Tag Archives: religion

Brandon, MS Church Tries to Build 110 Foot Cross.

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There’s a church in Brandon, MS that is trying to build a 110 foot cross because Christians always have such good luck with giant statues. The project, sponsored by Crosses Across America was recently submitted to the Brandon city council for a zoning permit but was denied even though the church assured the cross could protect the town against 500ft tall vampires. The church is currently trying to overturn the decision via online petition and facebook group, the two most effective forms of protest.



While I certainly have nothing against a 110 foot cross, I think these people could really spend their time, energy and most importantly money on better pursuits. I haven’t been to church in quite some time but if I remember right, Jesus’ message was more focused on “help poor people” and less on “BUILD ME THE TALLEST, GAUDIEST MONUMENTS YOU CAN THINK OF”. This single 110 foot cross will cost somewhere between $80,000-$100,000. Instead of using the money to build something that does nothing for poor people, why don’t you follow Christ’s example and use that money to –



Feed 12 villages of 100 people for a year through Feed My Starving Children



Build an entire home with Habitat for Humanity with 40,000 left over.



buy 200 cows or 833 sheep for struggling farmers through get clean irrigation systems for several villages in India through Charity Water.



Buy 100,000 McDoubles and give them to hungry people! Buy 10,000 hungry people appetizers at Red Lobster! Take 1,000 homeless people out for dinner at a really fancy steakhouse! Anything except building a stupid cross that does nothing to spread Christ’s message.



I guess it could provide shade for some homeless people on hot days.

I guess it could provide shade for some homeless people on hot days.

The Pope Said What About Who This Time?

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Francis isn’t your homophobic, anti-intellectual, draconian great grandfather’s Pope.



First he stunned the world by stating that atheists are OK as long as they’re good people. Now he said that gays are cool, too.



Well, not exactly. When asked about homosexuals becoming priests and the supposed “gay lobby” at the Vatican, he said “When I meet a gay person, I have to distinguish between their being gay and being part of a lobby. If they accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to judge them? They shouldn’t be marginalized. The tendency (to homosexuality) is not the problem … they’re our brothers.”



Granted, he didn’t come out and say “homosexuality is not a sin”. Homosexuality is still considered a sin in the eyes of Catholicism and it could be construed that the only way out is to become a priest and not have sex at all but this is still a step in the right direction and EXTREMELY open minded by Catholic standards.



While many are applauding his progressive-by-comparison views, facebook and twitter are full of people who think they know the Pope’s job better than the Pope –



There's a lot of armchair popes out there.

There’s a lot of armchair popes out there.





I’m glad that Francis seems to be taking the Church in a new direction but I think he should be careful. He’s doing what no Pope has done before and there’s a reason it hasn’t been done before. You know what they did with the last non-judgemental guy who tried to preach unconditional love and forgiveness?



didn't end well.

didn’t end well.

Pick-a-Pope: The Vatican’s Selection Process of a new Leader

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Pope Benedict recently announced that he’ll be stepping down from his duties, citing that his failing health is preventing him from fulfilling his papal duties. This is the first time in about 600 years that a pope has retired rather than die in office trying to burn all the sick days he’s accrued over his career.



To be fair, he really hasn't been looking good recently.

To be fair, he really hasn’t been looking good recently.





This decision has left the vatican with the task of selecting a new pope. It won’t be easy. Anybody gunning for the job has to complete a series of tasks to prove that he has what it takes. Here’s just a few criteria that is viewed in the Vatican’s Pope selecting process.



* Recite the full name, birthdate and birthplace of Jesus.

* Live in absolute opulence, preach the teachings of Jesus Christ, see nothing contradictory about that.

* Wear a 30 pound hat for 5 hours without collapsing.

* Shit in the woods.

* Re-assign 20 pedophile priests to 20 new parishes while blindfolded.

* Go to church EVERY Sunday.

* Ignore 30 gays in under a minute.

