The Antitheist’s Dictionary – Extract 4

Posted on by Opher

A scurrilous, humourous indictment of religion.

Antitheist’s Dictionary: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781500821142: Books

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

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.

Featured Book – The Antitheist’s Dictionary – Pt. 8

Posted on by Opher

Warning: This is highly offensive, sacrilegious and hilarious. If you of a religious persuasion I advise you not to read this!

Caliphate

A Caliphate is an islamic State set up to succeed that State set up by Mohamed. The leader is the successor to Mohamed and known as a Caliph.

What a sorry state of affairs as different ‘Caliphs’ were set up by different groups with the Sunni and Shi’a both proclaiming ‘I got you, babe’. Take your pick. Are you of a sunny disposition or afraid of sheer drops?

Cardinal Sin

Loads of sin has been committed by Cardinals. There more than one little boy or girl who life has been fucked by a Cardinal. The kings of the kiddie fiddlers.

A Cardinal sin is a big one that condemns you to hell. This would be something like declaring there is no god or some such thing. You’d probably get away with mere rape, murder or torture. It’d have to be something big like wanking while you’re saying your prayers (which I hasten to add is something I wouldn’t dream of doing! – I don’t say prayers!)

Cards

Seemingly some people who are psychically attuned can read the future just from the selection of cards. – Amazing. Let’s hope they don’t tell all the fat cats at the stock market about it. They’re swilling about in it already. We don’t need them getting their mitts on any more of the world’s loot. That 1% already own half the world. There’s enough starvation and poverty already without them being able to read the future and swindle us even more.

Fortunately it doesn’t work – our money’s safe in our bankers’ hands.

Cathedrals

These are another example of the ICBMs of world religion. They have to compete with the Taj Mahal and Egyptian Pyramids for the contest to see ‘whose is the biggest’. This is an arms race that has been going on since time immemorial. It started with ‘Who can build the biggest mound?’ It moved on to ‘Who could stand the biggest rocks on end?’ Then it got into ‘who could build the biggest pile of rocks’. Then, as technology improved, it became ‘who could build the biggest most elaborate and ornate building possible?’

There’s a lot of psychology in this:

  1. Mine’s bigger than yours therefore I’m better
  2. I’ve invested so much into this that it proves beyond doubt that the whole pile of bullshit religion behind it must be true
  3. Look how powerful we are. Shut up and do as we tell you.

There is no doubt that this has resulted in some of the most unique, beautiful and incredible structures known to man. They are a wonder to behold and a credit to man’s ingenuity and imagination. They have pushed the frontiers of technology and creativity to the brink.

I love them all from the earliest mounds, the stones, pyramids and dolmens to the Cathedrals, Mosques and Temples. If it wasn’t for the daft religious sentiments that lay behind them they would be a triumph.

The most impressive cathedral I’ve had the pleasure of seeing was Gaudi’s The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Famíliain Barcelona. What an incredible building and it is not even finished. But then I like unfinished things. I love Stonehenge and they haven’t even built the walls let alone put the roof on.

Nowadays they are still investing huge sums of money to continue this arms race. The more majestic the edifice the more important the religion, the more gullible souls are taken in by it.

Catholic

Seemingly the pope’s a catholic. He’s infallible which means that he never makes a mistake – not even when burning heretics like what happened to Bruno or nearly happened with Galileo (the father of physics astronomy and maths) who they fell out with the church because he had a thing about the sun being in the middle. The church disagreed. They burnt anyone who didn’t agree that the Earth was the centre of everything.

Of course they have changed their minds now and accept that there is a whole universe out there and we are in fact a tiny little planet in an out of the way arm of a fairly inconsequential galaxy and hardly the centre of anything.

It does bring the infallibility a bit into question, doesn’t it?

The roman catholic church is the biggest in the world with over a billion gullible indoctrinates. It spreads the words of Jesus as put in the gospels of various disciples – though we don’t know who actually wrote those gospels. All we know is what we are told – and that is that the gospels are exactly right, the actual words of the supernatural fairy, and the church is infallible.

