Welcome to the Tuesday Coffee Hour here on Street Prophets. This is an open thread where we can hang out and talk about what’s going on in our worlds. In 1881 a weekly newspaper column called The Devil’s Dictionary started publication. What follows are some of the definitions of religious terms published in the column.
Christian:
One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far are they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
Bacchus:
A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.
Convent:
A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to mediate upon the vice of idleness.
Evangelist:
A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation, and th damnation of our neighbors.
Heaven:
A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.
Pray:
To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
Rite:
A religious or semi-religious ceremony fixed by law, precept or custom, with the essential oil of sincerity carefully squeezed out of it.
Sabbath:
A weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh. Among the Jews observance of the day was enforced by a Commandment of which this is the Christian version: “Remember the seventh day to make thy neighbor keep it wholly.” To the Creator it seemed fit and expedient that the Sabbath should be the last day of the week, but the Early Fathers of the Church had other views.
Saint:
A dead sinner revised and edited.
This is an open thread. Please feel free to add some of your own definitions.