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 =)