Jeff Foxworthy and The Lord

It was a lazy Saturday and damn it if I didn't stumble upon Jeff Foxworthy's new gig.


(click to embiggen)

I guess he just couldn't hack it with the 5th graders?

And yes, I watched some of it and, yes, it was as awkward as you can imagine.

Or maybe you can't. Here's a promo video.



I know; you're excited. They're doing re-runs now, but it's coming back for season 3 in March. Squee!

Hipster Jesus Sends Rich to Hell

In Short: Jesus, Republicans, & the Rich

Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.
Luke 18:25

Variations abound, but this is one of those that shows up with Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

How are the angrily-sanctimonious Republicans counting themselves amongst the heavenly-bound Christians while shouting down gay rights (which Jesus said - NOTHING - about) and beating down provisions for the poor and troubled (9/11 workers) while trying to make the rich richer?

Note to Republicans: Jesus said y'all are camels. Enjoy Hell.

Tea Party Attacks Methodists

Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips has a dream: "No more Methodist Church."

"The Methodist church is pro-illegal immigration," he continues. "They have been in the bag for socialist health care, going as far as sending out emails to their membership "debunking" the myths of Obamacare. Say, where are the liberal complaints on the separation of church and state?"

"In short, if you hate America, you have a great future in the Methodist church," he says.

(via Gawker)

The sad truth of some of the mind-fuckery that is reality for these people is that in order to be American, you must not only be Christian, but you must be the right KIND of Christian. In other words, if you're not Judson then you hate America.

Somehow that seems both un-American and un-Christian to me.

"Real Christians" Make Jesus Spew Hate

I was reading a great piece over at Right Wing Watch talking about how a coalition of "Real Christians" are speaking out to say that bullying is very, very wrong - but homosexuality is worse!

A chunk of their Mandate of Crazy states:

Authentic Christians will remember several key concepts from Scripture:

1. Homosexual behavior is always a sin, God's plan for sexuality is male/female marriage, and God has not changed His mind about this (Genesis 19; Leviticus 18:22; Matthew 19:4-6; Romans 1:24-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

2. Jesus described marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and that humans were created male and female "from the beginning." Gender change is a defiant and ungrateful sin against God's direction and design (Matthew 19:4-6)

Yes! Authentic Christians unite ...to LIE about the Bible. You'll note that both #1 and #2 have one thing in common: Matthew 19:4-6 They're claiming that Jesus specifically states that marriage is only to be between a man and a woman. Wait a second, I don't remember Jesus talking about homosexuality - evar! Well, let's just see what Jesus says.

[4]"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' [5]and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? [6]So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

Holy shit, that kinda sounds like they said it does, that Jesus is all about one man, one woman. Hold on a second. That last word, "separate," seems a little strange. Maybe it'll make more sense if we read more than 3 verses out of context.

Matthew 19

Divorce

[1]When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. [2]Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
[3]Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"

[4]"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' [5]and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? [6]So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

So in a spat of double irony, Jesus, a man known only for peace, love, and acceptance, is having his words twisted to justify violence, hate, and exclusion. They achieve this by using a quote about divorce - something Jesus obviously had an opinion on but always gets glossed over because Christians accept divorce occasionally - to condemn homosexuality - something Jesus never mentioned but gets a lot of flack from Christians because it's icky.

I guess only an Authentic Christian is allowed the luxury of twisting God's written word to further man-made societal constructs.

[Note on Leviticus: Christians - STOP using it to knock homosexuality. Yes, it says man + man = abomination. But in Leviticus 18:18 says the same thing about wearing clothing woven of two different fabrics. So if you're using that as your justification, wearing a cotton/rayon blend is the same as homosexual sex.]

Jesus, Anne Rice, & Lindsay Lohan - Rant

If you missed it or are blind to any reference to vampires aside from "Woohoo! Team Edward! Woohoo!" then you may have sauntered by a recent story about Anne Rice, author of Interview With a Vampire (and a couple dozen other novels) and arguable (grand?)mother of the current vampire craze.

She has 'quit' Christianity, as announced on her FB page. Yes, really. And, hell, I don't blame her. I renounced Catholicism at about 17 as an absurdly foolish path to any ultimate reality. A pastor has called her out to say that the people are the Church. I respond:

Dear Pastor,
I'm pretty sure Anne Rice understands the philosophies and underpinnings of the Church in general, and that's why she made that statement. Yes, the Church is the People, but every single division of Christianity has taken stories in a book and constructed this scaffolding around it in the shape it desires. And they have all declared: "There is no truth except through us."