The catholic church is the only one that’s right – just like all the other religions. They too are the only ones that are right.

They have organised loads of interesting stuff like crusades, inquisitions, mass burnings, persecutions, witch hunts and a series of events in which slaughter, torture, child molestation and stupidity feature strongly.

Constantine has a lot to answer for.

Caves

Seemingly a place you go off to where no one else is around and an archangel will seek you out to pass on personal messages from the great pixie.

The pixie only likes caves, wildernesses and mountain tops. Because of extreme shyness he abhors World Cup stadiums, prime time TV or chat shows.

Perhaps, if he wants to be taken seriously, he should take some therapy to assist with public speaking and widen his range of confidants.

That’s only a suggestion. But it would be fun wouldn’t it? Just imagine the look on everyone’s face when they tune in to catch the Superbowl and find god bellowing at them!

Celestial

The term Celestial refers to religious beings and paraphernalia that are up in the sky – hence angels, gods, and heaven. Whenever I’m going on a jet plane it’s so frustrating having to wait before take-off while they clean all the mashed up angels out of the engines. Besides, it makes flying more dangerous. Those harps can seriously damage a Rolls Royce engine.

You just never know what you’re going to bump into when you go through those clouds and up into the stratosphere.

Celibacy

The pixie does not like fucking or wanking. Anyone caught fucking or wanking will be severely dealt with unless it can be proved there was no pleasure in it and it was most definitely just for procreation purposes. That’s fine but difficult when it comes to wanking. For homosexuals it is apparently doubly worse. I suppose it is extremely hard for them to prove they are being procreative.

This is particularly true if you happen to be a priest. Your seminal fluid is seemingly valuable. In order to be pure to deliver the word of the great supernatural pixie, who sees all, can do everything and loves you, you have to be pure.

The exception seems to be that it’s OK to abuse choirboys and altar boys. Seemingly the pixie doesn’t take too much exception to that. Its women he is leery of. Besides you can always confess and be absolved of your sins. That puts the clock back to zero.

Oh I’ve had enough of this. Who gives a fuck about celibacy anyway? These religious people are all a bunch of hypocrites. They like fucking as much as anybody else. They just feel guilty about it.

Censorship

Censorship is an attempt by fanatics to prevent people being stimulated to think. The last thing religious or political tyrants want is a population that questions their stupidity or the anything that counters their view. Seemingly certain views are not open to discussion; they are set in stone. There can be no debate. To debate the facts of religion might upset their indoctrination programme.

Religious fanatics seek to impose their own views on everyone else. This tends to be an austere programme of prayer, wearing the right costumes, eating the right food at the right time and right living (as described in their own version of the truth). Pleasure in any form is extremely suspect.

As for me I quite enjoy a bit of hedonism if not taken to extremes. There is nothing wrong in sex, intoxicants, music, theatre, film, dance, humour and good friends.

The whole subject of whether there is a god, or the way our present religions have evolved out of previous pagan religions in mediaeval times and consequently have all the trappings of misogynist dogma associated with those ignorant societies, the brainwashing of children, or the way religion is a manmade fabrication, should be open for full public debate and scrutiny. It is reprehensible that the cynical powerful elite who pull the strings and indoctrinated morons should cry blasphemy in outraged affront.

In the absence of a god there can be no blasphemy.

If brainwashed prudes of the Abrahamic mediaeval tradition, disgusted by the sight of their own bodies, want to restrict my appetites, as far as I’m concerned they can go fuck themselves.

There should be no censorship. Censorship is the enemy of truth.

Cherubs

Cherubs are the little fat baby angels you see in paintings. They are so obese that you wonder how their tiny little wings can keep them airborne. Seemingly human imagination was extreme limited back in the dark ages and they did not know too much about aerodynamics.

It makes you wonder. What do you have to do to become a cherub? When you get over the other side can you choose what age to be? What body to have? And if you start off as a cherub do you sort of slim down and become an Angel in your teenage years (I suppose you probably hit your teens after a few billion years given that there’s eternity to play with). You often see cherubs improbably suspended on clouds. That’s weird. Medieval cultures must have thought clouds actually had substance.

