Religious Studies

It was soon after my testicles descended that I began to doubt the existence of God, and well before my voice broke, I became a convinced atheist. Which goes to show that, despite having poor eyesight, I developed a clear view of reality at a remarkably young age. This precocious facility did not, however, prevent me from taking an interest in religious texts and beliefs in the supernatural. 

In my spare time I have examined all the world religions and read anthropological accounts of ‘primitive’ belief systems. For thousands of years people have been trying to understand and control the natural world, and to devise ways of regulating social behaviour. With the growth of scientific knowledge many archaic ideas associated with magic and superstition have been proven to be false. However, because religions are based on dogma contained in scriptures written in times when anything mysterious or seemingly inexplicable was ascribed to supernatural forces, the teachings of these creeds have a deranging effect on the minds of modern believers. 

There are numerous examples of this mental confusion resulting in sometimes bizarre and at other times horrific acts of faith. I will mention just two instances of such behaviour. The first is the belief that weather processes, which are now well understood, can be altered by cutting the throat of a domesticated animal and letting it bleed to death, or by kneeling on the floor and talking aloud with eyes closed. The other example is the conviction that anyone who tells a joke about the sexual preferences of a man who lived in Saudi Arabia nearly 2000 years ago should be murdered by any means possible, but preferably by beheading. 

Apart from Religion, I have also taken a look at History, and it is obvious to me that throughout the ages human beings have preferred to resolve disputes through violent confrontation rather than peaceful compromise. To justify and inflame their aggression, they have invariably invoked either nationalism or religion, or both. 

Although I would concede that suffering humanity finds solace in religion, and trust in a just and wise higher being helps people bear the misery of everyday existence, I nevertheless feel that, on balance, there would be less strife in the world if rationality replaced faith entirely. 

I used my interest in Religion to enliven a scene in my 2008 novel, Pop-splat. 

Matt had a dreamless night and was able to sleep until after 9. It was Sunday. Around eleven he took a walk down Wycombe Avenue and across the common to Constantia Village.

As usual the mall was busy and the car park was full. It occurred to him that here there must be more cars valued at R300 000+ than in any other parking area in Cape Town.

Horry was seated at the most remote table in the Seattle coffee shop at Exclusive Books.

“I treat this bookshop like a reference library,” Horry had once said. “The manager can recognise a besotted bibliophile when she sees one, and she tolerates my habitual presence because she understands the addiction. And I do buy a book once in a while.”

“What are you reading now?” Matt asked, as he sat down opposite his friend.

“Dawkins,” Horry replied, and closed the book to reveal the title: The God Delusion. “It’s a self-indulgent waste of time, actually. I should be reading something more challenging.”

“Isn’t it any good?” Matt was mildly surprised. “It sounds right up your atheistic street.”

“No, it’s a good book,” said Horry. “I love his humour, and his intelligent sense of decency, and the way he passionately detests the stupidity of religious believers. But he’s preaching to the converted. To me, this is merely entertaining. But to you it would be far more rewarding.” He gave Matt a withering look, the way people do just before delivering an insult. “It’d help you to get off the fucking fence.”

Horry was alluding to Matt’s agnosticism, which was so wishy-washy it could hardly be called an opinion, and definitely not a belief or a conviction. As a small child Matt had believed in God out of fear; then he had wanted to believe, but was becoming sceptical, and developing an antipathy towards religious people in general; and now he was inclined towards atheism but didn’t care enough about the subject to take up a stance.

Horry found this apathy despicable, and blamed it largely on an educational ethos that had discouraged critical thinking in order to perpetuate the status quo.

“Want some coffee?” Horry asked. “I’m going to have another cappuccino. And something to eat – the cheesecake looks good today.”

Reluctantly, Matt declined the cheesecake. His weight problem was forever forcing its way into his consciousness and exacerbating the chronic anxiety from which he now suffered. He attributed this obesity tendency partly to the bulking-up he had undergone in his rugby days. Maybe the steroids had messed up his metabolism, or something. And of course his psychiatric medication didn’t help. He really should get the shrink to add an appetite suppressant to the cocktail.

“Yes,” said Horry, returning to the subject of religion. “I shouldn’t be reading Dawkins. I should be reading computer science – you know that in my Utopia humans will allow themselves to be governed by a super computer? But computer science can be a bit dry. I get far more fired up by religion, because it’s one of the major factors contributing to our inability to sensibly organize and regulate ourselves.”

“You really do seem obsessed with the topic,” said Matt. “You must have been subjected to a lot of religious indoctrination at school. Are Jews as fanatical as Christians and Muslims?”

“Fuck yes,” said Horry. “Some of them. The Orthodox ones are real fundamentalist freaks trapped in the past and believing in all sorts of archaic junk that should have been thrown out 2000 years ago. And then, tied to Judaism is this Zionism crap. The Promised Land, for fuck’s sake! Look where that idea’s got us.”

“You mean the state of Israel?” asked Matt. He had enjoyed History at school and was thinking of taking it at Rhodes. “But after all the persecution Jews have suffered you can’t blame them for wanting their own homeland.”

“Ah, kak man.” Horry didn’t agree. “Look, what makes a Jew a Jew? You can’t tell me it’s genetic – that’s the Nazi way of thinking. No, it’s the fucking stupid religion that makes a Jew a Jew. The same with Christians, Muslims, and Hindus. God, or the belief in a God, or in any supernatural power, has failed the world. For there to be any hope for the future the eradication of religion should be tackled on a global scale, the way one would fight AIDS, or avian flu, or malaria. No man, if the Jews had all become atheists there’d have been no need for a Promised Land. All over the world they could have been assimilated by intermarrying with other atheists and the problem would have gone away.” To show how sincere he was about his anti-religion policy he added another statement. “I personally have no desire to be labelled Jewish or anything else, so I’m looking out for a nice black chick. She must be intelligent, broad-minded, well-educated and an atheist. And she must not only have turned her back on Christianity but also all that ancestor bullshit.”