And if you want to work through all that scaffolding you'll find people - mostly men - of the cloth that must aid you in that journey. By helping you climb the scaffold they built.

In Catholicism, the links are so disparate that you're 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon to get to the Pope who has the Red Phone. For the rest of them, it's ideas and thoughts as under-the-sink gradeschool crystal growth projects to build rules and implied judgments from the minds of men.

If you believe in God and want to make that connection a 1-on-1 call, there's NO Christian way to do it without being a part of that scaffold in some way. And within that scaffold, in many different factions of Christianity, lies a great deal of exclusion and hate that would never have crossed the mind of Jesus.

So shut up and let her write more great fiction.

Ricky

And I also saw that Prison Minister Marty Angelo said that Lindsay Lohan would've been way better off if she'd accepted Jesus as her personal savior and gone through religious-based treatment for her addictions.

On the light side, this is like saying gays can be cured through Jesus-ization. On the dark side, it's like a kid I had teaching tenth grade in NC, and on an essay question about Elie Wiesel's Night and how Faith played a role, he wrote me a one-sentence response: "If the Jews had just accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, then none of this would've happened." For those of you who missed that book, Night is a first-person recollection of surviving the death camps in WWII.

Christian healing only works for Christians. I don't think Lindsay has - or will - hit rock bottom. And if she does, she might do the addict dance I've seen so many times: Booze and coke to cigarettes, coffee, and Christ. And maybe then that treatment might work. But for now, Lindsay is a whackjob, out of her mind on excess and immortality and well on the way to the same grave that acted as the thoroughfare for so many other celebrities, except without the talent to pass into anything other than obscurity.

God save her soul.

Jesus! $7200 Worth of Beer Confiscated by Dumb Cops

The Jesus news today is sparse: Glenn Beck tells people to leave churches that preach social justice (asshat) and a painting of Mary is crying oil outside of Paris. Boo.

So let's talk about beer and dumb cops instead!



Who are they? That's Leigh Maida and Brendan Hartranft, owners of three bars, including Resurrection Ale House, in Grays Ferry, and Local 44, in West Philly. Based on a "customer complaint," their 3 bars were targeted and raided in unison for selling beer with names that were not registered with PA.

Although the bar owners had bought the beer legally from licensed Pennsylvania distributors and had paid all the necessary taxes, the police claimed that nobody had registered the precise names of the beers with the state Liquor Control Board - a process that requires the brewers or their importers to pay a $75 registration fee for each product they want to sell in Pennsylvania.

Based on a complaint from someone the State Police refuse to identify, three teams of officers converged last Thursday on the three bars, run by Leigh Maida and her husband, Brendan Hartranft. Checking their inventories against the state's official list of more than 2,800 brands, the cops seized four kegs and 317 bottles, totaling 60.9 gallons of beer, according to police calculations.

Aside from the obvious clusterfuck that is the organization of the law, here's the bullshit part: A half-assed list corroborated over the phone with liquor control jumbled with morons executing the order were confiscating everything not on their list exactly, like if Michelob was on the list, they'd take Mich Ultra because Ultra wasn't on the list.

And the list was far from accurate. The troopers ended up taking beer served in bars across the state and ignoring Heineken, whose brewer is apparently missing from the list.

Best quote, from Maida: "My main beef with this whole convoluted situation is that the PLCB is the sole regulator of a set of products that they do not even know the names of."

I think the bigger questions are: why did they target this couple's bars? At a time when people are arguing for smaller government and championing small businesses, how does a perfect storm of ineptness swarm in and take over? And why do we still allow morons who know nothing about beer poorly manage lists that they send to Schlitz-swilling officers who wouldn't know a bock from a stout to execute orders they can barely read?

Isn't there some more important crime going on somewhere in Philly? Shouldn't investigation precede a raid? I'm calling shenanigans on this bullshit; either these good folks were singled out on a personal or business level or PA's enforcement is retarded. Or both.

Jesus on the Suds, Gay, & Beck

Jesus likes to crack one open and have a smoke now and then. He's just chillin' - he had a tough life. If he didn't like the sauce, why would he turn water to wine?

Seriously though, in a cursive writing exercise in a book in India, apparently the above image appeared next to "I for idol." And probably the same goons who decried the Islamic response to a cartoon of bomb-headed Muhammed are not only outraged and demanding apologies, but some groups are looking to file suit. So who are you going to sue? The publisher did not force the books on the kids - they were purchased by the school. Are you suing the school? Overreaction in the truest sense.

