Preface

 

Me again. Gremlin. Miss me? Awww....

          Okay; enough self-gratification: let’s do it.

 

I heard an amusing joke today. It goes like this....

 

An atheist is vacationing in Scotland, and sailing across Loch Ness; suddenly, the boat is launched out of the water, and the guy splashes down to see what can only be the Loch Ness Monster smashing the boat to splin­ters.

          The guy thinks quickly: there’s nothing he can do. The massive, plesiosaurian form finishes chewing up the boat and turns its leviathan head toward Our Hero here. The atheist, out of other options, begins to pray.

          ‘O lord...I’ve never believed that you exist, but...if you’re there, and if it’s not too much trou­ble...please get me the hell out of this mess.’

          The orm advances, clearly bent on eating the guy in the water.

          ‘O lord: I’m so very sorry for my entire life. Get me to safety, and...and things will change; I promise.’

          The jaws widen; the monster’s head lowers to strike.

          ‘O lord! Help me! Save me!’

          In response, a booming, divine voice an­swers, startling both the atheist and the monster: ‘But I thought you didn’t believe in me....’

          The guy looks heavenward. ‘Gimee a break: two minutes ago, I didn’t believe in the Loch Ness Monster, either!’

 

The funny thing is, while atheists absolutely exist in foxholes and rarely think to discuss an emergency with a deity before re­acting to danger, the, erm...parable you’ve just read is, ironi­cally, likely to hap­pen. That is to say that, if given incontroverti­ble proof that a god ex­isted, an atheist would believe.

          It’s never been a matter of stubborn faith in faithlessness, as a frightening number of theists would have you believe. An atheist is not one who chooses to disbelieve in an existing ele­ment. That would be denial. Or, you could be accused of athe­ism for failing to believe that the moon is made of green cheese.

          That makes sense. Until geologically recently [the last forty years or so] there was a ‘theory’ [to further misuse the word which has been bent all to hell by theists and other lay­men] that the moon was, in point of fact, green cheese. ‘Theo­ries’ suggested that the planet was a flat square at the centre of the universe. Baseless and brainless assertions, commonly ac­cused of being theories, suggested all manner of improbable possibilities.

          You can’t call any theistic proposal a theory. A theory is a possi­bility supported by evidence. Enough evidence can trans­mogrify that theory to proved fact. Or, in a number of cases, the evidence will disprove the theory; it happens.

          Evolution is a theory. To a degree, it’s a fact. Parts of the the­ory of evolution have been proved to be true. Other parts are sup­ported by evidence, though not enough evidence exists to really as­certain that it’s absolutely correct. Yet.

          Creation is not a theory. It’s certainly not a fact. It’s a baseless, brainless assertion made by people who didn’t know that the world was round or that it revolved round the sun. Creation is an obsolete excuse.

          Is evolution for real? Probably. But who cares. The rele­vant ques­tion: is creation for real. And the answer is a qualified not a chance in all hell.

          Which isn’t necessarily true, of course.

          It’s qualified. It’s supported by evidence. It’s excruciat­ingly im­probable, based on everything we’ve ever learned about nature and the world and the universe, that some weird, preter­natural thingy yarfed out humanity one day.

          Creation is not a theory. Applying theory to creation fails embar­rassingly.

          With the recent completion of the genome map, for exam­ple, new ‘theories’ are emerging regarding Eve and Adam of Eden. Some unexplained scientific process leads us to believe that these two pro­totwits had genomes far, far longer in base­pairs than modernday ho­mosapiens. It seems that a number of markers—TCells—were switched off in the successive lineage of mankind, resulting in various nationali­ties and skintones and—

          I have yet to see this ‘theory’ presented in any real scien­tific circles; it sounds more like something some nut pulled out of his ass to trick people...for a change.

          Creation is not a theory. And no religion is a science. Relig­ion and science are exactly diametrically opposite. Com­paring religion to science is comparing horseshit to horsepower.

          And that, based on evidence, is a fact.

          To say that science is fallible is true; science can be wrong; facts can be incorrect. But to say that religion is infalli­ble is a lie. Not a mistake; not a freudian slip: a lie. Religion in­vented evolution, okay? Religion mutates, and spawns similar  -yet-different organisations, and, in short, evolves. Macro­evolves, in fact: a given religion goes through more updates per century than Netscape. Every time the scientists find something new, the theists issue out a software patch: yeah, um...Adam and Eve had real long genomes, see, and, um....

          Seriously: I wouldn’t be surprised to see a church mar­quee read­ing something like THE WORLD IS BEST VIEWED WITH CHRISTIANITY6.0 OR HIGHER. Which would be cool: then I could sue them for copyright infringement >:)

          But anyway....

          If you look up atheism in a dictionary [pick one; they’re all alike] you’ll discover that an atheist is one who disbelieves in God.

