Godless And Free (11 page)

31.
Pimping for Jesus

December 18, 2007

We’ve been following the American election campaign quite closely in the United Kingdom, mainly because our country has been acting like the fifty-first state for so long that he kind of feels like our president too now, God help us.

And of course we realise that this is a very important choice, not just for Americans, but for everybody on the planet. This is not the sort of job you can stroll into with your head up your ass hoping for a major atrocity to give you an excuse to attack a country that had nothing to do with it. That’s not going to happen – any more.

I suppose it was inevitable that the Republican campaign would degenerate at some point into an unsavoury squabble about who is a bigger pimp for Jesus, because two of the candidates, Mr Huckabee and Mr Romney, have realised that the evangelical lobby is still there waiting for somebody it can call its own; still waiting for that special someone who will actually do something about the rapture.

So they’ve both decided to run on the ‘theo-democracy’ ticket. This is a new word, theo-democracy, which has been coined as a euphemism for what might be more honestly described as the Christian jackboot.

A society ruled by Christian values is what they want. Not the values of Christ. No, the values of Christians. Yes, I can almost hear that shiver running down your spine from here.

To this end, Mr Romney has been very keen to reach out to the evangelicals, but because he’s a Mormon they’re not sure they can trust him yet. They’re thinking: “This guy might be crazy. Let’s hope he is so we can vote for him.”

He’s a member of a bizarre sect that believes an angel turned up about 180 years ago with some gold plates, and as a result of this thell have to wear special underwear. I don’t know whether that would be considered crazy enough, but if not, he also said recently that freedom requires religion, which I think pushes him way over the line, because freedom requires religion like a slug requires salt.

When you embrace religion you give up your freedom; that’s the deal. You submit.

And it’s why you need faith, because there’s no rational reason for you to submit, so you have to talk yourself into it. That’s what faith is.

Mormonism is not a high profile religion here in the UK. In fact I didn’t even know about the special underwear until just this week. I suppose I’ve always regarded Mormons, I dunno, a bit like Jehovah’s Witnesses. The kind of people who, when they knock on your door, you don’t want to be rude, but you don’t want to be polite either.

So when I first heard that there might actually be a Mormon president, I was a little surprised of course, but then I thought: Why not? America is a very egalitarian society. Why not a Mormon? Indeed, why not a Jehovah’s Witness? What the hell, why not go all the way and elect a Scientologist? Anything but an atheist. Because atheists are the enemies of freedom, and a threat to the American way of life, according to Mr Romney.

In fact, I’m just wondering now how long it’s going to be before somebody actually uses the phrase: “War on atheism”, because I think you’d get quite quite a number of people signing up to that one in the name of religious freedom.

I get e-mails from people who live in the Bible Belt and who tell me they’re afraid to go public as atheists because they think it would affect the family business if people knew they didn’t believe in God. Is this the kind of religious freedom America is so proud of? Praise the Lord, or else?

And they always dress it up, too, in such a nice little package, as if Christianity equals patriotism. This is a peculiarly American idea. This is not something I’ve ever seen anywhere else, this notion that Christianity and patriotism are somehow connected, when the truth is American Christians are the last people that you would call patriotic, because they worship a foreign god.

I mean if you’re going to worship a god, at least make it a North American one – there must be hundreds to choose from. Show a little loyalty to the land of your birth, people. No wonder you’re losing the plot. Your religion has no roots. You’re praising the wrong Lord.

Mind you, here in Europe we can’t really criticise, because we’re just as bad. I’ve always found it quite odd that we revere the ancient Greeks for their great discoveries in science and philosophy, and yet we dismiss their religion as fantasy, while embracing the religion of a culture that could barely rub two sticks together to make fire.

If only we had gone with the more civilised Greeks, who knows where we might be today? Actually we’d probably be be blaming Pandora for all our troubles on earth instead of Adam and Eve, and creationists would be forcing children to believe that the world came out of an egg laid by a giant black-winged bird. There but for Genesis, and the god of the desert, because that’s the god we chose for ourselves, for reasons best known to ourselves.

And withis god there is no dialogue, hence there is no freedom, because with this god you obey or you perish. That’s the arrangement. Submit or be damned. On your knees or be tortured forever you miserable sinner who’ll never be worthy enough and whose soul will never be pure enough, but God loves you anyway, you worthless piece of crap.

Who wouldn’t be seduced by such blandishments?

Who wouldn’t want to prostrate themselves in humble gratitude?

Well me, actually, for one, thanks all the same. Because religion has had thousands of years to make a convincing case for itself, and yet this is the kind of thing it still has to resort to; crude coercion and childish threats of eternal punishment.

And as for all this talk about freedom and religion, the one thing we never hear about is freedom from religion, and I think this is the most important thing of all, because Mr Romney wouldn’t even be a Mormon today if he hadn’t been raised that way. He’d be wearing regular underpants like everybody else.