Worst bit of bad reporting? It took me 10 tries to find a piece of reporting that was about outrage over a picture that actually included the picture. Thank you BBC.


Elton John said:

"I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems," he stated. "On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East -- you're as good as dead."

Queue religious outrage.


And FireDogLake has a great post about Glenn Beck at CPAC talking about a "come to Jesus" moment for the Republicans. Beck, of course, is horribly misguided in his use of language. Surprise!


And one last thing. I was scanning through the news for this post and saw the words "One True Crutch!" But then I did a double-take. It actually read: "One True Church!" Same difference, I thought.


Last last - I think Jesus would drink Schlitz and smoke Pall Malls. You?

In Short: S. E. Cupp, Walking Absurdity

I keep a pretty good handle on the right wing nutters, but I'd never heard of S.E. Cupp before today when she was talking about Tiger Woods and plugging her upcoming book Losing Our Religion (which is predictably about how the left wing supposedly hates Christianity).

SE was talking to the Hannity stand-in and expressing her outrage that because Tiger didn't come out and say he was a loser, he was a loser. In a tie-in to her book, she pivoted on Tiger's comment about his previous and newfound dedication to Buddhism. Of course, that was a "direct attack" on Brit Hume who had -a while back- commented that Tiger come to Jesus and get some real redemption and ethics.

And then SE was outraged. "Buddhism, whatever," she railed, "Buddhism considers adultery a sin too." She continued: "He's obviously out of touch with whatever his god is."


Why do some people look down on Christianity, S.E.? Because of Christian(-esque people) like you. Ignorant, ignorant people like you who do not think any other belief is worthy of fifteen minutes of your time to learn the basics of the phraseology of their system, let alone the belief structure.

To clarify: Buddhism does not have a creator god, nor do they believe in the self-deprecating Christian construction of sin, original or otherwise.

But because she is informed on only one form and concept of religion, she can't speak in any other terms, even for 5 minutes. How'd she write a book about the subject? Jesus!

Here's an analogy: Many Europeans think Americans are asses because they expect the world to speak English and most won't take the 5 minutes to learn "please," "thank you," and "Do you speak English?" They just talk louder. And that's what you're doing, S.E. Not smarter - or even smart - just louder.

If you want respect from others, whether other religions or while traveling abroad, begin by showing some. I believe some would call that "being Christian."


UPDATE: To clarify, S.E. Cupp is a self-proclaimed atheist. But a bad one. Check the comments for my full opinion.

Jesus, Green Pot, Green Lent, Fiery Pareidolia

Either I strategically postponed my Monday Jesus because of Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday or I'm a lazy son of a bitch. You decide.

Why is it that every year I completely forget that it's Ash Wednesday until I walk into the AmeriStop or UDF to pick up some beer and am entranced and almost comment to someone that they've got some shit on their forehead? Then just before what would be a horribly embarrassing moment, my brain goes "Ohhhh yeah. Some people still do that."

Weed Worship Jesus



Hey, why do these three paintings of Jesus crossing the Mexico/Texas border weigh so much? Oh, because you've got 10 lbs. of pot stuffed into the back of each one!

Stupid. What chintzy painting weighs 10 lbs? None. Even the drug-sniffing dog Cesar knew that.

Can we just legalize marijuana please? We could empty prisons, focus on real problems, people would stop stuffing the Lord with weed, and everyone else could stop pretending to be offended by it. Jesus!


Green Lent

Some folks are giving up carbon for Lent. That is so absurd it will only get this blurb. It's like only giving at Christmas. If you want to do something you know you should be doing anyway, don't use a man-made holiday to appease your deity with a faux dedicated sense of responsibility. Is baby Jesus happier if you make a pittance of an effort for 40 days or dedicate yourself to real change the whole year?


Pareidolia FAIL



Dude saw Jesus on a log in a fire. Dude apparently missed that his picture shows Jesus' huge, demonic hand emerging from the same fire.

If it was really Jesus, he'd let you pull the log out of the burning inferno with your bare hands so you could put it on Ebay. You know he would...

Jesus, Monday Already? Lindsay?

Lohan as the Lord?



