Most days, if you ask me about God, I'll tell you I'm an Atheist. If pressed, I'll explain what that actually means: Atheism is not a statement of belief in any concept or set of principles. It is not a religion or an ideology. Atheists are not a group in any conventional sense. Atheism refers simply to the rejection of a single proposition; the only thing that any two or more Atheists have in common as Atheists is that they do not believe in God. That's all. There are no other opinions or beliefs automatically appending to that statement of disbelief.

If you're really keen, you might draw me into discussion of metaphysics to try and arrive at a definition of God that I might possibly concede. Be warned; I have this argument ten million times, it is always the same, I have been over every twist and turn of it at such great length already. I will now simply call your religion on the most obviously absurd articles of your chosen faith.

Creationism is dumb. That's it. That's the argument. I'll sit here and talk Bible with you for hours because I'm fascinated by mythology. It's actually far more valuable as mythology than you would have it be as literal truth. Thinking that it is literally true is dumb. The story begins with a talking snake. There. Done. Norse Creationism begins with a cow and a magic squirrel. That's the debate, done, move on. That is all you will get on that or any similarly dumb religious notion.

But that's on most days. Some days, the mischief will take me to tell you I believe in Cthullhu. I will seriously try to sell this to you as an alternate and indeed superior religion than whatever it is you're trying to sell me.

Great Cthullhu is the only honest god in town, and He is infinitely better than Yahweh. Cthullhu does not pretend to care about you. He is not nearly so insecure as to keep tabs on the entire human race, and personally consign each and every human who speaks against Him to writhe in everlasting fire. Cthullhu, as one reasonably expect of an ageless all-powerful horror from the depths of primeval nightmare, is not nearly so insecure.

Cthullhu, if you or I were to come even momentarily to His attention, would not even trouble to think about devouring us with His monstrous tentacles. Long before He even bothered to move, our minds and souls would have been flayed by the mere passing of His attention over us. By the time he actually ate you, the gibbering mindless ruin that eventually reached His evil maw would be beyond even noticing that it's awful existence would be mercifully brief.

So it is fortunate for us that Cthullhu sleeps in His sunken city of R'lyeh, awaiting the realigment of the stars when He shall rise and walk the Earth once more. On that day all human works will be destroyed, for at the mere awakening of The Great Old One, mankind will go mad and consume the Earth in an orgy of joyous slaughter. All who actually behold Cthullhu will be psychically destroyed by His mere presence, while all who cross His path will be devoured en mass by His monstrous tentacled maw, as previously mentioned.

Some humans would also probably be stepped on. Only those who know of and are prepared for His coming will be spared the absolute worst horrors, for it is better to be flayed swiftly mind, body and soul by the evil favour of His awful countenance than to linger on in the living hell on Earth will.

I tried recently to convince my mum of using this approach against Jehovah's Witnesses. She's too inclined to be nice, and they of course take advantage. She won't tell 'em she worships Satan, which would work to get rid of them (JWs are extremely gullible and will believe anything of non-believers, try it sometime).

Indeed, on a point by point comparison, Cthullhu is a better God than Yahweh in every way you might care to define.

“God Loves You”... Yeah, like an enraged, abusive parent. He's actually on record as saying “I will make you eat your children!” Yup, that's what I want in a loving father. My next door neighbour screams things like that at her kid. But apply Yahweh's standard of parental care, and the woman's a saint. God just lost, in case you weren't watching: Being God does not make it okay to throw screaming tantrums for which a human on a human scale would have their kids taken away.

Cthullhu, as defined, does not pretend to love you. None of that bullshit. No guilt complex, no Original Sin, no pernicious, soul-destroying, mind-crushing, dogmatic control system crippling your intellect and emotions all your living days. Nope. Just the distant fear that one day your evil God might actually appear.

“God is good...” No He isn't, and I'll leave it to a better man than I to explain: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” - Richard Dawkins.

Cthullhu is evil and does not deny it. He doesn't even comprehend it. It would be like an ant accusing you of evildoing; it wouldn't make any sense. Here we have an honest god for an honest religion, exponentially the more because: Cthullhu doesn't exist. Neither does Yahweh. It's all nonsensical bollox. If you're tempted to take up religion, choose one that's useful to your daily life, rather than a load of idiotic Bronze Age superstitions devised by people who thought Pi=3.