But he was brainwashed into it as a child. He was hypnotised into it as a child. And now, despite his obvious intelligence, he’s clearly unable to shake it off, even though it’s a hindrance to him in what he’s now trying to achieve.

Far from being free, he’s a slave to the childhood programming that keeps this mind virus alive generation after generation. And there’s nothing he can do about it, even though he must know in his heart that this is the one thing that’s likely to keep him out of the White House. Oh well, never mind. He’ll always have Jesus.

Peace to everyone, especially to atheists, and other crazy un-American freedom-mongers.

32.
Partying with Baby Jesus

December 24, 2007

Hi everyone. I’ve been asked by a number of people whether I celebrate Christmas. Well, of course I do. I celebrate every day I’m alive, quite frankly, and I find I’m particularly alive at Christmas.

So if your Christmas is anything like mine it will probably be a traditional family occasion of gluttony, drunkenness, long-held resentments bubbling to the surface, and fistfights over the dinner table. We usually book the ambulance for about six o’clock.

No, not really. Christmas is a time of peace and goodwill; everybody knows that. And it’s also a time to celebrate the miraculous birth of Little Baby Jesus. And one thing Christmas has always done for me is it always reminds me that there are actually two separate versions of Jesus – the adult Jesus, obviously, with the beard and sandals who was murdered by the Jews, and Baby Jesus.

I’ve never connected those in my mind as being the same person. They’ve always been completely separate entities to me. I never look at Baby Jesus in the crib and think: “Ah yes, I can see the resemblance.” It wouldn’t even occur to me (although it probably will now).

We actually have a little model Nativity scene in our house this Christmas, as we do every Christmas, ostensibly for the children, but really it’s for everyone, because Christmas is for everyone.

Why do we have it? Well, for the same reason that we have a Christmas tree and fairy lights and tinsel and crackers and paper hats. Because it’s fun.

To me, the Christmas story has always been a charming folk tale. I’ve never really connected it with religion in the sense that I’ve never associated it with sin or guilt or burning in eternal hellfire, which means I’m usually in a pretty good mood and ready to celebrate. But that doesn’t mean I actually believe the story is true, any more than somebody who celebrates Halloween believes that witches really fly around on broomsticks, but it doesn’t stop them from having fun with the idea.

Christmas was a folk festival long before Christianity ever got hold of it, and it will be long after Christianity’s bony fingers have been prised off it, because newsflash for Christians – nailing your deity’s name to a festival doesn’t make it yours, I’m afraid. It’s still all about the solstice. It’s all about the rebirth of the sun. No, not the son of God, the regular sun.

It’s a celebration of the life force, something that Christianity wouldn’t really know very much about, because the only thing it celebrates is death.

All the supposed benefits of Christianity accrue after death, not before. Life is a penance to be endured, not lived – unless you’re a televangelist with a million dollar mansion and a couple of Cadillacs, or a senior clergyman who happens to live in a palace, or two.

But the actual Nativity itself is an iconic scene which, of course, is instantly recognisable. A baby born in a stable, well that can only mean one thing. You never look at that scene and think to yourself: “I wonder if that’s Baby Jesus there, or one of the many other babies known for being born in stables.”

But, you know, it might not be a bad idea once in a while, because the Christmas story is by no means exclusive to Jesus. It was told and retold many times over the centuries long before Jesus was ever even thought of.

To the ancient Egyptians, Isis was the mother of God, and each midwinter they depicted her in a stable nursing a child that she had, guess what, miraculously conceived. And all this a couple of thousand years before Jesus. But there’s no reason for that to spoil the party, because it’s a folk tale, and they’re meant to be reused and retold. It’s all part of the magic. And, well, Christmas is a time for magic, and that’s why, even though I don’t believe in Santa Claus, I would never tell a child that there’s no Santa Claus.

If I was going to tell them the blunt truth about anything I’d probably tell them that there’s no Jesus – or if there is, his image rights have been hijacked by the forces of evil, and he now works directly for Satan, doing his best to keep us fearful and ignorant, making us feel less worthy than we really are, and emotionally crippling us with guilt for crimes that we had nothing to do with. Doesn’t that sound like the work of Satan?

Not that I really believe in Satan, by the way, I should emphasise that. But then we all know you don’t actually have to believe in a thing for it to be a part of your life whether you like it or not, so in that sense I knoe exists, and I also know the holy scriptures will back me up on that, which gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling all over, and isn’t that really what Christmas is all about?

Well, that’s enough from me. I want to wish everybody a merry Christmas, and I want to wish you what I wish for myself, which is of course peace, and may all your Christmases be godless and free.

33.
Hook, Line and Rapture

January 8, 2008

Hi everyone. We all know that it doesn’t have to make sense to make dollars and cents, and nobody knows this better than Mr Pat Robertson, the well-known televangelist, who for a while now has been broadcasting to Britain his familiar Christian message: Send us your money in Jesus’ name.