Those mediaeval people really believed that heaven was above the sky and hell below the earth. So it was natural to put people up in the heavens. They then had to struggle with how they stayed up there – hence the wings. As there was nothing up there but clouds that was the only thing they could have them sitting around on. To sit on the sun would give you a hot botty.

How preposterous can you get? It illustrates the absurdity of religious thought. It was dreamed up by morons.

Choirboys

They sing beautifully to the glory of the supernatural fairy right up until their voice breaks. In order to stop this happening it was fairly common practice to chop their balls off. I’ve heard that it was not a very popular choice to apply to be a choirboy.

We now know that many Catholic Priests who had taken a vow of celibacy thought that this did not apply to choirboys. They fucked up many a life.

Christ

This is all a little confusing. The word christ literally means the anointed one i.e. He’s had water chucked over him and is the Messiah. Some believe Jesus was the anointed one. That makes him the Messiah so they call him Jesus Christ. The christians believe that Jesus is the Messiah and are now waiting patiently for the second coming. (I too remember waiting in vain for the second coming). The jews didn’t get on with Jesus even though he was a jew and they’re still even more patiently waiting for the first coming (I know what that feels like as well). The muslims accept Jesus as the Messiah but not as the son of god. That’s a sort of halfway house. I think they do that just to be different.

Christening

This is when you baptise young infants before they get old enough to have a mind of their own. Then you can set about the serious business of indoctrinating them so that when they reach adulthood they don’t have a mind of their own.

It’s all clever stuff. These religions know what they’re doing. They’re in the business of brain-washing as many kids as they can get their hands on.

Christian

Someone who believes that the fictitious pixie is a kind, loving guy who just happens to burn non-believers for ever in the pits of some everlasting hell-fire for their own good. If necessary it is imperative to take up arms and kill for gentle Jesus.

They believe this made up psychopath is not really an evil bastard. He has our best interests at heart. We just have to humour him.

After all they are christians because they believe the celestial father sent his only son (a little hazy on the actual dynamics of parentage) to be murdered for us. Strangely he is omnipotent and could have done this in a number of easier ways but then there wouldn’t be any christians would there?

Christian State

Having any religion, such as christianity, with any input into the power structure of a country is an insult to the freedom of the people. Religion should be a personal matter. If it starts to intrude into the running of the country and the laws that pertain it should be opposed with all the strength possible.

Politics should be secular.

Religion has no right to interfere with how anyone lives their life. An individual’s life is their own to decide on; unless the dimwits choose to turn to an Iron-age doctrine from illiterate uneducated people who lacked the benefits of the insight of science and technology in the vain hope that the ignorant peasants from the past know more than the educated scientists of the present.

We fought wars for hundreds of years from the days of the Age of Enlightenment to keep Europe secular. If we are not careful we could well slide back into the Dark Ages again.

Religion is tyrannical. Theocracy is positively evil.

Christmas

Christmas was stolen from the pagans. Surely that goes against the Ten Commandments? Christians should feel ashamed and give it back. They keep doing this – nicking stuff out of other people’s fantasies. They’ve done it with Easter and floods, plagues and even Eden.

Christmas is the pagan mid winter solstice tarted up in christian clothing.They’ve taken the whole shhmoodle from the old religion:

Santa Claus in his red and white Amanita muscaria mushroom clothing is the shaman flying through the sky on his sledge. We worship the tree in the house and burn it on the fire for new warmth and light.

It is the big celebration of the start of a new cycle when the days draw out.

I suspect the pagans had a bit more fun though. I bet it wasn’t the odd Christmas card back then. I bet there was a lot of loud music, fucking and drinking going on before the prudish christians put a stop to fun.

I think I would have preferred the old pagan mid-winter solstice celebrations!

Circumcision

 So let’s get this right – the pixie made humans in his exact image? So does the pixie have a foreskin or clitoris? If the Pixie has a foreskin and/or a clitoris why does he now want us to chop ours off? If the pixie hasn’t got a foreskin/clitoris then why have we if we were made in her/his image? Couldn’t he/she have sorted this out in the beginning? It’s not fun having bits of you cut off in order to conform to an image.

