Oh it means Good Friday in Old English and it’s still used in Scandinavia and Finland.
I don’t actually feel obligated as an Atheist to destroy any particular belief system and don’t go out of my way to do it. I mean, it’s clear that Mormonism bears the same relationship to Christianity that Islam does (New Prophet? New Divine Scripture?).
I find all of them equally amusing.
Having spent about 10 years in the Fundamentalist Cult that is Methodism (I’ve been writing on the Internet for longer) it’s not like I wasn’t exposed and I remember more today than most of the people still with it knew in the first place because it’s not like I didn’t pay attention.
I was young, pre-K Sunday School when I started. There’s a picture of me and my Sister in a matching Sailing Suit outfit somewhere looking very Victorian. Choir was an excuse to ditch, and I got to do Theater (Herod! Why is it always Herod?!), it was a fascinating space, very Gothic and elaborate.
I stuck it out long enough to find you didn’t actually get to Bowl on the Bowling Lanes where the Upper School (in Britain 14 – 16) met. I was done. I Bowled a Game after Class and never came back, not that they weren’t happy to see me go, my questions were very uncomfortable for some people.
My Sister transfered to a local Church that was even worse (in the old one it was Social Justice which Methodists are good at, new one all about Jesus) and got involved with their teen hook-up club as did I (to be fair I met this Gal in School and only found this out later). I don’t know what she thinks now, she was a Catholic at one point.
Most people claim an allegiance to some faith, were I pressed I would say Buddhism which many mistake for a faith but is really a Philosophy of Life (and I’m not really that good at it). My Activist Brother who’s never been within a mile of a Church that I know of says Unitarian if you ask.
If you study religion you’ll find many of them have aspects that are admirable, for instance Baptists are fiercely anti-hierarchical. In theory. In fact often Baptist Pastors will use their independence to set up personal empires and y’all better conform with their vision of the Bible or you’ll burn in Hell for Eternity.
Speaking of which-