Godless is about a group of teenagers would like to build up a new religion called Chutengodian. The water tower in St Andrew Valley was served as the centre of their operation; they named it the Ten-Legged One. As water is essential to life and the tower was the tallest building in the valley, these gave them a sense of worship. Jason was the founder and Head Kahuna of the Church of the Ten-Legged God who had a mother’s obsession with diseases and a father’s obsession with religion of, which he was tired.His mother always gave great care to his physical behaviors, that’s why Jason was thought to have narcolepsy, a kind of sleeping disease. Under his father’s religious order, he was required to attend Teen Power Outreach, which allowed teenagers to get know to more about religion. In the story the members of Chuntengodian would like to organize a Midnight Mass to worship their Ten-Legged God.
They planned to climb up to the water tank. Originally this had no great deal to the citizen. However, Henry’s (the high priest of Chutengodian) suggestion of having a swim in the tank put them into deep trouble. Lastly this adventurous story definitely give readers a sense of humors, the interaction between Shin (the First Keeper of the Sacred Text) and all the other characters in the story would burst you into laughter.Insights/Influence:Personally I believe that teenagers should have their freedom to choose their religions, unfortunately most of them are controlled by their parents, which makes them feel uncomfortable about. Religion is some sort of spiritual belief which allows people to rely on and enhances their confidence in facing death or difficulties in life. For examples, Jason believes in his own religion and this motivates him in facing challenge; this is a good role model that nowadays teenager should learn from.
At the same time I am really impressed with his creativeness and courage in forming a new religion. Moreover, he did give great thought and effort in it, he invited people to join his religion, creates commandments and worship ceremony for his religion.During the formation of Chuntengodian Jason settled a numbers of disputes among the believers, which shows the spirit of being a leader. However I do not appreciate Henry’s suggestion in the story. He did not notice the serious consequences about his actions, this would not only causes himself injuries and also inconvenience to others. Nowadays the government encourages teenagers to study integrated humanities, which aim of not only learns from textbook, but also through their daily life.
They may adventure and explore the wonder of nature, just like Shin who was interested in hunting snails and created his own gastropodarium, which amazed Jason. Last but not least I’d surely recommend this book to others, it does provide me new insights of life, which helps me to enrich my life experience with.