The truth of the matter is that this has nothing to do with religion.

Male circumcision was purely tribal. There was a means of recognising people from your tribe.

In war they used to collect the foreskins of fallen warriors as trophies. They couldn’t if they didn’t have one.

Male circumcision is no big deal. It is painful and can lead to nasty infections and complications but not too many. It is just medically unnecessary. Why subject your baby to needless pain and discomfort and a degree of risk? Surely we’ve got beyond tribalism in the civilised world?

Female circumcision on the other hand is barbaric.

There is no excuse for it.

To slice the clitoris and labia off a baby girl with a blunt, rusty razor-blade is the worst sort of child abuse. It is mutilation. There is no religious excuse for such terrible treatment.

To surgically remove it in a hospital theatre with full anaesthetic is almost as bad.

Female genital mutilation stems from the type of misogyny that typified old Middle Eastern tribal cultures (among others). Women were chattels. They were possessions there to be used. You chopped out their sexuality so they could not experience pleasure. You didn’t want to have to spend time having to satisfy a woman’s needs. It was better if she had none. She could be taught how to totally focus on satisfying her man.

People who carry out this child abuse should be locked up for life. They are evil.

Featured Book – The Antitheist’s Dictionary – Pt. 7

Posted on by Opher

Warning: This is highly offensive, sacrilegious and hilarious. If you of a religious persuasion I advise you not to read this!

Bhagavad gita

The Gita is a seven hundred verse poem that is of a discussion between Krishna, Pandava and Arjuna about various philosophical and religious matters. It is part of the Hindu holy books. Set on a battlefield that represents the conflicts in life.

It is a brilliant poem – shame about the religious elements it is attached to.

Bible

The bible is two books. The first is cobbled together out of primitive pre-jewish mythology and writings. It has many authors and features a particularly nasty fictitious fairy who loves sacrifices, war, vengeance and has quite a few little temper tantrums. Not a nice guy. It sets out a code of practice that is misogynistic, homophobic, barbaric, sectarian and violent with threats and cruelty thrown in for good measure. There is one chosen race and it just so happens to be this one (don’t they all believe that?).

The second book was allied to the first to give it more importance – the first book having got very popular due to people’s general liking of blood and guts, gratuitous violence and general nastiness – is the general wanderings and procrastinations of a guy called Jesus. You might have heard of him. It features a nicer god who promotes love and peace. That can’t be bad. He has a grouchy side though and if you don’t believe in him, or go about calling him a fictitious fairy, he is likely to have you roasted forever. The guy’s no hippy. Though I suppose you could put him in the same category as the hippy sect leader, and gruesome murderer, Charlie Manson.

Fortunately I am safe from everlasting grilling as he is as fictitious as everything else connected to religion. Phew!!

The new testament (now two thousand years old so not so new!) was pasted together out of lots of bits written by loads of unknown dudes after having been passed down orally for a few generations. Note: none of the Gospels were actually written by the guys themselves: James, John, Tom and the other disciples were illiterate.

Fortunately, according to the faithful, not a word was misplaced. They got it spot on. There were no ‘Chinese Whispers’ here.

To make it doubly sure they all got together after a couple of hundred years, had a big symposium of all the top guys, supervised by Constantine, and decided what was in and what was out. The stuff that didn’t fit was called heretical and burnt.

Shame really – it was probably all the juicy stuff.

What was gathered together was then termed the absolute word of the great goblin in the sky. We’ve been lumbered with it and all its inconsistencies ever since – though it does do a great line in poetry and most eloquent verse that has made it eminently quotable and a great source of inspiration for writers and playwrights. But the downside are the wars, crusades, burnings and drownings, persecution and torture, brainwashing and victimisation, all carried out in the name of gentle Jesus.

Big Bang

Contrary to the idiotic view of US evangelistic christians the universe began with the Big Bang 13.798 billion years ago.

