Several Thoughts . . .

Several thoughts:
1. What makes this classy is that it's written in cursive.
2. Is this considered a red light or green light for doggy-style sex?
3. "Grandma, what is that shit on your back?"
4. "I want something that says creepy/slutty without having to wear open-crotch panties and frog skulls around my neck."
5. Would her pastor be proud?
6. Who knew her pastor has such a steady hand?
7. When she's at the beach, does she get hit on by old church ladies?
8. Was a t-shirt too expensive?
9. Irony: a tattoo that says it is "not boastful, conceited or self-serving."
10. Wait till you see where she tattooed the verse about sodomy.

Since I have opened the comments to accept EVERYONE, I encourge, nay, demand that you put your own thoughts about this photo below.

Are You Ready to Rapture?!?!?!

So I'm watching "Left Behind II: Tribulation Force" -- the stunning sequel that the critics at christiananswers.com call "quite good" -- and thought this would be the best time to talk about that other piece of gold I was sitting on last week (Look closely to see "Left Behind" star Kirk Cameron in the crowd above).

I was at work, which I often do Monday through Friday, and I happened past the desk of Vanessa, my 22-year-old co-worker who is also VERY devout (you may remember her from this post). How devout is she? Well, she's in a Christian sorority.

Stir that in your coffee.

As you may recall, Vanessa is not yet completely convinced that President Obama is NOT the antichrist. For her, the idea that he may be the Joker to Jesus' Batman is not off the table. It's one thing to question Obama's birthplace, it's another to think his mother was a jackal and that he's hiding three sixes under his afro.

Anyway, I happened past her desk and saw that she had recently been browsing on a site called raptureready.com. There is no "about this site" page but if there was I think it would read a little something like this:

"Convinced the world is ending? Think Obama is just a little too charismatic to be human? Are you just looking for one more reason to shit your pants on a daily basis? This is the site for you."

WARNING: You will be tempted to think I'm making this shit up, but trust me, these are REAL excerpts from the site -- my comments are in parantheses.

First up, the Rapture Index page which is a sober, yet hilarious breakdown of the events leading to rapture -- each given a numeric rating between 1 and 5 (convenient no?). I'll start with some obvious ones:
False Christs -- 3
Satanism -- 2
Occultism -- 3

Here are some head-scratchers:
Oil supply/Price -- 4
Debt and Trade -- 5
Apostasy -- 4 (huh?)

And now for the comedy:
Liberalism -- 4 (Perhaps Bill Maher is the antichrist)
Israel -- 5 (I assume it's a five because it's still there?)
Beast government -- (Is that like Animal farm?)

Another great page is the Rapture Ready News which is really just a collection of news stories from other sources that eerily predict the coming armageddon:
"Artificial Trees to cut carbon"
"Wildfire Near Los Angeles Poses Danger to 10,000 homes"
"Toyota Pulls Plug on US Factory"

Seriously, these things just write themselves.

So, what's the point?

As a heathen I accept that people you love and respect may believe in things you find downright weird, but sometimes when you what they believe written out on a computer screen and rated like a beauty pageant you start to wonder if maybe your friends and co-workers may just be idiots.

You know what, if I was a Christian I would be scared out of my gourd. I mean the Anti-Christ is in the White House, artificial trees are monopolizing the carbon game and Israel insists on . . . existing? Actually, considering that satanism -- which my feeble mind would say is the number-fucking-one symptom of the end of the world, is only at a piddly 2, I would say things are good for apocalyptic Christians.

Here's my point people, much like "satanism," my respect for Vanessa is hovering around a 2. She's a very nice person and has a decent taste in music, but anyone who looks to raptureready.com as a credible source for anything other than blogger fodder is, well, insane.

O' Heavenly Dog

When it comes to blogging some days are better than others.

And yesterday, my friends, was a good day.

I recieved TWO gifts -- one intentional, the second unintentional.

Let's start with the first one:

A good friend and regular Thirdsie Badasschick (a confirmed Catholic by the way) sent me an email pointing me toward what is either one of the best joke sites I've ever seen or one of the best business plans ever concieved.

Enough with the drumroll, it's http://eternal-earthbound-pets.com/.

