King John was apparently the first atheistic King of England. He was violently against the Christian religion. He read religious literature so that he would have ammunition for mocking it. He loved making anticlerical jokes in the manner of Swift or Voltaire. He liked to make gratuitously "blasphemous" remarks like 'By God's Teeth', 'By God's Feet', e.t.c. He liked to shock churchmen by his "heretical" stance on church doctrine, He's favorite motif was the patent absurdity of the Resurrection. Once, when a buck was slaughtered at the end of a hunt, he remarked pointedly: you lucky beast, never forced to murmur prayers or be dragged to Holy Mass.