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.

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness, Which is Next to Pompousness

This note was left for a manager where I work yesterday. Since one was not available to speak to immediately.

Dear Manager,

Please forward this to the CEO:
I can tell by your lack of Godly cards that this company in not long for this world. When you try (as our whole nation is trying) to take God out of the picture, He eventually takes you out, instead. Turn back to God, and it will go well for you.

Prayerfully,
Joe [something I can't make out]"

 Alright, some commentary:

First, "Godly cards" refers to greeting cards. We apparently do not stock enough religious Christian greeting cards.

Secondly, I would point out that we have a reasonably large Baptist population in the tri-town area. This also explains the frequency with which I have to explain to church returnees that "All Christian bibles contain both Old and New Testaments."

Now, this person actually is not included in this bunch. If I may be a little Sherlockian for a moment:

The missive itself is properly formatted, addressed, signed, and grammatically accurate down to superfluous serial commas, implying both a secondary education and practice, as well as a relative lack of experience with text messaging and email. The mostly cursive text seconds this, but the printed acronym tells us the writer worked in relation to business enough to make logos important, graphically, even when personal handwriting is less than ideal. The idea that a major chain store manager could forward a message through any proper channel to the CEO of the entire company reflects a dearth of any knowledge of big business and corporate environments, and a implies a significantly sheltered world view. These two factors in tandem would indicate a older gentleman remembering small-town economies and conservative values including education and a predominately Christian-led society where religion was a fact of life and not an option with a plethora of possible answers. The vague connotations and threats of failed business, death, and judgement imply a righteousness likely acquired early in life but a willingness to be politically outspoken likely acquired later, this is cemented by the use of the "prayerfully" sign-off, which is bordering on the archaic. "Our nation" shows a sense of ownership, of which the directed are either not a part of or may not necessarily consider themselves to be so. The only trusted men placating religious and racial fears in media while encouraging their followers to be outspoken are preachers and forcefully FOX News. Handwriting says Joe is right-handed and meticulous. His confidence in his identity and validity are expressed through large, swooping, letters and commas and strong strokes, but not rushed.

Thus we can surmise that Joe is likely white, between the ages of 55 and 70 and worked in small-business for his entire career, possibly self-employed but has been retired for more than 6 years. He was probably the patriarch of his family, though he bares weight from his own father's dominance before him. He watches Bill O'Reilly and has at least one televangelist he openly finds appealing.

He also has nothing better to do with his day,  and makes the poor decision to shop for greeting cards in a book store.

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.

War on Christmas | Davy 5: The War on Chanukkah

If you want to disprove the war on Christmas as a legitimate worry, you need only ask where the atheists are who should be fighting against every other even remotely pagan religious ceremony within the month of December.

The war on Chanukah? That was called the story of Chanukah. Jews beat the crap out of a superior military force and were miraculously un-obliterated. Then, oil lamps burned with 800% fuel efficiency. There's your miracle.

The war on Kwanza? Try 500 years of racial oppression of the black man in Western culture.

Where's the battle to keep latkes out of our schools? Or the Solstice from being a nationally recognized day of "oh god oh god let's all party and fuck in case we die?

The answer is no one is attacking these holidays, because there is nothing to be feared from them. Frankly, the only thing antagonistic to these holidays, in this age, is Christmas in the first.

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.

On Religion

I understand that religion draws much of its power from explaining things to people who need things explained. Mostly, these are things like "What is the purpose of life?" and "How do I find meaning in a seemingly cold, finite existence that is but a blink in the eye of the measurable universe?" You know, philosophy.

Then there are people who make me think that if you're going to make the decision to be part of a religion, you'd best pass a test evaluating your competence to comprehend and distinguish things like parables and literalness. Example:

I don't mind having to explain to you that the King James bible is a translation commissioned by the court of King James of England in 1604 in order to further distance the Church of England from the Catholic church, who still performed mass in Latin up until 1965. That's not something you'd be expected to know. Hell, I had to look up the dates while I was typing it just to have something better than a ballpark figure.

I may get a little miffed when I have to explain how the King James Version and the New American, and New International, and Revised editions are all different translations of the four gospels and such, made at different times from mostly the same source material, accounting in newer cases for more accurate descriptions of people and events, as reflected by modern English. The actual differences allude me, so why should you know more than that they are different in subtle ways, but tell the same story in predominantly the same fashion.

I get pissed when I have to take the time to explain to you twice that all Christian bibles will have both the Old and New Testaments.

Listen, I get that you're trying to get your daughter into Sunday School and faith young, but that child is going to have her faith drastically shaken when she turns nine and realizes she's smarter than you. You don't want to risk her getting brainwashed because you didn't know what it was you were teaching her. I have a friend who was taught there were 36 weeks in a year, until I confounded her with math in her early twenties.

If I ever had faith, it would not be in humanity days like this.

Michael J. Fox Worries for Your Immortal Soul

Someone left this at work last week. As expected, the paper was of low quality, as was the logic. Surprisingly, the writing was eloquent, though clearly the proofreader was ignored when (s)he [Let's face it, it was probably a he, as religious leaflet orderers tend towards the … shall we say domestically "traditional." - Ed.] pointed out that the first six entire folds were negated by the final point made in the seventh.

