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  • Sunday, December 25, 2005

     

    A Few Seasonal Words

    Some of the following aren't found in the most often reproduced version of the The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce but rather from The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary, edited by David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi which collates and includes many bits left out of the popular edition. (Nota Bene: This is from a work of satire; any offense is intentional but offered without malice.)
    Christmas, n. A day set apart and consecrated to gluttony, drunkenness, maudlin sentiment, gift-taking, public dulness (sic), and domestic misbehavior.
    What? not religious? You should see, my pet,
    On every Christmas day how drunk I get!
    O, I'm a Christian -- not a pious monk
    Honors the Master with so dead a drunk.

    Christian, n. One who believe that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teaching of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

    Freethinker, n. A miscreant who wickedly refuses to look out of a priest's eyes, and persists in looking into them with too searching a glance. Freethinkers were formerly shot, burned, boiled, racked, flogged, cropped, drowned, hanged, disemboweled, impaled, beheaded, skinned. With the lapse of time our holy religion has fallen into the hands and hearts of merciful and humane expounders, and the poor freethinker's punishment is entrusted to Him who said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay." Here on earth the misguided culprit is only threatened, pursued, reviled, avoided, silenced, cursed, insulted, robbed, cheated, harrassed, derided, slandered.

    Clergyman, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of bettering his temporal ones.



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