...on gods

...or on deals

"we made gods and jailers because we felt small and ashamed and alone. we let them try us and judge us and, like sheep to slaughter, we allowed ourselves to be sentenced. see. now. our sentence is up"

—grant morrison

the bastard has always held the belief that their might be a higher power that made all of this and then left. or at least doesn't meddle in the affars of humanity. it keeps the bastard believing in free will. also the bastard's minor in history keeps him from subcribing to any particular religious faith. you see, no matter how you slice it, mankind has too much of a hand in the material that has been handed down to the congregation. the council of nicea only picks the books that will jibe with the churches agenda. martin luther translates it into german, john calvin get's his own ideas, martin luther get's into a froth. a couple years later, the king james version comes out and it's been edited by shakespeare according to legend. the working word here is edit. i won't even get into the notion of who's religion has changed it's principles 4 or 5 times since it's inception in the early 20th century and then proceeds to claim that the 2000 year old machine thast is catholicism is wrong and everyone who doesn't subscribe to their ever changing principles is going to hell. the bastard won't even get into potential historical evidence of a certain other religious figure who had epileptic seizures before declaring to the troops that allah says they can't drink alcohol. or even the notion that the oral tradition essentially waters down the information. is that really what god said or is this the short version. or the schtickiest version. got me thinking. got me thinking about the nature of religion. you see, the bastard just finished reading american gods and it got me to thinking. there is this part in which the author tells a brief tale of a tribe of nomads coming to america 14,000 years ago. they bring their mammoth god with them. eventually they arrive in what we knwo as america and they are overtaken by people who worship a raven. people get killed and the mammoth skull gets thrown into a ditch. and the mammoth god is forgotten. many religions have me t this end and it makes me wonder if the current establishment is no more relavent than others and continues to exist becaue they have a decent standng army. ida know. it's just a thought. don't get your panties in a bunch, shiteyes.

quick aside: the main character is working in the service of odin whose trying to rustle up all of the old gods to fight the new gods (oddly enough the new gods represent the materialism of today) and they happen upon czernobog, the slavic god of night. the main plays checkers with him to get him to go with odin and if he wins czernobog goes with him. if czernobog wins, he gets to kill the main with his hammer. the hero loses one and wins czernobog's services in the second double or nothing match (because americans DO like to gamble). so when the fight is over, our heroes life belongs to czernobog. after all is said and done, he goe sback to honor his half of the deal knowing he will be killed. i wonder if we all have that quality. now i'm tired and need to sleep. take what you want but, want what you take, jerkface. good night. next week. more hating on the railroad.

—the bastard