To help prospective cultists along, I'll leave you with the traditional invocation of Cthullhu, “Ia Cthullhu, Ia F'tagn, Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh wgah'nagl fhtagn!”

And this link to one of the many hymns online glorifying our evil master:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptP0OR-e7rI

Until the next time: Choose Cthullhu =)

I hate it here.

Seriously. This planet is hell.

So far I've only found two ways to mitigate the suffering: First, hiding. The smaller the space the better, nothing bigger than a small flat. Preferably smaller. Somewhere high up, where a chap can peek out suspiciously at the hateful world. Going outside is to be attempted only after long planning, properly equipped and fully armoured. For sleep, an even smaller space is needed. Something about the size of a coffin.

The second way is to get as much visible distance between me and any other human. This requires being outside, in the woods, camping. So I'm not agoraphobic. “Phobic” implies fear, unconquerable, unreasoning fear akin to the terror of some ancient otherworldly tentacled fiend manifesting through your dreaming mind to devour your eyeballs from the inside and then wear your skin like a coat, all the while preserving your shredded, screaming psyche in a nightmare state of consciousness neither alive nor dead.

Going outside doesn't make me feel like that. I'm not afraid of the big wide world. I'm not a timid person: I'm an angry one. It doesn't show, I keep a lid on it. But really I'm a seething pressure-cooker of radioactive fury quivering for release. Seriously, I can boil water with the pure power of my rage. I just glare at the pan and... well, I haven't owned a kettle in years.

Blogging is a completely insufficient outlet for my rage. The copious drinking of tea and smoking of many cigarettes (lit by the slightest enraged inbreath of my contained fury), are the only things that help. And meditating. Lots of meditating. Calmly. Under trees. Perhaps smiling faintly at the zen wossname of the nirvana thingy. That helps a lot.

What I'm really trying articulate is that I have no particular focus for this blog other than to rant angrily in a sustainably amusing manner about things that annoy me. I'm starting on a broad canvas with “I hate everything” and focussing in from there. It's a blog about misanthropy. General hatred of humanity, as a spiritual position and potentially a political force for the greater good.

The first proposition is that “Everybody Is A Bastard”. Everybody. Misanthropes know that they're bastards too. But it's okay. It's alright to be a bastard. The question is, what kind of bastard are you? It's not okay to be a lying bastard, for example, or a thieving bastard, or... well you see where I'm going there.

Other worldviews reluctantly admit the need for incrementally sterner measures against persistent problems in human society. Misanthropes address this from entirely the opposite perspective; let's pick some problems and run through the solution.

We've been Saving The Rainforest for at least twenty years, but we're also still burning thousands of acres of it a year for beef grazing. The conservationists, for all their multi-million pound worldwide fundraising network, can't afford to buy enough rainforest to preserve an area worth spit. Now, if I'd been in charge of a job and given untold millions to fix it, I'd expect to have some serious questions asked if it still needed doing two decades later.

So here's a solution: These people trashing the rainforest are greedy, malevolent bastards. Peaceful means aren't working. Let's hire mercenaries. What? It works for animal conservation; we hire “game wardens” to shoot poachers in Africa. Doesn't solve the problem but it thins the bastards out while simultaneously giving a boost to the local economy. So let's just hire mercenaries to carve out a protected area of the rainforest. Nothing like an actual armed conflict to bring world attention to an issue.

How about those adverts begging for money for Africa? Hasn't that campaign to dig wells been running over ten years now? Call me a bastard, but I smell a rat; let's do some numbers here... there is probably no way of knowing precisely how many villages there are on the entire African continent. Nevertheless, it is a finite number. Therefore, there's a finite number of pickaxes, spades, and booklets of instructions needed to provide every village with the kit and knowhow to dig their own damn well. And there's a finite amount of time that it would take for a finite fleet of trucks to trundle all over Africa, delivering these things to every village on the continent.