Because we only have tiny brains we have a great deal of trouble getting our heads round this. The Big Bang created all the matter and energy in the universe. It created time and the laws of Physics. The laws that pertained at the moment of the Big Bang can only be wondered at. Maybe one day our intelligence, imagination, experimentation, technology and computer power will enable us to understand it.

This was no religious experience. It was a physical event. There was no god involved.

We have great trouble understanding anything that does not have an ultimate purpose or reason. That is a product of the way our brains, and hence consciousness, have evolved. Because we cannot conceive that he universe, or ourselves, have no purpose, that our life will end and there will be nothing afterwards, we make things up. These things are stories called religion. We are more comfortable with the silly stories of religion than we are with the cold facts of the Big Bang and evolution.

The idea of creating something out of nothing goes against all the understanding our feeble minds are capable of, but then we are but bacteria in a toilet bowl trying to make sense of a descending arse.

In order to make it more logical we created a superpixie who could create something out of nothing and who could breathe life into mud. For some perverse reason people find that easier to accept.

None the less the evidence stacks up to show that the Big Bang occurred and there is no god lurking up there in the sky. Perhaps we need to invent a better telescope? Or he’s hiding somewhere? Perhaps the pixie died? Or perhaps the Big Bang occurred and there is no superpixie?

All the science stacks up. Perhaps it is time we faced up to it.

Big numbers

Big numbers are beyond our brains ability to compute. They are meaningless to us. When we consider facts such as the fact that the Big Bang took place 13.798 billion years ago we have no real concept of the vast amount of time this really means.

The fact that the Earth originated, from a coalescence of gas and dust circling the sun, somewhere around 4.5 billion years ago is equally meaningless to us. We cannot imagine that much time.

Likewise the fact that life started as simple unicellular organisms 3.8 billion years ago is beyond our ability to take in. This is why so many people have trouble comprehending the theory of evolution by natural selection. It does not seem possible to them because they cannot understand the reality of the time scales involved. That is not a surprise. Our brains did not evolve to deal with numbers that are this large. None of us can really grasp it. Even scientists who deal with astronomical distances and time cannot really grasp the meaning of these numbers. They are too big. It is not our fault.

Religions use the bewilderment of big numbers to get us to believe in myths. They make more sense to us.

Bigotry

I put bigotry in because it’s one of the main things that religious fanatics do well. They are brilliant at treating anyone with differing views to their own with derision, intolerance, contempt and unadulterated hatred. This is the cause of so much persecution and sectarian violence.

How many millions of innocent people have died because of religious bigotry?

Fortunately I do not hate the lot of them and do not want them all shot. I am not a bigot. I am just disgusted by them and what they stand for.

Billy Graham

Billy Graham is a very rich man.

Like Jimmy Swaggart, Guru Maharaji they made their fortunes out of peddling religious garbage to the masses. Their smart suits, penthouse suites and fleets of Rolls Royce’s are testament to the rewards the great pixie bestows upon them. Or is it just fraud? Even more worrying is the thought that these evangelists might actually believe the religious vomit they are spouting.

The TV evangelists are the snake-oil salesmen of the modern world. They have harnessed the medium to get to the gullible in order to make themselves extremely rich. Even when caught in brothels snorting coke they wriggle out of it.

Bishop

A bishop is a chess piece so named because of its power.

A bishop is a person who seeks power by pretending to pass on the words of a fictitious being. They are high up so have a lot of power and do quite well for themselves.

Tossing the bishop is a universal hobby.

They move diagonally so you never get a straight answer from a bishop!

Black Rock in the Kaaba

The black rock was supposedly thrown to earth from heaven to mark the spot where the temple should be built. It was incorporated into the Kaaba as a corner stone. It is an ancient rock that is quite remarkable. It was probably a meteorite. It is a large dark rock and because of its unusual nature has been the focus of intense interest for thousands of years. It’s not like Blackpool rock. There are no names running through it and it’s not minty.

In pagan times there were three of these types of stones all worshipped by pagans and said to have fallen out of the heavens from god. One was white, one was red and this one was black. They were signs from heaven and incorporated into the wall of the Kaaba. Touching it is supposed to provide wondrous cures and mystical properties.