But wait! What's that at the bottom?

Why, it's Marty McFly!

"What are you, in the navy?"

Why does Marty seem so concerned for my Jesusly well being? He never seemed that religious, what with the teenage rebellion in his mid-twenties and the time traveling and fate altering.

Then again, he's got a steady girlfriend he intends to marry, finds temptation to sin but manages to avoid it with some sage advice and a little extra-natural help. Maybe it was a stealth-Christian film.

You know, like anything with Kirk Cameron that isn't overtly Christian.

On Catholicism

I miss this pope. He looked like Dude Mother Teressa.
New Pope looks like Emperor Palpatine.
Enjoy Pope Classic responsibly.

English is a dangerous language. We steal words from just about everyone, ever since that whole Norman Invasion thing and the bit where English was a dead language for a long time. Yet that's a digression. The point is, we steal words constantly, and sometimes we steal two words that sound close to each other and don't mean anything remotely similar. Case in point:

"Catholic" comes from the Greek καθολικός meaning "universal," from contraction of the phrase κατά όλος, "regarding the whole." 

καθίεμαι, meanwhile meant "to sit." καθίεμαι became καθετήρ, explaining from whence we get "catheter."

You will notice both words contain the root "kath-." Or perhaps the difference is "kat(h)a" versus "katie," I'm not actually an etymologist. The point is, I'm starting to understand.

Worshiping the pope is as painful an experience as shoving a rubber tube up your dick.

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.

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.

Half-Jewish: It's like being bisexual, but with cultures. But still no one likes you.

This is typically the time of year where I point out that every single Jewish holiday is a celebration of our often miraculous survival against overwhelmingly poor odds.

Screw that, find the link if you can. I can't.

This year I'm fascinated by the ability of certain religious groups to become so insular that they effectively do become an ethnic or national group. Case in point: I am half Jewish.

This icon actually describes most Judeo-Christian relations over time.

You heard me. I was born to two parents–as most people are–only one of whom was Jewish. When I refer to being Jewish, I'm referring to having been sent to Hebrew School and bar-mitzvahed, mostly as part of said parents' divorce stipulations. When I refer to being half-Jewish, I refer to the cultural appropriations of being generally frugal, respectful of authority to the point of developing stress disorders, and having no dance ability besides an aptitude for kicking, lifting chairs, or linking arms and running in concentric circles.

It's sort of like being bisexual. Full Jews look down on me for being lazy and sinful, while non-Jews basically do the same from the opposite direction. Really, only other Half-Jews can understand what you feel like on the inside.

On Illegal File Sharing

Some Swedes just got their new religion officially recognized by their government. Their religion founded by a 19 year-old philosophy major, which canonizes the act of file sharing, considers such an act religious freedom, and worships the actions and symbols for CTRL+C/CTRL+V.

Let's get real, for a minute.

I love this idea. This is wonderfully, delightfully, youthfully misguided. It's reminiscent of some of my favorite cyberpunk stories, where information is freely distributed by anyone and everyone, having near-physical presence in a world combining the material and the digital.

Of course, it also goes without saying the characters doing this are always hackers, conspiracy junkies, or just generally kids racking up huge bills on daddy's charge account downloading new purse designs. Simply worded, the sharing of such restricted files is still pretty clearly illegal in these worlds. The characters just live outside normal rules. Great job.

"Ahh! Fine champagne, metal lingerie, and innocent Saphic trysts; the future is alight
with the airs of black-market contraband and virtual reality prostitutes.
Thank god I work for the government."

I won't pretend the internet's best stuff isn't illegal. I'm fairly certain no one would play the Helicopter Game for 45 minutes straight if not for the prospect of doing that during a high school physics class, in violation f school computer use guidelines and utilizing a proxy network instead of working out some practice free-fall equations. It's the illicit that makes it worthwhile.

Here's the trick:

There will never be enough restrictions to keep illegal file sharing from happening. It'll happen. Much like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, "nature finds a way." Put up a wall, hackers and coders will evolve a new method of scaling it. Then it'll catch on, and by the time you figure it out enough to counteract it, it's already three fads back and full of nothing but spam links and porn. (But not the porn you might actually search for, completely different, low-rent porn in crap quality but still named like it was the porn you originally wanted.)

I remember using Napster back when it was new and–well, not legal, but not yet able to have been declared officially illegal. I remember switching to KaZaA before Napster got shut down. Then there was DC++ in college and torrenting, and RapidShares, and a billion other similar sites. And guess what?

I don't even torrent anymore. For the most part, it's no longer a concern of mine to have everything ever. I don't need it, and I certainly don't need getting sued. More importantly, I'm a Big Person now. I have the $15 a month it would cost to be a Netflix and Hulu Plus member. Sure, I'll download any music or televised show not legally available in my country, like a live set or an unbroadcast series without American licensing companies, but as far as copyrighted audio and video goes, I can afford to support the poor schlub who worked his ass off to try and become rich and famous.

