art. Wouldn’t the world be a dreary place without it?’
A controversial, blasphemous novel full of sacrilege and irreverence, laced with pathos and humour. One man struggles with the death of his mother, retirement from a career he loves and a desire to do something with the remainder of his life. He moves towards retirement while wrestling with the hypocrisy of religion, its power and wealth. He wants to expose the rotten heart of manmade religion.
Jihads, Crusades, Evangelists, ISIS, Religious Fanatics, Brainwashing, Pogroms, the Holocaust, Burqas, Torture, Heretics, Inquisitions, Witch-Hunts, Misogyny, Daft Costumes, Rules and Dogma, Terrorism, Life After Death, Heaven, Hell, Satan, Fear, Bibles, Torah, Koran, Persecution, Anti-Semitism, the Taliban, Control and Intrigue – that’s the religion we have created. He’s sick of it.
He wants to write, to travel and read; to live. In his eyes the world is full of wonder and awe. He sees a huge difference between religion and spirituality.
The first book he will write will be an expose of the power-struggle, brainwashing and greed that is organised religion. It will be called The Antitheist’s Bible.
This is that story.
‘What do you know about the pogroms?’ I asked with a twinkle in my eye.
‘How long have you got?’ John said, setting his plate and cutlery down on the table.
I eyed the today’s choice. John was known to put together some strange combinations but this looked fairly ordinary – fish fingers, baked beans and green beans. I raised my eyes and shrugged. We’d finished our duty. I’d made short shrift of my soup and was hanging out in the dining hall, helping to keep the lid on things.
‘Well,’ John said, starting into his meal. He alternated between chewing, swallowing and speaking. ‘The name itself is Russian, translating as destroy or devastate. The pogroms largely refer to the anti-Semitic riots in Russia in the 19th and 20th century,’ he waved his fork in the air as though conducting, ‘though you can trace it back to the very early days of the church and it goes on right to this day. I suppose, you could say that Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany in 1938 and then the Holocaust was the culmination of the pogroms. But it hasn’t stopped. Anti-Semitism is rife.’
‘So what was behind it?’
‘In the early days of Christianity there was a drive to gain converts and the Church sought to drive a wedge, to deliberately vilify Jews. They labelled them as Christ killers and claimed they held satanic meetings, sacrificed Christian babies and put their blood in their bread. That sort of stuff.’
I snorted. ‘But Jesus was a Jew. All his family were Jews. All his disciples and followers.’
John chuckled. ‘Yeah, but you don’t allow facts to get in the way of a good conspiracy.’ He was polishing off his meal in no time at all. ‘Mythology is not based around fact. The Church needed to establish itself. They demonised Jews.’ He shovelled in a mouthful and chewed pensively. ‘It wasn’t helped by the Church being firmly against usery. No Christians were allowed to lend money for interest. The Jews took over the banking and many of them became exceedingly wealthy. That created a lot of jealousy and outrage. Christian businessmen accused the Jews of running things for their own benefit and charging exorbitant rates.’
I frowned.
‘There have been many outbreaks of anti-Semitic riots throughout Europe and in England. Jews were vilified and persecuted. The Church stirred it up and did nothing to suppress the depiction as Christ killers and unscrupulous, miserly bankers. Religions like to malign the opposition. It animates the faithful.’ He grinned. ‘There have been numerous examples of Jews being targeted and driven out, synagogues burnt, murder, looting.’ He shrugged. ‘You only have to look at the actions of the Crusaders. They went out of their way to massacre Jews on the way to the Holy Land. Saw it as a holy act. I suppose it came to a head in Germany. The Nazis blamed the Jews for the loss in the First World War.’
I raised my eyebrows.
‘There was the stab in the back myth,’ John explained. ‘It was believed that Germany lost the war, not through military defeat, but because internal forces, including the Jews, were actively stabbing it in the back.’
‘No truth in that?’ I queried.
‘I suppose every government has their dissenters and forces at work trying to undermine it, but no, nothing majorly untoward. The main thing was that, following the war, everyone was suffering extreme hardship but a number of prominent Jewish businessmen were seen to be prospering. Like many, they had made profit out of the war. The Nazis seized upon that to scapegoat them using the underlying anti-Semitic sentiment to unify their party in a common cause. Just like the right is doing with immigrants today. They built this up as ‘The Jewish Problem’ and then ‘The Final Solution’. Every movement needs its nemesis. The Jews fitted the bill.’ He pushed his plate to one side.
I glared at a student who was threatening to throw a chip at another boy. He saw me glaring and ate the chip, looking as innocent as could be.
‘At first Hitler was all for shipping all the Jews out to Palestine and setting up a Jewish state, but that idea soon went out the window. The mood turned. They planned out the Holocaust and decided to eradicate all the Jews once and for all.’
A short extract from my novel – The Antitheist’s Bible – a novel who’s central theme is about the absurdities of religion and how it has been used to control people and gain power.
‘So what do you think the world’d be like without religion, Oph?’ Kathy demanded, draining her glass and topping it up, passing me the spliff.
That was an interesting question. I wanted to say straight off how much better it would be but there was more to it than that. Phew. The more I pondered that the more the implications were enormous.
