The Unique and Glorious Book of Eternal, Unquestionable (or else!) Truth about Everything.
Book 1: The Old Gnob
Chapter 1: Buzu
1. Buzu created and rules the entire universe.
2. Buzu is the only true deity, and all other deities are false.
3. The Gnob is the book which, alone of all books, is inspired by, and contains the Truth about, Buzu.
4. You are now reading the Gnob.
Chapter 2: The Afterlife
1. Everyone who believes in Buzu alone, and in the Gnob as the sole source of truth about Buzu, will go, after they die, to the Resort, where they will live happily for all eternity, eating delicious food and playing Shuffleboard after dinner.
2. Everyone who does not believe in Buzu, or worships any other deities, will go, after they die, to the Torture Chamber, where they will be subjected, for all eternity, to excruciating and sadistically imaginative torture.
Chapter 3: Duties of Believers
1. All who believe in Buzu, without exception, must strive to convert nonbelievers into believers. Your success in doing so will determine the privileges to which you are entitled at the Resort.
2. All who believe in Buzu, without exception, must give money to the Church of Buzu, to promote the project of converting everyone else to Buzu.
3. Those believers who fail to do the above risk Excommunication, which entails immediate consignment to the Torture Chamber after they die.
4. Those who refuse to be converted to Buzu must be eliminated, for they are the Enemies of Buzu.
Book 2: The New Gnob
Chapter 4: Kevin
1. Buzu has a single Son named Kevin, who is actually the same as his Father, even though he sits on His right hand, like Charlie McCarthy.
2. Kevin was born of a virgin named Doris, and was executed in an Electric Chair, though perfectly innocent, for Our Sins. We should therefore thank Buzu for Kevin’s willingness to die for us, even though Kevin is still alive for all eternity, on the right hand of Buzu.
3. All who unquestioningly believe verses 1 & 2 will go to the Resort after they die. All who don’t believe verses 1 & 2 (including all who adhere to the Old Gnob alone) will go to the Torture Chamber.
4. At the End of Time, Kevin will come back to Earth, raise all the dead, and send them either to the Resort or the Torture Chamber, depending on whether they believe this verse, as well as Verses 1, 2, 3, as well as the Old Gnob.
5. The Electric Chair is the symbol of the New Covenant between Buzu and his faithful.
Sound familiar?
This “sacred text,” the Gnob (which is “bong” spelled backwards) is my parody of the essential teachings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as subsequent monotheistic spinoffs such as Mormonism, Rastafari, and others. What these totalitarian, monotheistic religions have in common is that they all divide the world into “us” (the believers) and “them” (the heretics, infidels, gentiles, what have you). “We,” the believers in the Gnob (or the Torah, the Bible, or the Qu’ran…) as the one true and sacred book, are the People of God (or of Buzu); “they” are viewed either as benighted heathens in need of conversion, or enemies of “the faith,” who do not deserve to live because they have rejected the One True Faith, and should therefore be annihilated. This view is held in common by right-wing Israelis, Christian nationalists, and Muslim fanatics like Hamas or ISIS.
Note, moreover, what is entirely missing from the Gnob: any mention of ethics, of tolerance, of compassion toward others. I would venture to add that every “holy war” in history, from the divinely sanctioned genocide campaigns described in the Old Testament to the Crusades, the various Jihads, the Pogroms, the Holocaust, right down to the current mass slaughter in Gaza, was caused by adherents to a “Gnob-ish” ideology like the one set out above: “We are God’s People; therefore our enemies are God’s enemies.” To the adherents of such an ideology, compromise is treason, so genocide becomes the ultimate sacrament.
There is an alternative, however, which my mother taught me many years ago: my parents and I had just visited the Mormon visitor center in Salt Lake City, where a smiling blonde tour guide gave us the full guided tour and conversion narrative of the story of Joseph Smith, the Gold Plates, et al. My mother, true to form, was polite and attentive throughout the man’s enthusiastic spiel, but as we walked back to the car that evening, we came upon a sculpture of the Angel Moroni, bestowing the “rod of Aaron” upon a devoutly kneeling Joseph Smith on the shores of the Missouri River. The angel, of course, wore a white robe, and his bare feet seemed not to touch the ground. As we walked a little further, my mother stopped, put her hands on her hips, and declared, “What a bunch of balderdash!”
Since that day, the word “balderdash” has been my saving grace, whenever a religious ideologue, any “true believer” of any creed, lays his guilt-tripping or fear-inducing spiel on me. I highly recommend it, the next time someone tries to convert you to the “one true faith” as they see it!
The only “true faith” I acknowledge is the one set forth simply by the Dalai Lama: “My religion is kindness.” Kindness is a reliable default mode for interacting with everyone you meet, and all other living beings as well — no matter what they believe. And conversely, the only sin is cruelty.