A History of the Atheist Religion

Polyatheism
In the beginning, there were many events and forces that mankind was at a loss to explain. Life, death, lightning, thunder, why the leaves fall just to come back in the spring while other plants die in the fall and stay dead, why the short lines move slowest...
Early atheists examined each and every aspect of their lives. In some cases, they could determine the 'why' of something. Water flows downhill, for example, because it is attracted to the larger body of water at the bottom of the ravine, valley or shore. For events they could not explain, tho, they were left with a distinct atheist explanation. At the limit of the early polyatheists' knowledge was the certainty that '(That Event) just happens.' This applied to many things. Life just happens. Death just happens. Lightning just happens. Thunder just happens, and happens to happen just after lightning happens....except when it doesn't happen after the lightning, or when it happens at the same time as the lightning.

This general belief in '____ just happens' persisted for millenia. Sometimes, new research discovered more reasons for something. Rain, it was shown, also falls 'Down' because it is attracted to larger bodies of water. Rivers and streams were shown to be systems of water flowing downhill to the large water-attractor of the ocean. As knowledge advance '___ just happens' was replaced systematically by '____ happens for the following reason:_____.'

At the same time, almost every event and force under examination for explainable cause was also being attributed to greater or lesser non-corporeal beings living under an established hierarchy of control of everything from keeping eggs fresh in the pantry to the actual creation of the entire universe and everything in it.
The complicated sytems of relationships between event and controller, and between the greater and lesser controllers themselves was further confused by the fact that what Jupiter did for Greece was what Jove did for Rome and what Osiris did for Egypt and so on for pretty much every single culture on Earth. The simplicity of polyatheism was that something that 'just happened' in one location 'just happened' everywhere else in the word. No matter who did it. Colonists and immigrants traveling far from home did not have to wonder if the flint that started a fire back Home would be able to remember how when they got where they were going.
Well traveled polyatheists soon saw similarities throughout the world in how things worked the same all over. And that no one who, let's say, felt that a house god tended their fire ever traveled far enough from home that their hearth god couldn't find them when they needed it.

The very first Ain't of Atheism was Ain't Arles of Arioch - who asked if it was possible to disbelieve in a God that one had never heard of? He began collecting tales of every God, Demigod, Hero with Divine Heritage, National Divine Patron, God of a City, God of a village, God of a People, Gods of Home, Hearth, Family Shrines and Lucky Tombstones.
113 years later by Ain't Ulster the Underlined refuted Arles' reasoning with his classic Outhouse Overseer Outline: If I invented a God of my outhouse, would you believe in him? Would you worship him if you heard of him? If you never heard of him, could you worship him any less? Complete knowledge of the delusions of others is not necessary to a perfect understanding of general delusionism.

Another famous Ain't of Atheism was Ain't Arathrustra. In the early 200's, he spent years learning the extent of human knowledge, right up to where alchemists and other learned men ran into the Brass Ceiling of '____ just happens.' He suggested that 'Food Just Happens' was intrinsically indistinguishable from 'Poop Just Happens' in any meaninful way. He suggested that rather that a sign at the end of each 'hallway of knowledge,' the label 'Just Happens' could be likened to a border, or a fence, circumscribing the whole of human knowledge, ever being pushed back, but never quite penetrated. He also advanced Ulster's argument, saying that 'There are 132 Gods and Goddesses of outhouses listed in Arles' Compendium of Notgods. if I don't believe in ANY outhouse god, why should I be bothered to list the outhouse gods I don't believe in? I could just announce that outhouse gods are one of the things I do not believe in.'
Years later, he broadened the statement to include all deities, beings of divine nature or origin, and honest bartenders.
He is credited with introducing the concept of Monoatheism, and the cliche' "Shit Happens."

In the Early 400's, Ain't Justifer of Constantimonopoly was trying to consolidate his rule over Europe. It seemed, however, he could not muster a single Regiment that did not include at least 5 soldiers that were vehemently opposed to the atheology of one or another fellow soldier. He brought the largely polyatheist culture in line with 'Modern' civilization by promoting Monoatheism. Rather than refuting each and every disbelief in a particular deity, he took the stance that disbelief in Jove was the same as disbelief in all of the Gods. This approach to disbelief, taking the disbeliefs of diverse cultures and tying them into a single, unified disbelief became the foundation for the Atheist Eclectic Church that came to dominate atheism throughout western culture.

Relatively recently, the most recent Ain't of Atheism, Ain't Charles Darwin, became convinced that we could observe What Is Happening and postulate What Done Happened in the area of biological development. The full impact of seperating Creation from any postulated Creator is discussed elsewhere. For our purposes, it is enough to note that Atheism finally began investigation into the last remaining area of '____ just happens.'

Athei-schisms
Humans being what they are, even groups largely sharing a common disbelief in any and all Gods eventually found something to argue about. Of course, throughout time, many individuals have split off from the main group of Atheism, exploring individual visions of how things weren't, and Who didn't have special visions or missions for them. But aside from the occassional loony, some have developed sufficiently persuasive arguments to drag huge groups off with them to form independent schools of thought on what not to believe in.

One such group was split with official Atheist doctrine on the subject of the presentation of the Human Body. While the official stance is that every thing is natural, every part is equally the result of something that Just Happened, the followers of Ain't Martin felt that certain parts were less reputable than others. The objected to the widespread depiction of nudity and split off from Central Atheism in the 1500's. Their preoccupation with covering up and ignoring certain body parts has led to their popular name: The Lewd-rans.

Soon after that, a rancher in Italy rose to prominence following an epiphany he experienced during the spring calving. After trying for several hours to assist in the difficult birth of a calf, he suggested they all needed to relax and passed around a bottle of muscatel. Deep in his cups, he soon felt that the cow should relax, too, and poured her a large shot of the rotgut. Minutes later, the cow's eyes rolled up in her head, and as she sank slowly to her knees, the calf shot out slicker 'n snot. The rancher realized that no only do things Just Happen, but the better things Just Happen Naturally if we relax and let them. This led to the cult of Calf-inism, which was shortlived due to a cult-wide dependence on relaxants, with such disastrous impact on motor skills. To this day, morgue attendants refer to motor vehicle victims as having been 'calfed.'

New areas of interest
While there are now over 303 schools of atheist thought in this country, the most recent generations chafe, as usual, under the chokehold the Familiar has on popular culture. In response, many are seeking information on some of the more popular schools of Eastern Ain'tism, such as Hide-And-Go-Seek-ism, Confused-ism, Badda-bing-ism, and the famous 'I-had-no-Ideism!' Meanwhile, a home movement to tie all known forms of atheism together, or at least find common ground for communication, is producing the groundswell Universalist Denialist movement.


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