          That’s critical to this.

          Disbelieves in God.

          First, and foremost: ‘god’—real or invented—is not an en­tity. It never, ever was. Keep an eye on which page you’re on [four, for those who need a little help] and close the book; look at the cover; the cover does not read Damnitology, by Novel­ist. Why not? Because novelist is an occupation. It’s not capi­talised. It typically requires an article. A novelist; the novelist. The novelist typically has a name.

          Incidentally, if a god were to exist, it could be called a novelist. Or, at least, a writer. Believe me: I play god all the time; I create peo­ple, do all sorts of weird things to them, and, in some cases, kill them. The only difference is that—to my knowledge—these characters don’t buy cigarettes with a fiver inscribed by In Gremlin We Trust.

          Then again, you never really know; they could have free will, I suppose.

          You don’t capitalise god. Well, you might; but...you’re not sup­posed to. Any more than you’re supposed to capitalise novelist or webmaster or palaeontologist or pilot. Okay: you can capitalise Pilot if it’s a pen; otherwise: forget it.

          The occupation of god is filled [according to myriad asser­tions] by a deity; for that matter, the occupation of deity is re­portedly held by a god.

          Which one? Depends who you’re asking.

          There are literally thousands of alleged deities out there. Thou­sands of religions. One of the lesser-known such doctrines is known in the vernacular as christianity. And I think you’re technically supposed to capitalise that; but I usually get that from people who capitalise both god and atheism, which sug­gests that they don’t know what should and shouldn’t be capi­talised.

          Christianity [the sentence began with it; what can I say] is a smallish doctrine which claims to worship, among other things, no gods before Yhvh. Spell and pronounce that however you like: Yhwh, Yahweh, Jehovah; it’s technically meant to be pronounced as Yahveh, I think,  though it’s generally spelled as Yhwh. I typically pronounce is as Yahveh, and spell it as Yhvh. Not that you’re supposed to be able to pronounce it at all; but then, you’re not supposed to be able to pronounce RotFL [Roll­ing on the Floor, Laughing] as rotful...yet, I do that too.

          Anyway: the xians [christians again; the X takes less char­acters to produce, saving lots and lots in printing costs, which savings we can pass on to the end user, since this para­graph would otherwise have been four characters longer than it woulda coulda shoulda been before I went off on this tolstoyan explanation of novelisation] presume for the rest of us that an atheist is that individual who makes the con­scious decision to reject the deity called Yhvh. Oh, and Yeshua. Where Yeshua—Hebrew for Joshua—has been mistranslated into Jesus. Which means that, according to the xians, you are an atheist if you’re [ahem] jewish, islam, hindu, buddhist, catholic, et cetera.

          I don’t capitalise any of these things. By the same token, I don’t capitalise nazi or pagan or satanist or republican or de­mocrat or libertarian or anarchist or communist. Or dog or cat or homosapien. Fear the logic, and repent.

          Xians [Xian is a city in China; xian was at the beginning of the sent—oh nevermind] are a tiny minority on Planet Earth. Even though the superfamily of xianity includes so many differ­ent species of twits. Even—to some degree—catholics, since catholics seem to believe in Yeshua, but have more oedipal mother-worshipping techniques. But, according to the dictionary definition of atheism, that individual who doesn’t believe in ‘God’ is, apparently, anyone who doesn’t worship Jesus Howard Christ. Howard. Jesus H. Like George W. We know it’s Howard. It’s in that prosaic little speech you hear: our lord, who aren’t in heaven: Howard be thy name. Now you know; and knowing is half the battle.

          Or something.

          Where in East Hell was I....

          Proof.

          Let’s all play on the same field here for a minute. Let’s as­sume—against all logic—that the entire universe is, in fact, created and controlled by, say, a largish jellyfish who lives pri­marily in the system of Alpha Centauri. I don’t believe that for a minute. You don’t believe that for a minute. If you do believe that—even for a minute—please send ten percent of your salary, in cash, to Gremlin, care of Wasted, Inc.....

          As for the rest of you....

          The god of the universe is an AlphaCentaurian jellyfish. So it is written and so it is so. And none of us believes it...unless that weird guy on his way to the post office with my bag of cash counts for any­thing. None of us have any reason at all to believe in a largish Alpha­Centaurian jellyfish who rules supreme over the universe. For that, we’re even.

          Now: the jellyfish notices the time, and decides to get moving. It comes to Earth and makes itself known. I am the Great and Power­ful and Largish Jellyfish of Alpha Centauri; be­hold and worship.

          Great. Some of us would go for that, of course. Look: jelly­fish; Grem was right; send him some cash. And that’s great—particularly the bit about the cash. But the rest of us might not go for it that eas­ily. We might wanna know a couple of things first. Like: why.