‘I dunno Kathy,’ I mused, frowning and pulling on the spliff. ‘It’d be a lot different. Just think – if we didn’t have all that energy put into building all those churches, temples and cathedrals; if everyone hadn’t wasted all that time and energy in pointless ceremonies and prayer; if we hadn’t been held back for thousands of years with all that superstition.’ I was warming to it. My imagination was already extrapolating out the possibilities, all the better uses those energies could be put to —– ‘If all that energy was put into more positive things!!’
‘Yeah but Oph,’ Kathy retorted rather aggressively, reaching across for the spliff, ‘those temples are beautiful, and the music and art. Wouldn’t the world be a dreary place without it?’
I grinned at her. Kathy playing her usual role of devil’s advocate. I wasn’t falling for that. But then again it was true. There were many great things that had come out of religion and many religious people would point to the sense of community and togetherness that religion produced, but I wasn’t about to acknowledge any of that. My beef was with the power structure.
I gurned at her. ‘Yeah, shame about the butchery, intolerance and torture’ I mused, raising my eyebrows. ‘Shame that so many were flayed alive and burnt to death in agony,’ I nodded my head and pursed my lips, warming to the task. ‘It’s a shame about 9.11, the bombings and misogyny. Shame about the cultural castration and the enslavement of women, all those women locked up in burqas.’ I could tell from her eyes that I was doing what she had wanted me to do – she had succeeded in getting me going. ‘Apart from that…… and all the bollocks about heaven, paradise ……….. and the hypocrisy …………. and the ridiculous contradictions, homophobia, intolerance ……….’ I was floundering around for all the many facets that had so infuriated me as Kathy smiled encouragingly, judgmentally apart, drawing on the spliff and studying my agitation. ‘And the way they all have their little stories that they hold to be gospel,’ I was now having to prevent myself from prodding a finger in her direction, ‘while denouncing everyone else’s versions as fabricated nonsense …….’ I was getting into my stride, placing the glass down on the floor so I didn’t spill it, waving my hands around. ‘You know, the way they claim to be the chosen people who are favoured by God and that all others, the heathen non-believers, are to be cast into the fiery pits forever……….. and the intrinsic stupidities of replacing the unfathomable reason for life with an equally unknown substitute, some magically manifest supernaturally powerful being………’ I couldn’t help myself. I was becoming more and more animated. ‘After all – where did this all-powerful god come from? …………… and what was the purpose of this eternal life? ……. Religion has no answers. They just tell you to believe. Bollocks. None of it makes sense.’
‘Ah come on Oph,’ she said insincerely, smiling sweetly, cutting me short, feigning an American accent. ‘You know god moves in mysterious ways. It is not our place to understand the working of god’s mind.’
I shook my head at her in a theatrical show of despair. She grinned back at me obviously warming to her task. ‘Besides, You’ve got to admit that the world would be a lot drabber without all those costumes and customs? If religion hadn’t determined things then the State would have done. There would have been bigger wars, bigger castles and more powerful warlords. Ordinary people might be in an even worse state.’
There was nothing I liked better than to argue on matters such as this. It got my grey cells buzzing, forced me to examine my own views and crystallize them. Religion was one of my pet themes and she knew it. It was also one of hers.
‘Or we might be living in a more liberated world where the enlightenment took place thousands of years earlier and everything was fairer and more advanced,’ I suggested, tilting my head to the side.
‘So you don’t believe that morality and ethics originate in religion?’ She poured herself another glassful and sipped trying to look quizzical and earnest. I laughed out loud. From my standpoint she’d only succeeded in looking comical. I knew she didn’t believe what she was suggesting.
I chuckled some more. ‘No, No Kathy, no I don’t. I think fairness, morality and ethics are basic human attributes.’ I frowned and took a big gulp of what was a cheapish red shiraz that had proved surprisingly smooth, then topped up my glass before replying. ‘I think that religion’s got fuck all to do with it. Religion is just about power. That and the State. All about power. It’s all primitive stuff. All the boys vying to be the great chief or shaman; white-backed gorillas. They are just seeking dominance and the right to fuck all the women. It’s all about DNA playing its games to get its genes into the next gene pool.’
‘But Oph,’ Kathy objected keenly, stubbing the dead roach in the ashtray. ‘Every culture has its creation myths and code of morality. They all regulate society and bring some order to it. Perhaps people need that? Perhaps religion helps produce that?’ Kathy continued her ploy. She was enjoying it just as much as I was.
‘Yeah, and they all create a pile of complicated dogma and use it to bash each other with, to shackle themselves,’ I began rolling another jay.
‘But there is order and there are restraints,’ she argued forcefully, ‘religion has restricted the power of the state, hasn’t it? It has helped produce order and structure.’
The Antitheist’s Bible: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9798391555216: Books
Acolyte
These are the people who are not strong enough to stand on their own. They are easily led. An acolyte is someone who lights the candles or participates in the services – an active follower of a religion. They like obeying rules and doing what they are told. Usually lacking in imagination or critical analysis they take everything at face value. If it’s written down and Abraham says it happened it must be true.
