While we disbelievers don’t believe in the devil any more than we believe in God, we find Ambrose Gwinett Bierce (1842-1913?) and his cynical book, The Devil’s Dictionary, well worth celebrating.  With views that were a far cry from those of his sternly religious family, Bierce wrote the following wickedly funny definitions…

“SAINT:  a dead sinner revised and edited.”

“FAITH:  Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”

“RELIGION: A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.”

And perhaps best of all…

“FEAST:  A religious celebration usually signalized by gluttony and drunkenness, frequently in honor of some holy person distinguished for abstemiousness.”

In his journalistic heyday on West Coast newspapers, Bierce was well-known by his initials, A.G.B. which led some rivals to call him “Almighty God Bierce.”  Quite a slur on his atheistic character!  Although we know when he was born, nobody is quite sure when this unusual man died.  In 1913 at the age of 71, he went off to Mexico to fight in the Revolution alongside Pancho Villa and was never seen again.

On Bierce’s birthday, let’s read his book aloud (it’s grim fun) or rent and watch the movie, The Old Gringo, a fictionalized story about him.  Dinner at a Mexican restaurant would also be fantastico.