YouTube is full of too many people clawing for both and only ending up with the latter.

How the Jew Saved Christmas (A Bonus Blog)

But down in the Thunderdome they say, that the Jewish boy's heart grew three sizes that day.

Of course the beer can ornament and sock nailed(?) to the mantle were the residents' doings.

Double Dippng on Christmas

I never really saw a problem with double-dipping so long as you rotate whatever it is you're dipping between bites.

The same applies to religious celebrations. One of these days, I'm going to get so many extra vacation days, being multidenominational. "I can't come in today, it's Yom Kipur." "Nope, I'll be out all week for Lent." "Sorry, it's the Vernal Equinox. Gotta don my robe and antlers."

Is it fair that in the span of six weeks one year I got to celebrate my birthday, bar-mitzvah, Chanukah, and Christmas? Not at all. Was it one of the best things ever, giving me ample funding to survive without student loans well into my adulthood? Yes. Do you probably hate me now? A little bit, likely.

But hey, what do I know, I have no religion anyway. It's all wasted on me. To me, Christmas is about the spirit of love and giving and being kind to all manner of people, forgiving those past wrongs against us and saying, "Let us all be better from now on." Chanukah is the celebration of exactly that, except with blue and fire instead of green-and-red and a pine tree, celebrated one evening, likely the Saturday closest to an official start date.

Christmas is not about honoring the birth of a religious figure several months and about seven years off from the actual event, as set by doctrines established in the third century. It's about Santa Claus and snow and Coca Cola and love. And let's be honest, Chanukah isn't about a miracle of being rewarded with less than unrealistic deadlines because we overcame impossible odds with only blessing and sheer determination. It's about not feeling left out at Christmas.

So yes, hate me for celebrating both holidays and getting twice as many presents. However, if you value actual faith in your culture and religion, pity me, because I worship only the consumerism and commune only by giving of my own pocket. I am repulsed both by the baby Jesus and anything more ceremonial than a latke.

Plus, I only get presents from half the family at each holiday, so bug off, that's one holiday, total.

On Yarmulkes

1. I can't believe I spelled that right on the first try. (My family and every Jewish person I know has only ever said "yah-muh-kuh" for the Yiddish יאַרמלקע, and the Hebrew really being a completely different word, pronounced "key-pah.")

Anyway, I like wearing my yarmulke under my Santa hat every Christmas season. It's multi-denominational, and I have about as much respect for either tradition as the other, but for the most I just get about one of two good laughs out of it every year when a person asks me, "Wait, aren't you Jewish?" and I get to pluck off my one hat to Bartholomew Cubbins another hat underneath.

But the significance of the yarmulke isn't merely comedic, nor is it ceremonial, or even terribly religious. It's so God can't see your wicked thoughts. That's the gist of it, anyway.

Yup, yarmulkes are Jewish tin-foil hats.

Alright, this guy's hat is clearly Druidic in nature, but it serves the
same purpose, gorram it.

Multidenominationality

I have a Santa hat I break out this time of year that I really love. It took me years to find one I liked as much as an earlier one, but at this point I think I've idealized that first one.

It's a great hat, perfect faux-fur lengths and texture. I even have a bell for it for when I worry about sneaking up on people.

I got a lot of positive comments for breaking it out today, but also the requisite, "I didn't think you celebrated Christmas?" with that question inflected at the end.

Possible Responses:

1. My mom is Christian.
2. I pull off my hat to reveal the yarmulke I always wear beneath it.
3. I am a transformer? Hiding my true nature until the last moment. HEBREWS IN DISGUISE!

Alternative God Particles

Trippy.

Media outlets have an unfortunate effect on the public perception of science every time they use the phrase "God Particle" to describe the Higgs boson. When results imply a lack of discovery, scientists are godless heathens full of hubris and contempt, worthy of scorn; when results might point towards a future discover–and let's be honest, those are the same results interpreted by someone who might just be a godless heathen too–anyone in the science community is generally embarrassed at how wildly hopeful the interpretation of those results are.

So here's a list of other subatomic particles we could start talking about as if they were important religious figures, and maybe take some of the heat off of poor little Higgs so maybe he'll come out of seclusion.

• Hermes - Tachyons travel faster than light. Tere's been a lot of talk about neutrinos doing that lately, but let's refer back to "scientists shake their heads in sadness at your conclusions" argument.

• The Zeus - Just the electron, but it sounds way cooler with a tiny lightning bolt and turning into a swan to bang women, right?

• The Confucius - Intrinsically important, yet stable, thoughtful, and upstanding. The neutron. 

• The Neitzsche - What we'll call the Higgs is it turns out it never existed.

Bonus:

•  I propose we call fission "Mosesing."

Also, for the record, all particles are Muhammad particles because we can't show you what they look like. 

Faith-Based Guidance Technology

1. Some new type of weaponry involving wishful thinking and piousness?

2. The coolest fucking Christian in town?

or

3. A religiously themed American Gladiator?