“I bet you don’t talk like this in the synagogue,” said Matt.

“Jesus no; they’d crucify me.” Horry laughed. “But hey, I haven’t been inside a synagogue in five years. The last time I went was just too nauseating: this sado-paedophilic rabbi hacking away at some screaming little kid’s foreskin.”

Matt was amused and chuckled with pleasure. Horry always had something entertaining to say about the latest idea passing through his head. Even if it was an outrageous load of shit.

The middle-aged couple at the nearest table didn’t look amused at all. They must have overheard some of the antitheistic pronouncements and were now scowling angrily, thereby accentuating the ugly lines that time and natural disposition had conspired to draw on their faces.

They gulped down their coffee and gathered their parcels together. As they were leaving the woman glared at Horry and said, her voice loud with indignation, “Young man, you have no right to speak so offensively about religion. Have you no respect for anything? My husband is going to complain to the Manager.”

But the Manager wasn’t available. At the door they glanced back and Horry was able to wave goodbye.

“Stupid old fossils,” he said. “‘Have I no respect for anything?’ Well, certainly not for the likes of them. And you, Matt? Have you any respect for your parents’ generation? Behaved beautifully last night, didn’t they?”

The cheerful light that had been shining in Matt’s eyes was quickly doused. His shoulders sagged, the corners of his mouth turned down and his eyelid began to twitch. Dejection was back in residence.

The paperback version of Pop-splat can be bought from the author for R100. Contact blindoldtoppie at gmail.

To view my longer work as an author, you can find me on Smashwords here.

A Dilettante’s Interest in Heraldry

When, in my late teens, I encountered the word ‘dilettante’ I assumed it to be mildly derogatory. I consulted a dictionary and found this definition: 'A person who cultivates the arts as an amateur. A person who takes an interest in a subject merely as a pastime and without serious study. A dabbler.'

I took time to digest this and when I considered the definition and visualised the character, the lifestyle, I saw nothing to be despised. In fact, the more I thought about it the more the role appealed. What was reprehensible about dabbling? What was wrong with taking an interest in a subject merely as a pastime? I had already formed the view that life itself was a pastime and not worth serious study. 

On several occasions in my youth I was asked what I was going to be in life. Each time I took this question seriously and gave it some thought before replying. Because it was such a troublesome question, such a vastly open one, the process of answering it was lengthy. Even if the answer itself was always the same, it was preceded by varying degrees of confusion, anguish and irritation. The invariable response was, "I really don't know." Invariable, that is, until the brave bold day when I smiled brightly and spoke with self-assured candour.

"I'm going to be a dilettante."

This decision to become a dilettante has allowed me to take a superficial interest in anything and everything under the sun. Even Heraldry.

 

I was chastised for buying this book in 2000. How could I justify spending good money on a book about such an obscure subject? In my defence I repeated the assertion that the more one knows about the world, the more interesting a place it becomes. Five years later, when I was writing The Life of Henry Fuckit, I remembered from my time in the Dockyard the ships ‘crests painted on the walls of the Selborne Dry dock. Because of my new-found knowledge of heraldry these decorations took on significance and I was in a position to incorporate them in the story.

"Ah yes. See that chap in the brown dust-coat? That's Eddie Robinson. He's the Paint shop storeman. Forever coming up with ingenious inventions. This time he's trying to perfect an APG. Could save a lot of time and money, making all that cumbersome scaffolding obsolete."

"APG?"

"Airborne Paint Gondola. There they go. Seems to be working better now. Last time he used helium and some bungling fool let go the wrong rope and it required a major air and sea operation to rescue the painters." They turned away and sat down again. "Robinson's also a renowned expert on heraldry. You saw all those coats of arms painted above the waterline? Every ship that's been into dry dock over the past forty years has its shield on the wall. There's a small team of painters who do nothing but heraldry. If you were interested you could spend years making a study of medieval history, armorial design, heraldic nomenclature, the rules, regulations and guidelines set down by the International Academy of Heraldry. The conventional use of colours and tinctures in the decorative display of armorial paraphernalia could occupy your attention day in and day out. Like Robinson, if you so desired, you could immerse yourself in signs and symbols, seals, shields, standards and stamps. Not to mention mosaics, motifs, mottoes and monograms. And what of badges and banners, blazons, bars and bezants? The field is vast, festooned with flags and fesses and fleurs-de-lis, emblems, ensigns, escutcheons and escarbuncles."

Bergson reined in his galloping lyricism and returned to the central theme of his introductory prologue. "Yes, fascinating. But there are any number of these diverse microcosms in the Dockyard. The Paint Shop is only one such engrossing world." (Read more here.)

This is another illustration of the relevance of Heraldry in the 21st century. In October 2021 the Gansberg News devoted five History Pages by John McGregor to the origins of 20 common South African family names. The list was as follows: Le Roux, Groenewald, Barnard, Swart, Otto, De Villiers,Pieterse, Du Toit, Fourie, Germishuys, Visagie, Vermeulen, Kemp, De Kock, Van Dyk, Mathee, Vivier, Moolman, Lourens and Badenhorst.

Each family has a coat of arms that carries meaning and is of worth close examination, especially if one appreciates heraldic symbolism.

Even a box of matches can be of interest to the student of Heraldry. The lion is the most frequently depicted animal in armorial design, probably because of its reputation for superiority, fearlessness, strength and nobility. My book lists as many as 39 different stylizations. The one chosen by the Lion Match Company is known as couchant, meaning lying down with head raised.

To view my longer work as an author, you can find me on Smashwords here.