TAKE COVER!

The late comedian and wit George Carlin, may Anti-God bless his soul!, mused during a routine about God's seeming arbitrariness. For example, he said, why is it that women have to cover their heads at the cathedral but are forbidden to wear head coverings at synagogue. He was probably hip to the Christian hypocrisy of going to church on Sunday, which even violates the Ten Commandments and admits simultaneously of the influence of paganism since the Roman name for Sunday is Die Solis, or Sun Day quite literally, the day sacred to Sol Invictus (a.k.a. Father Mithras), whose birthday the Constantinian Christians also "borrowed." Syncretism was the order of the times.

I got started on these musings while shopping at Sprouts, a kind of poor man's Whole Foods in one of our strip malls here. It is the kind of store where good produce is almost always to be had, in season, and where "health foods" are supplied, including various naturopathic tinctures and supplements and a wide variety of nuts, candies, pastas, rices, dry beans, and other bins. I bought fresh peaches, some whole wheat bagels, and a few other things and took them to the checkout counter. The checkouts in this store face each other and I glanced at a chocolate-skinned man with a brushy mustache in the aisle across from mine.

My God!, I thought (yes, I still use "His" name in vain, even though I do not believe in his existence anymore than I believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy). He has a yarmulka on his head. And he did, a prominently placed, forward of the spiral, crocheted yamulka. I had to look away immediately to keep from laughing. Being an atheist is hard work. We have to suppress laughter at the silly lengths to which gullible believer types go to show their devotion to a scientifically disproved, completely illogical entity who did it all in less than a week and created the guy in red tights with a pitchfork, a guy who can quick-change into a talking snake, just to bedevil us when we exercise our freedom of choice, also "God-given."

Unfortunately, I think this guy sussed me out. I think he almost smiled himself, and while it is entirely possible he was being neighborly, it is also possible he was thinking, Yes, I have a kippah on my head. So what? I didn't know much about the kippah actually until I read the Wiki entry. The Talmud demands covering our heads "in order that the fear of heaven may be upon you." I thought so: pure superstition. Pure dogma. It's the old bogey man routine. Create a straw man to fear and make the gullibles, the small heads believe they have to cover their heads or face damnation of one kind or another. In this way the rabbis can extract shekels. Everyone works at something. The rabbis are selling myth and superstition to earn their pay.

One famous rabbi is said to have gone no further than four cubits(about five feet) with nothing covering his head, "because the Divine Presence is always over my head." Yes, and I had some good shit last week, too. I tried some of that synthetic marijuana and I felt the Divine Presence as well, and I did not go out without covering my head. I am prone to skin cancer and must always go topped unless indoors. I have to hope God stops at my front door so he cannot see my naked head when I am inside, walking six feet or more this way or that. And while He is at it, could he explain why he doesn't make the evangelicals believe in climate change. It's getting hotter and I am more prone to skin cancer than ever. I mean, I sometimes worship Sol Invictus, but this is getting ridiculous.