Captain Ahab still alive in the 21st Century, news report.

Last Tuesday a fishing boat sank off the Portuguese coast. That boat had been baptized Virgin of Sameiro, once again proving that Faith has no effect over Buoyancy.

Yesterday the whole crew of six fishermen was spotted and rescued. Apart from hypothermia they were found in very good shape.

The fishing boat had set to sea from a small fishing village that is more used to mourn for those who were lost at sea than to rejoice for their deliverance.

Now guess who's being praised for that rescue? You guessed right: Our Lady of Fátima, God, a deceased mother turned into a guardian angel, and the like. A miracle, they say, and no news reporter elucidates them otherwise.

So here I leave a list of true deities that should be thanked for if the fishermen and news reporters ever recover from their deluded state:

- All humans involved in the development of the helicopter and all its gear 
- All humans who spent their brain-power developing and improving life-rafts 
- All humans whose collection of studies made possible the existence of survival food pills 
- All humans who fought for a society that provides services to its members 
- All humans who I forgot to mention here but had a part in the deliverance

Notice that none of the inventions. none of the engineering contraptions. none of the political advances above are claimed to have been thought of by divine inspiration. None of those humans involved is considered to be a saint.

If Ichthys, a fish symbol, represents Christians, then human ingenuity's one should be that of a school of whales, or a Godzilla when ill-applied. Nevertheless do not forget that the real monster is the whale-obsessed person. Captain Ahab, for one, couldn't look beyond his own Dick. Moby-Dick.

The best Holy Book

Were I to reconnect with the Holy*,  I’d surely have grave concerns about through which Book I’d attempt such a feat.

My favourite candidate for Holy Book thus far is Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything.

The following paragraphs are a list of why it is so.

To begin with, it states that some of its contents may need correction or are incomplete, and it can easily be expanded without having to call for a synod, which is a council of gynephobic geriatrics who believe and want you too to believe in fairies, otherwise you won't go to fairyland once you're dead. 

It's Holy enough to exert divine protection. That is, its weight makes it a good, close at hand defensive weapon, or one can carve a small compartment out of its pages to hide a pistol in it.

Humour pervades it – a fundamental characteristic that is missing in any other Book that claims to be Holy, at least intentionally.  

Its heroes have brains, and faulty characters that are only human.

It possesses no inexplicable and paradoxical Lord of Darkness, even though the name of one of its heroes comes close enough: Sagan.

It sheds much more light than others do on a wider range of subjects. As an extra feature, it even sheds chemicals, bacteria. You name it.

No matter the matter that it's being treated, it's always awe-inspiring, or simply inspiring.

One can quote from it without the habitual result, when it comes to other Holy Books, of seeming a deranged or paranoid person.

If taught in schools, it’s compatible with critical thinking.

It too contains references to minerals, but condemning no one to be put to death by stoning.

And to end with, it’s the sole of the candidates to Holy Book that is concerned with – how can I put this gently? – the truth.

I sure do put all my faith in this book, and I swear on it.

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* If indeed the etymology of «religion» is the Latin verb religare, one possible translation is «reconnection» (with God). As far as I’m concerned, I prefer not to lose touch with such influential personalities to begin with.