As with the rainforest, one would think that by now, we'd have seen some improvement in the ratio of wells to villages in Africa. But we haven't. I suspect that the money doesn't go on picks and shovels; I think it goes rather to local warlords and corrupt officials. I further suspect that the people who pay this money over, the charity people who spend so much more money guilt-tripping us to keep bankrolling them, know perfectly well that our money goes to corruption and murder. At least, I'm sure they've worked it out by now.

So here's a solution; instead of asking for money, ask people to donate stuff. In particular, picks and shovels. I'm sure any charity able to afford TV spots and massive junk-mail shots can arrange a run of well-digging how-to booklets.

We arrive at these elegantly simple solutions through misanthropy; there is wisdom in the universal hatred of mankind. Drought in Africa? You people don't need handouts, you need digging implements. Weapons down, stop your whining, shut up and dig. To get there though, we first have to confront the bastards currently mismanaging the job: the charities. It's long overdue that we acknowledge that the people who undertook to trade on our collective guilt are not holding up their end of the bargain. They are, in fact, greedy, conniving, two-faced heartless bastards of the foulest water. Only a minute portion of the money they raise even reaches the corrupt officials and warlords of Africa; most of the money goes straight back into supporting the ever-expanding fundraising machine.

Billboards, mail-shots, TV adverts... an endless bombardment of wan, starving children and emaciated dusty people... I suddenly realise that I don't even know for sure if there even are starving children in Africa. I know various tribes occasionally slaughter each other, but I'm fairly sure that Egypt, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Congo, and goodness knows how many other African countries routinely appear on the news with stable government, a growing economy, cities, schools, electricity, cars, and all the other trappings of functional society. Everything is bit sun-bleached and dusty, but there are plenty of people in Africa who are not only not starving, but also not at war and indeed gradually doing better day by day. This would appear to be by their own efforts, since the charities focus their attention on the remote wilderness disasters.

Not that these things don't happen, but I've never heard of one being fixed. What about that famine in Ethiopia? Or indeed in Somalia? What happened, did they get food, did they all just leave, or what? We see all these pictures of starving people slumped waiting to die, but really; how many people actually just sat in the desert and died? And what were the charity people doing all this time? Didn't they have time to bring in food or move people out and get their pictures? I suspect perhaps the pictures were what they were after.

I offered to volunteer abroad once. What, you thought I got so cynical just sitting in here all alone? Why do you think I sit in here? I've been out there, man, I've done things, I've seen how shitty it all is, that's why I hate it and all of you so very much.

One thing I did was try to volunteer for charity work abroad. Volunteer. The point being I give my time and labour; that is my charitable contribution. I'm sure it's a life-enriching experience, but I call that a perfectly fair reward; we're not talking about a holiday here, we're talking about leaving the prosperous and comfortable West, and going to some dusty impoverished hell-hole to do menial labour that all the world's charitable contributions can't seem to find money to pay for.

I thought it a bit damn cheeky, therefore, that they expect volunteers to pay their own way all the way. You know, I don't actually need a charity backing me if that's the deal. Yes, I'd like to see the Himalayas, and working for free among starving yak-herders seems fair enough if I can get a lift out there with bed and board provided. I mean really, even Mexican melon pickers working illegally get a lift in and out of work; some of 'em get accommodation on site and some even get paid! That's actually a better deal than a charity volunteer gets; I'd go for it, but I don't want to see Mexico quite that much.

So yeah; another exciting instalment of “Why I Hate You All So Very Much”, one bastard to the whole bastard bunch of you out there; TTFN.

Monobloguality

Time to write another blog... Oh God I hate this. Alright, I can do this, deep breaths... Right, c'mere, it's blogging time! I'm gonna blog you so hard, yeah! You're gonna know you've been blogged, I'm gonna blow my blog all over your breakfast, rarrgh!

...This isn't working for you either is it? It was the breakfast thing, right? Sorry, I kinda thought we could just blog and then I'd sneak off and never call you, y'know. Nothing personal, I just needed a good blogging and you looked, well... easy. Tell you what, let's blog anyway, then we'll do breakfast and I'll promise to call you, and you can pretend to believe me even though we both know I'm lying and we're both just being nice about it.

