So a long, long, time ago a long-haired man in sandals decided that everybody should be nice to each other. Most people to whom he explained this idea thought it was a pretty interesting idea with a lot going for it, and that it beat the hell out of the current system of being assholes all the time.

Then he decided to commit suicide by pissing off the governing authority, and in doing so he screwed over his best friend Judas, a hapless bureaucrat named Pilate, and (as history turned out) basically his entire religion.

But then his friends who he hadn’t messed with decided he was the son of God, so they started a new religion and started building churches on rocks and drawing tiny little fishes on doors, and as time went by there were Popes in Rome and schisms all over and theses nailed to doors and eventually crazy guys claiming native Americans came from Jerusalem.

So now it’s 2000 years later, and we celebrate this man by putting shiny crap on plastic trees, pretending that rabbits lay eggs, and putting enormous gold fish logos on the back of our SUVs. And listening to Creed.

Anyway, the point of this is that there was a man, some people believe he was a magic man, but most people agree he was at least a pretty nice man, except for that whole thing where he wanted to die and fucked his friends, and a long time ago he got himself nailed to a tree somehow and for some reason that’s important to a whole lot of people.

And this man’s name? I forgot.

Coming tomorrow on Neutiquam Erro: Sean explains Buddhism!