All despots love acolytes. They are very handy.
Adam & Eve
According to the mythology that is religion Adam was the first man. He was made by the great supernatural, all knowing, eternal fairy, out of dust.
Eve was an after-thought and was made out of Adam’s rib when the fairy realised that Adam might be lonely. The fairy hadn’t thought it all through to start with, had he? So much for all-knowing.
The pair of his new creations were plonked in a perfect garden and told not to eat the fruit of knowledge. Of course, the fairy had previously created all manner of plants and animals (equipped with sex organs and mating rituals) for Adam and Eve to eat and play about with.
Eve was tricked by a serpent (what was that serpent’s function?) into eating the fruit and persuaded Adam to eat it, too (henceforth, used as justification for reviling all women as evil temptresses who must be hidden away in shapeless gowns). They lost their innocence and were kicked out of the garden by god.
So what can we learn from this?
It is quite incredible how far-reaching a primitive creation myth can be. The misogyny of those primitive pre-Abrahamic cultures resounds down the ages. It contributes to the whole disgusting business of female genital mutilation and whole cultures putting their women in sacks and treating them like dogs.
After-life
It’s the same as before life. Somehow the universe got on without me for 13.77 billion years, give or take a minute or so. I’m sure that it will manage without me for a few billion more.
It will be a great shame not to be able to open my eyes on to all this awesome beauty.
Best appreciate it while we can. It only lasts a short while and then it’s gone.
Nothing gold can last!
So, I will not be meeting up with my dead friends and relatives. I will not be coming back as an earwig. I will not have beautiful handmaidens dropping grapes in my mouth by the side of nice cool fountains. I will not be singing in any ethereal choirs.
The idea of an after-life was made up by people long ago because they couldn’t imagine themselves not existing anymore.
I can. But then I can’t. As a conscious human being I find it quite hard to believe that this life is all pointless, that it is an exceedingly wonderful accident of chemistry, and that one day soon I will cease to exist. Surely I’m much too important for that to be the case?
Instead of waking up with a bevy of virgins my brain will cease firing electricity down neurones. My consciousness will dissolve. I will be unaware as the bacteria and worms dissolve my flesh. I won’t care at all.
There will be no tunnels of light, choirs of angels, gates and cherubs, no men in long robes. No ice cream. No music. No sex (no wonder puritans like the idea).
I will no longer be aware of anything. Nothing will exist for me. The universe will slowly run down due to natural entropy and I won’t be around to see it. That’s a shame.
No amount of wishful thinking will make it any different. We’d best grow up and get on with it.
There is no wondrous purpose or anthropomorphised vision of paradise and heaven; we die.
After life there is merely rotting and oblivion.
Never mind.
But wasn’t all that stuff about eternal ecstasy (or grotesque torture for the bad guys), meeting up with loved ones and living forever so reassuring and great. Shame that the bad guys took it over and used it as a power tool to get people to conform and put up with lousy conditions (they’ll be pie and ice-cream in the sky), to fight and blow themselves up in the certain knowledge of eternal life – oh, and no hanky panky (except for them) got it?
Age of Enlightenment/Age of Reason
The Death of Theocracy.
A lot was at stake and far fewer were burnt at stake.
This is simply the most important thing that has ever happened. It began as a philosophical movement in the mid eighteenth century, gathered pace and has changed the whole cultural landscape of the Western World for the better.
The premise for the Age of Reason/Enlightenment was to challenge ideas based on tradition or religion and move to a system based on reason and scientific method. This inevitably took religion out of controlling people and introduced the present secular states where tyrants, despots and conmen were free to either directly set up rigged systems or pervert democracy in order to gain power.
A great improvement. Well, at least people were no longer publically beheaded or buried up to their shoulders and pelted with rocks for blasphemy.
People could at last ask to see photographic evidence of tablets being passed down, burning bushes or audio recordings of conversations with supernatural forces in caves or up on mountain tops without fear of torture.
As soon as religion was taken out of the equation we experienced rapid progress. Science ruled. In contrast those cultures still ruled by religious superstition continued to stagnate.
I do not make the case that everything is hunky-dory. That is far from the case. In many ways the Age of Enlightenment heralded all sorts of moral and social problems that we are still battling to address today. It has unleashed a chaotic state. This needs addressing. Religion gave people structure and purpose even if that was madness and stupidity. Freedom from religion has left many people directionless and aimless with only hedonism to fall back on. I’ve nothing against hedonism but ultimately it is vacuous. What is necessary is for the State to provide purpose and impetus before the fanatics of religion rise up to fill that hole. Nature and creativity are good for that.
Without religion there is still plenty to marvel and wonder at. Life can be full and satisfying.
Politicians have so far not been particularly inspiring in this direction. They had better get their act together. The alternative could be religious oppression and back to the scourge of misogynistic conservatism stifling thought and expression – the thought of that is dire.
However the writers, artists, poets, dancers, musicians and other creative folk have been doing a great job in making life worthwhile and filling the hole religion used to occupy. Long may they continue!
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.
Antitheist’s Dictionary: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781500821142: Books