With a personal fortune estimated at between two hundred million and one billion dollars, this guy wants you to send your money to help him do God’s work. And no, he’s not joking.

I understand that Mr Robertson doesn’t particularly like to be called a televangelist, although when you consider some of the names he could be called I think he’s getting away quite lightly with televangelist, don’t you?

You may remember seeing him on television shortly after 9/11 agreeing with Jerry Falwell that the attack was caused by abortionists and lesbians, among others.

Or perhaps you saw him publicly urge the assassination of the Venezuelan president, and although I’m sure we’d all agree that Mr Chavez has his faults, surely anyone that Pat Robertson wants dead can’t be all bad.

But this is the kind of individual we’re talking about, a real man of Christ, and a former Republican presidential candidate, too, as so many men of Christ seem to be these days.

But Mr Robertson is not just an ordinary religious wacko. To call him that would be to do him an injustice, because he’s a very special kind of wacko.

Once a year he goes away to a prayer retreat where he talks to God, and yes, you’ve guessed it, God talks back to him.

Now there was a time when this kind of thing would have been regarded as schizophrenia. I dunno, I guess I’m just old fashioned that way. But this is what he does, he gets these messages from God which he then passes on to the lucky viewers of his television show. A bit like Moses coming down from the mountain, I suppose, because this guy obviously wants to be a prophet so bad, I wonder if he walks around at home dressed up in a bedsheet and talking Aramaic, maybe parting the waters in the bathtub occasionally just to keep in practice.

Last year’s message from God was actually quite a serious one. It was a prediction by God that America would suffer a major atrocity in 2007, and he didn’t mean that Fox News would be starting up a new channel.

No, it would be terrorism, but not intellectual terrorism.

And it might be nuclear. Or maybe even nucular, depending on your IQ.

Well, here we are in 2008 and of course we’re all delighted that nothing like this has happened. I guess the abortionists and lesbians just couldn’t get their act together this time around.

But it does beg a rather important question, and that is: If God got this prediction wrong, does this mean that God is fallible, or is he a liar? Because either one would render him imperfect, which is of course impossible, so we’re left to conclude, however uncomfortably, that it’s Mr Robertson himself who is either lying or delusional, or maybe even both. Because, you see, I happen to know for a fact that God does not exist, because he came to me recently in a dream and told me so.

Oh yes. You believe in divine revelation, don’t you? Because I certainly do, now.

Initially I was sceptical. Surprisingly, I even heard myself saying: “But God, if you don’t exist, how come you’re talking to me now?”

And he said: “This is a dream, you prick.”

Well, I couldn’t argue with that, obviously. So I said: “Fair enough, but do you think I could at least have it in writing?”

He said: “Yeah, why not? You can take this copy of the Bible.”

I said: “What Bible? That’s just a blank piece of paper.”

He said: “This is the non-fiction version.”

And this is a true story, by the way. I know some of you are going to be sceptical about this, but please let me assure you that this is absolutely true. Well, when I say it’s true, it’s not true in the literal sense, obviously, but it would be if it were, which is, I think, the most important thing.

It is true in another sense, in what we call the biblical sense. In other words it’s fantastically improbable and impossible to verify, so naturally I intend to live my life henceforth in strict accordance with it to the detriment of everyone around me, and I’d like everyone to respect that.

I’d also like to preach this message high and low throughout the land to everyone who wants to hear it, and to everyone who doesn’t. And I’d like to continue preaching it at them over and over again whether they like it or not.

I’d like to raise large amounts of revenue on the back of this activity, on which I would like to pay no tax.

I’d like to see my views forced into the educational curriculum, disproportionately represented in the law of the land, and displayed prominently outside every court house, if that’s not too much trouble.

And if anyone would like to join my organisation, because it will be an organisation by this stage, it will only cost them ten percent of everything they earn for the rest of their life.

Praise the Lord, brothers and sisters, for he has revealed the truth to me, that he is a figment of our imagination, and furthermore that Christianity is nothing but a primitive death cult masquerading as a religion.

Everything about Christnity is stolen from earlier cultures, earlier belief systems. Nothing about it is real, except for its obsession with death. Christianity worships death as the ultimate sacrament. It revels in death. You might as well have death up there on the altar grinning down at you like a Halloween pumpkin, because that’s what you’re celebrating, not life. You could say that Christianity makes death worth living, which I think makes it the greatest con trick that’s ever been perpetrated on mankind, and there have been a few.

And like all great cons, the sucker still thinks he’s going to take the big prize even while he’s standing there with his dick in his hand. Which is why there are Christians on this planet who have bought into this cult of death so completely that they actually want this world to end. They welcome things like global warming as a sign of approaching end times. Whenever there’s a natural disaster they sing hallelujah. They literally can’t wait to die.

And in the meantime, millionaire men of Christ like Mr Robertson will be on hand to pray for their gullible souls all the way to the bank. Everyone’s a winner.

Peace, and a happy rapture to one and all.