How to Tell If Yours Is Not the One True Religion

• No one ever photographs you silhouetted against a backdrop of streaming, radiant light.

• You actually get to see the zombie apocalypse, but your neighbor disappeared in a blinding flash of light.

• The last time you skipped church, booming, ominous choruses of trumpets didn't signal your soul's eternal damnation.

• Your religion encourages you to murder anyone for any reason.

• You are required to convert others just to be considered a good person.

• The first time you made love, the crucifix nailed to your wall fell down and hit you on the head.

• You have to pull into a gas station because your car lit up a "check soul" light.

• You had gay sex outside the missionary position while using birth control with an atheist member of another skin tone after getting drunk on stolen sacramental wine on the Sabbath, and baby Jesus still didn't cry.

•  You are Tom Cruise.

Merry Easter-Eve

"Mother F-CKER. Whelp, I'm out six pieces of silver."

Ah, the day before Easter. Easter Eve, Holy Saturday, or–as I like to call it–St. Thomas' Day.

This marks the day when Jesus of Nazareth lay in his tomb, dead the day before, but before the day when his followers started seeing apparitions of him, checked his tomb, and said, "Oh crap he's gone."

Now, no one would have said anything the first day, because that's just bad form and comforting was required, but I figure today was the day someone, St. Thomas because why the hell not, first hit on Mary Magdalene.

"Ah, Mary, I know your grief, I too feel it. Surely, I was not his wife, but he was like unto a brother to me. And … it is a brother's duty to care for his widow, so I shall be here for you and your needs. I shall take you into my family and you shall want for noth–

"OH HEY JESUS DIDN'T SEE YOU THERE fuckshitass WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? SHOULDN'T YOU BE DEAD? WHAT'S THE JOKE HERE? Cock-blocking asshole!"

There's a pretty good reason to call him "Doubting Thomas," then. Brother could not believe he could get his game smacked down by a dead man.

New Da Vinci Code Sequel: Dante, Damnation, Another D-Word

Dan Brown has a new Robert Langdon "Da Vinci" book coming out, this one again an earnest sequel. It's called Inferno, so clearly it has some roots in the politically veiled Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, but otherwise not much is known yet. So far, Langdon saved the world from impossible but still dramatic Ewan McGregor-based antimatter annihilation, and then proved a woman to be the direct descendant of Jesus of Nazareth and Mary the Magdalena.


Now, he'll prove that one pope really did end up in Hell, I guess. And Beatrice was a real person. And there's a hole in the ground in Italy that was a secret tunnel. If that last one is wrong I'll pay my friend Dean $10. Dean is a good proxy for all of you. He takes foolish bets and loves doing so.

A coworker and I got talking from this. Apparently, her daughter is in the process of preparing for the verbal defense of her dissertation, the topic being related to Opus Dei and secret societies and all the goodies Dan Brown writes so dryly about until you either fall asleep or lose track of the historical and fictitious elements in his stories.

I suggested she write for permission to access the Vatican Secret Archives, at least in passing and if only to say she had done so. It'd be cool to have that tucked under your belt when you get up in front of a gaggle of academics whose purpose is your judgement. "Oh, yes, I requested of the Vatican's secured archives materials related to my thesis, however you'll have to forgive me, I have surprisingly yet to hear back from them."

And then Robert Langdon runs into the chamber as a sniper's bullet casually pierces the air whence once you were standing, burying itself in the chest of the bald, aging historian wearing the grey tweed vest and big, round glasses who had been the first to laugh at your cute opener. As he slumped back in his chair and his associated dove for cover, Langdon's firm grip tugs on your arm, bringing the rest of you to follow out through the stacks and out onto the busy evening streets of Rue Sainte Catherine de Medici.

*yawn*

On Mixing Parables

My family is not what you would call … good.

Actions and attitudes aside, sometimes they're just foolish and I'm left aghast. For example: Christmas decorations that don't have anything to do with that particular holiday.





Joy Noel Peace Joy Noel. Sounds like a poor decision parents make while naming their children three weeks after having just been Saved themselves. But fine.

The trouble is that damned little bird. It's a dove. Jesus never saw a dove. Not once in his life. To my knowledge, Doves are not endemic to the Middle East. In fact that is a dove, looking back, with an olive branch in its mouth.

That would be the story of Noah. The guy from Jewish folklore? From before Abraham so there really weren't any Jews yet even? Just nomadic and slightly less-nomadic peoples. The guy based heavily on the preexisting Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh? That guy.

