It's Easter...

So that’s Easter done with thank goodness. These holy religious celebrations are not very much fun are they? At least from a ritualistic perspective. Give me a burning wicker man, a Lord of Misrule, or a bloody good Satanic orgy every time – oh and wine and beer and lots of it. Just a thimble full of wine and an ice-cream-less wafer doesn’t really do it for me.

I know, I’m shocking aren’t I? I’m surely going to Hell, where no doubt a dozen demons and devils are waiting to give me my just deserts (ice cream hopefully) - and that’s how they do it isn’t it? Promises and threats. It’s what all religions are all about. Be good and you’ll go to Heaven, you may even get a few virgins to shag when you get there, be bad and you’ll go to Hell and burn, and burn, and burn - unless of course you are a Catholic. If you are Catholic, you can do whatever you want as long as you pop into confessional and admit your sins on a weekly of fortnightly basis. Mind you, deathbed confessions are also taken (your soul may be at risk if you do not keep up repayments on your faith or other loan secured on it).  Handy that isn’t it?

I spend a lot of time thinking about religion. Maybe I feel guilty that I don’t practice one despite being Christened into the Church of England when I was so young (a baby) that I had bloody zero say in it. Of course what could be better than to be a member of a church founded by a syphilitic, womanising King who decided that he wanted to execute / divorce / send into exile his numerous wives because he liked a bit of a change? Can you really think of anything or anyone more unholy? Despite this there are a lot of people who believe in the teachings of the Church of England and will defend their right to be mediocre to the hilt. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with jam, or bring and buys, all that kneeling and standing up, and afternoon tea with the vicar, but it’s hardly a pilgrimage to Mecca is it.

Mind you it’s not just the C of E, it’s not even Christianity in all of its ridiculous forms, including the rattlesnake handlers, the Creationists, and all that wearing of hair shirts and self-flagellation in the name of God. No, all religions are a bit hit and miss aren’t they? Bonkers really.

Now, I can kind of understand how you might want to worship the sun, or the moon, or the Earth even - after all you can see them and without them you’re pretty much buggered. I can also almost understand why the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, and all the other ancient religions had loads of gods in human form to make sense of the world they lived in. But Jesus? The Bible? Let’s face it’s a bunch of stories not so very different to Grimm’s Fairy Tales. You may as well worship the seven dwarves or little mermaids – which I’m sure some sects somewhere probably do.

Of course it’s not just Christianity, it’s all of them right-on religions - Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism, Paganism, Shinto, Jainism, and all of the other four-and-a-half-thousand recognised religions to be found on this tiny planet – more if you count the ones people have tired of and no longer purposefully exist like the ancient Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Mayan, Inca, Aztec, and who knows how many others?

But ask any religious zealot, including those in the Women’s Institute, and they absolutely know that they are right and their's is the one true religion. Mrs Norma Normal doesn’t even think about what religion she might have been if she’d been born in Afghanistan, or India, or Ethiopia, or China, or Haiti. After all She’d still be Church of England, or at the very least Christian – the one true religion – wouldn’t she?

Errrrr… No!

And that, in my mind, shows just what nonsense all religions are. It’s more about geography and the community you live in, what your parents and teachers think and ram down your throat, how open to influence you are, how accepting, how gullible, how desperate to believe that there is something more than what you know and can see. Sad really, isn’t it? Your soul hanging by a thread of chance…

Now I don’t know if there is a supreme being or not. For all I know there could be thousands, tens of thousands, but not all of the religions on this planet can be the one true faith, can they? There are too many of them and some of them worship alligators. You might as well worship Disney.

Oh, you do. Well, you do have the right to decide. Anyway, that’s Easter done with, thank Whatever.