That Dark Grimoire of God

It is a book that is indeed a grimoire, a book of spells that casts a curtain of glamour upon the mind of the recipient, a pale shadow that smothers reason, throttles logic, and tosses sense to the ravening wolves. Yes: I speak of that book that I can only say with a mixture of sneer and disgust, the holy bible. Its rhetoric bewitches the believer; its intricate verbal dance that hypnotizes; the powerful lure of its false promises that elevate the follower to some mysterious higher plane of moral superiority.

Personally, I try to adhere to those Elvis Costello lyrics: "I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused." But my sense of humor seems deficient whenever I read through its pages, and my eyes start from my sockets at some new outrage, some new idiocy, and some new atrocity that defies belief.

Mine is an argument from outrage. I admit this freely, to any who would contest it. Does this detract from any of my points? No. Does this invalidate anything I may say against this demonic tome? No. And yet somehow, somewhere, some fanatic uses this as a talking point to subtract all sense from the argument.

If I were to believe in a Devil, a dark prince, a personified principle of evil made flesh, then this is his work. The savagery contained within is enough to weaken the knees of the stout, and tremble the bowels of those with intestinal fortitude.

For the acts perpetrated in its name, the pages should be made of flesh, and the ink to print it made of blood. It is falsehood made printed fact, barbarism in black and white, a specious substitute for sense, common or otherwise. Let the crimson tides recede, and sink that book within the bloody waters.

It makes of man a worm, a worthless piece of cosmic detritus. It tells man he was born defective, and can only rise above the defect by praising that which made him so insignificant, so utterly unworthy. Humanity is no Thalidomide baby, to be cured of its deformity by the laying on of abstract hands. Nor is my species beneath contempt. We can be foolish: no doubt. We can be introversive, self-absorbed to the point of asininities: no argument. We can be cruel, divisive, and there have been those among us who have been evil, this is true.

But these are problems that can be evolved beyond: these are issues that can be resolved, with work. But in no way, shape, or form, is my species beholden to some invisible being that strangely ceased to step into our affairs ever so long ago.

Part of the issue with religion of any sort, is that as herd animals, pack animals if you prefer, we have an instinctive need to belong to something larger than ourselves. But that is all it is: an instinct. All else is buffoonery; all else is detriment and detritus.

And all any one of us ever truly needs, we have within us. We have but to stop searching outside of ourselves, and do more than just glance: each of us needs to look deeply within. To rise above the knee-jerk response of reptilian ganglia, and rise above our feral instincts, and let our potential breathe freely and fulfill itself. All else is dross; all else is dreck.