Yes! I’ve just completed the first rewrite of my new Sci-fi novel Judgement.
The aliens are coming and they are about to assess whether we are worthy or not!
77,200 words over 155 pages. They are hovering above us and studying what we are doing. They are recording what they see – the wars, the violence, the inequality, corruption and cruelty. They see the tribalism of nations and divisions in religion. They are assessing how we are treating each other and life on this planet of ours. Are we good custodians? They are weighing the bad stuff with the good. They like our creativity but does it make up for all the nasty stuff? The Judge is arriving soon. The judgement will begin.
I’m starting the editing process now. I may be a while! Talk among yourselves.
As long as someone doesn’t hurt others or attempt to thrust their views on others I’m OK. If someone wants to change gender, be gay or indulge in mutually pleasurable perversions in the privacy of their own home why should that offend me?
I’m more concerned with people brainwashing kids.
Right now the GOP has transformed from a legitimate political party with conservative values into a ranting fascist cult spouting lies, conspiracy and tribal nonsense. MAGA is illogical and extreme. How did fascism ever become mainstream??
If religion solved anything we wouldn’t be stuck in endless religious wars and persecution! If it’s not Muslim against Jew, Muslim against Christian, Hindu against Muslim and on and on and on – it’s Catholic against Protestant, Shia against Sunni and religious against Atheist. A world of atrocities in the name of religion!
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?’
We’d all come back from a walk through England’s glorious countryside, over the green, rolling hills of the Southern Downs, trailing along a river bank swathed in a mass of wild flowers through which the butterflies danced, and bees busily droned from blossom to blossom. We’d wandered lazily through a hot morning with the sun scorching our faces under unremitting blue sky – four old friends together.
Nothing could be more delightful than the perfect English summer day when it happened. You could not count on it to happen too often in such an unpredictable climate. We’d found a picnic bench outside a pub overlooking the old weathered rock walls of a mediaeval castle and basked in the weather and company, swigging a cool beer, idly talking, laughing lots and picking at a pub meal.
Throughout the entire walk we’d been catching up on news, reminiscing and sharing views. That’s what old friends did. I’d outlined my thoughts on my book. Writing was one of my passions. It infuriated Liz. She saw it as one of my obsessions. Something else I wasted endless hours on. She despaired over the way I could not relax and live in the moment. Even on a beautiful day, walking through the most beautiful scenery, my mind was flitting through the interior of my head while the world slipped by. I only had to have an audience, and I could not help but let fly, and allow all that storm of pent-up ideas to gush out. Kathy and Tobes had made the mistake of appearing to listen. It seemed to me that they liked the idea but saw nothing original about it. In their view it had been done to death. Nobody would be interested. But it had caught their imagination to an extent, more than most of my fanciful literary concoctions.
Kathy and I were sitting in the front room, on the floor, our backs against the sofa, a glass of merlot in one hand. We were passing a spliff back and forth, contemplating infinity and arguing about religion. Standard practice for a Sunday afternoon.
‘So what would you say to some evangelical redneck who believed the world was formed by god only four thousand years ago?’ She peered at me with a cheeky, quizzical look, daring me to rise to it. ‘You know, Oph, some brainwashed American, brought up in the Deep South who was taught that every word of the bible was the absolute word of god, huh Oph?’
I chuckled. Kathy was wearing her most innocent expression, challenging me to put my mouth where my words were. As a self-confessed atheist it was a justifiable question to put, a typical Kathy question. Would I dare to answer back, to argue with a big rowdy devout evangelist, or would I simply keep my head down? I didn’t know. I guess it depended on his size and belligerence.
Kathy enjoyed provoking. She spent time trawling YouTube for the little extracts by Chomsky, Hitchins and the like. She loved their sharp wit, expert put-downs and the brilliance of their intellect. Compared to such exalted company it was no wonder that Kathy was sceptical about the extent of my knowledge and ability to put together a coherent argument. But, after all, I’d asked for it. Over the course of the day I’d been discussing my idea of writing an antitheist’s bible, and yes, perhaps pontificating about my frustration with religion.
Through this phase of my life I’d become increasingly angered by the extent that organised religion intruded into the world and dictated what went on. I was dismayed by the malleability of ordinary people, even the more intelligent. They all seemed so gullible. The world was full of religious absurdities. There were people with strange hanks of hair, strange hats, strange gowns, strange accoutrements, bizarre hairstyles, weird practices, obscene veils, and the full range of idiosyncratic genuflections and intricate daily routines. All of which, as diverse from each other as they were, were considered to be dictated directly by the word of god. They couldn’t all be right could they? Even a fool could see that.
Yet all the adherents were vehemently adamant that they were the one and only true chosen people who god chose to speak to and that the others were intolerable blasphemers who deserved death and torture for not recognising this fact.
It did not take huge intellect to see these absurdities for what they were. The sight of these extreme religious behaviours would be hugely funny if it wasn’t for the fact that all these religious groups seemed intent on imposing these ridiculous dogmas on everyone else and were prepared to bomb, torture and destroy everything to achieve this end. The waves of terrorism, jihad and retaliatory wars were horrendous, utterly horrendous – all directly or indirectly due to religion.
Behind this practice of ordinary believers was the power struggle of the manipulators; the leaders that used the institutions to feather their own nests and achieve their own agendas. The history of religion, right up to the present day, was strewn with examples of power-mad tyrants using religion to achieve their ends. I railed against it. I thought of myself as a tolerant person but, there again.
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.
I found it fascinating to watch the zealots following the rules.
This human need to believe in gods goes way back into our primitive past. The tribal elements are manifest. We commit so much of our time, wealth and emotional state into these religious systems.
Just think if all that time, energy and money had been directed to say – removing poverty or green issues.
I saw lots of fervent belief or display. I didn’t see god anywhere.