And 3...2...1 -

She turns wine into vomit and can barely walk on a waterbed. She calls her privates "fishes and loaves" and can make the cock crow 3 times before sunrise. She only said yes to crucifixion because she wanted to get nailed. She figured "spikes" either meant booze or volleyball and either was cool with her. She's really fond of Simon's Peter. She didn't call Peter "The Rock" for church-buildin'. Three days in a tomb is what she calls rehab. Born from a virgin? Travesty! She one was tempted by Satan, but turned him down because at no point did he address cock, coke, or Skyy. And yes, she was a carpenter; she's likes to work the wood.

Seriously folks. I could do this all night.

Name n Date! - Vargas, Jesus, n a Mullet!

I don't know what possessed me to type in "vargas 1978," but I did and this is what I got:


Punto y Aparte indeed!

If you're not familiar with Name n Date (because it's been a while), I type in a name and a date and post my result(s) on Google Image Search.

So let's do another. How about Jesus 1965?


Dad: drunk; Jr.: stoned; Kid: zombie-ing out on neighbor's penis

WTF? Is this thing broken? Of course not. Jesus by definition should -


I so hate Egyptian history!

Shit. Well, if it's going to be that kind of party, I'm gonna stick my dick in the mashed potatoes.

Let's close with a mullet, shall we?


Nips!

Amen.

Some Jesus Wrestling Rambling

So it's Monday and you know what that means! Or maybe you don't. Well? Read my post from thirty minutes ago; Monday means Jesus.

And if you're new here, don't turn heel on me yet. I'm a Godless Liberal and when I say Monday Jesus, I mean something tangential and irreverent. Kind of by definition. Might even be about a Latino now and then.

So today's media search was kind of a wash with every story mentioning Jesus having to do with the damned Trijicon scopes with Bible verses on them. Lame. You want to kill a Muslim's soul, shoot him with bacon bullets like everyone else does. Sheesh!

So what did I find about Jesus today? You're going to regret asking.



That's the image. The title of the article?

CM Punk The Version Of Jesus in Wrestling. Good Or Bad?

And, because I love you, I shall reprint the entire text of the article. English teacher marks [in red brackets]. Don't feel bad; this is someone listed as a contributor.

Ever since Punk turned heel, he has been nothing but an awsome [SP] competidor [SP] in the WWE.

Since his goal of ending Jeff Hardy´s career[,] CM Punk has become a really solid character in the SD brand. But now officials are really taking his gimmick to a real [RED] "EDGE".

Now don't get me wrong I really enjoy this story for Punk, I belive it´s really original and has a taste of reality that everyone likes[awk, RO sent].

WWE has donde [SP] a really nice job by taking thios [SP] character to the next level, just see it[frag]. Punk has started to gain [WC] a kind of Jesus look right? Or is it just me? Then in every promo he has made in [SP?] his quest to save the lifes [SP] of the adicts [SP] has been nothing but a very interesting copy of the message of Jesus [awk-restructure, please]. The most impresive thing is that the audience has identified with these gimmick[s] and more than ever they pay to go and BOO Punk out of the arena. [But if Punk is the Jesus figure, why does he get BOO'd? NC]

Some people think this is a really boring and anoying gimmick, but reallity [SP] is I belive is [awk] one of the best WWE has come up with these past year[?]. Just look who [SP?] funny and entertaining is every word Punk has to say in those "saving people" segments. Things like: "These women needs me I sense it" are[tense] just hilarious coming from a guy like Punk with his tatoos and wearing his wrestling attire [awk].

Come on people give this a chance, belive or not I think these is one of the best products WWE has released in a long time [RO].

The partnership with Luke [Biblical Luke?] makes it even more interesting, and on the other hand gives good old Festus a nice push, we all wanted these [number] for him since he is a really nice [WC] wrestler. And if the storyline rounds [?] around Jesus who knows maybe Luke will be the one that turns on Punk and serves him to the entire face part [face part?]of the locker room.

It´s a rellay [SP] GOOD thing for Punk, for Luke, for SD and specially for the WWE Universe. If you just hate the story I respect you're [your] opinion but I'm asking you to respect mine and give CM Punk (aKa ["a.k.a."] Jesus) a shot with this new gimmick.

Holy Christ, that was hard to mark up!

(FYI: When writing something that will forever be floating the circuits and aether that is the internets, either use Firefox or Chrome (spellcheck) or write it in Word and copy/paste.)

If "your" surprised by the contributors, you can see the fans on teevee. I went once. Ironically. Back when it was the World Wildlife Foundation.

Maybe "its" just lost "it's" edge.