Leave it to the Christians to mix up their own lousy stories. Sheesh.

Etch-A-Pope! | The Most Blasphemous Game Since Civilization

The Pope has a book out about the Infancy Gospels of Jesus, or rather his take on the infancy, less the apocryphal texts and the Council of Nicea muddying the waters. This is the back jacket of that book:

To amuse a coworker, I placed the book in front of my face and jostled it as I quoted Return of the Jedi:

 Good! Good! Now, strike me down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the Dark Side shall be complete!"

Apparently, she always imagine Pope Benedict had a squeaky rat voice, which makes sense considering his name was Ratzinger.

Interestingly, since "Ratskeller" is the name of at east one dive bar in every college town, literally German for "rat cellar," it stands to reason that the German Pope's name means "one who [zing]s rats." I'm not sure exactly what German verb "zing" would be the root of, however. Cursory research reveals only that Ratzinger is Bavarian for "one from Ratzing," and there is a Southern Bavarian town called Ratzing. So, basically, the Pope is named "One from the place where rats and Zinged."

Anyway.

Somehow we also determined that the pope would need a new face to match his crazy voices, but since I couldn't come up with just one to waste my time on, I created this:

It's Etch-A-Pope!

Mix and match your favorite pope pieces, or create brand new ones using only a pen and the parts of a Post-It note closest to the sticky strip!

We have Cat Pope!

W. C. Fields Pope!

Derpy-Pope!

Terminator Pope! (Alternately "Robot Baboon Al Gore Pope" maybe?)

 Emperor Palpipope!

 Extra-Derpy-Pope! (Alternately "Hillbilly Pope" or "Pope Cletus.")

And PinochiPope! The Pope who always lies!

(Better known as "Regular Pope.")
Oh snap.

Jesus Came for YOU

Some gung-ho Christian left this button at our store last night. As far as proselytizing goes, it's pretty passive-aggressive. Now I'm all about pieces of flair, even being Jewish, but I don't think I can wear this one.

"JESUS"

"He came for you."




… in the middle of the night? Did he wait outside my window, hush-hushing me to keep me from waking my parents, lest we never make it to Neverland?

Or perhaps it is more lurid than that. I mean sure, Jesus was known to hang around lepers and a prostitute or two, and he was probably married to a smart young woman called the Magdalena who the Church libeled, and there's a whole branch of French royalty who claim descendance from those two, but Jesus was a family show.

And I'm pretty sure there's something about not "spilling your seed" on the open Earth. Plus that's a baby Jesus on the button. That raises some serious pedophilia issues even a Protestant wouldn't want to touch.

Maybe he caught it in his hand?

War on Christmas - Day 3: Curious George Chiam

I came across a copy of Happy Hanukkah, Curious George today. It's a board book, meaning it's pages are made of stiff cardboard to stand up to tiny child hands. It's about 14 pages long and involves the Poacher Slaver Man in the Yellow hat (though frightfully referred to not by name, but only as "a friend") taking George to a Hanukkah dinner.


George helps wrap some presents, eats sweets, plays driedel and "monkey see, monkey do" with the kids, knocks over some purple applesauce, then makes the children help clean it up. Later the Man lights the menorah, and George wraps some latkes up for a sick friend after doing all the dishes with his disgusting, feces-tossing monkey paws.

That's the entire book. The most religious element is that the menorah exists without explanation, and the mitzvah or good deed is supposedly important. No mention of Macabees, or miracles, or Judaism or religion of any kind. Just being a good person as a general idea.

And that's pretty fantastic.

Honestly, I'm probably going to miss Hanukkah this year because my non-practising aunt and shiksa mother decided to hold the get together at one in the afternoon. Last year, we ate pork chops and picked our presents (read: "checks") off of a Christmas tree. We are not what you would call "observant." Frankly, my grandma forcing me to say the candle prayer is about as religious as we get, since I'm the only bar-mitzvahed male in the house. My dad could do it, but no one wants to invite him.

Why not Christmas?

Fake-Hanukkah is so much better than the awkward, tongue-biting I remember from the Real Hanukkahs of my childhood. Mostly because of all the drinking now. It's great. So how come even with Santa Claus and mistletoe and reindeer, and all the gifts and cheer and good will that has nothing to do with Jesus, JESUS STILL GETS ALL THE HYPE.

I mean, I get it, he's the "messiah." The "Son of God" is an important business title. Fine. "Macabee" isn't as glorious as being a Mason these days. Whatever.

