Once again the topic of religion rears its ugly head. Like the many-headed hydra of lore, this is one beast that cannot be killed.

I am, of course, referring to Tuesday’s article on the First Century Club and how some members said they felt pressured while active in the group.

My only thoughts on the issue is that some people take their religion very seriously, unlike me.

You see, I am a heathen and pray to heathen gods. Last semester, I prayed to the great Organic Chemistry Gods before every test, and they served me well.

Which begs the question: Why spend more time praying to a god if a little every once in a while is good enough? I am convinced that heathenism (which is defined as not believing in the God of the Bible) is the way to go.

All of our ancestors started out as heathens, and it has only been in recent years (say about the last 2,000) that we have become more lazy and stopped praying to 50 different gods.

Allow me to illustrate the changes religion has undergone over time, which is something I can do because I groveled enough for my own column. Those who don’t believe in groveling can send letters to the editor.

And remember, since I went to Sunday School as a child and lied my ass off to get confirmed, I can be considered a qualified expert on the topic.

In the beginning, people knew so little that religion did not exist. People were simply too stupid to dream of such things. It wasn’t until a neanderthal named Ug tripped and fell that an earth god was created. It was also at this time that the first swear words were invented.

From this, a new god sprang up every week to explain some vexing issue that people did not understand. There were fire gods, wind gods, cave gods and every other sort of god you can imagine. It was a time of many gods.

Remember, science was not yet around to explain weather patterns and woolly mammoth migration habits, so people prayed to everything. These gods existed for many thousands of years.

Unfortunately for all the previous gods, someone (depends on your religion) showed up around 1 A.D. and caused everyone to start doubting the effectiveness of their gods.

Arguing that people did not have the time to pray to all those different gods, Jesus/ Mohammed/ whoever convinced everyone that it was more cost-effective to pray to one god — namely them.

Everyone renounced his or her numerous gods in favor of one, and thus, the first-ever corporate downsizing of deities took place.

It was after this time that all the previous religions were considered to be heathen and their followers heathens. It was then the job of every single-god religion to educate the multi-god barbarians and save their souls.

Operating under the auspices of the Christianity Education for Heathens bill, the Spanish re-educated the Aztecs in record time. Other civilizations soon followed. It was not a good time to be a heathen.

After the majority of heathen religions were stamped out, we entered into a more benign era of religious persecution.

Instead of stamping out entire civilizations, we were instead content to burn a few witches at the stake every once in a while.

It was not until the late 1800s that the Supreme Court erroneously ruled that the freedom of religion clause in the Constitution extended to all religions and not just Christianity. Thus, the Indians were spared re-education and instead placed on reserves where we could keep an eye on them and their heathen gods.

After that, baseball eclipsed persecuting heathens as the national pastime, and we settled into our current funk.

Based on the patterns that religion has followed over the years, I have concluded that religion reached its zenith a long time ago and has been on the downswing ever since.

Looking at how religion has been downsized through the ages leaves me convinced that my policy is the best idea around.

We were all once heathens, and it was not until a wily salesman sold people on the notion that streamlining religion was the way to go did we have a single god.

So embrace laziness and renounce your god! Pray to him only when necessary, and sleep in on Sundays.

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Aaron Woell is a heathen in political science from Bolingbrook, Ill.