          Why did this jellyfish create the universe. Why has it been hid­ing nearly four and a half lightyears away for countless mil­lennia. Why did it make life so temporary, and so fragile. Why.

          We might get the answers; we might not.

          Another, and better, question: how.

          How in hell does a largish jellyfish exist in the system of Alpha Centauri. How does it create a universe. How do we know that it’s at all for real.

          That last question is, to me, the most critical. What proof can the jellyfish provide. What are its credentials. How do we know that it’s from Alpha Centauri. And, more importantly: how do we know that it created the universe, and the universe’s population.

          I won’t attempt to guess. But: if the jellyfish could effec­tively prove itself to exist, and to be the creator of the universe, then I’d be­lieve in it. That’s logic.

          I would never, ever worship it.

          Why would I? Thirty years of my life without a hint. Thirty cen­turies of history, and not a thing about the largish jellyfish of the more fashionable end of Alpha Centauri. Fuck him. Fuck the whole See You on the Week End Dad motif, okay? I mean...I’m not big on off­spring. Kids aren’t my thing. I have no desire to have any. I’m really very opposed to the idea of anything with my genome being pro­duced—migraines are he­reditary. And if such a mutant were to come into being, I wouldn’t want to know about it. You have that in writing now.

          So, if I were to learn—at any point in life—that such a mu­tant existed, the last thing I’d want to do is meet it. Seri­ously. Even if, by that point, I’d decided that I did want kids. I wouldn’t want to get in­volved with one in postproduction.

          Partly because, if the roles were reversed, I still wouldn’t want to play. If I were an orphan, and Dad showed up one day—particularly if I’d never known anything about him, or if he was still alive—I’d tell him to go directly to hell; do not pass go; do not collect two hundred dollars.

          And the same goes for our holy jellyfish here.

          Worship? Forget it. How do I know that he won’t be back in Al­pha Centauri tomorrow. Or maybe over in the Horsehead Nebula, shacking up with some waitress or showgirl. Fuck him. He wasn’t there when I could really have used him; he gets nothing from me now.

          I use the unlikely metaphor of the jellyfish to bring you into my perspective. But if you believe in Yhvh or Yeshua or Odin or Zeus or Jupiter or Ra or Cthulhu or whatever...bring them to me. Bring your god before me. Have Quetzelcoatl here explain to me all about the ar­duous process of creating and maintaining a universe, and how he just didn’t have the time, and the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon. Fuck him. Fuck Quetzelcoatl. Fuck Ra. Fuck Jupiter and Zeus and Odin. And fuck God. Yhvh, Yeshua, Jesus, Howard: fuck him. Test Job’s faith all you like, but leave me alone. I’ve never had any faith. I ha­ven’t even got a point of reference. I can’t even imagine what a god would be. And I can imagine a lot. I can imagine a jellyfish lurking about Al­pha Centauri. But I can’t imagine a deity who creates the universe and everything and everyone within its theoretical boundaries, and then disappears but still wants me to worship it—being told about it only by a huge group of idiots who can’t even agree on the simplest factors of a badly-written book called the bible.

          If a god exists: fuck him. Her. It. Them. The lot. I have better things to give a damn about.

          And if it doesn’t, as the evidence would suggest, then...fuck him anyway. Why not.

          Why not.

          Most of the people who claim to believe in a god have no idea what they’re talking about. Ask them. What do you mean by ‘god’. They won’t know. The answer is usually well...you know...god.

          To someone with no point of reference. To someone more likely to interpret the myth of a creator as a largish, AlphaCen­taurian jelly­fish than as George Burns or Charlton Heston.

          The entire issue is dicked. Religions exist. And right now there is no cure. Well...there’s things like logic and intelligence and reason­ing and pragmatism and rationale. Otherwise, we’re still looking for a vaccine.

          Religion is a disease. Like a virus. So far, I’m immune. One day a strain might evolve which could get into my system. I hope not, but I, unlike theists, can entertain possibilities which don’t fit into my phi­losophies.

          Me, I’m a realist. Call me an atheist. I’ll care when you figure out what atheist really means. What it really means is re­alist. I believe in that which is real. That which is proved real. That which is theo­rised, in some cases, to be real, based on testable evidence.

          Gods fail the evidence test. That was worked into religion early in the scheme. Faith is opposite evidence, just as religion is opposite science and assertion is opposite theory.

          In reality, there is no jellyfish in Alpha Centauri who cre­ated everything and everyone in the universe. Or, more accu­rately—and much more to the point—no evidence of such a creature has been dis­covered.

          Same for any god.

          No evidence of any god has ever been discovered.

          None.

          Not a sausage.

          Bits and pieces of stuff? Sure. Shrouds of Turin? Splinters of arks? Fine. Collect the whole set. But those artefacts are not evidence of gods; they’re evidence of clothing and of things made of wood.