* Correctly answer all questions posed by Joan Osborne in “What if God Was One of Us?”.

* Successfully crank call the Dalai Lama.

* Cut off the head of Pope Benedict, steal his power. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE.

Once he has murdered the previous pope, they incinerate the old pope’s head in the Vatican fireplace and a white smoke comes out the chimney, signaling a new pope has been selected.

Have You Accepted Jesus Christ as Your Lord and Savior: The Game.

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Yesterday I was at work driving to a customer’s house with an assistant (sometimes I get an assistant!). We didn’t talk much and just had the radio on quietly. I had turned off the radio at one point to make a phone call and neglected to turn it back on. After a couple of minutes of silence he looked at me and said “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior?”



Well, shit.



With that one question every silence between us for the rest of the day became an awkward one. Way to go, pushy Christian.



I didn’t jump down his throat about it. I know, religion is a personal thing and it’s annoying and almost a little creepy when somebody you barely know is trying to get you to change religions while you’re just trying to work but they’re honestly just trying to help. As my friend Tony mentioned yesterday on facebook when I posted about the interaction, these people honestly think that you’re going to quite literally burn in hell if you don’t believe like they do. They want to help you.



Knowing this doesn’t make them any less annoying or intrusive but I try to remember this and cut them some slack when dealing with them. If you’re not as patient (or as much of a pushover) as me, you can play the new game I invented the next time you’re confronted with one of these people. It’s-



Have You Accepted Jesus Christ as Your Lord and Savior: The Game.



Rules: Points are awarded based on how you respond to someone asking you the titular question. Play with your friends or play alone!



(0 points)
Just mumble something about how you’re not exactly atheist but you don’t really trust any church and yada yada yada. Trail off on some bullshit about how you think he had some good teachings and hope they shut up (this is what I usually do).



(5 points)
Tell them that you’re gay. Points are only awarded if they say that it’s a sin and you argue them on it.



(10 points)
Make them give you the infomercial pitch. Say “well, I’ve heard about Jesus and heaven but I just don’t see what the big deal is.” Make them sell heaven to you in as detailed manner as possible.



(20 points)
As soon as they ask look at them with wide eyes and say “You can do that? Oh, thank God! Please! Hurry!” Sometimes they’ll try to give you a “rebirth” right on the spot. This usually involves them asking to accept Jesus and reject Satan. When they begin roll your eyes in the back of your head, lower your voice as low as it will go, start growling some backwards latin sounding jibberish and then look at the person and say “Too late, this one is MINE NOW.”



(25 points)
Just start crying. When they ask what’s the matter look at them and say “Jesus RAPED ME!”



(40 points)
Think about it for a second and say “Well, it sounds interesting but let me throw this out there. Have you considered accepting me as your lord and savior?” Really try to sell them on you being the messiah. Offer to buy them waffles and ask them when Jesus ever bought them waffles. Bonus 5,000 points if you can actually get them to follow you.


Good luck

Gay Thoughts

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Kids, we have a problem. I keep having gay thoughts.

I don’t mean sexual things like making out with chicks, slowly stroking her back, taking in the fragrance of her hair while I caress her body, tracing her curves, exploring the beautiful form that is the female body until we start excessively grunting like two lady players on a tennis court.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/j-_5EDVpLXY]

No, I don’t mean that. I’m bisexual, or “part gay,” so it would make sense for me to have those thoughts. I’m SUPPOSED to have those thoughts. Especially when it comes to tennis.

I also don’t mean all these thoughts I’ve been having about gay rights like the ability to get married to the person you love or not getting beaten to death because someone assumes you’re gay. Hell, not even the right to wear a skirt as a dude or, well, I suppose chicks can wear pants now…. how about boxers? They can? Well shit… um… jock straps? I’ll go with jock straps.

This is a real thing.

None of that is a problem because civil liberties and freedom of expression and not having to fear for your life or safety (physical or emotional) because of who you are should be available to everyone as stated in our bill of rights.

I don’t even mean the thoughts I’ve had about how my religion/spirituality views gay sex. Because Jesus said absolutely nothing on the subject, and any other reference to homosexuality in the Bible is either something from a portion of the Bible that says it’s okay to sell your children into slavery, or words that have been mis-translated from concepts such as “child rapist”.

Really, homosexuality in the Bible has way more to do with children than two dudes having sex.

And this whole MN Marriage Amendment… the gay thoughts I’ve been having about that? Doesn’t bother me. As Bill said earlier, if the amendment gets shot down, it doesn’t mean gay people can get married. It will STILL be illegal for two chicks to get hitched and make each other miserable for the rest of their lives. It still won’t affect a church’s ability to deny a couple the ability to get married in their church for whatever reason they deem the couple unfit.

As an aside, here’s a thing I said on Facebook that’s getting passed around and reposted. Please feel free to do the same:

No church is, or ever has been, forced to perform a marriage they did not approve of. Many of my friends have either had to convert to get married in a specific church, or get married outside of their church because their partner was not of that particular denomination.

And honestly, I’m fine with the idea of civil unions in state and marriages in church. but that’s not how we’re set up. We are set up for heterosexuals to get married by the state, but not homosexuals. If it’s the state doing it, and a group of people is denied the right to participate, it becomes a civil issue.

You don’t want your church to marry the gays? Neat. You go ahead an deny them the right to get married in your church. But you don’t get to deny them a civil right. THAT is what separation of church and state means. It means your church can’t tell the state what to do, and the state can’t tell your church to perform a holy union it doesn’t believe in.

No, the gay thoughts I’ve been having are FAR more sinister than that. It’s the OTHER gay thoughts I’ve been having.

For instance, a gay friend of mine has been going through some financial difficulties, and he’s been thinking of ways he could try to supplement his income. But, OMG, with this switch from me being the bread winner to Bill doing so, I’VE BEEN HAVING THE SAME THOUGHTS!

Also, a lesbian friend of mine was having difficulties deciding what to wear the other day, and I think about what I’m going to wear ALL THE TIME!!!

Also also, a friend of mine got into a serious accident recently, and a gay friend of mine was talking about how scary that was, and how his heart really went out to all his loved ones, and wishing for a speedy recovery. AND I WAS THINKING THE EXACT SAME THING AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!

Kids, something has to be done about this. Legislation should be passed to keep the gays with their gay thoughts out of my head, to prevent me from being exposed to sin, and to save me from myself. I can’t even think normally without having the same thoughts as gays.

I guess the only way to save myself from these gay thoughts is to just stop thinking at all.

Would You Like to Join My Religion? No? What if I Gave You a Boring, Sneaky Brochure?

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I think the Jehova’s Witnesses are targeting me specifically.



I don’t know what it is. Maybe I had a little too much fun on my birthday and it pissed them off. Maybe one of them saw me hand out fliers for a comedy show and thought those skills would translate well into handing out pamphlets about the bible or whatever but they’ve got it in for me.


The latest sneak attack happened this morning when I was on a walk in my ongoing attempt to be less goddamn fat. I was walking down lake street when a woman in a van parked on the side of the road leaned out the passenger side and said “would you like something to read?” and handed me a pamphlet.



That man’s got the look of a man who trusts what he’s reading.





I took the pamphlet to be polite, gave her a quick nod, mumbled “thank you” and kept walking. I didn’t need to look at it to know it was a Jehova’s Witness thing. Of course it was. Nobody else just gives you something to read without first explaining what they’re handing you. Even the Mormons are nice enough to wear uniforms and ask up front if you want to talk about Jesus. The Jehova’s Witnesses just hit and run. They want you to convert but won’t say it out loud in public. It’s Jehova’s Witness Protection Program (#mynewbandname).



The biggest pamphlet assault against me happened several years ago. I was doing mortgage collections for a huge bank (let’s call them Fells Wargo). It was an awful job. I was making huge paychecks via commission and just blowing them on booze every night to try to forget what I did to earn the money to buy the booze. Almost every day at work was spent hungover and the person sitting next to me was a Jehova’s Witness.



She never said she was. She let her pamphlets do the talking.



Sometimes the calls were slow and since the internet had a “block anything fun” filter on it I would usually bring in a book to read. Once we were working together on Christmas eve because I needed the money and it was just another day to her. There were no calls coming in and I spent most of the day reading Siddhartha. At one point in the day she looked at the book in my hands and said “Siddhartha? What’s that book about?” I told her it was a story about a man in India who left his home searching for enlightenment in the time of Buddha.



She said “Hm. He sounds like a good man. Do you know who the best man ever was? Jesus.”



A few weeks later I was at my desk reading and she was at hers looking at me, just searching for a way to start a conversation about Jesus. She reached into her purse and said “you like reading so much. I got something you can read if you like.” and handed me a pamphlet that said “How Can Blood Save Your Life”.



No mention of Jesus on the cover. Jehova’s Witness sneak attack!”





You can read the whole pamphlet here. It basically starts out with some 6th grade science about what blood does and then tells you you shouldn’t get blood transfusions because the bible said “”Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. . . . But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it” (i.e. don’t eat raw meat, dumbass). Then they liken blood transfusions to cannibalism and say it’s unsafe because it was unsafe 200 years ago.



She asked what I thought and I told her that I donate blood regularly, showing her my red cross card. I then told her a couple of personal stories of relatives and friends who would have died without blood transfusions and then she said “I don’t know… having someone else’s blood in me just seems weird. Yuck!” During my break I went to my supervisor demanding to be moved to a different desk.



The very next day I moved to my new desk but only worked a half day because I was driving up to a small town in North Dakota to tell some jokes. I was driving up with the host and headliner telling them about the Jehova’s Witness who wouldn’t leave me alone and the pamphlets. When we arrive at the hotel and check in I look at the coffee table in the lobby and it’s strewn with Watchtower magazines. I yell out “THEY FOLLOWED ME” and the front desk clerk looked at me and said “What?”



I said “Nothing! Inside joke… ha ha” and he looked at me like I was crazy which was good because then maybe he wouldn’t talk to me about Jesus.



I will say they’ve got one of the more attractive Jesuses. Soulful, not too thin, well groomed. Tell me you wouldn’t hit that.




Are You There, Michele Bachmann? It’s Me, God.

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Dear Michele Bachmann;


Hello, it’s your Lord God. Listen, I heard recently about how you mentioned that a miracle was going to happen at the Iowa caucuses tonight and “we know who creates miracles”. While I’m flattered by your constant, borderline creepy praise I feel like you need to know that you shouldn’t get your hopes up. There will be no miracle tonight in Iowa. Not for you, anyway.


I really like to help those who help themselves and you just seem to do nothing but shoot yourself in the foot. Whether it’s constantly spitting out misinformation about the founding fathers ending slavery and the Soviet Union is rising or campaigning against energy efficient lightbulbs because they’re closing down factories which they aren’t, you’re really not helping yourself at all. The times you do help yourself, like when you practically rigged the Iowa straw poll by buying people’s tickets and providing bus rides and entertainment to get people to vote for you aren’t really what I meant by saying “help themselves”. I may protect fools but I don’t hand them presidential nominations.


Frankly, your obsession with me is getting weird and this is coming from a God that has billions of people pray to him daily. I’ve never spoken to you and never directly helped you before so I don’t understand why you’re giving me credit for not only things that happened to you, but things that haven’t even happened yet and never will (like you winning Iowa tonight).


I’ve never actually said this to anybody before but I think it’s time you started worshiping other deities. There’s lots of other gods out there and I know I said “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” but times change and back then I didn’t anticipate somebody as… clingy as you. You could worship Allah. He’s so down for the fanatical devotion you have to offer. He even requires you to pray five times a day and from what I’ve seen from you that can get done by lunchtime. What about Hinduism? I’m not actually not sure what they believe in (I’m God, not Wikipedia) but you never see them pushing their beliefs on other people so that might be best for you. You could even be an atheist. I know that the concept of me not existing is frightening to you but you’re really full of yourself so you’d fit right in with the other atheists.


Why don’t you start your own religion? You could start one that deifies the founding fathers! You already practically worship them and your knowledge of them is about on par with your knowledge of the bible (nearly nonexistent) so it’d be a smooth transition for you.


Whatever you do, please leave me alone. I’m seriously considering getting a restraining order on you.


I have to go now. I promised I’d play catch with Tim Tebow this afternoon.


Love,
God.

seriously leave me alone.

And God so Loved the World He Wanted Me to Yell at You

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Hey, Youngamaniacs! I’m busy writing a sketch I thought of in the shower this morning for tonight’s Men With Hats show at The Comedy Corner Underground so here’s a classic from the Disney Vaults! Enjoy!


I was walking in downtown Minneapolis with Ben Weil last night and there was a man on the Corner of Hennepin and 7th holding a bible over his head and screaming bible verses at the top of his lungs.  He wasn’t handing out pamphlets.  He wasn’t talking to anyone in particular.  He was just shouting things that were in the book he was waving around (John 3 to be exact.  Way to ruin the ending for us, Spoiley McSpoilerson!)


This is not the first time I’ve seen this.  I’ve seen the whole man-waving-around-a-bible-and-shouting-at-nobody-in-particular in different cities all over and it’s always confused me for 2 reasons.


1.  Why carry the bible around?  You don’t have it open.  You’ve obviously memorized the verses you’re screaming.  It just seems like unnecessary weight.  Are you worried people might think you’re just making it up as you go along?
“AND GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE THEM HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON!”
“Bullshit!”
“SIR, I AM TELLING THE TRUTH AND IT IS ALL HERE IN THIS LEATHERBOUND COLLECTION I HOLD ABOVE MY HEAD!”
“Let me see that for a second!”
“BE MY GUEST, SIR!  TO BE HONEST MY ARM WAS STARTING TO GIVE OUT!”
“Okay… Page 372… Man named Nicodemus… Must be born again… Well I’ll be.  So you were telling the truth.  Well, sir.  I apologize for doubting you.”
“THAT’S QUITE ALRIGHT, SIR!  TO BE HONEST, PEOPLE JUST THOUGHT I WAS SOME CRAZY PERSON UNTIL I STARTED CARRYING THAT AROUND.”
(fade to black as the two men talk about the nature of spirituality.  End scene.)


2.  How many people are you converting with this approach?  I thought the Jehova’s Witnesses had a hard time with their methods but the Curch of the Screaming Street Corner Weirdo must have a lot of empty pews come Sunday.
“AND GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD HE GAVE THEM HIS-”
“Excuse me.  Sir?”
“ONLY BEGOTTEN SON SO THAT-”
“Excuse me, Sir?  Hey, you with the flushed complexion and the dribble of spit hanging from your bottom lip?”
“OH, SORRY I DIDN’T NOTICE YOU.  I WAS KIND OF IN ‘THE ZONE’.”
“Quite alright.  Since you were screaming so loud that I can only assume that puddle of coughed up blood by your feet is your own, I couldn’t help but overhear you.  I must say, I would like to know more.  Could I possibly… join your church?”
“YOU CERTAINLY MAY, SIR!”
“Thank you!  When is your next mass?”
“YOU’RE ATTENDING IT RIGHT NOW!  GRAB A BIBLE AND START WAVING!”
(camera pans out as man hands bibles to his eager wife and children.  End scene.)