iThank nogod I survived another Easter and didn't get crucified by the howling mob. It's not that I have a Messiahnic complex, it's just that as an independent, free-thinking individual rationalist I can't help being paranoid that the backwards superstitious, herd-mentality god-morons might stone me in the public-square for daring to be a cheeky atheist.
All this purulent paranoia came to the surface on Good Friday when I watched the Dino de Laurentis biblical pot-boiler "Barrabas" on TV, made in 1961 starring Anthony Quinn in the lead, it was three hours of sado-masochistic spectacle, lots of whipping, stone-throwing, crucifixion, gladiator slice and dicing, on and on till I had to laugh, realising it was the vicarious pleasure of watching others being tortured that was the hidden agenda of the film, not spiritual uplifting. And I laughed at cliches like a solar eclipse at the moment of Jesus's death to prove his godhood, the superstitious peasants falling to their knees; I've seen the same thing in a hundred cornball movies when the hero needed to fool the dumb natives and make himself a false god for a quick escape.
I got to thinking about Jesus as an historical character, most likely some kind of revolutionary against the corrupt organised religions of his time, a member of a pagan love cult and into a variation on Utopianism, eschewing money and war, living communally in peace, taking drugs like magic mushrooms on pagan holidays like mid-winter solstice, and experiencing free love, not only with his girlfriend Mary Magdalene but also possibly with a boyfriend amongst his eager posse, all of them sharing each others' love. Espousing lines like, "the meek shall inherit the earth" and "the kingdom of heaven is within" he was definitely going against the grain. But the Authorities killed him off and eventually certain power-mongers like Saul of Tarsus, (St.Paul), saw the "population-control" benefits of this new style religion, and he took it on as a means to power, conclaves of old men then planting special Christian holidays on old-time pagan festivals as well as usurping ancient symbols like "mother holding child", and pushing hard bullshit mythologies, miracles such as resurrection and the overcoming of death, walking on water and bread and wine from nothing, all sleight of hand tricks to befuddle the credulous and con them into thinking this life is not all there is.
By the time it gets to the Emperor Constantine in the third century A.D. it gets institutionalised, becomes the State religion, and what was in the beginning a Utopianist creed of living in freedom gets turned back into a method of enslavement, brain-washing people into accepting their slavery with the promise of life in the here-after. As ever it was about nasty, dirty old men ruling, living off the fat of the land, bludging much of the time, getting their grubby hands on the virgins whilst striding about in long black dresses, demanding the stupid rabble kiss their hands and wash their stinking feet, waving incense and mumbling mumbo-jumbo in front of a ghastly idol of a corpse hanging from two pieces of wood while they eat of Christ's flesh and drink of his blood like cannibal ape-men of the stone-age. Oh yeah, and moving the center of control to Rome, the original instigator of repression and torture against the rebellious Utopianists, which shows exactly where they're coming from.
It's not just the witch hunts and burning faggots of medieval times that get my 21st century goat. We now have to be witness to the horrific exposure of pedophile priests, crimes of the Catholics 5 times greater than other Christian denominations, children raped over and over by these Bible-bashing hyppocrits in their tacky long black widows' drag. And to think the power-mongers of our modern state, many of those running things, are Catholics, (the Terrigal gang of politicians that's just got busted in N.S.W. for corruption), several of our last State Premiers to our possible new Prime Minister, (Abbot and his lieutenants) to media moguls like Murdoch, all Catholics. No wonder the world is on the brink of nuclear war, irrationalism rules while money is the real god!
My paranoia is fed by the fact that the major artwork of my 20th Century working life, my film "Virgin Beasts", shown all around the world, sends up the Catholic religion mercilessly, with a satanic black mass and a faux J.C. figure screaming at a woman, "It has no penis! It has no penis!" She replies, "Of course I have no penis, I'm a woman!" J.C. shrieks, "Impossible, women are creatures of myth and fable." Here I am satirising the fact that there are no women in the Catholic priesthood and that they are therefore hung-up on the penis as their true idol and are possibly closet homosexuals. Any smart spectator of my art would twig to my signifiers and the Catholics amongst them would want my scalp. Perhaps that's part of why I live in poverty and ignominy and may be easily killed off here in the underground.
But fuck it, I can't give up my rationalism, it would be like plucking out my vivid blue eyes, eyes that burn laser bright, like the alien kids in "Village of the Dammed", though I be demonised for daring to think free of the herd, to be burnt at the stake as an honest faggot. I came out at seventeen in 1967 and have copped Hell for it ever since, unlike those great heroes here in Auz who have just come out in the last few years, or are still in the closet so they can have grand careers. And by reading history and science I got my eyes opened further, there is no god, just an awesome universe, a natural phenomena where I have a single life to live of which I'm going to make the most. At the risk of being crucified I think I'll soon jump on my time-machine and go back to the age of Jesus and see what he and his mob think of chocolate Easter eggs.
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