But come on, all the best things about Christmas have nothing to do with Christianity, they're Pagan and generally just about being a good dude to the other dudes in your life.

Be a dude.

"Be excellent to each other." - Abraham Lincoln

On Jesus Christ

I used "Jesus Christ" as an epithet today, which I fins a bit strange and yet carries very little weight for me, as I was raised Jewish in a New Age protestant household.

I imagine Jesus does not have a problem with this. Truthfully, I feel like the exchange would flow as thus:

"Jesus Christ!"

"Yes?"

"Oh, sorry, I was just saying the epithet."

Jesus sighs. "You know how long it took me to get used to responding to that? That's not my name. My name's Iesu. No one ever calls for Iesu."

"…"

"It's like a bad nickname you get in college. You don't even like it, but people keep calling you it, and you don't know how but one day you just realize you've been responding to it more than your real name and half your friends don't even know what it is."

"Wow, Jesus, I'm sorry.… Do you- do you want me to call you Iesu? Would that feel better?"

"…No; no, man, it's not that big a deal. I mean it's not like everybody else is going to stop calling me that. I just- y'know, don't say it as much, alright?"

"Yeah. Yeah, man, no problem."

Come on, now, Jesus. I get it. This is why you don't want people taking your name in vain. We hereby apologize.

Jesus: A Comic Con Story

While waiting for the subway at New York Comic Con this past weekend, a man came up and handed me a flyer. Like an idiot, I took it, hoping it was a coupon since, after all, I was dressed like a blind Han Solo.

Nope. It was about Jesus.

My compatriot ignored him spectacularly, as she has been a New Yorker officially for a few months now. Before he could say anything else, I turned back to this man, presented the paper he had just handed me, and projected a resolute, "NO."

He took it, but asked me, "You don't want to learn about Jesus?" like a sad mother who just had her puppy kicked by her favorite nun.

"NO."

Man, listen. I was raised Jewish. Do you know what that means? It means I already learned about Jesus, and probably know more about him than you do, since I had to study that, not being inundated with hyperbole and dogma since birth. I'm not Christio-brainwashed, I'm faithfully educated.

"Well, alright, He still loves you," the man said as he trudged away, feeling sad but inside I know, also resentful and more than a little superior.

"Oh, I know," I called after him. I just told you. I know about Jesus already. I don't need help. I'm very glad that you are trying to be a good person and are not forcing anything on me overtly, but I still don't need what you're offering.

Moreover, that guy Jesus is playing this all wrong. First he's married to every nun on Earth, then he plays this.

Saying He loves me so early in the game? I'm not even committed to him yet, officially or unofficially. Men should never say "I love you" first. It's bad form. You give up a lot of the control in the relationship when you say that, and I know the church is all about control, so what's the deal, Jesus?

Men never say the L-word first, and they never use emoticons first either.

Same reason. Also, most of the time they look stupid.

Team Jesus

Since my team just came in dead-middle at trivia night, yet again, I'm a little annoyed. Every week is the same thing: 8s and 9s in the first couple rounds, then 6s and 3s, and we make up no viable ground in the bonus round. Getting a little tired of it. Might have to switch teams soon.

In fact, yeah.  Switching teams. Moses has been failing me for too long. It's time to go Team Jesus over here.

Christianity Makes 3 Point Conversion, Turns Jew's Heart

It occurred to my yesterday that Jesus must have been the son of God.

He's the only person to ever overcome the deadly T-virus and resist zombification by sheer force of will.

Here's a shortlist of other characters capable of such a feet:

• Hal Jordan
• Batman
• Alice Abernathy from Resident Evil
• Son-Goku, Dragon Ball Z

 And in Jesus' defense, Hal's both gone insane and was resurrected not of his own power, Batman has both been mind controlled and was only clinically 'dead' for a few seconds at a time, Alice was a genetic anomaly/mutation who never actually died, and Goku had to be wished back from the dead with magic alien dragon testicles. So, you know, Go Team Jesus.


And if that wasn't offensive enough for you, I hope you had a wonderful Easter! That glorious day celebrating the time Son-Jesus was wished back from the dead by Saint Krilin and Pico-Peter after he died and descended to Hell to fight the red and blue trolls/free the patriarchs, and then trained under King Kai to master the spirit bomb or something.

Anyway, I hope you're full of candy.

Happy Easter, Gentiles!

