Related:

• ORTHODOX, n. An ox wearing the popular religious joke.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• KISS, n. A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for "bliss.
  It is supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony appertaining to a good understanding...
• EVANGELIST, n. A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbors.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• SACRAMENT, n. A solemn religious ceremony to which several degrees of authority and significance are attached.
  Rome has seven sacraments, but the Protestant churches, being less prosperous, feel that they can afford only two, and these of inferior sanctity....
• BATH, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.
  The man who taketh a steam bath He loseth all the skin he hath, And, for he's boiled a brilliant red, Thinketh to cleanliness he's wed, Forgetting that his lungs he's soiling With dirty vapors of the boiling....
• TURKEY, n. A large bird whose flesh when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude.
  Incidentally, it is pretty good eating. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• UNCTION, n. An oiling, or greasing. The rite of extreme unction consists in touching with oil consecrated by a bishop several parts of the body of one engaged in dying.
  Marbury relates that after the rite had been administered to a certain wicked English nobleman it was discovered that the oil had not been properly consecrated and no other could be obtained....
• EXHORT, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary