Whoever invented the idea of religion needs a bit of a slap. Then again, whoever invented the idea of religion is probably long dead by now, making a bit of a slap somewhat redundant. I suppose they could receive a bit of a slap in whatever version of an afterlife may actually exist, but since there’s no way for us to know exactly what that is (if anything), we’ll just have to settle for not being able to give them their well deserved bit of a slap.
I’d like to point out that this isn’t an attack on any particular religion. No-one’s getting singled out here. My issue is simply with the notion that religion in some form or another is how we should interact with the world and its various inhabitants. In short, one doesn’t need religion to tell one to not be an arsehole. In fact, if anybody is really dependent on the idea of religion to keep themselves in check, desperately in need of a holy text to guide them, I’d like to propose that text should be a seven-page pamphlet titled: “You’re A Fucking Human Being. Why The Fuck Don’t You Fucking Act Like One?” and each page inside it contains nothing but the words “Stop Being A Fucking Moron” over and over in a unjustifiable font size.
Of course, I understand the importance of religion to a vast many of the world’s peoples and I wouldn’t want to force my own atheistic/pseudo-Agnostic views on anyone else. That would be me taking my own understanding of faith and enforcing as a societal benchmark, against which all citizens should be judged. Society doesn’t need that. Society’s fucked up enough as it is.
With countless doctrines of faith and variations thereof available out there, I think the one thing that we as a world can all agree on is that we’re just not going to agree on this. Apparently, that’s not enough for some of us, and as one lot continues to impose death and destruction upon society, another lot continues to oppose anyone considered different based on the grounds of religion, even though they’re actually opposing politically radical idealism and too thick to realise it.
Let’s scale things back shall we? In fact, let’s make things a bit zeitgeist-y. It’s Easter. Well, typically in the UK – a nation historically aligned with Christianity. Religion has become so synonymous with society that events like Easter and Christmas are treated as national holidays (which I’m not complaining about), filled with gluttony and avarice. By and large, the people of the country (well, the Twitter-dwelling people of the country) go mad for novelty shaped chocolate and defend their right to celebrate Easter, despite very few of them so much as setting foot within 500 metres of an actual church.
Wait. Defending their right to celebrate Easter? But that makes it sound like religion is a competition. Surely religion should be a set of codes and ethics to live by for harmonious existence with our fellow kind. I read about it in “You’re A Fucking Human Being. Why The Fuck Don’t You Fucking Act Like One?” Well, no. The Twitter-thumping swarm of the country decided to cast the first stone (and then the same stone, over and over again) in the direction of a confectionary manufacturer for reasons of religious one-up-manship, even though they were enacting pseudo-racist societal one-up-manship and too thick to realise it.
As far as I can recall, Cadbury’s have never explicitly described any of their egg-shaped chocolate products as “Easter Eggs”. They’re “Milk Chocolate Eggs” and always have been. The Twitter-shitting morons of the country, familiar with the term “Easter Egg”, were outraged at the fact that the word “Easter” was missing from Cadbury’s packaging even though they should’ve really been outraged that they’d only just realised this. Nevertheless, the masses got up in arms about this and – in a time of increased religiously socio-politically motivated bad behaviour – accused an all-encompassing confectioner of turning its back on a particular religion and endorsing evil. People genuinely believed the absence of the word “Easter” on boxes of chocolate was a fundamental extremist conspiracy.
Let’s strip away the religious and societal aspects to understand this better. The whole naming thing was like getting angry at every supermarket brand of sticky-tape for bearing no mention of “Sellotape” on the packet. Whilst “Sellotape” is the more commonly used term, it’s really a brand name that similar products shouldn’t use for legal reasons. No wonder Cadbury’s can’t peddle “Easter Eggs”, that’s like Jesus’ own branded thing and I doubt he’s ever worked in the Cadbury’s factory. Grow the fuck up. Also, it’s fucking novelty shaped chocolate sold to you at a higher price. You could probably get 27 multipacks of Yorkie for the same price as a hollow spheroid of chocolate in a printed mug. Grow the fuck up.
My brain hurts now. Maybe I got a bit too worked up. Maybe I said “fuck” too many times. Maybe I’ve eaten too many radically-aligned chocolate products. Either way, ow.
In spite of our semi-annual time shift signalling the start of Spring, a warm, yet slightly breezy, Spring afternoon hasn’t happened yet. When (if) it does, I can imagine that this would be great to listen to. For now, this simply sounds nice and is good to listen to whilst stuffing one’s face with seasonal chocolate products. I wouldn’t want to listen to it whilst stranded atop an oil rig in the middle of the ocean though. But that’s more a criticism of the surroundings rather than the song.
Mystery Jets – Bubblegum
Jamie Walsh 
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