          Clothing and wood exist in reality. Gods do not.

          For that, I propose that atheism is a misnomer. Because it sug­gests that theism is a logical stance. It’s not.

          Realism is a logical stance. And any deviation from real­ism—theism, JellyfishWorship, LochNessMonsterFishing, or whatever—is arealism.

 

Arealism: a-ree-al-is-m [noun gremlinism] 1. the belief in the unreal. 2. the belief in that which can­not be proved to exist. 3. a LiveAction Role­Playing game for people who have been thrown out of other LARPer ac­tivities like Dun­geons&Dragons.

 

There’s exactly one problem with that idea: it turns reality into a per­ceived doctrine.

          A couple of years ago, I wrote a News of the Stoopid [online at gremlin.net back then; now they’ve been moved over to NewsoftheStoopid.com] enti­tled—and about—Arealism. It was the same thinking: faith is required to believe in that which can’t be proved real, which makes that which requires faith unrealis­tic; untheistic, or without theism, is atheism; so, without reality, which describes that in which one can only have faith, is areal­ism.

          The arealists weren’t at all pleased by that. Not even a little bit.

          Not that I happen to care. I can live a very long time with­out the opinions of those who believe in gods and other such AlphaCen­taurian jellyfish.

          I could have stuck with arealism. I could have called this book Arealism. I didn’t. For two reasons.

          First, of course, arealism is synonymous with theism. And I didn’t want to be responsible for anything like that.

          Second...and this is absolutely stoopid....

          Atheism...where atheism is, literally, without theism...is a doc­trine. According to the JellyFishies, or JesusCrispies, or whatever these fucking people are. The current assertion [be­yond Eve and Adam the Supergenome Twins] is that it takes a level of faith to be faithless.

          I’ve heard a lot of idiotic things from theists—from areal­ists. I could document them here, but then it would make more sense to call this Arealism. Still: the brainless bullshit behind the...the...I may have to resort to a thesaurus here; I can’t think of a noun to represent bull­shit at an even lower level of prevaracative intestinal torofaecal by­products. I mean...c’mon...‘atheism is a type of theism’ is exactly as logical an argument as ‘cats are a breed of dog’.

          Atheism is, by definition, and by simple etymology, a lack of relig­ion. If you can’t grok that, feel free to kill yourself right now; be­cause you never know when someone’s going to expect you to under­stand that the green light means Fucking Go.

          Sorry: I didn’t get the greenlight/redlight rage out of my sys­tem back in NotS...and you people sure as all hell haven’t actually caught on that I meant it yet....

          Atheism, obviously, is not a religion. It’s not even an an­tire­ligion. It’s a very simple lack of religion. Very simple. Very, very sim­ple.

          Stare at it for a bit; maybe you’ll fucking get it.

          Maybe not.

          So I received this information, and nearly went off on that fifty-state killing spree I always think I shoulda gone off on when I, in­stead, go to the fucking Catskills to relax. But I didn’t. I stopped, just as I was loading the last fifty-round Uzi maga­zine [at cyclic rate, they spit out eleven rounds per second; I laugh at films in which someone holds the trigger down for ten or fifteen seconds without running dry of bullets], and thought about it.

          A religion.

          Something—some forgotten coffeechick in the back of my mind [that doesn’t sound schizophrenic, does it]—looked up re­ligion.

 

Religion: re-li-jin [noun gremlinism] 1. the psy­chologi­cal crutch of the criminally retarded. 2. money for noth­ing.

 

And that got me thinking.

          What if—and Man this is kooky—what if I created my own relig­ion. What if I set up an actual religion, but gave it my own rules. As long as I stay the bloody fuck away from Waco and the BATF, I’m probably just fine.

          So: damnitology.

          It’s exactly what it sounds like: damnitall.

          The hell with it; fuck it; who cares anymore: damnitall.

          Damnitology.

          So. I create this goofy fucking religion, which worships abso­lutely nothing, which has no gods at all, and get the bene­fits that these other fuckers have been hiding behind for centu­ries.

          Where do I fucking sign....

          Seriously: I’m there, Dude. I’m excited to be a part of this. I’m going to do exactly what I’ve always done—insult the twits who believe in and worship deities, stay out all night, avoid taxes—and...well, really, nothing much will change for me. But, I’ll have the support of the Theocratic States of Duhmerica, whose congress shall pass no law regarding an establishment of religion.

          Congress shall pass no law regarding damnitology.

          The science of damning it all.

          Not a true science; I’m not sure how you’d get a PhD in damnitol­ogy; I probably can’t get damnitology.edu; but: it’s the sci­ence of damning it all. Because it’s a religion. And there are no laws in effect against it. And no laws can be passed regard­ing it.

          Atheism is a religion. Cats are dogs. Damnitology emerges into a stoopid, stoopid world....