The Best Things About Easter:

• Chocolate
• Bunny rabbits
• Chocolate bunny rabbits
• Time-and-a-half
• Something about Jesus 

 Have a very merry, Christians. Now just stay out of my way when I head to the grocery store for discount candy tomorrow. I don't want to have to crucify another of you.

Christian Singles

"We have so much in common! We both love Jesus, coffee, sitting oddly on furniture,
apparently physical fitness from our clothes, and neither one of us waxes our eyebrows!"

I'm Jewish.

Not so much in a religious sense, or even so much a cultural sense, but in the "Hitler would demand my death" sense. In any event, it's enough for paperwork.

So why, then, does Christian Singles persist in sending me emails?

Is it some kind of elaborate plot at conversion? The Spanish Inquisition didn't go over that well in the Jewish community–and now everyone expects it–so maybe they church is trying a more-flies-with-honey approach. 'Look! She's pretty! She wants to love you forever! In a subservient but ultimately equal in your close, personal three-way with the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!'

Somehow, that doesn't seem very marketable fr the world wide train wreck. More likely, it's sent as an attempt to fetishize The Other in my eyes.

"Oh yeah! These Gentle Gentiles will do ANYTHING you want, ALL NIGHT, EVEN ON A FRIDAY! Come on in and praise their lord, and get ready to proclaim 'Jesus is just alright with ME!"

Or it's automated. Whichever.

Fun with Jesus Fish

I'm always shocked when people unironically have the Jesus fish decal on their automobiles. They have to be aware of the pop-cultural identity of the fish, so long as the car looks like it belongs to someone under the age of 50. And that implies a knowledge of the Darwin fish and all the other permutations, possibly including the Dead Darwin fish, the Darwin-Eating FAITH Fish, and maybe even the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Still, it seems I live by someone who either enjoyed a wave of '90s nostalgia or completely missed the boat the first time around. Or, they're just really, really Christian.

Although, something's not quite right with this.

Muuuuch better.

The Second Coming of Steve Jobs

I think I'll repost this when the next iPhone comes out, but since I couldn't get this out of my head last week, here's Steve Jobs descending from heaven.

Dave's Manhattan Adventure, Pt. 2

Here are some other highlights from yesterday:

Lisa bought me a Star Wars themed Dress-up Jesus magnet set as a belate birthday gift!

Then we ate delicious ramen after our tea and a walk.

AND I SAW THAT IT HAPPENED ON MULBERRY STREET.

Lisa also got her ears pierced and the girl their let me take a photo of her 2.5" plugs. She also counseled me on how to take out my one earring if ever I chose to do so!

Aaaaand the piercing place where Lisa got her nose pierced was really high end. Their in-house portraits/ads were of a model pretending to snort diamonds instead of cocaine. (Later Lisa thought she crushes my hand, but she was too tiny a thing to hurt a manly man such as myself.)

If You Are Reading This You Did Not Get Raptured

It's okay, though. I probably didn't either.

Reasons I Did Not Get Raptured:

• It was not the Rapture
• I am Jewish
• I frequently engage in non-saintly behavior (like being Jewish) which a truly Christian Rapture would look down upon.
• God would have been more lenient but I spent the last 24 hours at a comic con, a gay bar, and possibly a "No-Pants" party.
• God is kind of a dick

If you were around to read this list, I suggest you consider which category best describes you and then start reevaluating your life. If we really just lost the 144,000 holiest people on Earth, you've only got seven years to fully accept Jesus Christ into your life as the one true savior. And let me tell you, if those Left Behind books are any indication, the last year or so is going to be a bitch so you might want to go ahead and get swipe those books from your library now before they get torched with all the other Holy Books.

On Iconography

In a very round-about train of thought, I recalled that strict modern Islam has a tenant against depicting the Holy Prophet Muhammad. Having been at one point raised a semi-strict Jew with ludicrous regulations against eating delicious food and never letting various obscure items touch the floor, preventing a golden-calf-level faux pas of idolatry or detracting in any way from the glory of one's god seems more than reasonable.

Actually, it seems like this could have done a lot for the other faiths. I haven't heard much lately, but I'm aware that there is still quite a bit of debate over exactly how dark-skinned Jesus supposedly was. I'm not in the camp that he was black, but only because I'm not sure -1st century Israelites would have been very open to interracial marriage and the Ethiopian Jews were still isolated from the rest of their culture. I'd still believe he was a pretty swarthy guy, though. Jim Caviezel? Not really there yet. Maybe Jim Caviezel after a week in Boca. Certainly not the scrawny Aryan I see in a lot of stained glass.