It's a kennel service for people who are saved but for pets that aren't (not only do they shit on the carpet but they don't believe in Jesus either). That's right, in the event that you get raptured, you can rest assured your precious parakeet will be well taken care of in your eternal absence (though I assume if you're given audience with the almighty creator of EVERYTHING I would assume the last thing you would think about is your fucking poodle and if she's ripping up the couch, but hey I'm a heathen so what do I know).

So just who will be taking care your filthy, graven-image worshipping pets? Filthy, graven-image worshipping Atheists, that's who. As the site says: "Each Eternal Earth-Bound Pet representative is a confirmed atheist, and as such will still be here on Earth after you've received your reward." I'm a sarcastic prick so it's hard for me to read that sentence without hearing the snark dripping off of it but the site swears it's legit.

Now, you must be asking your self, how much does this service cost?

$200? $100? $50?

Uh, actually it's $110 -- peanuts for those who don't need bank accounts or even movie theaters (which hardly seems like heaven). And since I doubt you get a lot of bars in heaven and can't call the service from cloud nine, potential customers have to pay up BEFORE they get raptured.

But don't worry, even though there are no phone numbers on the site (hey if I can't call Apple about my ipod, why would I need to call athiests about my chihuahua?), the site does have a gaurantee: "For $110.00 we will guarantee that should the Rapture occur within ten (10) years of receipt of payment, one pet per residence will be saved."

So not only do they babysit your pets, they babysit your money, too.

Ah man. It doesn't get any better than that.

Or does it?

Sorry, kids, I have to go to bed, but I'll be back tomorrow (maybe the day after tomorrow) with that other site I teased you with.

What a Difference Two Days Make

So my daughters spent two days with my mother-in-law and already they're showing symptoms of religious radiation.

1. They were singing Mary, Mary's "God In Me" -- not a bad tune actually, but still . . . really?

2. Worst offensive, my eldest, out of the blue said -- "What was that thing that Madea said?"

Uh, what the fuck? (I didn't say that out loud). "How do you know about Madea?" I asked.

She said "We saw Madea's Family Reunion at nana's house."

Of course you did.

But you know what, Tyler Perry movies are made for 8-year-olds, so I can't blame her for liking it. It's the grown folks who dig it that I can't understand.

Hello Blogger!

So I'm walking back from lunch yesterday, and guess who I bump into? Leon, of listentoleon.net fame. His blog, "Yeah, I Said It," is part of my daily web routine and he NEVER lets me down.

True story: Leon and I used to work together some years back when he was an intern. He was always a nice guy, but I had no idea the level of funny he was keeping to himself. Glad he let it out.

Tyler Durden Hates Jesus

As much as I like Brad Pitt's movies -- "Seven," "12 Monkeys" and "Fight Club" are in my top 20 -- I don't really think about Brad Pitt. Though I must admit, as someone closing in on 40, I am in awe/hate with the fact that he's still built like he's a 20-year-old gay porn star.

POINT OF DISCLOSURE: While I have indeed witnessed gay porn (once by accident, another by a dare) I'm making an assumption that 20 year old gay pornstars are at the peak of physical condition.

Yes, it's nice that he's adopted half of Africa, and it's mildly interesting that he's married to Angelina Jolie but honestly, I never really pay him that much attention. So imagine my surprise that after five minutes of watching him on Bill Maher's "Real Time" I was ready to uproot my family and move to New Orleans (America's personal Afghanistan) and vote him into the mayor's house.

Why? Well here are the three cornerstones of his platform:
1. Legalization of pot.
2. Legalize gay marriage
3. No religion

Gee, I wonder why he appeals to my heathenistic world view.

While he did not out and out claim that he is an athiest, (in fact he says he was raised in a religious household), anyone who wants to outlaw religion can't be a big fan. It's like if someone says they're not a racist but just doesn't think niggers should have the right to vote. Sometimes words speak louder than labels.

But, believe it or not, I'm not for abolishing all religion. Ok, maybe some of the crazy ones like the cults that involve drinking poisonous Kool Aid or the ones that make you do this. But at the end of the day I think that for all the shit that organized religion has wrought on the world -- war, touchy-feely priests, self-esteem issues, Tyler Perry -- I fear a world without it.