The pagans used to use unusual rocks, rock formations or trees as focuses of their worship.

I’ll stick with the Blackpool variety, thanks.

Blasphemy

Blasphemy is the truth spoken out loud.

There is no evidence of any god.

All religions are man-made fabrications.

The prophets were all either mentally deranged or conniving power-seeking bastards or deluded do-gooders.

Millions of people have been crucified, burnt, pressed, tortured and slaughtered for saying a lot less than this. That shows how absurd it all is and how evil religion really is.

Blasphemy – see this book!

In this day and age I stand Full Square behind the right of every person to say what they believe without fear of attack from the religious intolerant.

To be able to say I do not believe is as much my right as it is for you to say you do! If your faith is strong enough then nothing I say or believe should make the slightest difference.

The fact of me saying god does not exist does not make him not exist just as you saying that he does can’t conjure him up out of nothing. I cannot insult something that doesn’t exist and I reserve the right to offend. Preventing people speaking out against brainwashing and religious intolerance and fanaticism should be a crime.

Bodhisattva

A Bodhisattva is an enlightened person who, out of compassion, helps all other sentient beings.

I love the idea.

I am a Bodhisattva who spends his life helping others come to the truth. I just do not possess magical powers. My weapons are my words. You’d better believe it!

Boggie man

The boggie man is a fictitious monster thought up by adults to scare the shit out of their kids and get them to behave. Mummy and Daddy want to fuck so you stay quiet and stay in your bed or the boggie man will get you!

It’s the same general principle that most religions have applied when dealing with adults: You do as we fucking say or the big boggie man in the sky will send you to the pits of hell for ever.

So it’s our own fault then.

Back in the days before we had electricity and the world was covered in forests in which many large dangerous creatures lived it must have been terrifying to think of a boggie man. We put the boggie man of religion in the sky and he’s still terrifying us.

Bollocks

A generic term used to describe all religious and superstitious practice as well as anything related to or pertaining to religion.

Bones of the Saints

Bones of Saints were another popular relic and great little earner. The church cashed in on these and flogged them to the rich or displayed them in churches and charged admission. Supposedly these remains had special powers. You can get near to them and be healed of just about everything apart from an addiction to belief. A bit like black rocks.

Most saints have probably got enough bones to make three or four hundred whole bodies just as there were enough fragments of the original cross to make at least a hundred of them. Someone was doing a roaring trade!

Brahman

Brahman is the Hindu concept of the unknowable, infinite essence that creates reality in and around our world including the reality of self.

That’s religion for you; create a new mystery to explain the previous mystery. That’ll confuse the simple. You don’t want anything too logical; they’ll see through it.

Burka – Burqa

A sack used to cover women so that their shape cannot be seen and they cannot be lusted after. Thus men can be saved from themselves.

This pre-islamic garb originated in a misogynistic society in which women were chattels to be bought, locked away and used. It was designed to further subjugate women.

Seemingly some women like it. They like the anonymity. However that, in a modern world, should be a matter of choice.

In many countries women are whipped if they do not wear the sack. That is not civilised. That is barbaric.

I am all in favour of freedom. Everybody should be free to believe what they want, wear what they want and say what they want.

I believe burqas are misogynistic and a relic of a time I am glad to see long gone. The burqa, with its anonymity and hiding of the features that enable non-verbal communication is belittling to women and a barrier to understanding each other. I cannot talk deeply to someone hiding behind a barrier. I do not think it is appropriate to wear such a thing in a civilised country especially in places, such as shops, workplaces, schools, ports and courts where it is important to see expressive human features.

Burning Bushes

Seemingly the pixie spoke to Moses out of a burning bush up a mountain with nobody else around. Sounds par for the course. The bush burnt but was not devoured. I wonder if I was to pop in to my doctor and tell him I’ve just had a conversation with a supernatural being via a burning bush and no, there was no one else about to witness it, what would he say? I’m sure it would be fine. He’d put it down to stress and give me a couple of pills. He wouldn’t have me committed