And just forget Judaism straight away. If I had to guess at what Moses looked like I'd end up drawing you a picture of Charlton Heston.

Hell, "Buddha" is just a title for "enlightened one," of which Buddhism makes note of several. Siddhartha Guatama, the Guatama Buddha who kinda took the lead in the pantheon, that guy was a tall, skinny prince-turned-aesthetic. The fat little buddy on my desk is mot likely based off a Chinese monk who was fat and walked the East enlightening others.

As far as I can tell, the only faiths that seem to embrace highly detailed descriptions of their important figures are Hindu and Scientology.

All hail Tom Cruise.

Religious Easter Decorations More Offensive Than Cuddly Bunnies

I was driving up to my dad's place last night when I passed a Catholic church gearing up for Easter in the traditional way: they erected a life-size cross in the front yard. And when I say "life-size," I mean that in the most traditional way. It was appropriately sized for crucifying a grown man.

Why would anyone do that? "Hey, they killed our messiah, so let's celebrate with a giant reminder of the excruciating, agonizing death he went through to save us all." And again, literally excruciating. "With the pain of being crucified." That sounds like such a wonderfully Christian ideal.

Let's focus on how Jesus died, not the point that he was dying miserably in order to redeem everyone and teaching us to appreciate that as we live our lives in a better, more cooperative way. Yes. That makes perfect sense.

But let's not be morbid about the business! Let's take a pretty, purple shawl and drape it over the cross so no one thinks we're a actually trying to crucify anyone or run a family of blacks out of town as soon as we get back from the gas station with a lighter and a gallon of petrol. You know, we don't want to look like weirdos. Let's just put a big scarf up their and say it's the shroud of Turin. It's representative.

And fabuloussssss.

Oh, and yes, just in case you still weren't getting that this is religious and not offensive or anything, up top of the big old cross is that wonderfully condescending sign "I.N.R.I." Do you know what that is? It's what the Roman government smacked up top of Jesus as they killed him. It's an abbreviation for "Iesvs Nazarinvs Rex Iudaeorvm," the Latin for "Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews." Historically, that was what the Roman authorities dubbed Jesus to sound incredibly offensive to the populace of Judea, so that they would vote to allow him to die when they were given the choice to have either Jesus or a lowly thief be pardoned.

So yeah, apparently Catholics have forgotten the true meaning of Christian Easter. Not even the real Pagan Easter, the Christian one.

And while we're here, can I just ask you why in holy hell you thought a crucifix would be a good symbol for your religion? It's just a horrifying torture device! Are you trying to turn the weapon of evil against its masters? I'd say that went out once Constantine converted the entire Roman empire and you guys started liking Rome. Jesus, you're even using the Latin word "Christos" to describe your savior! You just used to call your religion "The Way." That's so wonderfully Buddhist! Your symbols included a happy fish! Why can't you just use a little crystal man as a symbol? Something symbolizing Jesus' resurrection and conquering of death (as per the plan) instead of the way he was ritualistically slaughtered? I'll tell you, I have a couple of Obi-Wan Kenobi action figures that'd be perfect models for a new money-making opportunity there.

What happened to you, Christians? You used to be cool.

"Catholics still cool! You pay later! LATER!"

On Jewish Christmas

Time for me to come out of the closet on another social issue: bi-religious December festivities.

As a completely not-proud lapsed Jew with a lapsed Episcopal mother, I get the best of both holidays in my family. Plus my birthday is in November. And that one year I was bar mitzvahed right in the middle. It was kind of awesome.

But anyway.

Today marks the official post-Chanukah season. Tomorrow marks two weeks until Christmas, and those two things mean just one thing:

Santa hat comes out.

Granted, I still have to hear your crap about being Jewish, but if there's one thing that Santa Claus isn't, it's definitely religious. Screw you guys, I love secular Christmas. It's all your favorite parts of Christmas, without going to church or thinking about babies in a petting zoo. Hell, in Japan they don't have enough Christians per capita to make much sense of it, so it's just a giant happy romantic holiday for couples. It's like Winter Valentine's Day. Awesome.

So screw it. It's going to be less than two weeks until Christmas, I'm done with all the shopping except for one Amazon order I need to time for delivery and some Hallmark cards. I'm going to put on the perfect Santa hat I spent like three years tracking down.

And I'm not even going to wear my yarmulke underneath it this year.