I mean, all religions pretty much say preach the same things: Don't kill anyone, don't sleep with your boy's wife, don't steal and don't get caught up in material goods. All of which I agree with. It's when we have to pay fealty to invisible father figures where I get off the train, but hey, if believing that you'll catch a celestial backhand will keep you from cheating on your wife or taking out the Home Depot with a semi-automatic -- fine with me. I will even take your condescending tone and holier-than-thou side-eyes when you realize I don't pray over my food or know the difference between ministers and preachers.

So as much as I'd like for everyone to be as "enlightened" as me, I accept that people need religion. That they need to feel their dead aunts are floating in heaven or that their lives won't end when they kick the bucket. And, I guess I get it. I just wish people didn't need religion so they could feel better than other folks -- especially those without religion. No need to pull down your pants to show us how big your faith is, as a matter of fact, Jesus would probably prefer that you keep your faith in your jockeys.

Death Sucks

I lost my father two months ago.

Well, he's not lost. He's actually in a very classy, muted black urn sitting in my closet at the bottom of a white Macy's shopping bag.

Not exactly the beautific afterworld one might imagine, but for a man who never expressed (at least not to me) any clear location of where he thought his soul would end up, I suppose taking residence next my shoes and a half-full bag of guinea pig bedding is just as fitting as any ending.

Truth is, my father isn't in that urn. He is not dust, collecting dust. I know that as sure as I know my father wasn't in the stilled body that lay on the gurney on that horrible day in May.

So where, pray tell, is he?

That depends on what you believe. Or more precisely, what I believe. Not an easy task when tagged a non-believer. Not that I believe in nothing, a common misnomer for us heathens. Truth is I believe in many things, even things I can't see -- love, gravity, black holes, radio waves, the goodness of humanity -- I just don't buy many (OK, all) of the world's religion's viewpoints and thus, I am a "non-believer."

As I said in my last entry, death is one of the biggest tests of one's committment to non-committment. And on May 25, 2009 my test came in the form of a brutal pop quiz entitled: "Where's Your Dad Now?"

Well, were I a christian, I suppose I would believe he was in heaven. Indeed, many at my father's service (hold on, I'll get to that), spoke of my dad being in heaven, or at least "looking down." I admit, heaven is a great idea. An endless sky cruise for the great people of the world. Assuming you're not Hitler or R. Kelly, admission is pretty much gauranteed by most folks' reckonings. And honestly, not even Hitler's cousins think he's in hell. No one goes to a funeral where the minister/pastor/guy at the podium says "too bad he was a galatic asshole who's now hotfooting it in hell." I mean, no one looks down and says "I wonder if mom is looking up at us now."

Still, my father was not a hypocrite and he read the bible, so he knew there was only one real way to get to Christian heaven which is ACCEPTING JESUS CHRIST AS HIS LORD AND SAVIOR (that sentence just begs for all caps, right?), an act I'm sure my father never did. Now, I can't be sure that he NEVER did this, much in the way that I can't be sure he NEVER stuck a cat in the microwave, but it just feels wrong.

(Honestly, my plan was examine each of the world's religious views of the afterlife, but the closest any of my family got to one was Christianity and since we all know how that turned out, I'll save you some reading time.)

So, back to the question at hand -- where is my dear old dad if heaven is only for Christians? And what kind of service do you have for a non-believer?

First question first: I don't know where my father is or even if he still "is." I know physics dictates we are all energy and energy cannot be destroyed which is only reassuring had my father been a light bulb. Alas.

The worst part is, I know he isn't here anymore. I cannot call him, email him or laugh with him again. But I do hear him, like a song in my head that is both with and without sound. So perhaps that is something. But I hold no illusions that we will reunite on cloud nine for glasses of Coke Zero and Snyder pretzels. I mean, it's possible but at this point it feels more like self-deluding fantasy than a real occurence, but hey, I never thought we'd have a Black president either.

As to the question of what kind of funeral do you throw for an athiest (actually he claimed Agnostic)? Simple, you throw a kick-ass party. So that's what we did. We invited his closest friends, co-workers, family -- everyone who loved him -- and we ate, drank, laughed and shared stories at a restaurant. Yes, there were tears but they were outweighed by the smiles and hugs. Gone were the dour processions, the ghoulish open caskets and too-long renditions of "His Eye is On the Sparrow." We replaced them with a digital slide show, the "Star Wars" theme song on replay and an open bar.

Even if he went nowhere, I like to believe we sent my father off in a way that made sense of the man he was. Fun, a little crazy and very loving.