The Irony of ‘Geniuses’
The narrator refers to religion pattern-setters as geniuses. The elucidation of the reader is that such people are emotionally stable, confident and unshaken. Such are the individuals who introduce religion based on holy doctrines. They come up with guidelines and beliefs to guide their flocks. However, it is ironic that the narrator says such geniuses show signs of panicky and volatility. This leaves the reader confused and start asking questions on whether such people should be considered as geniuses in the first place. The narrator writes:
“But such individuals are ‘geniuses’ in the religious line; and like many other geniuses who have brought forth fruits effective enough for commemoration in the pages of biography, such religious geniuses have often shown signs of nervous instability.”
The Irony of Christ
The reader, in this case, takes an assumption that the narrator is insensitive to say that Christ is an imaginary substitute introduced to believers by the missionaries. Yes, to some extent the narrator has the right of making such sentiments but the reader is most likely to disagree with his assertion because it is contradictory. It is ironic for the narrator to say that Chris is an object of affection. He writes:
“The macerations of saints, and the devotion of missionaries, are only instances of the parental instinct of self-sacrifice gone astray. For the hysterical nun, starving for natural life, Christ is but an imaginary substitute for a more earthly object of affection. And the like.”
The Irony of the Bible
Christians strongly believe that the Bible is a holy book, which brings salvation. There is no single church service that can be conducted without referring to the Bible verses. According to Christian doctrines, the people chosen by God to deliver His message to humanity write the Bible. However, it is ironic that the narrator says that the Bible is full of the language that oppresses. He says, "The Bible is full of the language of respiratory oppression.” A Christian reader does not expect to come across such a statement.
The Irony of Religious Life
Comparing religious life to the sex apparatus is itself an irony as used by the narrator. The narrator links religious feelings to sex. During sex, the sex organs are aroused and chemical processes take place to arouse both the blood and the brain. The narrator seems to think that the same happens in spiritual life. He writes:
"In this sense, the religious life depends just as much upon the spleen, the pancreas, and the kidneys as on the sexual apparatus, and the whole theory has lost its point in evaporating into a vague general assertion of the dependence, SOMEHOW, of the mind upon the body."
The Irony of Saint Paul
According to the Bible, Paul’s vision on the road on the way to Damascus is sent by God to stop him from committing atrocities against His will. However, the reader sees an iron when the medics say that it is a discharge lesion of the Occipital Cortex. The narrator writes:
“Medical materialism finishes up Saint Paul by calling his vision on the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of the occipital cortex, he being an epileptic.”