If it's any consolation, I do feel a bit mean, blogging you over like this. The guilt is probably why I'm even trying to explain. The guilt and the drink. I can't blog sober, see, it's just too horrible. All the past blogging comes back in flashes, that awful trauma of pay-per-click left me scarred, it's not my fault the drinking developed into a blogging problem! I really hate blogging, I just do it because it's the thing, y'know? Everyone else does it these days. I mean, we might as well blog, because if we don't I'll just have to tell everyone we did anyway. C'mon, let me blog you, baby, we both know you'll love it.

What, you want commitment? Like I have to write you a whole novel before you'll jump in my blog? That makes no sense; you should sample the quick blog first, then come back for a long slow novel if I'm your thing, babe. Babe? Honey?

Aw c'mon, you're making my blog ache here! Can't I even get a hand blog? (Is that too cheap? That's too cheap. That's scraping the bottom of the barrel, that is.) C'mon, just hold my blog for a bit, I won't even wiggle it. No? Oh well. Just me here now? Monobloguality; if it's worth blogging, blog it yourself.

Blogiarism

I hate blogging. Even the word irritates me. Blog. Blogging. Blogger. Bloggity-blog-blog-blog. I can never think of anything to say. If I copy someone else's blog, would it be blogiarism? There are about a billion new blogs a minute... What would you call a group of blogs? A flog of blogs? (From “Flock” and “blog” - the alternative was “block”, which was even less funny.)

What could I blog about? Writing. Martial Arts. Mythology. The dystopian future stretching before humanity. I do like mythology. I also like cynical dystopian musing. Not always. I sometimes cherish the warm idea that humanity might one day attain a perfect society where all disputes are settled by nunchuks duelling. I believe peace and harmony would immediately ensue; it is impossible for two people to fight with nunchuks without both of them ending up in hospital.

Another utopian dream I have is of a society based on intelligence. Instead of ID cards, IQ cards. The law code would be proscribed by IQ; the smarter you are, the less supervision society assumes you need. If the police are called because someone is walking on the railway lines, they ask him “What's your IQ?” If it's over, say, 120, the bloke can carry on; if under 80, the police take him away and keep him at the station until a responsible adult takes charge of him.

I can imagine far worse ways to order society. Basing society on the greed motive, that'd be a disaster. I mean, who, just for starters, would even think it? What sort of evil bastard would conceive such a plan, to convince the rest of the species that greed was a-ok? And who in their right mind would agree to that proposition?

And yet... only last week, I saw a politician on the news defending the arms trade. Seriously. He actually said that it was perfectly legitimate to make a profit from international arms dealing. That there was nothing immoral in peddling perpetual war for profit. He didn't say it exactly like that; there was a lot more stumbling and stuttering as he gamely attempted the defence of the indefensible.

But greed is the basis of society. Or rather, moral greed; the notion that greed is a good thing. It's called Capitalism. Okay, I'm a cynic; this is the system we live under. Alright, no choice but to accept that. Living in the woods is always an option, but it's cold out there.

Do I need to explain why greed is not a moral motive for doing anything, ever? Do I have to explain what greed is? It's a worry that I even have to wonder. Alright; I am not talking about getting paid to do something, or turning a fair profit. It is perfectly acceptable to do things to earn currency which you can exchange for goods and services. Greed is the desire to acquire far more goods and services than one could ever need.

The default argument is that without greed we'd have no motive to work. But that's the lie; the veiled notion that greed is not merely an acceptable motive but in truth the only viable motive for human endeavour. If that were true, I wouldn't be a writer; I'd have a proper job instead.

Greed can motivate people to do that which they would not otherwise do. In so doing, greed legitimises any action: “I did it for the money” might never be a defence in court for you or I, but it seems to stand bankers and politicians in good stead over the years.

I have noticed one cheering development lately; news pundits have started to remark that capitalism requires a constant flow of money, like blood around a body; every organ needs supply. The problems of our global society can be summarized as there simply being far too many people who don't have enough money to participate in Capitalism.

That, right there, is a profound concept that represents a raising of consciousness.